A rough week

Dear Family,

Well, that's exciting about Ethan! He's a cute little baby.

We went to the San Diego temple for the first time today. It was really cool, and I liked it a lot. It was great to actually get to go inside this time; it was a little surreal to be at the same place we traveled to see donald's wedding, though. The temple was very peaceful and I feel spiritually renewed.

Which was kind of needed; we had a kind of tough couple of days. First of all, the baptism is off. Sister Ma called us on saturday and said that her husband isn't letting her be baptized, and she didn't come to church. So we're hoping she still has the desire and that we can work towards it, but for now, it's not happening.

One of our potential investigators, the ukrainian kid named Daniel got yelled at by his mom in russian when we were there last. We invited him to come to the Turkey Bowl (a thanksgiving morning football game) and he wanted to come - and he wanted to bring a friend! So I showed up with an exchange to give him a ride, and they were all ready to go, and his mom freaked out yelling in russian and stuff and wouldn't let him go, and kind of shut the door on us. And we were all ready to play football too, no tags, no suits, no ties, nothing. But, from what we know, she's 7th day adventist and pretty opposed to us. But Daniel still wants to meet with us, so we've arranged a meeting in his neighbors' the Rogers apartment and hopefully that will go well.

Remember the chinese kid Kai that I met tracting and gave a book of mormon and his mom has read about half of it? Well, get this, HE is the friend that daniel was going to bring to football. Crazy, huh. None of us knew the others knew eachother. So it's really too bad that his mom is such a hindrance. That would have been great to have both of our youth contacts come to an activity.

Sunday, I called diamond to invite her to a fireside and she flat-out dropped us and we don't know why. That's sad and we were kind of upset about the insult added to injury after the other setbacks to the work we had, but everyone has their agency.

Okay, about investigator status, since Mom asked:

An investigator is someone that officially:

1- You have taught a lesson to, extended commitments to, and have a solid return appointment for them.

However, often we get stood up on the follow-up appointments, so we don't count them as an investigator until that appointment happens. But you can also count:

2- Those who have accepted an invitation to hear the lessons, and you've taught them once, and they're positive enough that you feel you can count them.

Someone being nice and letting you come in and talk to them about the gospel once in a while isn't good enough to be counted as an investigator, unless they start following through with some commitments.

We got 2 new investigators this week. One was Brother Bradshaw's neighbor Quay, and we taught him again and set up another appointment. Another was Wu Lai because I stopped by with an exchange and he let me teach him (we've had 2-3 stop by lessons before) and I committed him to be baptized when he felt it was true.

So, despite the setbacks this week, we do still have hope, and we are still working hard.

Thanksgiving was fun; we had it with the Ng's and Emily for lunch and our ward mission leader Bro. Welch for dinner.

When we taught emily yesterday, I think we made some real progress. She recognized that she was feeling the spirit, and we taught some good principles.

Rick Marx is also making good progress. We gave him a blessing for his ankle on friday and talked for a while, and I think he's getting closer.

We still have some MIA investigators, Wa Suddeth and Jessica Yan. When they get back from china, we hope to teach them again.

I might be getting transferred next week, or Elkington might. He has 2 transfers left, and they'll probably want to give Gibbons a turn with him.

That's awesome that Carol and John got a mission call to new zealand. Didn't Nate Jones from CV4 just get called there too?

Well, I need to get going. Thanks for the letters. I love you all,

Love,

Elder Myers

Some new contacts

Dear Family,

So, what has happened this week? Well, Diamond "Tanya" Young is now a new investigator, and we met with her again, and she accepted our invitation to teach her the gospel. So, we'll see how she progresses, but we're hoping that we can bring her into the church. We have a lot of people with really really high potential for becoming investigators too, so we're still working on them and any day now they could start. We took a finding faith in christ dvd to one of them, Wu Lai, for his birthday. He's been really busy so unable to make appointments with us, but his job was a temporary job with Katrina relief, and since the disaster's over, his job is ending too. So this week we should be able to start meeting with him. He accepted a challenge I gave him to read the book of mormon 10 minutes a day, and he is pretty open.

Emily isn't progressing too much. She's still in that kind of sign-mongering mindset and we can't break it, so we've kind of pulled back on the reigns and are just going to take it slowly, teaching lessons every week to strengthen her testimony for as long as we need to.

One time this week, I was on exchanges with Brother Bradshaw in our ward, and he had a taiwanese neighbor, so we went to the house, and I invited Mr Chan to hear the gospel. And he accepted. So we had a discussion with him on saturday, and have another one next saturday. I don't know how interested he is, but we're sharing the lessons. And why did Mr. Chan accept? Cause he had seen that Brother Bradshaw was a good guy, so his church couldn't be bad. So, remember, your good examples of who you are can open opportunities to sharing the gospel.

Mrs. Ma is still right on track to be baptized on lisa's birthday (December 4). She is awesome. It will be my first baptism of the mission.

I have also been learning a lot of chinese reading and writing. I have been using some flash cards that the mission office sent us, and now I can read at least 500 commonly used characters. So that's helpful. I can probably understand about 70% of the words in the book of mormon.

Anyway, other than that, not much has happened this week. There seems to have been a larger than usual number of cancelled appointments this week. That was disappointing, but we're still pressing forward and working hard.

Thanks for writing this week. I hope you all stay safe and have a wonderful holiday.

Love,
Elder Myers

Hagoth, the van

Hi Family,

I am glad that you are trying to be a missionary family. You know, those are the kinds of families that missionaries like best. Remember, you can invite anybody to hear the gospel. Teachers, hairdressers, neighbors, the clerk at the bank, whatever. Yesterday, president garner told me, and told me to tell the members, people you know best aren't always the ones the lord has prepared to hear the gospel. Also, success in missionary member work isn't measured by baptisms, it's measured by how many invitations you make. If you're talking about the gospel, then you're doing your job and the lord can step in in ways you don't know.

