9/25/2012

Sorry I didn't email last week :( we had to go and pick up our trainees, and since my area is brand new, I had to go pick up a new phone, activate it, new area book, beds, etc, and he lost his luggage so we didn't have a chance to email. Don't worry, we were able to find his luggage eventually :) And now, we're all situated and happy in Eight Mile Plains once again :). So we're finally here and it's a brand new area. It's fun to start new areas, but I don't know if I'd like to keep it up. This is the third new area I've started :P hahahahaha. OH NO!

SO, my trainee's name is Elder Allan.  He's from Orem Utah. He likes to play rugby and other things. I'm not too sure. He evidently went to BYU for a little bit, but I was already on my mission by the time he started so I probably didn't see him. He's really excited to be out here and is willing to go out and work.  I'm really excited to be in this area. President wants to start up an asian branch here, but he eneds the man-power to do it.  He called an emeritus seventy to come down and work with us in trying to baptize as many people as we can. Especially the  brethren here so that there are going to be enough people with the melchezidek preisthood here to run a branch without missionaries having to fill most all of the positions in order to run it :P hahaha. I'm really excited to be a part of this whole thing!

The last week we were with hadfield, we said goodbye to a lot of our investigators and a lot of our members too, but I got the call that I was training tuesday night, and then wednesday morning we had to leave.... so yeah. Most of the ward didn't know that I had left and so now I'm here :D hahaha. It's good to be back because a lot of the people in this ward still remember who I am and the first night I was here, they had me come over for dinner. It was really good because my trainee hadn't been to a dinner yet and so he got to see his first one with one of my favourite members :D YEH!!!!!

Anyway, this week was a lot of finding because we have no former investigators, no referrals to contact, no potentials. Brand new area :D yeh! hahahaha.So I took my son to the bus stop and found for a LOOOONG time :D hahaha. The AP's gave us a challenge to find 20 potentials in three days and get one non-member to church with us on sunday with three days in the area.  SO we started out, and BAM. we got it! it was the best! We were able to hit the goal of potentials and had two of our potentials ready to go to church. We had prepared rides for them and everything, but neither of them ended up being able to come to church because of work but then, we got a referral from one of the people I baptized down in the gold coast and they came to church!!!! crazy!!!!!!! so we hit the goal because the lord was good enough to us to let us hit it :) we even taught a few lessons in our first three days. 2 member presents and 1 other :D hahaha, this week, we're going to smash it!!!!! :D hahahaha.

Well, to explain the pictures.

The pictures are: (I can't remember the order)

All the chinese missionaries all together. This is the first time in a long time, we've all been in the same building. That was at our chinese transfer meeting where we picked up our missionaries :D.  The enxt picture should be of me and Elder Allan with President and sister langeland.  The final picture is of all the missionaries in the eight mile plains ward :D hahaha. there are so many of us! It's crazy! I've never had so many missionaries in the same ward at the same time! GAH! bahahahahaha. There were nine of us at church and Elder Allan and i had the only investigators there! YEH!!!! We win :)

Anyway, this week was filled with crazy miracles. Coming back was crazy because I've run into all the people I've talked to before, I got invited to so many churches it was ridiculous and we found so many people :).  I had a lot of fun finding. It's so much different from when I started my mission. I remember long time ago, it was harder to talk to people and I'd never really get too far with things, but here, it's so much easier. I don't think the task is easier, I've jsut learned so much from other areas that I've learned to do it hte way taht the lord wants us to do it!!!!! Looking at my trainee, he is so excited but doesn't really know how to go out and use it! Elder Shi (my trainer) and I have been helping him learn and stuff, but it always takes time :)  THe other day, at the bus stop, we had an hour to find people.  Elder Shi got 2 potentials, I got 3, and he got 1.  We both made him feel really excited about it and congratulated him on finding, and so it helped him feel a little bit more comfortable. I must've been TERRIFIED to go out and talk to people :P hahahahaha.

Well, that was the update with me. :) I love being here, it is so much fun to be back in eight mile plains, sorry, the email was a bit short. The internet here is really bad and evidently they're starting some kind of internet job that's gonig, so we don't have too much time, but I'll write for as long as I can and then let you know how the rest goes :P

So, elder shi goes home tomorrow because he's finished completely! It's so strange. I started my mission with him in Eight Mile Plains, and now, He's finishing his mission around me in Eight Mile Plains! Crazy It was kinda trunky to be back here again, but as soon as I got to work again, I totally forgot all about myself and regained more focus. haha

Well, the other day, we were out finding at the bus stop and then I ran into this guy named Frank! He was the first person I taught on my mission!!!! I talked to him, got his number again, and wasn't able to set up a return appointment because he's super busy, but I was really happy to talk to him anyway.  It's ben a long time since I've seen him :)

Hmm... even though there've been two weeks, I don't really remember too much about what happened. I've just been trying to keep up and do as many things as possible.  sorry :P hahaha.  WOW, it takes a lot of different things to stay on top of things :P hahahaha.

Well, love you all! I hope you keep up the good work, I got the package with the german chocolate cake stuff, and baekd a german chocolate cake! it was good :) yummm.

