WASSAI!!!!!
So surprise, we didn't email yesterday because president had to move special training to monday which forced us to have to move p-day till tuesday. so i'm sorry for the delayed email, but I'm sure you will udnerstand. Since our mission is the second biggest mission in the world, (geography-wise) president has to fly out to certain areas to make sure things are going according to plan. This week, he went up to Mt. Isa, he's going to Cairns, and then he's coming down here to gold coast... so really long distances. I love president, He does SO much, and he's so cool.
Fun fact, I learned a bit of taiwanese: Sui Bo!!!! Evidently it means: Beautiful Wife :D hehehe.
OK, as you can tell from the taiwanese that I have picked up, I am now teaching many taiwanese people. THere seem to be quite a few of htem up here in gold coast. It's really funny because most of the people I teach are dongbei ren from Zhongguo, and so it's really hard to understand what's going on when they speak to me. for example, the other day, I talked to this man who had just got of the train from the airport from Beijing..... BUT since I had the spirit with me, I understood what was going on. YEH gift of tongues/discernment. hahahaha. ANyway. It was really funny talking to him, because he would kinda rattle off at me for a while and then look like he had asked me a question, then I'd repeat the last bit of what he said and then he'd laugh at me.... it was good. I got his number and hopefully we'll start teaching h im soon, but I thought it was a good experience talking to him. :) I might have a little more chinese of an accent when I come home.... uh oh..... If I can speak chinese. We're supposed to be chinese missionaries, but if anybody looks remotely asisan, we have to go and teach them because the english elders don't know the difference between korea, japan, china, and the philipines. If they don't understand a person, they'll call us. hahahaha. SO. we teach not all chinese. I NEED TO LEARN CHINESE!
OK, that was my rant for today :) I hope you know what I"M going through because these accents are killing me. I was so frustrated on eday after talking to a person from heilong jiang and then turned around and started talking to the next asian I saw. Thank goodness, it was a taiwanese fellow :D I suddenly was able to communicate with them. It was very relieving. hahahaha.
Speaking of which. one of the investigators that we have, from Taiwan, is the funniest guy ever. When we met him at first, it was really funny because he was really quiet, so I'd ask him a question, then he'd murmer an answer back to me in sub-audible english, and then I'd ask it again, and then he'd realize that I was speaking chinese and then brighten up, after which, he realized my kouyin was super american... hahaha. It was funny. He was a bit confused. As is everybody else. :D YEH!!!!! Anyway, His parents don't like living in Taiwan for some reason (I want to live there after my mission) so they sent him out here to study so he could yiming here as a skilled migrant, and then move his parents down too :D! so many insightful plots into getting people out of asian countries. We talked to this really shady vietnamese person that I don't think was supposed to be here because he thought we were police at first and acted all scared and stuff, but whne we told them that we were missionaries, he was all goods. "CHUUURCH!!!! CHurch! Jesus!!! God!!!!" that is how we got the point to him that we weren't police :P hahahahaha.
ANYWAYS. I shall explain the pictures above. First of all. NUMBER UNO!!! This week I had to do a trade-off with the Elders down in Lismore. Fact about that: It is in New South Wales and is a two hour drive away from my flat. so, when you look at a map of the Brisbane Australia Mission aka: BAM!!!!! it ends with queensland. We were no longer in queensland. YIKES! we saw the border of our mission and passed it!!!! NOOOO. just kidding. We didn't cross the boundaries. they have them clearly marked off so we don't go close to them. ANYWAY. while we were in lismore, we had to do some service at night and on the way, we noticed the FUNNIEST sign ever. My companion and I were laughing so hard. yeh.... COffee, and hot nuts. :P hahahahaha. anyway, more stories about Lismore to come soon :)
Second picture! This is suri :) I like this one because it looks like Jesus is presenting suri for baptism YEH!!!! she was really cool cus she's from henan and her chinese is really good. BUT she had a lot of doubts, but when we got the members going crazy involved with her, she just went for it :) and so she's loved EVERY family she's hung out with. It's great. And she makes friends with everybody she meets. Even our investigators. it's pretty cool. I think she'll be a really good fellowship. There are now three people in our ward that speak chiense that can help us fellowship. It's great.
