Wednesday, February 27, 2013

2/27/13


SOOOO We just got out of the temple and it was a lot of fun! :) hahahaha. I'm not a really big fan of this new style of gmail because there's a pop-up window in the bottom of my screen and I can't download and type at the same time. I can only do one at a atime and so i can't even do anything. PLUS The picture capacity is TINY! I can't even fit too many pictures. :) hahahaha. look at me complain. just kidding. I just want to type and download, but I can't. I guess the message will be shorter because I've gotta send HEAPS of pictures :) we did a lot of stuff this week. I can't even remember where to start :P

First of all. our ward made a dragon to do a dragon dance :P hahahaha. it was funny AS. so they took a cardboard box and a few cerial boxes and started putting it together and made a dragon head :) YEH!!!!!!!!! hahahahaha. it wasn't the prettiest thing in the world and actually kinda looked a bit creepy, but one thing led to another and we made a dragon :) hahahahaha. it was funny. I had one of my investigators film the dragon dance for me and I'm just bouncing around and stuff because I don't know how to do a dragon dance. anyway. you'll have to wait till I get home to see the movie. I thought it was the funniest thing in the world :p hahahahahahahaha. The head was really boring as were the next two people, so Id ecided to try to make it exciting by bouncing around and jumping and swinging. the peopel behind me tried to follow along, but it was too kuazhang, so they ended up going a tiny bit crazy. hahahahaha. :) it was too much fun! HOORAAAAAAH!!! RAWR!

ALSO! last week, on pday, we were playing rugby outside, and then it started raining like the crazies :P hahaha. I couldn't even see where I was going aroundI O.o oh my goodnes. it was too fun. We were all soaking wet and the chiense people were all so scared of the rain. :) yay for being an ABC :)

We also did a last second service project hahahahaha :) it was too much fun. We got a call from our stake president and mission president telling us that we were wanted to go and do a service project at one of the local primary schools :) hahahaha. so we went and got our yellow jackets and VUWALLA!!!!!! there were more yellow jackests than anybody else :) it was really hot and we were all super duper stinky at the end of the service project and so yeah. it was fun. My back kinda hurts from it because we shovelled a lot of dirt and stuff and yeah. :) it was fun.  there was a tongan guy there and I decided to ask him how he was in tongan and he was like: WAH Bro! you tongan? bahahaha. moral of the story: I'm too dark and you won't recognize me when i get home :p hahahahaha.  TAROOOOO!

OK. so last week, we had this one activity where we had a chinese new year thing and it was SUPER FUUUUNNN!!!!! that is what the dragon dance stuff was for. ANYWAY! we played some games that night and it was the funniest thing in the world. the first game is kinda like musical chairs, except, it's musical hats. you awlk around in a gigantic cirlce with a little hat on your head. when your hat gets taken, you can take the hat off the head of the preson in front of you :P hahaha. it was super duper fun. Bishop was in front of me so I had a secret technique that killed everybody around me :P hahahahah. SO I wouldn't grab a hat until the music stopped :P hahahahah it was too much fun. the person behind me would always die because they couldn't get the hat from me hahaha. I died because bishop wouldn't let me take his hat :) hahahaha. I love bishop. he is the MAN! hahaha. anyway. our investigator KP won. :)

the other game we played at the activity was this one where they play music and when they stop, they have to jump onto this little cardboard island in the middle of the floor. and they're in the shape of flowers hahaha. anyway. it was SOOOO funny. because people were getting very aggressive. I had to duck out early because I realized it wasn't the best game for missionaries to be playing. hahahahaha. when it got to the last island, everybody was pushing each other and falling on each other bahahahahaha. I wish I had taken more pictures of it, but I just ended up video taping it. hahahaha :) YEH our investigator KP was one of hte last ones as well O.o
Well. this week, we also spent SOOOOO much time finding. for some reason though, I kept running into vietnamese people. and they all think I'm filipino!? >_< hahaha. when I'm with an islander companion, they think I'm islander. its fun. at least it makes my teeth look whiter than mostp eople YEH! hahahaha. the sun hnere doesn't agree with many of the asians. we had a member that went down to the gold coast for achinese new year vacation and she came back super duper tan. it was sooo funny. she really wants to be white, but she's super balck now hahahahaha.

