1/30/12

Hi family!!!!

yes I do still have my camera :) I just haven't really had a chance to
send stuff to you all :) thank goodness this week I took a few
pictures.  Pictures of me typing at a computer wouldn't be very fun :)
here are a few pictures from our adventures in the city on P-day. :)
All of the people in our zone love hanging out with each other on
P-days.  We have the best zone :) hahahaha.

I'm glad to hear everybody is doing so well! Verina did another
benefit concert?! oh my goodness.  She's saving the world already.
I'm way behind.  :D hahaha.  Just kidding. I'm saving souls so I think
I'm alright.  hahaha.  Jeff and Kara better not get married while I'm
out here... :P just kidding.  You can get married while I'm out here.
Just make sure you let me know when it is.  I'd think it would be very
awkward if I came home and thought they weren't married when they were
or visa versa... ok... that was really awkward. Being a missionary
makes you SO weird hahahaha.  Dad is the man! everyday, I think of how
I can be more like him when I'm out here.  It's really hard, but I
really love it.  I always try to remember that Dad does so much and
still keeps going but never complains.  Jon is killing it!!! I know
he's going to be a really good student!

Vicky and I write letters to each other and she teaches me so much
from her letters.  Plus she makes me laugh too much.  I think letters
are too much fun for me hahahaha.  Oh well.  Everytime the other
Elders see the letters you send me, they are like: "Oh wow... Elder
Chen, they make sure they use every cent of that stamp eh?" hahahaha
each letter is like a little package :D I love it!

Well, about other elders, we have now moved from my favorite flat in
the mission into the flat with Elder Bellingham and Elder hadfield.
The Assistants were like, You're being transfered... but we just had
transfers, so I was really confused and thought they were joking.
Turns out they were and I really have been transfered.  The last two
days have been packing and moving.  So I've been really busy.  We set
up in Elder Bellingham and Elder Hadfield's flat and I've now been
companions with EVERYBODY in that flat hahaha.  Elder Bellingham was
my MTC companion, Elder Hadfield was my companion in EMP, and Elder
Tsai is my current companion still.  hahaha.  I'm not sure where else
I can go or who else I can be companions with hahaha :).  President
said that once my chinese gets good enough, he'll probably move me
into the english program for a bit.  :P hahaha.  I'm probably not
going to go to the english program for a LONG time :)

Well guess what! Crazy thing happened, the other day, I was at church
talking to a Samoan brother.  He thought I was from China or
something, but when he found out I was from Utah, he got really
excited and told me he needed to grab somebody hahaha.  When he came
back he had a friend with him.  It was really weird because I knew her
at BYU!!! weird eh? anyways that was the strange moment for the week.
hahahaha.  There are actually quite a few americans in this area...
and canadians, but canadians are crazy and really like to emphasize
their accents hahaha eh?

Fun moment for the week.  I just learned the word for rubber band is
xiang pi jing.  Well, I asked Amulek (RM from Taipei) for a rubber
band, or a xiang pi jing. Turns out, I had the tones wrong and asked
for a loud farting monster.  yep.  So I am now: Xiang Pi Jing.
hahahahaha.  Ok... maybe that wasn't as funny as I thought it was, but
I thought it was pretty stinking funny. hahaha get it? ok.  Anyway,
they told me that I would be dangerous in Taiwan because of my chinese
:P they said it was too cute. awkward.

Happy Australia day by the way! the 26th was australia day, which is a
rather awkward day here.  Australia day celebrates australians taking
the land from aboriginals... but there are still lots of aboriginals
in the area... they're all over the place.  And a lot of the
population isn't actually from australia.  A lot of them are from
Asia.  My favorite part is that not even Australians know really what
it is or what they do or why they do it.  I had to ask a lot of
Australians before I actually figured out it was the day that the
Australians took the land hahaha.  Celebrations include drinking,
going to bars, getting drunk, and then roaming the streets... hahaha.
So the ward just held a party at the church away from all the bars and
stuff. It was a lot of fun.  A few of our investigators turned up.
one from Korea, one from taiwan, one from china, japan, and vietnam.
thank goodness the other elders brought another brother from Korea.
Our korean investigator gets shy when he speaks english, but is crazy
with korean. we have five rm japanese members, and a few vietnamese as
well so the rest were ok.  but it's rather difficult finding
fellowship for all of our investigators. hahaha.  there are too many
languages!!!! :D

So this week was a really crazy week because the first few days, Elder
Tsai and I couldn't go out and work because it was P-day on monday,
tuesday we had a special training that took the whole day, wednesday,
most of the areas were flooded, thursday was Australia day.  (ps I'm
ok, don't worry, our area didn't flood)  We had friday, Saturday and
Sunday to work, and we wanted to keep meeting all of our goals.  So we
said LOTS of prayers.  We had NO lessons till thursday, but after
that, our investigators started calling us to have lessons!!!!! which
is really crazy!  Well, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we taught enough
lessons and had enough miracles to meet our goals!!!!!!!!! crazy huh?
it was really weird because we had only expected to be able to meet
with 6 of our investigators but we ended up doubling that number!!!!!
Miracles are EVERYWHERE.

