How are you all doing? I hope you're all super healthy and well! VERINA GOT IN A BIKE ACCIDENT?!?!??! NOOOOOO. I did too... kinda... which is why I'm going to send you pictures of my pants so you can get new ones from Missionary Mall :) yay! haha. Worry not, I am perfectly healthy. I don't even need a elbow splint. YEH! and it was fun. The Chinese missionaries have a high tendency towards bike accidents in this area.... hrm... oh well. Elder hadfield, Elder Tsai, Elder Monsen, and I have all crashed on our bikes. Worry not, the bikes are fine and I am perfectly happy :D.
Sad day: I brought the wrong SD card :( so I only have certain pictures to send you.... but we've really had quite a few adventures int he past week.
FIRST OF ALL! all of the Chinese Elders have been.... DUN DUN DUN!!! DEAR JOHNED!!!!! hahahahahaha.... except... wait... yes... all of them have been Dear Johned... *GASP* it was so funny. The first one ( I won't mention names because that'd be too much fun) got it in an email last year and came home and we bought a lot of ice cream for him. It was a lot of fun. Ice cream parties are fun. then the next one got a paragraph in the mail telling him that she was getting married... anyway... we've been having a lot of fun lately about that. One of the English elders in our area is so funny. He's almost going home and we're all praying that he doesn't get any mail in the next bit because it'll probably be a dear john... hahahaha. but seriously. I really like it cuz we get to eat lots of ice cream. and get fatz. Plus, I inherited 3kg of whey protein from this elder that just went home, and it tastes really gross, so I put it in a milk shake. yum. :D Ice cream.
Well, I love my new companion Elder lam. He's a funny kid. He's a bit awkward and doesn't really like talking to people, but he knows a LOT of stuff about the gospel. Sometimes it gets all jumbled up and it's funny. The other day, we were at an investigators house, and he saw a medicine cabinet filled with chinese medicine. Well, he came back, and was looking all weirded out and awkward, holding a case of medicine, and I was like: "oi, elder lam, what's that stuff?" and he said: "These.... these are for your.......... l-l-l-l-l-loins...." BAHAHAHAHAHA. I couldn't help but laugh for so long. He's a funny one. Anyway, we're teaching that investigator about the Law of Chastity this week. HORRAH!
Something else... a little bit weird and gross... that he does is that he will randomly stop walking, and look really confused and then say: "I just farted".... so it takes a bit getting used to, but I guess that's the culture in hong Kong or something.... poor poor jeffrey. hahahaha. And he snores..... OH NO! Hahaha, Elder Hadfield and I have so much fun about that one. One night, Elder Lam went to bed early, and so he fell asleep right when we were about to get into bed. As we were trying to fall asleep, he started SNORING!!!! hahahaha. It was SO loud and both of us started laughing and then somehow got into hitting each other... I'm not sure how that came to be. ANYWAY. It became so bad, that we had to go to the other room in the flat and sleep there. (Don't worry, we left Elder Li withElder lam in the main room) So... that was our sleeping adventure for the week.
I hope none of you snore like that.... it was really scary. Before we went to the back room, we filmed him snoring..... yep... I'll show that to you one day when I get home :). hahaha. OK. anyway. I'm still kinda upset about verina getting in an accident!!! NOOOO. I hope you're all ok and everything! :) If you need magical australian medicine, I will go look for some, but I don't think it exists. Some of the ELders here told me some weird stories about the weird aboriginal medicines.... scary eh.... Jon is getting MASSIVE!!!!! man, you're the man! go and beat up whoever hit verina. hahaha. Just kidding. Don't. Love them. :D I need to learn to love more people.
Elder Malohifo'ou says hi :) He'll probably be married before I go home hahahaha.
Well... soemthing funny in the city that we see a lot more often than you'd think are people dressed up as.... cartoon characters.... hahaha. The other day, we were contacting in King George Square, and four groups of them walked by. Evidently they are enemies in the cartoon because they started getting all into it and trash-talking each other.... yeah... it was kinda weird. Anyway. Moral of the story is: DON"T DRESS UP FUNNY! We always see this guy wearing bunny gloves and bunny ears waving at everybody in the city, and I'm not sure if I should contact him or pray for safety. I'll contact one of them and let you know how it goes :) hopefully he doesn't attack me with his dragon ball z move or something... that'd get a little uncomfortable.
