Last day of 2012 (Dec 31, 2012)

Ashling Stout	4:48 PM (1 hour ago)
to me

 

so crazy that another year passed already. This week, we've been fed and fed. So right now, I think I'm 10 pounds heavier than before my mission.

It was so nice to call you on Monday. Hope you are ok afterwards. :) Make sure to buy a webcam next time though. :)

This week, we have had lots of small miracles, as always. On Thursday, when we were going to English class in downtown to teach someone another pair of missionaries found, Sister Lao saw that a guy was looking at us. She wanted to go and talk to him but there was too many people and he was walking fast. I saw her trying and pretty much gave her a push and so she talked to him. It turned out that he had been to English class before. We invited him to go again. He came that same day. We saw him there and decided we should talk to him about the gospel, so we invited him to learn more right there. And he said yes. We've set another appointment already. He works in Sacramento five days a week but he wants to come to church (which, by the way, doesn't happen very often with people you just meet) So we are happy to have the chance to teach him. Funny how a little flyer or a short conversation can do.

Our mission president changed the standard of excellence (mission goals) for 2013 so we were supposed to have 3 new investigators each week. We're lucky this week to achieve that goal. It is a miracle in itself, cuz we weren't expecting it. :)

We were super stoked though, when our investigator suddenly showed up at church this week. We didn't expect her to come, she should've been working. We usually don't look at our cellphones during sacrament meeting, but for some reason Sister Lao looked, and saw a missed call from her. She was gonna call afterwards but I felt like we should call now. So we sneaked our of announcements time and called her. She was outside trying to find the church building, so we helped her find it and come it. It turned out that her boss decided that day that they were gonna remodel the place, so she had the day off all of a sudden. :) I don't think it's a coincidence.

It's so amazing how wonderful companionships are. It always takes two to have things happen. If Sister Lao didn't want to talk to the guy, or I never push her to go for it, we'd never teach him. If sister Lao didn't check our cellphone for no reason, or if I didn't insist we call now, we'd never have our investigator at church.

On Christmas Day, we went to the Visitor Center ot hear the Sister missionaries' christmas devotional. They are all dressed so well and they sang so well. It's like whole bunch of angels :) Love those people.

Thanks for the gifts, by the way. Sorry I can't send pictures today, will do next week. On X-mas day, we spent our exercise time trying to make C, H, R, I, S, T, M, A, S with our bodies. It was hilarious. We did that and open our presents and eat all within one and half hour, quite proud of us :) Anyway, it was wonderful opening presents from everyone. Justin and Bonnie gave me a notebook (always so useful for missions), got lots of cards, including from Chris and Chelane, Steph Jason and kids... Got a dress from a sister in the ward. And of course your things made me quite happy. We drank hot chocolate with those crackers. It was fun. Already started using the stickers, bookmarks are quite pretty. Robe is so soft, :) love it. Can't remember everything, but it was just all really good :) Sister Lao gave me a card holder, cuz I keep losing my bus pass in my bag among all the stuff that's in there. :) I gave her a book organizer cuz she has a hard time with stacking her books and she has to try to restack everyday, I thought she should just put it all up like a bookshelf. :)

I'm talking a lot for some reason, but anyway. Our less active said he talked to his boss to change his schedule to come to church next week. :) Progress, progress.

We had ward X-mas dinner on Saturday. Us the missionaries performed 12 days of Christmas in Chinese, with slight moderation on the lyrics. Here is a part of it

On the ___ day of Christmas my true love gave to me,

a partridge in a pear tree

two turtle doves

three French hens

four calling birds

five golden rings

six geese a laying

seven swans a swimming

eight maids a milking

nine ladies dancing

ten lords a leaping

eleven pipers piping

twelve drummers drumming

在圣诞第__天我的朋友送给我

一只鸟在梨树上
两只白鸽子
三只法国鸡
四只愤怒鸟
五金戒指

六个鹅下鸡蛋

七个鹅在游泳
八个人喝牛奶
九个女生跳舞
十个疯狂男生

十一个人在吹笛
十二鼓手敲鼓

Anyway, it was really fun. We had so much fun trying to translate the song. We had other crazy ideas, which included making a Christmas-LDS version of 西游记, but we didn't want the members to identify us with the characters. (取经是去取摩而门经) It was just a lot of fun. Our elders are pretty funny.

The mission's yearly tradition is to have a missionary New Year's party where we all gather together to watch movie with our zone. We are doing it tonight, and watching all G or PG movies. One is called Brave, the other is Kong Fu Panda HOlidays.

Hmm...I like Christmas :) But HAPPY NEW YEAR!