Elder Chen

9/10/2012

WAOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

 

Verina's sophmore recital looks soooooooooo coool!! :) hahaha.  I wish I could've gone and clapped and screamed my head of when she finished, but alas, I shall celebrate in the land where where the weather is flipped. It's really really cold here. but it's warming up. plus, I got this jacket that was supper warm :) so it's all goods. hahaha.  now it's starting to get hot, and gold coast hot is OH MY GOODNESS HOOOOOOOOT!!!! GAH!!! it was like 27 C the other day. yikes, and it's not even summer yet. and it's super humid as well, so we're always sweating and stuff. no good.  Every time i sit on a members' chair or couch, I feel terrible because when I stand up, it's glistening with sweat. bahahahaha.anyway. one time, I started wringing sweat out of my shirt........ awkward. hahahaha, I thought it was funny.

 

JOnjon is the man for helping out so much! you shall be blessed :) I wish I had helped mom and dad more. I could've had more blessings on my mission :) YAY!!!!!!!! Blessings time. Keep up the good work Jon! and keep up studying hard too. High school is the funnest ever :).

 

The food on the table looks delicious! Dad is the man! :) hahaha, thanks for being so cool dad, and making sure we're all happy. the girl we just baptized (suri) always talks about her dad and family and stuff, and then I think of dad and I'm like: Yeh... he's cooler. hahaha, I probably shouldn't get competitive. oh well :)

 

Anyway, this week was CRAZY! hahahahahaha. oh my goodness. it was crazy as! I think there was some kind of festival or something and all the people in the gold coast were drunk out of their minds. I don't know what it was, but htere was a really high density of drunken crazies on the streets.  Australians really don't like us sadly :P hahahaha. Good think I get to teach ASIANS!!!!!!!! YEH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hoorah! hahahahahaha it's so funny because everybody tells us to love the people that we serve. We only have to serve the asians :P bahahahaha. just kidding. I like a lot of the australians. We just never really get a chance to serve them. hahaha. and most of the time they're drunk, so.... yeah... no good.

 

SPeaking of which, we had the funniest experience in the world. hahahaha.  Elder hadfield and I were out on saturday night (bad idea by the way) when we ran into a large group of drunk girls at the bus stop.  They asked us if we were mormon and other gospel questions that didn't really make too much sense deng deng. well. we turned to talk to our recent convert, and t hen they were like: Oh hi (looking at elder hadfield) I'm not going to lie, you're really attractive, how are you still a virgin. sooo... we ran away :P bahahahahahaha. Like Joseph in Egypt from potipher's wife. bahahaha, I was laughing so hard, and elder hadfield was so emberased! I couldn't stand it. It was too funny. hahahahaha.  Anyway, that was the last of a long day of drunken encounters. do not worry, we are safe :) the Lord protects us a lot, plust we're not going to go out on saturday nights anymore. hahaha WEEKLY PLANNING MOVED. if we get to call the assistants hahaha.

 

Ok, also, we were talking to one of our investigators the other day, and were asking if she had had a chance to pray and stuff. yeah. Anyway. we were asking her about her prayer. it was so funny because when we asked her what she was looking for as an answer, she said: Oh... I flipped a coin....... bahahahahahahahahaha. :) She said she made a deal with god that if she passes her EILTS (English test) test, then she'll be baptized. after she made that deal in a prayer, she flipped a coin and it was heads so she thinks it was an agreement...... oh wow... hahahaha.

 

we're teaching a guy from Korea, and he was in the special forces O.o yikes. Lots of koreans here. :)

 

we've had to go abroad and teach heaps of crazy lessons down in lismore, burleigh heads, tweed heads... etc, so we haven't really had a chance to teach too much in our own area, but that's alright because we get to meet super cool people.  The picture with the two chinese people is because we went down to burliegh heads in order to go and teach them. they're really cool. they've bene married for two years and one is a member, the other is not, but they're working on baptizing her. sadly she goes back to adelaide... where there are no chinese speaking missionaries.... :(

 

the other picture is of us in surfer's paradise by this random tiki thing. :) we loved it. hahaha, it's in the middle of all these shops, and stuff, so we wanted a picture by it and so here it is :)  we took pictures with it. there's this one random power cord that runs into the bottom of the tiki, so we were joking and guessing that there's some hidden machinery inside of it which makes it moove!!!! hahahahaha, then we met with our korean investigator. :) He's really cool. He sadit that he used to be roman catholic, but then went to the military andt hen stopped for a bit, and because of his parents went bvack to it, and now he's just hanging out... so we're going to BAPTIZE HIM!!!! YEH!!!! hahahahaha :D

 

Well, this week during studies, I decided to research church history, and so.... yeah. There's so many cool things in church history that I didn't know about! GAH!!!!!!! So many apostles, historians, etc. it's great to keep studying about thsoe!!!!!!!!! WAH!!! Most of the church history is enveloped in discussing the church during the presidencies of Joseph smith and brigham young! it's so cool! The church has such a great history!

 

ONe of the amazing things about church history is the Missionary evacuation during World War II> it was really cool because the missionaries in europe recieved two different evacuation alerts. the first one, they all got out really quickly, but then since a treaty was signed they were allowed to continue their service. the second alert came a little late.  so it was really difficult to make it out of the nations involved with the war! One of the mission presidents wouldn't leave until all of his missionaries were safely out of the german territory.  His wife left and ran into President Smith who said that the war would not start until the missionaries and mission president were safely out of the country.  This was really crazy becuase all of the surrounding countriers had closed their borders and it would take ages to get out of the country.  It DID take ages, but as soon as the mission president was on neutral soil, germany commenced its attack!!!! The prophet's prophecy was literally fulfilled!!!!! But that wasn't the coolest part of the story though.  The prophets had said that the missionary work completed would be extremely productive beyond that of previous efforts.  BUT because of the war, the missionary force dropped from roughly 2000, to 200.  HOWEVER. because of the lack of missionaries, wards became self-sufficient. More local branch presidents were called, and becuase of that, they started doing more of their OWN missionary work!!! They baptized WAY more than the full-time missionaries did.

 

this helped me realize that the mission is a refiners fire! Just liket that chinese proverb that I told you about ages ago: Zhen jin bu pa huo lian!!!! What do we fear! This is the refiners fire.  We should not fear anything at all!!! :) YEH!!! When trials are not an evidence of disobedience, it is evidence that the lord feel that we are prepared to grow more!!! it's time to grow!!!!!!!!!! YEH!

 

well, the computer just told me I'm almost out of time :P SO, I love you guys! keep up the good work. Verina is too popular! :) Jon is too cool, dad is the man, and mom is super cool, Jeff's cool too. and sister chen is on fire!!! keep up the good work!!!

 

Elder Chen

 

ps. I don't remember if I told you but yes, I did get the package from taiwan with the blanket and stuff.... I feel like I already told you, but it's good to double check :)

9/4/2012

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

8/17/2012

HELLOOOOOOO everybody :)!

 

This was the craziest week EVER!! ok, not really, but it was pretty fun. hahaha :) I'll start of by saying:

Verina practices for 6 hours a day?! oh my goodness! That is so much time!!!!! holy cow. It's incredible! I wish I had that much time to study the scriptures and stuff. Then things would be so much fun. ahhaha. We had a special training the other time and we met one of the most incredible people ever! Brother Turley is the assistant church historian for the whole church! it's crazy because he has had access to every single curch document since he was 29!!!!!! How incredible would that be?! well. anyway.  He taught us about the history of the church and how the restoration all fits in and stuff, and it was soooo cool.  I want to learn SO much about it.  At the end of the training, we had time to go and ask him questions about how we should resolve concerns with our investigators and stuff. We'd ask questions as to how we'd respond to certain concerns.  Most of the time, he'd start with saying: "That is actually a concern of faith, you can bring it back to the scriptures/josephsmith/restoration/gospel of Jesus Christ....."  It reminded me of reading preach my gospel where it says that every possible concern can be resolved with the book of mormon! cool eh?! I think it's the most awesome thing in the world!!!

 

Anyway, he was such a scriptural scholar it blew my mind!!!! OH MY goodness! it was crazy.  We'd ask him a concern, and then he'd do that, AND THEN he'd resolve the concern using scriptures or history! For example, The situation of Laban being slain by nephi was brought up... it's not important if you've developed faith and, like Mosiah 4:19 says, believe in God that he knows all things.  Well.  anyway, I'll tell you about it when I get home because it's just a really cool thing to overcome with scriptural knowledge. It fits TOOO perfectly.  The way that the book of Mormon intigrates the laws into the bible is INCREDIBLE! there is NO way thatJoseph Smith did it himself. ... yeah... anyway... I really enjoyed talking to Brother Turrley.  President, Elder Hadfield, and I sat and talked with him after the training for AGES, just asking him questions and stuff.  It was really really awesome.  President and him would just ask questions and it'd get us thinking a lot!

 

So moral of the story is: I wish I could study the scriptures for 6 hours a day, the most we can study the scriptures for in a day is: 4 hours. 1 in the morning, personal study, companion study, and night time, but we need to work out in the morning, and companion study is usually consumed with role plays, lesson plans, and calls. And last night, I had to call for numbers so I didn't have a chance to study more scriptures!!! AHH! I want to be a scriptural scholar!!!!! SOOO bad!!!!

 

It was really cool because the other day, we got to sit in on a lesson where people told us what they thought of missionaries.  I want to be like the missionary everybody imagines :D.  The first one to go up was: Hungry. hahaha, then they all said outward things like: Handsome, clean, bilingual. deng deng.  but then it got to the spiritual knowledge, and they told us that htey thought missionaries had memorized the scriptures and could quote everything, and knew what the profets said.  That got me really excited to fulfil their expectations of missionaries!  I thought of a talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland who said that we as missionaries take the baptismal covenant of taking Jesus Christ's name upon us to a whole new level!!!!  We don't have a right to damage the image of the church, or to damage the image of the missionary force!!! SO! now, I'm going to try to maintain that image of being perfect scriptural scholars and STUDY STUDY STUDY!!!!!!!!  It takes SOOOO long though, and we don't have enough time!!! JONJON! Start studying the scriptures!!! It's SOOOO much fun. I just wish I had studied them more when I was at home. THEN i could've been so much better of right now than I am. GAH!!!!

 

Thank goodness the lord is helping me study the scriptures. During sunday school, we had a few investigators, so Elder Hadfield and I had to do splits so I could take care of some while he took care of the others.  We had a taiwanese boy go to youth and I went with him.  IN the youth class, there was no teacher!!!! O.o! SO they all wanted the missionary to teach the lesson. I wasn't sure what the lesson was supposed to be about, but I was hoping the spirit would guide me. I asked them if they knew what the lesson this week was supposed to be about and they told me that it was signs of the second coming. WHICH was not the real topic, but seeing as it would've been inappropriate for our investigator, I thought it was wrong, and then they told me they just wanted to talk about that, but really it was alma 36! THANK GOODNESS i knew what that was. SO, i was able to follow the spirit and introduce to them, the chapter! It was so cool!!! Before my mission, there's no way I'd know what alma 36 was about, and it was PERFECT for the investigator.  It was all about the conversion story of Alma the Younger.  Anyway, the investigator liked the parts he understood (because I had to teach in english)  We were able to study the chiasmus within the chapter to see how Alma felt before and after his conversion.