This week, I haven't really had to do any trainings so I was able to do more personalized studies and prepare for all the many different investigators that we're gonig to run into hahaha. Also, recently we've been reading the doctrine and covenants as a mission hahaha. it's too much fun. this week, I was reading in D&C 132 which is about marraige.... hahahahahahahahahaha oh no.

Also this week, our investigator keeps asking us the most weird random crazy questions and sometimes it takes me a minute to figure out the actual answer to her questions. last time, she asked us: IN matthew it says Joseph's father is Jacob, but in Luke, it says that he was sheng-ed by Heli! :) hahahah. she is hyperobservant. anyway.  lets see if you know the answer too it :P hahahaha :) JIA YOU JIA YOU JIA YOU!!!!!!!!!

I love you all!!

VERINA IS GOING ON A MISSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! MISS YOU LOTS ALREADY!!!!!! let me know when you get set apart! O.o I'm so sad :'( I won't be able to see baby sister anymore WAH! hahaha. I'm sure you're gonig to smash it in Taizhong. We have a member here that is going back to taizhong soon :) I'll make sure she looks out for you. Also if you see a kid named Amulek You, punch him for me :p hahaha. he got married without even inviting me hahahaha. also, Cindy and leon. the ones we baptized recently are also from taizhong. I don't know if their parents are super keen on them being members though :p hahahaha LOVE YOU LOTS!!!!! AND REMEMBER THIS!!! LAST BIT OF ADVICE BEFORE! (actually, next week, you'll get my email as well) ...................See One, Do One, Teach One. SODOTO!!!!!!!!!!!! :).................

That's what helped me HEAPS!!!! you've got one moment to watch, get ready to do, and then be ready to teach.  GO GO GO GO GO!!!!!!!!! :) and always remember D&C64:33, or it might be 33:64.... go look it up. hahahahaLOVE YOU ALLL! hope you have a fantastic day :)

Elder Chen

buddghist temple _ Kung Fu PANDA
zone picture after rugby in the rain :)

DRAGON DANCE :)
this is the dragon head :P hahahahahaha
our service project



we played rugby in the rain. and it was very wet. I couldn't even look up as we were playing because it was raining soo hard :P
this is the game witht he hats. in front of me is bishop, and in front of him is our investigator KP! :)
this is the second game we played :)


and temple dayyyyyyy! :)



2/18/12

SO THIS WEEK WE HAD SOOOO MANY MIRACLES!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was such a fun week. plus I went on trade-offs with Elder Bellingham(my mtc companion and our current AP) which were heaps of fun, but I'll tell you about that later.

FIRST there's a girl that we're teaching: her name is Betty and she is the COOOOLEST girl IN THE WORLD!!!!! hahaha. we set a date with her last week to be baptized. and ehr friend. that she brought. anyway. this ist he finding story.

We were finished tracting and were about to head home for dinner (a little late beacuse we'd really wanted to hit our goal of potentials and were cha yi dian dian) (by cha yidian dian, I mean, we were short one potential) anywho. I saw this girl and we were all tired, but I decided to contact her on the street anyway.  So I went and contacted her and we got her number. we were super excited and stuff. my companions weren't too excited about contacting her becasue they don't really contact girls too much (rant).  back at the ranch.  We met up with her and started teaching her. then she started bringing a friend that was interested in the gospel. At one point, they came to church, and I had to take care of a lot of stuff, so I left my companion in the chapel with another missionary, while I took another missionary to do stuff. At that point, they told her about the law of chastity and that was her TOTAL CRAZY PUSH FOR THE CHURCH! who would have thought. SHE LOVED the law of chastity and since then has been a fireball.  We were planning on teaching her the law of tithing, and as soon as we said tithing she said she had a question: "How do I pay tithing when I go back to china?" :D heeee. anyway. that's the kinda people chinese people are. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!!!!  :)  She's the coolest. we alll love her hahahaha.