Regardless. Our investigators are still the best! We had another baptismal interview not pass. :( but she's all ready for this week. :). I was talking to Elder hadfield, who did the interview for us, and he told us that she almost cried during the interview :O NOOOO. But then we talked to her and figured everything out and it's all good. She just had a cup of coffee within the last week. She felt really bad when she did it, so she won't do it again. We're still calling her everyday to ask if there's anything we can do for her and stuff. So this saturday!!! :)
Our other investigators are so funny. One night, we called one of them and he was like: When can I get baptized?! And then we shared with him the word of wisdom, and was like: I want more time. so... yep. it was funny in the moment :P hahaha. Maybe it doesn't seem that funny, but it was when we were there.
One of the biggest testimony-building experiences was actually really small. I think it's the little things that really leave an impact on my mind. It isn't like a Miracle where one person starts walking after being crippled. It's more like having an experience that kinda nudges me and hints at truth. I love these experiences. When we plan, we write down all of our investigators names, what we want to teach them, what they need, and when we can set up appointments with them. We count all the lessons planned and set that as our goal. Well, last week, we figured that we'd have a certain number of lessons, and I felt really bad looking at that number, so I wanted to bring it up. We brought it up. As we started the week, we didn't have any lessons for the first few days, and I was getting really sad, but as the week closed, we started getting referals from other areas, members, and people setting up meals for us in order to meet their friends! We were ONE short of reaching our goal on sunday. Nobody showed up to church, and so we called all of our investigators to see if we could meet with them. None of them could meet with us, so we went finding at a local bus station. As we were there, I felt like I should call an old former investigator, and see how they were doing. We called, and he told us that he was busy that night, but as we continued to talk, I felt him gain a greater desire to learn more, so I asked if we could visit him that night. He said yes, and we hit our goal!!!!
I know that was a long story that probably didn't make too much sense or didn't seem like too big of a miracle, but it helped solidify my testimony. I really know that if we are obedient, diligent, and listening, God will help us know what we need to do! Being a missionary is so easy in so many ways. This is one of the only jobs where everything we do is being pushed forward by God! I love it! In school, work, and everything else that we do, we will have God's support, but here, it's different. I don't know exactly how to explain it. It's such a great feeling :)
I know that this is the place I'm supposed to be and that the people here are the ones I'm supposed to talk to! I've met to many people here that need the gospel so much in their lives, and it breaks my heart when they turn down the opportunity to become infinitely happier. I wish that everybody could see what I saw, and feel what I felt, but some people aren't ready for it yet. It reminds me of a talk, I'm not sure who gave it, but one of the apostles, while serving his mission, tracted into an individual that had nothing. She had nothing that could sustain her temporal needs. As he offered her a pamphlet, she rejected by saying: "Can this fill my stomach?" The apostle reports that he knew that, at that moment, that woman could not comprehend the necessity of the gospel in her life because of trials that were blocking her view. since reading that talk, I've started asking myself: "What have you done today to open the eyes of your brothers and sisters"? It's a question that I haven't been able to answer sometimes. Now it's me ranting about the thoughts in my head.
Moral of the story: I've started working on leading by example. It's hard, but it's a lot of fun. I'm starting to act as if the whole world was watching what I do. It really requires us to clean up our actions and act much more mature.
I love you all and Hope that Verina is feeling better :) I'm going to send a second email with the pictures of my sadly torn pants :(. It's the charcoal pinstripe pants... I think... :) hahaha. the one with the suit. SO for now, I'm just wearing my black suit. YAY! Oh, and I got another suit from another missionary, but I think it's too big...
Love you all!!!!! :D
Love, Elder Chen
ps: I got the birthday package and it's the BEST! thank you so much for the clothes! I especially love the beanie and the gloves because it gets really cold in the morning when we play touch, and it helps keep me warm :D but don't feel like you need to keep sending me too much stuff. They give us lots of money for food, and I have plenty of clothes. I'm still super happy about the Jordan's that you sent me in the MTC. I'm taking super good care of them and they're still white :D yaya!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment