Transferred to Concord as senior companion!!! (Feb 18,2013)

Glad Aunt Qi will go to Hong Kong. :) So many of my companions are from Hong Kong. :)

So is Lao3yi2fu getting baptized soon? :) Hey, they can be eternal family!

So this week has been crazy since Saturday night. The past saturday night was transfers week. We almost forgot. Well, I'm leaving San Francisco Chinese. And I'm going to Concord. Concord 1st ward. All I know is that it's on the other side of the Bay, and it's really warm, and I'm gonna speak English. My new companion will be Sister Boac, from Philippines. I've seen her before. She was in Tagalog speaking here in San Francisco, so we know each other, but it was just such a surprise. I mean I kind of thought I was leaving since I feel like I've done what I can for the area, but never expected to go so far away inland and away from the VC.

Oh, I forgot to mention. Besides being in a new area, I'll also be the senior companion, which is like a BIG change for me. Feel a little inadequate at the time. Thought about the new change all night, had a little hard time sleeping well. But then on Sunday, it was a great spirit booster. First of all, read the introduction to the Book of Mormon, and how Joseph Smith was receiving instruction all night when Moroni was telling him about the plates, and he received instruction every year for about four years before he actually got them. I saw that earlier I had written in the margin, "The Lord qualifies whom He calls". Felt a little better, I know He'll definitely provide some instruction as I stay in that area. Second of all, I heard in sacrament meeting, at different times during the meeting, great reminders that the Spirit is there to help and that we are loved and taken care of. :) Yep, so I slept pretty good last night.

Almost packed everything. Have to stuff it :) Surprising how much stuff you accumulate. Food. Really want to take all my food, since I'm going to a place with no Chinatown, but that's ok.

Really showered with lots of meal appointments since Sunday. Sunday, after everyone knew I was going. Sister Zhao invited me to her house for dinner. We ate lunch today with the Wongs (Aaron and Jade), and have dinner tonight with the YSAs of the ward. Caos wanted to also but the day was filled. :) Feel so loved. Sister Cao got really emotional too. She gave me some pineapple snacks she made. Wow. Such an awesome branch. Such awesome people.

This week also saw the miracle of another new investigator. One of our appointments didn't show up. (Actually. we had 3 lessons planned but did not show up) But after waiting for a while, a lady just came in asked us to help her with a letter, she can't read English. We helped her and offered her to know more about the gospel and taught her a lesson. She had no belief in God but is curious to know, so we are teaching her now. Every opportunity is a chance to share the gospel. :) Because nearly all our appointment didn't show up, we were blessed with another lesson that night with teaching an investigator who we haven't been in contact for a week. She decided to come to someone else's lesson so we had two lessons instead of one in that hour. :) Lord makes up for what we lose.

Also had another miracle finding. A recent convert suddenly decided to bring a friend. He wants to know everything. He was will to take the spiritual and intellectual. He asked great questions. And he started bringing friends to activity, church, and our lessons already. We only met him four days ago. Golden. :)

Oh, and we had branch chinese new year party. We did a song. We sang long2 de chuan2ren2 with lyrics from Armies of Helaman (the primary song) it was fun. Elder Davidson (sun2 zhang3lao3) and Elder Guan did the beat with the table. :) It was fun. Lots of new people came.

Um...that's about it. So, next week, you'll hear me from Concord.

Half of Mission Day (Feb 9, 2013)

Happy Chinese New Year!! :)  We almost forgot about the day, but the members were so nice and made it hard to forget. A lot of people gave us red envelope, I refused two of them before the zone leaders said we can take them. Aaron and Jade was going to invite us over for dinner Saturday night, but we had another dinner appointment. We ate sunday lunch at another member's house, had dumplings and lots of good stuff. Quite content. It feels more like new year here.

 

It's halfway through mission day this Saturday. Feel like it's going through really fast. Not much happened this week that's unusual, except it's Chinese New Year. Because of that, most of the people are busy and we've had a less busy week than usual. Next week should pick it up though.

 

Had exchanges this week. I got to teach Cantonese-speaking people all by myself, cuz the sister trainer doesn't speak Chinese. It was a little creepy, but I got by alright. I mean, she understood me, I half understood her, and we had laughs and read scriptures and talked and everything. So, not too bad. Cantonese people have different accents too, so some times it's hard to understand them.