Our first miracle was that six of our seven potential investigators
one day answered the phone and agreed to meet with us.  All of the
lessons happened! none of them fell through.  The other miracle is
that we got seven potential investigators in one day! (Another story I
shall tell you in a moment :))  Another miracle is that we got calls
from other areas telling us that they had chinese speaking
investigators for us to teach.  Another miracle happened when one of
our investigators finally got his drivers license... the day before we
wanted to meet with him (he is a miracle... another long story) that
will probably be all the stories I get to tell you this time,
hopefully next time I'll be able to tell you more :).

Well the seven potentials in a day story:

Our Zone Leaders decided to have a zone-wide competition where we
would see which companionship could get the most investigators.  Elder
Tsai and I were really upset because that day we had five lessons!
Elder Tsai told me that there was no way that we could win, which got
me all fired up and excited to win.  (It makes me go crazy when people
tell me I can't do something) anyway, the next day, we taught all our
lessons and only had 3 hours to go finding.  All the other Elders had
opened up 5-8 hours to find for this competition.  Well, in those
three hours, we got 7 potential Investigators!!!! Elder Tsai got 1 and
I got 6 because he thought we couldn't do it.  Well, we did it :)
hahaha.  the closestcompanionship to us had 4 potentials.  Everybody
was shocked when we told them that we had 7.  I just explained to them
that you just have to pray really hard for help and for miracles at
night... pray really hard when you wake up, pray really hard when you
study, pray really hard when you end your studies, and pray really
hard throughout the day.  :D so pray lots.  and work REALLY hard.
That night I was so tired I fell asleep on my journal hahaha.
Thankfully elder Tsai didn't notice because I started drooling on my
journal... so... on one of my pages I have a gigantic smear. I will
always remember that day. :D

miracle number 2:  The investigator that can drive now :)

We've been teaching one of our investigators since I entered this
area.  Elder Tsai said that he was found two transfers before I got
there... so we've been teaching him since I've been in Australia...
which is a LONG time.  Everybody was convinced that he would be an
eternal investigator.  I've only met with him once for 20 minutes just
to follow up on some things and get to know him and his religious
backround.  He told us earlier that he doesn't really want to continue
meeting with us because he already knows all he needs to know about
our church.  Well, we decided to call him on saturday to invite him to
church.  He seemed really excited and told us that he could drive.  So
he picked up another of our investigators and brought them to church
as well!!! O.o crazy.  Now here's the crazy part.  We met with him
after church.  As soon as we sat down, he said: I want to be baptized
and become a member. Elder Tsai was on a split because he had to teach
other investigators.  I was shocked and my member-companion didn't
understand why.  He told us, last night, he suddenly felt like he was
missing something and that he wanted to go to church while he was
watching TV.  As he was thinking about church, the TV show he was
watching started talking about "mormons" and then we called him!!!!!!
That day, when he went to church, he said that he felt something
different.  So he set a baptismal date for us and hopefully he follows
through.  I told him to write down his thoughts and his feelings as
soon as he got home so that he would remember them if he was ever in
doubt. so... eternal investigators will eventually feel the spirit...
I hope :D we have a lot of them.  We only meet with one eternal
investigator each week.  We should meet with all of them regularly...
AH there is SO much to do!!!!! I don't have enough time out here.
President Langeland told us that Chinese missionaries can extend their
missions one more transfer so I might do that.  Thank goodness I have
a lot of my mission left.

I LOVE THIS AREA!!! there is so much work to do here and we've found
so much success.  I don't ever want to leave this area.  The
investigators are Wonderful.  The members are SO supportive, and the
people are usually nice.  When they're not, I think it's a lot of fun
:D.  Elder Tsai ran into a bible basher the other day and I thought it
was really funny because every time the bible basher used a
scripture... it actually wasn't a scripture.  One of the ones he was
trying to use about the trinity was about a fruit basket or
something.... I can't remember.  hahahaha.  anyway, we just told him
what we believed and wished him a good day. :P hahaha.  Bible bashers
are funny people.

So in the mission there was a really crazy thing that JUST happened.
One of the elders had an investigator who they thought they'd never
baptize, but one day, they met with him and he told them that some guy
from america told him to get baptized the other day.  So he decided to
get baptized the following saturday, and confirmed on Sunday.  He was
emergency deployed to Afghanistan the next day... O.o.  Nobody knew
that he would be deployed so soon.  God is a God of miracles!!!!!

Thank you all so much for all the support that you've given me! I know
that you have prepared me really well for what I am doing now.  I know
that this church is true.  How could it not be?  I hope you all have a
wonderful week.  There are miracles all around us.  Look for them! :)
A challenge that I might give to you all that started to really help
me:  When you write in your journal, the first thing you should write
is: Miracle: ..... and then write about your miracle :D It works!
There ARE miracles every day all around us.  :)  Big or small they
happen.

Love you all, and hope you all have a great week!!!!!!

cheers!

Elder Chen