 

ANYWAY! that was church... mostly. At the end, we got to go to priest quorum to teach him with the priests, and then again, they talked about missionaries. :) YEH!!!!!! Everybody brought up concerns they had about serving their missions and I was really sad.  Many of the boys didn't think too much about serving a mission. :( NOOOO!!!!!  Remember that one talk given by President Hinkley? He was talking about the missionary force and how the members must get excited to do the work.  Even though everybody thinks that the best way to do missionary work is via tracting, the members are the BEST WAY!!!! We just need to get them excited on all the different levels!!!!! so. We're going to get started little by little.  I want to go and get the priest-age young men excited about doing missionary work and finding friends!  and then they'll be excited to go on their missions! THere is SOOO much work to do here, and we don't have enough people to do it! In Gold Coast Alone we'd need at least 4 more missionaries to do the work, but we don't have that many.  So elder Hadfield and I go out and work ALL day till we're tierd, and then we work some more, and then we sleep a little and then we go out.  Too much work to do. LIke the gospel standard.  The work is not finished until the Lord says it's done.  The work is never done. :P hahahaha.

 

OK, lets see... some funny experiences..... hmmm.... It was Elder Vea's birthday yesterday. He's so funny because his english isn't all that great.  We sang happy birthday over the phone to him because he is THE MAN! and I talked to him after, and made sure he was doing alright and that his area was good.  He told me: "I feel like baby Elephant.... I grow my teeth." :) he said that in reference to the difficulty of his area.  When we got his numbers, the area in which he currently serves isn't the most productive of areas. :(  He's always out tracting and finding and working with members and working really hard, but still they have limited amounts of success.  It called to rememberance a quote given by Elder Dallin H. Oaks which goes something to this effect: If trials, not consequence of disobedience, occur in your life, the Lord feels that you are ready for growth.  When the Lord sees that you are being obedient and have room to continue to grow and develop, he will put trials in your path so that you can climb them!!!!!!

 

Oh there is SO much out here to learn, and I don't have enough time! I've already passed my year mark and I'm SO old!!! GAH!!! I was talking to Elder Hadfield and told him that if they open china, I'd want to extend my mission another two yearas and serve up there. That would be SOOOO much fun.  hahaha.  After our missions, we want to go visit Taiwan and China and BAPTIZE CHINESE PEOPLE!!! he has yellow fever :P hahahahahahaha.

 

But YES! i did get that package from Taiwan and it was AWESOME! thanks so much for the potatoes, cereal, and candy :) hahaha. Multi-vitamines are famous now in our area hahaha. But I have SO many, so you don't have to worry too much about sending me more food. We're ALL goods :) we have plenty of food to eat and plenty of members to feed us. and they really like us so they feed us a lot! :) We have had a dinner EVERY day.  And our investigators want to feed us. And sometimes chinese people want to feed us a lot :) hahaha. It's a lot of fun. YAY CHINESE PEOPLE!!!

 

well let me tell you how cool member fellowship is in this area!!!!! This girl wants to be baptized, but she wants to be baptized when her fellowship comes back from china! hahahaha.. YEH!!!!! She didn't really worry about us being gone, she was worried abou the member being gone!! INTEGRATION!!! YEH!!!!!!!! GREAT SUCCESS!!!!!!

 

ALso, the ward is super duper cool Bishop Shine is the  COOOOOOLEST bishop in the world. I LOVE HIM!!!!!!!!!! oh my goodness. He is the FUNNIEST greatest bishop!!!! He's famous here in gold coast stake because he always goes out and does EVERYTHING. plus he's always trying to work out. We introduced ourselves and told everybody our favourite food.  His favourite food is: PROTEIN YEH!!! BISHOP SHINE :).

 

The youth also want the elders to come and do a mutal night one time. :)  I'll let you know how it goes. We're going to teach them to 1. Cook (for the young women) 2. Dance (youngmen: breakdancing/hip hop/etc to church music :P) and so the youth can all bring their friends!!! YEAHYEAH!!!! GREAT SUCCESS!!!  Ward mission leaders always tell us to use our talents to go out and find people!!!  TALENT FINDING TIME!!!!

 

 well, I hope you have a fantastic week, sorr I didn't take any  pircutres this week, I stil have my camera and everything, we just haven't really had a chance to take too many pictures. I should take some pictures with the members in my area.... but we never really have time.  it takes too long :P

 

Wo Ai Nimen!!! :D

 

(We got the lyrics for ting ma ma de hua for language study.  Too bad it's all in jianti :(  the characters are so confusing between jianti and fanti... oh well. trials are fun! :D) bie ren dou shi ting wo xie de ge!!! hahaha. favourite line ever :) ting ma ma de hua

 

Jia You!!!!!!!!

 

Elder Chen

 

hey jonjon! I just remembered, I haven't really written letters to anybody recently, so apologize to michon for me :P I haven't written her back for her letter! bahahaha. We always give up p-days to go and teach and stuff, so we never really have time to go and write letters :P hahahaha I feel fei chang bu hao yi si.

8/22/12

HALLO!!!!

 

New transfer, new district, new zone! we're going to be on FIRE!!!!!! hahaha.  I'm really excited because Elder Hadfield is the man. I've always wanted to serve with him my whole mission. President is being really nice to me recently hahahaha.  I think he's made me serve around every single FOB missionary in the chinese program hahahaha. :P it's ok though. Hopefully my chinese has improved a little bit, but yeah... :)

 

Mom is so cooool! I was going through the pictures you sent and i looked at the picture of you and the missionaries and the investigators and I was thinking: OH MY GOODNESS Mom is SOOO cool. hahaha.  I wish we had crazy awesome people come through and help us baptize people. and yeah. :) I'm glad you're making lunch for dad. We don't really have anybody to make lunch for us, so we have to learn different things to cook or we get really bored of the same food :D YEH! WEET_BIX! it's that really gross cardboard cereal stuff, but it's really good for you. FIBER

 

Dad is the man! Keeping busy and saving the world. hahaha :) Hopefully I can be as hardworking as dad when I get home. speaking of which, my companion and I are SO tired all the time because we're always running from appointment to appointment.  We haven't really had a chance to go out and find any new investigators. meh. it's ok though.

 

Good luck with your tests Jeff! I know you're going to smash it like always :). 

 

Sister chen is a fireball! she's taking names and baptising people! YEH!!! hahahaha. She always sends me really short emails and she's my hero! I wish we had sister missionaries like her in our mission. the sisters here are.... different. gah. sometimes it's hard working with them.

 

Verina!!!!!! YEH!!!! We have a friend in common!!! MARINA!!! she always says that you're too cool for school. hahaha.  anyway. she keeps talking about you. :)

 

Jon! good luck with the ACT and school!!!! STUDY hard. so you can have bragging rights later :P hahahaha.  you better beat me. I know you can do it!

 

ok, so since today was temple p-day, (hence I email on wednesday) I took some pictures :D.  picture 1 is Elder hadfield and I at the temple. We're going to go crazy on this area. we already have! we're going to break the baptismal record for our zone... by ourselves! YEH!!!! we can do it... it'll be really hard, but we can do it. HOORAH!!!! :D hahahaha.  Elder hadfield is the man. He was one of my trainers from back in the day. and we've always served around each other. hahaha. From EMP, to the City, and now down in GOLD COAST!!! HAHAHA! I hope president lets me stay with him for a while.  He's the man. hahahaha.

 

ok, picture number 2. the greatest.  This is Isle of Capri! we're going to smash it!!! hahahaha Elder Peaua is the Tongan/newzealander missionary. he's so funny.  He's been out for about 8 months.  Next, elder Tobe.  the japanese guy. he's so funny. He started driving, and it was really bad because he is a really dangerous driver... and his license hasn't been translated yet so if he gets a ticket.... dun dun dun. hahahahaha.  oh noooooO! the other day we almost died like three times because he ran like three different red lights. like they were RED hahahahaha. but it's ok. the spirit is protecting us, so I'm not too worried.

 

Picture 3 is elder vea and I. Elder Vea is SOOOOO funny I love serving with him.  He's in my district so i get to do trade-offs with him, and it's so funny. I want to do one this transfer. I wasn't able to do it last transfer, but this trasnfer yeh! He's the one that says: It is better to die food than to die hunger. yep.  He's teaching me tongan now.  hahahaha.  He's really strong too, which is a little bit scary, but he usually doesn't get angry. and he's teaching me to do tongan dances as well! YEH!!!!!!! *head flick*

 

Picture 4 is! just random people from our zone. yep.  GOLD COAST!!!!! AW YEAH! president put so many really good missionaries in our zone so that we could start doing really well! It's the biggest zone in the mission and president wantds it to be the most productive zone as well.  All these missionaries are monsters!!!! hahaha.

 

WEll, this week was really crazy because we haven't even worked in our own area. hahaha.  The cool thing about being chinese is that we get to go wherever we want.  SO this week, we went EVERYWHERE! hahaha.  We've been working really closely with most of the ward mission leaders in our stake so they all know who we are, and it's so funny because they talk about how successful the chinese missionaries are and it spreads fast. hahaha.  We had 5 of the 7 baptisms from our zone. the other two were from the zone leaders. It got the ward missionaries really excited to do the work and so our stake is starting to get really involved. they really want to do well in this area.  I know the potential is there, we just need to work hard for a while.

 

This week, we started teaching this lady from beijing. she's a teacher here, and wanted to find a little more about religion, so she came to us. :) actually, we were teaching some of her students so she got ionterested and started talking to us. regardless.  we were really excited because she was supposed to be baptized on thursday, but then she goes back to china. so.... we're stuck in a rut and hopefully soon we'll figure it out. hahaha. One time We were on a trade-off when we taught her, and our zone leader was so impressed by how much desire she had to learn and gain faith.  she was so prepared before she came here.  she's just hesitating, which makes us so sad because we know the gospel is what she's looking for!!!!!! GAH!!!!!!

 

Speaking of trade-offs.  I don't like doing trade-offs because whenever we get an english missionary in our area, they just fall asleep in the lessons. hahaha.  when we went on the tradeoff with the zone leaders, my companion started just drawing pictures in his planner because he couldn't understand what was going on in the lesson. hahaha, he just told us that it was ok. for the trade-off review, he told me that he wasn't able to understand what was going on. hahahahaha. YEH CHINESE MISSIONARIES!!!!!!!

 

my companion just asked me how to spell continuing, but I don't know how to spell it either......

 

My english is getting worse. We keep working with these people that want to speak english or learn it and stuff, but we can't help them too much because our english is getting worse and worse. HOWEVER!!!!! One of our investigators told us that she was taught to write Yours faithfully at the end of formal letters. hahahahahahaha.  we thought it was pretty funny but maybe that's how we figure things out from now on. hahahaha.  so I might write to you: Yours faithfully.  I thought it was weird.

 

Well, miracle stories are verywhere, but I forgot to bring my miracle book, so I can't remember which ones I wanted to tell you about! hahaha. awkward. but its' ok. There's this chinese guy using the computer in front of me and I just read: Jia you!!!!! so. I'm going to jia some you! hahaha.

 

trying to read some chinese kid books. isn't really working too well, but characters will come with time :)

 

I hope you all have a fantastic week this week! We're going to have to work super hard.  THOUGH we've broken the record for member present lessons in this area already! :)  JIA YOU!!!!

 

Love, (Yours Faithfully hahaha)

 

Elder Chen

8/14/12

Hello from down under :D yeh! we just had transfers, and it was a party hahahaha. Every single chinese companionship had a change. which made me really sad because Elder Chen is the MAN. I love him. he was the greatest ever. It'd be funny serving with him longer, but I know the Lord needs him in different areas to make those areas flourish as well. I love being in Gold Coast. hahaha :) It truly is the greatest thing ever hahahaha.  Elder Chen will be truly missed, but we well try to survive without him here :(

 

Mom is in Taiwan baptizing more people than I am out here :P hahahaha. you are such a great example. Whenever I see a person that reminds me of mom, I'll go out and talk to them hoping that I'll baptize somebody just like her, but mom's type is very rare to happen across. :p hahaha, but I know they're out there and we need to find them :).

 

Dad is the MAN. I love hearing about all that he does and he's such a great example of love to me. I definitely always think of Mosiah 4:14-16 (I think, it might cha a few verses) I'm not sure, my memory isn't too good :P hahaha.

 

Jeff is killing it as usual. He's to be married soon. I hope I stay in goldcoast until then because I LOVE this area. Plus, we'll have heaps of baptisms then :)

 

Vicky is the best! Hahaha, she's such a fireball missionary. I'm sure you already know that though haha.

 

Verina: GO AND WIN!!! hahaha, some of the members here get to hear about how cool you are and so they want to find you on facebook :)

 

Jon is a skuxx delux. hahaha.  I'm sure he's a monster dancer and longboarder now.

 

Well, first of all: here are the pictures :)  

The first one is of our Isle of Capri Elders :) Korea, Japan, China, and Taiwan. ALL represented here. Olympics are fun to talk about because... yeah. Evidently north korea's doing really well. I wish I had taken some pictures of our Cooey (come out and meet people thing I can't remember what the whole thing stands for. I really have no idea. hahaha. too much.

 

The second is Chens and friends :D hahaha that's the waith family who has helped us SO much. they're really cool I love them. We go over to their house SOOOOO much.

 

Third, is the food that they gave us. It was a lot of food. It's lasted us a loooooooong time. I'm not sure if we'll finish it any time soon, but hopefully we'll not have to buy too much food this week :D yeh!

 

Finally is Lawana, or sister Hou, she's real cool. GOLDEN baptizm. there was one concern when she had to go and talk to her parents about it, but it was all goods. now she's going to be the sunday school something president. i'm not sure. but I think it'll be really good for her.

 

anyway, updates on this week.  We went up to teach some more kids up in coomera and it was so fun.  We joined them in their sports day and they LOVED it. Elder Chen and i were having so much fun, and at the end, all of the kids ran up to us and asked us to take pictures with them all. So I spent a long time taking pictures with all these little kids, and yeah. it was really fun.  They played four square, bullrush, touch, lamb slap, etc. it was crazy. Anyway, they're all going back to hong kong, and they told us that they had seen missionaries in Hong kong all the time (go Jeff!!!) BUT they thought the missionaries were weird (BOOOO! :P hahaha) hahaha, and then they now know that we're not weird :) so. Hopefully this is plantinmg the seeds of the future generation of the church! OH YEH!!!!!!!!!

 

One of the craziest things though: We were talking to one of the teachers from china china, like not open to the church china, and somehow Elder Ballard was brought up, and she knew who he was!!!!! WOAH!!!!!!! CRAZY huh? anyway. We quoted him, and then she was like: oh yeah, I know who taht is, and one thing lead to another, and hopefully she'lll be baptized soon! WAHOOO! yay for the lord doing the work for us. Sometimes I feel really lazy because I really don't do that much.  But That's when we know that we're doing the work of the Lord. :D YEH!!!!

 

Well, my new companion is...... drumroll. ELDER HADFIELD!!!! YEH!!!!!!! I've always wanted to serve with him. YEH!!! man, I'm super excited about this transfer because, even though we baptized all of our investigators, we're going to find heaps of new investigators andTEAR IT UP!!! he's such a great missionary.  hahaha.  I'm super duper excited. I know that he's a really hard worker, and so we're going to smash it here. We basically have served our whole missions around each other. it's crazy. We've only had two trasnfers where we haven't been living within two seconds of each other. hahahaha. so finally we serve together in da GOAL COAST.  WE're going to be smashing records, and taking names :D YEH!!!!

 

Oh yeah, quick request, could you send me the recipe for crepes and german chocolate cake? Random, I know, but the other day, we wanted to bake brownies or cake for our recent converts (we have a lot) and it was really expensive to buy those packets that you just have to add water (aka $8 for one packet) We have all the ingredients to bake stuff (there must've been a home-making elder in this flat before) but we don't know how. I especially crave that german chocolate cake topping. anyway. If you could send that, that would be amazing :D ( worry not, I am not a sister missionary)

 

Oh yeah, new quote from Elder Vea, the tongan man (I Have Giff of You) bahahahahaha. (I have a gift for you) I love Elder vea. It was really funny because I started to learn to do tongan dances (which are SOOO funny by the way) and he told me that  If I went to tonga he would let me stay at his house. hahaha, He told me I was the most tongan asian ever. YEH. TONGA!!!!

