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| This is the Light Rail station in Town Center. |
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| My favorite canned meat (not too many contestants there). |
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| The entrance to our building. |
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So this week had some pretty cool experiences. Our investigator A Sing was not ready to be baptized this week, which was also a bit discouraging. We had a pretty massive 2 hour lesson with him on Wednesday (combination of him liking to discuss things and me being super nervous for it and preparing too much.) He really hasn't been developing the habits and spiritual patterns that he needs to have a more firm testimony, and he wasn't willing to fast with us yet, because he's still more worried about how his family will feel about stuff more that how God will. But it was inspiring to see how the ward came to support him. There were perhaps 10 ward members who fasted with us for him. This ward is really great. I feel that he's still got good potential, but he just really needs to actually get consistent and humble about reading and praying. His biggest obstacle is trying to figure out how to tell if an answer is really from God or not, and I think that there's no way to teach that without really helping him get that answer first.
And we've had great success teaching the Chi family, who are relatively new. You recall the guy I mentioned last week who showed up at church and asked when he could be baptized. Well, we were able to teach them 3 times this week, which has been really fun and also a great chance to see the spirit working with people. Mr. Chi has no background, and though his understanding of things is still hard sometimes, he has grown so much in terms of testimony it really is astonishing. Like, the first time we met him he didn't understand that God was a real being, he really thought that it was just some sort of internal motivation (not an uncommon belief here). Then he went to mainland for 2 and a half weeks and somehow by the time he got back, through his own diligence in reading and praying, he totally believed in the existence of God. Now he's just got this amazing desire to learn. And his wife is doing great too. We visited Sunday morning and at first, they weren't planning on coming to Church. Then his daughter almost threw a fit because she loves church, and then a member helped get them all there. Amazing family.
I see your email has arrived, I will answer it now. It's going strong over here. Keep up the work back home.
莫金壽謙 長老 (that second and third character should be connected closer together but the computer can't tell when I write it...)
Dang, this was a heavy email. (Editor note: David crashed our kid car in a church parking lot a week ago. John makes several references to that event.)
Abby,
I can see you being a crazy orchestra conductor some day. You'd get upset at everyone being too mechanical and yell "All right, if you’re going to play like that, everyone close your eyes!" And then you'd tell them to "Bend!"
You'd love the family that we're teaching. The daughter is 7 and had just woken up on Sunday when we visited them. Then when we started talking about church, she randomly disappeared, then came back in a princess costume and demanded to go to church.
Becca,
Here and I thought we had 'the connection' because we're both blond and both like reading. And now it's just this "Sorry, you've been gone too long, my love for you expired. It got all stale, and there wasn't enough room in the pantry with all this new classmate love I have to fit in there, so I threw it out. Hope you don't mind." Yeah, that doesn't hurt.
David,
Oh David david david. At least no one was hurt. I'm sure everyone's told you already, but you know that if someone had been there they might have seriously been injured. But that's what mortal life is about. The important thing is that now that you've proved definitively that it's a bad idea, don't do it again. At least you weren't underage driving the same time (hint hint Dad). What weapons did you have for the invisible game?
Keep up hope, and do good works continually.
Joseph,
I feel that I can really sympathize. On my mission I've worked pretty hard on getting good habits and use of time in the evening and morning, because we only have that little time to do whatever we want. Now a days if I have to do numbers late or if we are teaching a lesson and get back late, and don't get my evening schedule done well, it's frustrating. There is a big power that comes from disciplined living; I think you've figured that out a lot faster than I did.
I remember going to the chess tournaments and feeling like the whole world was a big chess board, and needing like a day to get out of it. I recall physics being similar, but even more exalted. I guess missions are even more so.
Mom,
I suppose me missing the Regents Scholarship deadline was good practice for this.
I feel that I learned something about parenting this week. An RC called us randomly and talked about how her 8 year old son had lied about something and had a big problem come out of it, and how she really worried because he was very consistently dishonest. We talked for a while, and as I shared a couple gospel principles that I felt might help her, I sort of had a parenthood epiphany, which was about how to be a real successful parent you have to put yourself aside in a big way. You have to lay aside feelings of selfishness and justification, and be willing to totally forgive. It was a very strong impression because this lady was really struggling with that. I think it's cool because it sounds like that's exactly what you did this week. Thanks for being such a great mom to me. I love you!
Dad,
I had some dream last night that I ran across a street and got ticketed by an officer, then somehow drove across a street right after and got arrested, and I was super upset at what it would do to my mission. Coincidence? Probably.
Our other investigators are pretty busy and we haven't been able to teach them for a while. I feel that I am not the best at keeping track of and maintaining so many people, like I should call or schedule more consistently. But it's a learning process, I suppose. I had two times on Saturday where we were walking and I had a small feeling to go somewhere or talk to someone and we found some really golden people. Pretty cool.
Anyway, love you all! I'll try to send some photos.
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