Also, this week, we knocked on a door, and the man said that he wasn't home :)
from Betty's experience. I learned something that has helped me as I've found.  You don't need to be inspired to talk to somebody. :) I've always wondered how it would feel to go out and feel inspired to talk to somebody, but then when I went on trade offs, they said that the spirit only needs to inspire you if you're not going to do it. If you've aligned yoru will with God's will, you will talk to EVERYBODY regardless of inspiration or not. That's a lesson I've learned recently! SO VERINA!!!! This is for you! I know you're going to be fantastic. but don't require yourself to be inspired to go out and find. Just do it!! waiting for command is no fun. :) anywho. i'll get off my soap box. I wish i could just sit down and talk with you for a while, but I think I'll just type you a really long letter every week with tidbits of what I've learned. I feel like I've learned so much out here. the mission is such an incredible place! I don't know that I could have learnred this much by staying at home. Good choice for going on a mission :)

the person next to mee is looking up german stuffs hahahahaha YAH MAN!!!!

OK! so Trade-off's this week. So I went on trade-ffs with our beloved Assistant :) ELDER BELLINGHAM!!!! if you remember that name :) hahahaha. he's my MTC companion. ANYWAY we went on trade-offs and it was super fun. hahaha. :) A lot of the day was teaching and it was crazy! We both still remembered how to teach with each other. it was crazy.  There were no awkward silences (there were silences... LOTS of them, but they were good silences), we asked questions together, double testified! haha. it was so much fun. in our review, we really didn't have any regrets for that day, and we just ended up having a retrospective talk togehter. it was so much fun hahaha. I can't wait for him to come back down into the chinese program. his chinese is still pretty good, but it's a bit rusty hahhaa. I'm glad I didn't get transfered out of the chinese program. :) my chinese is pretty bad still! HOWEVER. I talked to a guy from hokkein and he can speak taiwanese fluently and so he wanted to teach me. unfortunately he's TOTALLY out of my area hahhahaaha.  so I referred him. I've referred so many people to other areas. :( gah. it's so depressing because I want to teach these peopel SOOOOO badly, but they live totally outside of our area and It makes me sad. :P hahaha. oh well.

well this week, I studied a lot out of Jesus the Christ again ( I LOVE THAT BOOK!!!!!!!) I'm at the point of Christ's final parables and stuff where His earthly ministry is winding down. It's always so motivating for me to see how much He was willing to give for His fellow brothers and sisters. and it helped answer my question as to why is missionary works SOOOOOOOOO hard?! Well. missionary work is hard because we've got to taste a token of what Christ had to go through in order to help our brothers and sisters gain salvation. Elder holland said that human salvation never has been and never will be cheap! It will require a little bit of ourselves. not as much as Christ, but it will require a part of us.

LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLL :) I hope this email finds you all happya nd healthy and ready for Verina to go on her mission!!! YEH!!!!!!! JIA YOU JIA YOU!


Elder Chen



this is joy (baptized recently), Jerry (baptized when i was here ages ago) and brother Orth. hahahaha. he thinks he's a ninja.... and he is (just in case he can read my emails :p hahahaha)


this is the fernandez family and I drying to design a dragon head for our dragon dance.... maybe we'll take a picture of the finished product later :) hahahahaha. hint: THe tombstone looking things are actually eyes :)



these are our beloved assistants. in the bottom is Elder Hopoate. the man who sacrificed 2million dollars to be a missionary

Elder Lutui, Me, Elder West. the brown people :) we cooked pancakes... as we cooked the bacon, it was sooo funny hahahaha. the fire was so big that none of us could move it around. EXTRA CRISPYYYYYYY! :)


this is the fire that burnt us :) hahaha. it was big.