 

The way to show a tongan y our love is by giving them food. just give them food and they'll know that you love them. it's so crazy. They don't care about money or anything.  If you give them a gift, they'll love it, but if you give them food, they will love you. it's so funny. hahaha.  I bought 2 pounds of bacon for Elder Vea one time and he was so happy hahahaha. I can't describe it. it's too funny.

 

speaking of funny: this has happened a few times, so it might not be funny, but I still think it's funny.  We ran into a man the other day who had met jesus evidently.  Well, he started ranting and raving about stuff (doesn't sound funny right now, but wait for it) anyway, I don't know if I've told you that Elder Chen Does Gong Fu. the same gong fu as bruce lee. anyway, the guy was pointing at us, and then almost poked elder chen in the chest, but then elder chen did his gong fu thing and I was really confused, and then yeah. it was a pretty funny moment. hahaha. we laughed about it later and elder chen joked about how he used to be like that. bahahaha.  so LEARN GONG FU before your mission. it makes it a lot funnier. hahaha

 

another funny moment: This has happened a few tiems as well, which makes it all the funnier :P. The first time it happened was with some chinese girls.  and then with hong kong girls, and then it just happened again with more hong kong girls.  I think our ward mission assistant leader is getting sick of it. anyway. basically, these girls start crushing on me, and then he has to explain to them in cantonese some proverb that means keep a professional distance. hahaha.  Elder Chen made fun of me, anyway. So yeah. thank goodness they all leave so I don't have to get ET'ed :P. yeh!!!

 

because of transfers, p-day is already over :( but i'll make sure to write more later. :)

 

Well, I love you all and hope you all have a beautiful day!

 

Love,

 

Elder Chen

 

 

ps. Elder Hadfield has gotten Yellow fever bahahahahahahahahaaha

 

pps. I got your package with the vitamins and mashed potatoes, and dried fruit and nuts and Combat Nike Dri-fit AMAZING shirt. hahaha. I love it. It looks super comfortable. It looks like I'll wear it a bit now because the weather is pretty cold. It's raining right now. hahahaha but don't worry about sending me too many clothes. I think I'll be fine without too many clothes. I have too many as it is :D

 

ppps.  I LOVE THIS AREA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

8/6/2012

Hello AGAIN! I can't believe it's already been a week again. I know that sounds like I've said that a lot. Yep. so it's actually almost the end of this transfer and then we're going to see what happens and who has to move where etc. So I guess I'll just let you know about the big updates so far. :)

 

OK FIRST OF ALL! here it is: A chinese unit is being started!!!! O.o WOOOH that's cool eh? well, evidently they called a new ward mission leader, a new set of ward missionaries, and then a senior couple to help maintain the ward! It's supposed to make the work go CRAZY hahaha. I'm really excited so we'll see what happens with all of it. Most of the chinese missionaries are baptizing heaps and so we'll see what happens in the upcoming transfer.  There is one area that isn't doing really well so all the chinese elders are trying to figure out what's supposed to happen now... hahaha. I want to stay with Elder Chen really bad :P hahaha. He's the man. and unfortunately I didn't get to take any pictures of his crazy faces... except for this one... let me see if I can find it..... found it! anyway. that was us counting in chinese... six and seven... but it was a really confusing moment because evidently chinese counting is different from taiwanese counting. I learned taiwanese counting from Elder Tsai and then Elder Chen is from china.... so we've learned not to do hand signs to indicate numbers. :P

 

anyway. We're still working with a lot of chinese students as usual. We were supposed to baptize two of them on sunday, but they stopped at the parents because they needed permision. it was pretty sad :( they were really cool and I think they could be fantastic members and a good foundation for china, but... yeah. I'm glad everybody has their agency though :) maybe some time later :P We sent some of them back to hong kong :) hopefully they'll be happy and hunky dory and stuff. :D

 

Mom's in Taiwan?!?!?!?! WHOA! Jealous. :P hahaha That's so cool that you're helping people peike. I bet you're the best peike ever! I love having members at the lessons.... sometimes. ONe time, we had a member tell our investigator that God didn't have any blood in his body, instead, he has eternal energy flowing through his veins. and then at the end of the lesson, he told them that there were two churchs: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the other is called the Church of the Firstborn....... :( anyway. that was just a random side-note.  Mom is the best!!!! You are so funny! All of the elders still think of you and think you're like my little sister :P at least not wife this time.

Dad is doing so well! hahaha, no wonder you're all so happy. Dad is like a doctor. Maybe, I'll Follow his example. :) That sounds like a good idea :D

 

Jeff is the man, good luck in school. take it if you need it. but you probably don't. because you're too smart anyway. hahaha.

 

SIster Chen is doing SO well in Taiwan. She's the coolest ever.  I hope I can be a missionary like her some day

 

Verina: YEH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MUSIC FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!!