 

We had zone conference this week, so there was about 80 missionaries all gathered together to learn. We got to know a lot of cool things. It was almost completely focused on finding people to teach, focusing on members. Because the increase of missionaries, the church is really asking members to step up their missionary work and to prepare and bring their friends to meet with missionaries, so we got trained on how to invite members to do this. President Meredith said there is about 200 missionaries who will be temporarily placed in and around our mission while waiting for their visas in a few weeks (our mission only has about 200 missionaries). The church bought two large apartment complexes in Provo near the MTC because the MTC doesn't fit all the missioanries any more. The Tuesday devotionals we usually have in the MTC gym is now moved to the Marriot Center at BYU, which is where basketball games happen, cuz it's so much larger. We were so awed that the work is moving forward so fast. At stake conference last week they said the number of missionaries have doubled, so amazing.

 

We are getting another Chinese speaking sister in the mission. She is Amercian, we think, cuz of her name, but then she could be like me, have an American last name but do know how to speak Chinese. Don't know if she'll come to San Francisco Chinese or Oakland Chinese, but it's cool :)

 

President told us one thing, we build the house of success by laying a foundation of testimony and faith, and the pillars of obedience, attitude, work, and knowledge/skills. One thing that president said really stood out. He said (president Hinckley said too) that a successful missionary smiles, smiles, and smiles. :) Trying to be more happy, at least let others see it. As they say, if you aren't happy, why would they listen to something you say will make you happy?

 

Also, he said, the Lord has spent so long preparing for his children to receive the gospel, if we don't show Him that we are good missionaries, why would he trust his children to us? Wow. So cool. We are all really stepping up and do more.

 

Also this week, read a talk by President Ezra Taft Benson, it's called Beware of Pride. It was such a powerful talk. should read it when you get a chance. It just hits you on the head that there is so much we can all improve on.

 

Anyway, quite a spiritual week, so awesome :)

Birthday Girl !! (Feb 2, 2013 )

So birthday was super awesome. First of all, I got my Mom's package! :) With good food and cute necklaces and all these other things :) I really liked the purse post-it. Baklava, I really really liked. I'm so happy. Haven't had those for ages. How did you know?   And then of course there was the card :) made me happy

We can't listen to Book on tapes beside four books: Our Search for Happiness, Jesus the Christ, Our Heritage, and True to the Faith. So, eeps. I sent it back today with all the clothes, so you can return it. Thanks though!

Got a card from Steph and Jason and kids. Cute.

Got a drumstick chopstick from Ems, Brookie, Olivy, and Cam. Along with the cards. So happy. Such a special gift, very thoughtful of them.

Sister Chan made breakfast for me--smiley face soup, I call it :) She took me out for lunch. We ate fried food, yep :) For dinner, we were just gonna go to a member's house. She was super nice. Apparently they had planned a surprise for me. Everyone had told me they couldn't come but they all ended up coming :) One member bought cake, most everyone made some dishes, most everyone gave presents too. They all put it in this big box with lots of papers which Sister Chan called sciptures and took out and read them :) (there was nonmembers there...such a awesome missionary for companion). Got chocolates, a big car drawing with my name on the license plate, lots of tissues, ha, so special :) Was quite surprised and happy. Another member bought a shou4 tao2 for us. haha! It was just a day full of surprises and happy. But we did do our missionary stuff too. We taught lessons during the party (off in another room) and talked to potential investigators. it was fun. Good good day. 

Well, so beside my birthday. We've got some pretty exciting developments here this week.

We've been teaching two of our investigators for weeks. They've never accepted baptism before. But this week, for some reason, they just clicked. Both of them said they want to be baptized before we even invited them. Another one of our new investigators did the same thing. So now, we have a awesomely amazing number of 7 baptismal dates, all within these two months. Really wowed!

We got so much food this week that our fridge is full. Members are so awesome!

Moon, our RC, is preparing to go to the temple. Many of our other recent converts are preparing to receive their patriarchal blessings. Brother Wang is going to speak at a stake-wide fireside that will be focused on why they join the church. He is also getting a calling and everything. Just so happy for all of them. Every investigator is got their own obstacles but the are all going forward so well!

This week I was reading a thing about prophets. It's quite amazing. We've taught the same topic this week. It's so good to have living prophets. Sometimes I think we take it for granted, but really it means so much. A quote said that he wished everyone knew how important prophets are, and he wish we would listen to the prophet because he is the one who is closest to the fountain of living waters. The article also gave a lot of examples of early pioneers of how some listened and others didn't listen to the prophet. It was a sad case to read about someone with a strong testimony falling away because of some little thing like a misspelled name. But then it mentioned how others were strong because of their conversion was based on witness of the holy ghost, not because of miracles. So anyway, I don't know why I'm typing this, but that's what I learned most this week.

Aye, happy week. :)