EMP! EXTRA MASCULINE PEOPLE!!! hahahaha :)

2/11/13

So president just told me to start applying for school again, so :) this email might be a tiny bit shorter than others :P hahahaha. sorry :) I'll try to type as fast as I can. Unfortunately it might be a bit slower than I used to be.  I've slowed down heaps since I've been on my mission. I think it's because of the fact that I don't use computers anymore... yeah.... that's probably it. ANYWAY! I'm emailing a tiny bit later than usual becasue this morning, the sisters organized a P-day for us and we had to go to this little secluded place out in the woods to learn kung fu from this guy. it was pretty fun, and I didn't learn much, but it was fun to mess around with all the other missionaries. I now know how to hold a punching bag as somebody kicks it. YEH!!!!! KUNG FU MASTA!!!!!!
My ninja name is! Elder Chen. because that is what everybody calls me :) hahaha

ALRIGHT!!!! Well first of all! XIN NIAN KUAILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR! the festivities were dismally lacking because everybody still had to work and go to school so it was a little it less than exciting... oh well. we'lll figure something else eciting in the next bit. :) We got invited to our friends house for dinner on new years. I contacted a malaysian girl and she just invited us to dinner. their family was fantastic. it was a lot of fun. there were heaps of malaysian people there! By the way, they can speak SOOOOO many different languages! It's crazy cool.  Guoyu, guandonghua, malay, taiyu, english. deng deng. they are so crazy. plus.l there was a speach pathologist at the dinner as well and so we talked about a little medical stuff over dinner. it was quite amusing. there was also this malaysian girl there that is also going into medicine. it was a fun night. they gave us this crab that you can eat the shell of!!!! O.o OH MY GOODNESS!! it was really good. but i thought it was really strange when I ate the shell. I'm ok though. I'm not bleeding inside or anything :) hahaha. and there was heaps of delicious foods. yum yum yum.
Also, this week, we went tracting (again :)) and it was a lot of fun!!!!! ELder Johnson is THE MAN at tracting hahahahaha. we went and tracted ONE street, got three potential investigators, a referral, and taught a lesson! IT WAS SOOOOO CRAZY! the first door we knocked was australian and the told us to go away and read some books. then the next door, we taught a lesson, the next door, Iwe found one of the people I had contacted on the street, this time he seemed a bit more willing because he had more time, he gave us a referral.  then, we kept going and had more success and at the end of the stree, there was a really big dog. both of us heard it and ran away :) hahahahahaha JIA YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The work wan't too great on chinese new year. it was really amusing to see people running around doing the dragon dance, and stuff. a few martial artist people, but most of the time, we were just talking to people. we had some mango ice and taro ice. it was delicious :) numnumnum.
Well, this week, there wasn't too much, but I need to do something really quickly for president, and then I'll finish up my email, so this one might be a tiny bit short.
We also spent a lot of time making home-made dumplings. we had a friend teach us how to make the skins and the meat and stuff and then we made dumplings. it took a long time, which is rather depressing because then pday was short, but then we got to eat lots of them :) hahahahaha. I think I might skip the skin making part if I ever do dumplings again :P hahahahaha. That part took the LONGEST TIME IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOODNESS!!!! hahahahahahaha. rolling them and stuff. dad is THE man for doing that. I remember him being able to wrap them and do them while watching TV. I wasn't even able to talk and wrap at the same time. YOU ARE THE MAN!!!!!!!! And I'm excited for the ping pong table :) hahahahaha

We went and visited a lot of our recent converts and less actives this week and it was quite the adventure. hahahaha. we met so many strange yet fun people hahaha.  which reminds me. Therew as this advertisement in our ward newsletter for our chinese new year activity and the line said: "Different, but FUN!!! " bahahhahahahaahaha. we're different, but we're still fun somehow. I don't know about those asians....... hahahaha
I took a lot of videos because I have SOOO much memory to take up in the sd cards you keep sending. hahahahaha. I have to take 10,000 more pictures. O.o hahahaha. READY!? MEMORIES TIME!!!!!!

Sister chen is a LEGEND!!!! Sister taylor is the sister that I did a duet with in the MTC! I remember her. She's super duper cool... that means she's almost done with her mission hey.... oh well. :)  JIA YOU SISTER CHEN YOU ARE MY OUXIANG!!!!! :) hahahaha. wa ai lee.
sp? I don't know how to speak english or any other language anymore. hahaha
LOVE YOU ALLL LOTS AND LOTS!!!!!
Love,

Elder Chen!!!!!!!

:)

this is kung fu training. I was on blue team. :) that is elder lutui (also blue) elder west (black), and sister vaipulu (white)


and this is us doing some ninja training out in the woods. Since I'm blue team, I got to wear your socks jeff. YEH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


this is our district... except for elder lee. he's the hand on the very left hahaha. my camera wasn't well placed and the door was about to open :) JIA YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BY THE WAY! MOM! I LOVE THAT BAG!!!! thanks for buying it for jeff and giving it to me. it's SOOOOO perfect fo being amissionary :)

I LOVE KUNG FUUUUUUUUUU! :)

2/4/13

PICTURES

here's that MASSIVE fruit that I wsas talking about. and my beautiful face bahahahahahahaha :) mom is right. sweat makes you more beautiful. :) except for me. (YEH TIMPVIEW TIE!!!!! given to me by Elder higham. It's superdy duperdy bright hahahahaha)

this is ping pong night. with our asian friends. This is Jessica Vs Jacquie in the 2013 Shanghai Olympics. they're both really good, but you can't tell in this picture because it was really boring game. :) I'm still really bad at ping pong because I don't really play. we usually take our investigators one by one and teach them during the activity. YOU FELL FOR OUR TRAP! :)


1/29/13



Well, this week, is transfers and it's been a really really crazy bit. hahaha. I don't know if you know, but for the past three days, it's been raining. it peaked on sunday when all of brisbane got flooded. Elder Lee and stayed out during church to help people get from their cars to the chapel and back. :) we were SOAKING!!! afterwards, I poured water out of my shoes :) hahahahahaha. it was too fun.  our stake activated the emergency plan so we were busy contacting all of the chinese members in the area as well as a lot of the elders quorum to see if they were alright and if they had power. fortunately, everybody was fine and only about half our area lost power. Our flat was one of the only ones that maintained power. Thank you Heavenly Father :).  So yeah. that's the news.  We had to go home when president told us that we needed to return home immediately because of safety reasons O.o. that was a little bit scary.  So we stayed home and studied all of sunday. we had to cancel a baptism, and church was cancelled. At least it wasn't as bad as the 2011 floods. :) Yesterday, we were able to go out and look at the damage and several trees had fallen into the streets and stuff, but everybody was super efficient and all the trees were cleared really quickly hahaha. :) sadly, we weren't able to proselyte as much as we would have liked, but it was a good experience. We're all fine and don't worry, none of my stuff is wet...e xcept for one of my copies of the book of mormon. that got soaked. hahaahahaha :) and my shoes. Good thing I ahve two pairs and only one is soaked. hahahahahaha. :) FEET FUNGUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YUMMEH!!!!! :) and thanks for the new pants! They saved my life! and they came right in time. If I didn't have those new pants, I would've had three pairs of soaked pants and nothing to wear! hahahahaha. AWKWARD! :) But my pants are all dry now. thanks to our magical drying machine!

As we were tracting yesterday, found this lady that called us over and told us that she was a member! however, we had never seen her ever before! as we talked to her, we discovered that her husband had been the mission president in New Zealand!!! O.o the reason we had never seen her before was because she had moved and then didn't go to church anymore! it took missionaries this long to find her!!! She has a lot of kids and many of them are inactive as well, so we're going to start working with them. she's a wonderful woman and was really excited to be able to come back to church. hoepfully she'll come back really soon. I think her husband passed away though a bit ago which might have triggered her inactivity.  It's so sad to see people like that fall away. they're such wonderful people and have magnificent testimonies, but when something happens, or they lose contact, it all goes away. :(

Also, the sisters found one of our members hahaha. another move-in from new zealand. she's so funny. She's been here for a week or soemthing and they had tracted into her, but the funny thing is that the sisters were tracting in our area bahahahahahahaha.  :) YEH!! More work dun for us!!! So we're going to find this sister and start working with her :) yay!!