 

Jon is the man. Keep up the good work. I remember EFY. it was fun. I hope you enjoyed it heaps. sadly I think your school is starting soon though :P hahahaha. I don't have to go to school. You're a JUNIOR! i hope you're wearing my clothes and stuff. I got that one student government jacket, so you better wear it. if you don't, that's fine, but do it. hahahaha.  it'd be good. It's pretty warm too. good for football game. THE MAN! Also, I had a member give me something for free that I want to give to you. hahaha, but I'll just look for a chance when somebody goes to america to get them to you. :) they might be a bit big for you, but you'll grow taller and bigger than me. what shoe size are you anyway? fun fact about being a missionary. When the members trust you, they give you a lot of funny stuff. I've gotten three hats, two pairs of shoes, two pairs of cleats, a nerf gun, cologne, etc. it's pretty funny, because I don't really use them too much :P

 

Now the other pictures. :) the first picture is me and my companion at a members house. there are a lot of Wong families here :P hahaha.  There's bro and sis wong #1, Bro and sis wong #2, and then there's sis. wong (Inv), and then the wong family up in brisbane zone.... it must  be a very common name... and they can all speak cantonese for some odd reason! OH yeah! EVERYBODY here speaks cantonese! Holy goodness. I told you about the investigator wong, but she is so funny. All these people from canton and hong kong. it's crazy. I'm not even sure what's going on half the time. therefore I boast not of myself. just kidding. But I've started studying cantonese! hahaha. the first phrase I learned was Neih wan bing go a!!!!! who are you looking for? bahahahaha. and also Neih gwai sing! Ni Gui Xing! hahahaha.  man it's going to be a long long long time till I can speak cantonese. there's this noise that we have to make and it's really weird. seiung.  kinda. Jeff can probably explain it to you. It's the way to say Xiang. hahaha. seiung... it kinda sounds like you're trying to say sing, but then your lower jaw just disappears halfway through. anyway. yeah....

 

The second picture is me with two hong kong boys. those two are so funny. we've been teaching lots of really young kids that are really crazy and these two are a little bit older than them and so they're much more mature. Anyway. when they started talking with us baout the other students they kept saying how annoying they were. hahaha.  One of them wants to be fat and the other one wants to get skinnier hahahaha.  they're the coolest. anyway. that's that.

 

oh, and fun fact: all the kids from china love garlic bread, and NINJAAAAA DESTRUCTION!!!!! YAH!!!! we helped with their sports day, and so I took a group and worked with them.  we played a few games and then last, we played ninja distruction. I created a new rule that was just for fun but worked really well. I told them that when they attack, they have to make a ninja yell. hahaha.  it was so funny because some of them are very dramatic with their attacks. hahaha.  one kid spun around and tried to hit my hand and i dodged it because it took him like three seconds to come around and attack hahaha.  anyway, they loved it and it was a lot of fun.

 

Finally that is the baptism of the most GOLDEN investigator ever. she is the COOLEST!!! the only thing is that she keeps changing her name hahahaha.  She showed us a bunch of pictures of her family and it looks like one of those super famous families from china! her dad is bald and looks like the man! hahaha, and he's always wearing white pants for some reason. maybe that's the fashion in china nowadays. hahaha.  Her mom looks like one of those chinese actresses. it was so funny because elder chen was like: woah! your family looks famous. And they might be, but I don't know... because she doesn't say anything about them!!! NOOO. and I'm not tell you her name.  :P well I can tell you the first few names she had, but they won't do any good: Monique, andrea, Lawana. hahahahaha.  so. yeah.

 

Another language that I've been learning is Tongan! I've served around asian fobs, and Tongans my whole mission. there is always a tongan in my district. ALWAYS!!! hahaha. anyway, I scheduled a tradeoff with one of the elders in my district and he was so funny. My favourite quote from him is this: "It is better to die food than to die hunger" bahahahahahaha.  I couldn't stop laughing because we were at KFC and I had bought 27 pieces of chicken and Elder Ormond had bought 9, and elder Wheeler bought 9. it was so funny. we dumped them all onto this tray and threw all the chips on there and it looked so funny. I'll take a picture of it next time... tongan people can EAT! hahahaha.anyway. Elder Vea told me that in tonga, if someone asks you to eat, and you don't eat, then you're insulting them... so.. yeh.... That's why I'm getting a lot fatter now hahahaha, but I don't really mind. hahaha.

 

This area is the greatest! I love it so much. We haven't been able to find at all for the past two weeks because we're just running from appointment to appointment and stuff. so yeah. It's the best! also, we report our finding hours and potentials to the zone leaders and we always have at least 1 potential, but we've had 0 finding hours hahaha. THe zone leaders were laughing at us because they told us that when we don't work, we still get results. it was funnier in the moment, but It helped me realize that we actually aren't doing the work by ourselves. when we put forth all the effort that we can, the lord pics up our slack and helps us finish what we need to do. Our goals have been crazy recently and I'm not sure how we've been hitting them. we've wanted so many lessons with so many investigators at church, but we still set goals to find many new investigators. and we always do it or surpass it. It blows my mind because I know that there's no way I could've done that, but then when we realize that the spirit is with us, helping us to do the work, then it actually makes sense! thank goodness for the spirit in hitting goals. Though some of our numbers are SO hilarious. they're a little ridiculous.  The funny thing with most of our investigators is that we've fellowshipped them with members and so we don't call them to come to church anymore. either the member will call them to get them a ride, or they'll call the member to get them a ride. :D that's the best part of missionary work. that's when you know that the members will help them stay active when they're baptized. hahaha.

 

well, I love you all, and hope you all haver the happiest time in the world because I am!

 

Love

 

Elder Chen

 

ps. I hit my year mark on the 3 of August. :P hahahaha YEH! I IS OLD!