PICTURE SAN!!! This is christina. Somebody I started teaching up in the city back when I started my mission and then she moved outside of our boundaries and then I ran into her at the busstop AGAIN! hoorah!!!!sadly she goes back to Taiwan in a few hours. Hopefully the missionaries there can attack her and BAPTIZE!!! YEH!!!!!!!!she's really cool. I thought she was like 23 or something, but she's actually 28... graceful again. ONce again. thank goodens for being asian and being able to age gracefully. Yesterday three people guessed I was around 16 years old. :) YEH!
Last night, we had dinner at a members house, and I showed them our family picture and they thought vicky was mom, and mom was my sister. :P bahahahaha.... don't tell sister Chen, she will kill me.... please.
OH! And I got ANOTHER package from Taiwan!!! Filled with delicious chinese foods, a blanket, and letters!!! and an envelope as well! as well as a letter from Sister Kang! TAIWAN MAIL DAY! hahahaha :) Everybody was laughing at me because we had just gotten mail, and yet, I'm still getting mail. It's pretty bad. hahaha. everybody was really sad at their year mark because they said that their families all forgot about them when they hit their year mark hahahaha. NOT MY FAMILY!! HOORAH!!!!
Miracle story this week: Even though our zone is the biggest zone in the mission, we don't have as much success as some other zones, so we decided to have a massive competition!!!!! I told my district that I would buy lunch for whatever companionship could beat me and Elder hadfield in getting potential investigators. It was a good thing to get the district started. Beofre, they were averaging around 4-5 potentials a week, but this week, everybody was getting over 15 potential investigators! thank goodness Elder Hadfield and I did pretty well in finding investigators. Next zone meeting, I'm going to do another competition and see if they can beat the chiense elders. Nobody beats the chiense elders BWAHAHAHA. just kidding. Elder hoppoate beats the chiense elders, but it's ok, because he only bfaets us most of the time, not all of the time.
A super pregnant lady just sat down on the computer in front of us.... oh my goodness. I'm afraid she's going to go into labor anytime now and I'm going to have to end my email because of it. :( that would be really bad if they saw missionaries continuing to email while a lady was having a baby.... awkward.... ( I'll just pray that it doesn't happen while we're still here, I don't know what I'd do)
Anyway. My studies this week were a littlie bit jumbled and crazy because we've been scrambling to resolve all of the concerns of our investigators so I've been reading a lot about people who have ben baptized before, (d&c22) family opposition, too soon (Matt 4) etc. it takes a long time to resolve concerns. We've got these lists of scriptures to help with them, but I have to remember SO many scriptures! there isn't enough time!!! GAH!!!!!!! I think being in australia is really good for me. Even though I don't learn Chinese as well as I would have if I had been in taiwan or in hong kong, I have to know much more about the bible, the scriptures, and have developed a crazy testimony. because we teach in english so much, our investigators have a really heavy christian background and so they get crazy questions that we first resolve by talking about the gospel of jesus christ or by the restoration, but then address with scriptures. The Lord has a purpose in all things and places opposition in our paths to develop the attributes we need most!
I hope you're all doing super well, staying healthy, smashing school! Jeff is still the man for killing medical school. Everybody here is too scared of doing medicine.
Thank you so much for the emails mom!!! they make me laugh so much. I love that dad's dream is to go to hot pot in salt lake city. My dream is to go to hot pot too, but none of the members ever take us there. and it's usually pretty expensive to go ot a hot pot place :P, maybe next year for my birthday.
REFRESHMENTS!!! Mom and dad are best!!! The other night, we made those balls with red bean paste on the inside and then sesame seeds on the outside... they were super yum... but we cooked them too long :P hahaha
LOVE YOU!!!!
Elder Chen
ps. Elder Hadfield is DA MAN
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