We also invited this one investigator to come to an activity with us and his response was: "ONly if this storm turns into a tornado or hurricane will I not come" He came. :)

Later in the week, he completed a 12 hour shift by himself in a kitchen hahahahahahahahaha.  Afterwards, we wanted to see if he wanted to meet up and his response was this: "You may pray to your God, to give you some bless...." BAHAHAHAHAHA, I took a picture of the text, so I'll send it to you. it's SOOOO funny. we're all laughing all the time about it. whenever somebody rejects us now, we just say: YOu may pray to your god to give you some bless. hahaha :)

Sometiemes, wehn we're tracting or contacting on teh streets, I'll act like I can't speak any english at all hahahaha ;) only if they reject us really quickly. So when they reject my companion, I still smile at them as if I think they're really nice :) It's really bad. but it's fun. and it makes finding really fun. :) hahahahahaha.  JIA YOU!!!!

Also, since it's tranfers, this is the last time our district will be together :( nooooo. so I took a picture of us alli n the car. It's the MAN! we drive the BIGGEST vehicle in the world. it is SOOO big. our max: 10 missionaries. we could've fit more comfortably, but that's all circumstance required :) hahahaha.

WE're teaching this girl named Jacquie and she's super funny. she needs to overcome somethings but she is the COOELST! she's from shanghai, just like vicky, one of our recent converts, and it's so funny. She's perfect in Chinese, Shanghaihua, and english and it's RIDICULOUS!!! When she speaks to vicky, she'll mix in a little of everything and it's too fun. THey're so similiar. they're both super happy people and they both want to lose weight and yeah. they're shanghainese. It's too fun. It's a bit weird how good her english is though..... It's really australian, but ever since we've started meeting with her, it's kinda gone American :) YEH!!!!!!!!!!! AMERICA!! Oh yeah, happy AUstralia day by the way! :)

We also went to a Taiwanese dessert shop to have some mango bing, and taro bing :) IT WAS SOOOOO GOOOOOOD! :) I LOVE THE TARO!!!!!!! TARO IS SO GOOD! :) hahahahahaha, I decided, when I get home, I'm going to ahve dad teach me all of is wisdom in cooking and stuff. I lvoe food. it's wonderful.
Well, time is probably pretty up for me. hopefully I enlightened you all wih my wonderful stories. I'll send the pictures in a second just like normal so the comptuer doesn't yell at me :P hahahaha
I learned so much about the preisthood and the chruch this week during personal studies. THe mission is reading Doctrine and Covenants together and it's SUPER DUPER great! I've learned so much from it. :) I was supposed to ask you all something, but then I kinda forgot. oh yeah. What is everybody's chinese names? I don't even know! :) hahaha, now that I can speak chinese, it's kinda interesting to me :)
LOVE YOU ALLLLLLL! :)
Elder Chen

this is sister gleeson. She's 80 years old and can't hear things. and we're all super wet. this is my sons and I. we had taco's at her house and they were delicious. when we have conversations with each other, she can't hear us hahahahahahahahahaha

this is the picture of the text. "YOU may pray to your God to give you some bless... today's shift has only myself in the kitchen. despite the payment. totally scared of the unknown roster week... Going to sleep"
we had to give the sisters a ride, that's their fellowship.


that is our taro ice :) Y AY!!! LOVE TAIWAN. this is our district. (left to right) Elder Lee, Elder Allan, Elder Lutui, Elder Johnson, Elder Carling, Elder Chen, Elder ladd.

us going out in the rain to save people :) you can't see it, but we are SOAKING WET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we named the car Teancum. our district once again :) if you can see, there's a little pink thing on my watch. the little strap broke so I used the strap from another watch. :) YEH! Works PERFECTLY and pink looks good onblack people.... like me :) YEH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Elder Carling and Elder Ladd just got transfered :( We'll see who comes in.


I can water bend by the way :)


1/21/13


 I talked to this girl from china and her chinese is OSOOO good. But she was born here. she's going into medicine and yeah. Chinese is good for the health.

Speaking of which. That girl that can speak fluently. her family is islamic which means that we have to go and be very careful about teaching them. they can get in a LOT of trouble if they change. When I was contacting her, she was really happy and smily and stuff. When I invited her to church she told me that she's secretly.... CHRISTIAN!!!! Isn't that crazy. So her parents can't know or else she'll get into a lot od trouble, but she said she read the bible and prayed and it made sense. i told her that there was even MORE to know and she was super excited. Sadly, her parents took away her phone :P (kinda like me hahahaha) and so we're contacting her through her friends... which are also members!!! it's soooooo awesome that we were able to find somebody like her. SHe's CRAZY!!!!!!!

Another instance is that we set up english class and stuff to run and we've had a lot of iranian people come and attend to learn english. There was this couple that I decided to fellowship during the class and help them learn english. The next week, I was on trade-offs so i wasn't able to attend the english class becasue I was in another area. Anyway. They approached some missionaries and asked if iw as there, they said I was elsewhere. They told the missioanries that They were also secretly christian, but they couldn't tell us in open because there was another iranian in the class as well and they could get in a LOT of trouble.  The last muslim that was baptized in Brisbane disappeared after a few weeks. I tried looking for them while I was in river terrace a year ago, but weren't able to find them.  O.o I'm so gald that I was born into a wonderful family :)  It helps me appreciate what I've been blessed with in being born into the GREATEST family ever :)  Kara, you're lucky to get jeff. welcome to the group of little potatoes.

I had potatoes this week... they don't agree well with me hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.... I'll let you ponder on that for a while. i think it does the same thing that yams do to sister chen and dad.... oh dear. that and milk bahahaha. HOWEVER those mashed potatoes agree very well with me. I LOVE THEM!!! hahaha, but don't worry about sending them. other missionaries usually eat them before I do hahahaha

Another fun adventure we had this week was becasue we've been finding SOOOOO much. We were visiting one of our recent converts. when we knocked on the door, he was half naked (Which is quite normal here because it's SOOOOO hot) and we walked in, and as we were talking in the kitchen, a taiwanese guy walked out of the other room also half naked, but he seemed SOOO emberrassed. hahahahaha. he kinda yelped and ran into his room yelling: "OH MY So emberassing. I'll put a shirt on) hahahahahahaha.  ANYWAY one thing lead to another and they came to church :) JIA YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  SO that is how we find people. We go into their homes when they don't expect it and SMASH them witht he spirit. :)

All of my recent converts are going back to their respective countries :( sad day. So I'm kinda glad I won't bec oming back here or else sister chen would be like: You didn't even baptize anybody :P bahahaha. just kidding.
Also. this week, a master chef from one of the restaraunts gave us fish heads + spinal column + tails :) So we make fish soup. It make one of the white people sick, but the asians seem to be immune :) hahahahahahahahahaha

We had hot pot and my children were like: OH MY GOODNESS you can eat. hahahaha. I didn't realize this but asians can eat SOOOOO much at hot pots. its' so much fun. hahahahaha. it's the greatest. One of our investigators from shanghai was like: White people are just jealous that we can eat so much and not gain any weight ;P hahahaha

Also. Elder Lutui (one of the english elders in our ward) evidently took a picture with me in the beginning of my mission. NOW I AM FAT!!! hahaha. I look SOOO much fatter now. it's too funny. oh my goodness. hahahaha. jia you!

Alright, well this week, If ound something that I LOVE in Jeff's scriptures. it's that quote from Dallin H. Oaks, and I always tumble across it.  He says that trians can be an evidence of God's will for you to grow. It also says taht it requires a lot of stretching and pain in order to go from where we are to where God wants us to be.  Times of trials are blessings!!! not always even in disguise! I learned so much from all the trials that I've undergone and it's helped me become the missioanry I am today.  I may not be where jeff was when he was at my stage, but I'm getting closer where God wants me to be and I'm confident about that. I need to undergo so much more to be where He expects me to be, but that willa lso take more pain hahaha.  Zhen jin bu pa huo lian! Lets get rid of all the junk!
LOve you alll!!!!!!