This week has been a very good missionary week. VERY good. First of all, I should mention that emily's baptismal date came and went without a baptism. She's just not sure yet, she needs more of a testimony. But she is developing a desire to know. So she's still on the right path. she invited Elder Elkington and I out to dinner with her and her son tonight, so we are looking forward to that.

On wednesday, we got an awesome referral in San Clemente in orange county - over an hour north of here. So we drove up there and taught a first discussion in chinese with a couple members there, it was well-received, and we made a follow-up appointment from saturday. Her name is Wa Suddeth and she has a masters in art and two teenage sons. She has heard some of the lessons in english and come to church about 6-7 times, but they decided it would be best if she was taught in chinese, so we were happy to go up there. On saturday, though, she had forgot about it and was in LA, so we had to cancel it. She is taking a trip to china with her family this week, so we will meet with her again soon. But there was a wonderful spirit in the lesson, and one of the members present, Sister Ryan (who is chinese) was crying. Even though we got stood up, we still feel that Wa is a very serious investigator and we're happy to be teaching her.

Lisa, remember Mrs. Ma? Well, guess what? She's getting baptized! On your birthday! Yep, last night, we taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ - faith, repentence, baptism, and the holy ghost. And then she told us that she wanted to be baptized. That was the easiest baptismal commitment ever. So, in my broken chinese, I said "Wo xiang san ge xingqi shi hao de. shier yue si hao hao bu hao?" Which means "I think 3 weeks is good. How about december 4th?" She accepted, and this is a very solid date, so we are very excited.

In the fun department, we christened our minivan on saturday. Elkington and I bought 3 jones sodas: one for me, one for elkington, and one for the van. We poured it on him and named him Hagoth, named after the great shipbuilder in the book of mormon. Then we washed the car at the carwash.

Every couple saturdays we have a free carwash at the stake center. And we get some referrals from it. Elkington and I got 3 in our area of people who were interested to hear about it. And then, some sisters in del mar called us with a referral from a carwash there.

This woman's name was Tanya Young. We had her address and phone number, and I decided to stop by and visit her and see her level of interest on exchanges. So we drive to the address, and find that it's an apartment building, and that we don't have an apartment number. So, I use my exchange's cell phone and call the number - busy. So we know she's home, and I decide that we should tract the apartment. So we do, and meet all sorts of people, none of them americans. We found this one ukrainian kid who seemed sort of interested and I gave him a book of mormon and invited him to church. And then we knock on this door, where we hear somebody talking on the phone. She calls "who's there?" and I reply "the missionaries." She says "hang on."

Now, usually, that's not the reply we get to "it's the missionaries." It was obviously somebody kind of interested, and we found out that it was Tanya, who we were looking for. She had one of her friends answer the door, though, cause she was on the phone using long distance. We left our number and wrote down the apt number so that we could return later.

And yesterday, Elkington and I did return. When we got to the door, she was in tears, sobbing. We arrived at a moment when she was completely overwhelmed by the world because of some situations which she explained and we knew that it wasn't a coincidence that we showed up at that time. So we came in and talked and shared some scriptures of comfort and prayed with her. It was a really great experience and we have a return appointment. I feel like we had been guided to choose to visit her at that time so that we could be God's way of comforting her and guiding her. We have a return appointment tomorrow and are going to introduce her to some of her neighbors who are members. We also invited her to church. So, that's a great referral that we got, all from a car wash.

We actually got 7 referrals last week - an enormous amount compared to how many missionaries usually get. We have been very busy this week, and haven't had to spend much time at all tracting. It is good to be busy. Even though tracting feels like missionary work, it's much better to be doing the real missionary work, working with people.

I want you all to know that I have a testimony that what we're doing, you included since you're member missionaries, is true, and that it really helps people. The church is true and it is God's way of blessing the lives of those who draw near to him.

Have a great week,
Love,
Elder Myers

Lots of investigators

Hi Family,

Well, I don't know if you sent a letter last week, cause I didn't get one today. So I don't have too much to respond to.

Thank you for your prayers and fasting for Emily. I'm not sure that she'll be baptized this week, which is unfortunate, but she is still making progress. She fasted and prayed for an answer too. On saturday night, to start her fast, I went over to her house with my exchange for the evening, Brother Manning. We just answered a few questions she had, then had a prayer circle, where we would each say a prayer in turn, around the circle several times, in hopes that we could feel the spirit and have a confirmation. Afterwards, after some silence, I asked her how she felt, and she felt happy, peaceful, and she said it was almost like a voice told her "don't worry, it's okay." She definitely felt the peaceful comfort of the spirit. But it's so new to her, and so she's still not sure if that is her answer. So she needs to still spend some more time in the scriptures and pondering and praying. But she's doing great on all the commandments; we've taught her everything, and she's living it. She just feels she needs faith or else baptism is meaningless.

We have been getting to know her son too, through playing tennis. Elder Elkington is good at tennis, and Steven is really into it, so we've gone over there twice now, and I discuss the gospel with Emily while Elkington plays tennis with Steven. We're going out to dinner with them next week to get to know steven better. So maybe we can start teaching him the gospel too; his mom is a good example to him.

Tonight, we are having dinner with another investigator family, the Forkuses. The father, Rod, is a member, but has been inactive since childhood. But they are very open to us, very kind, and somewhat interested in educating their children in the church, so we are meeting with them weekly. So, dinner tonight will be a good step. The relationship of trust with the missionaries is really a big part; they won't even listen to what you have to say otherwise.

Mrs Ma, the elder Groberg referral, is doing excellent. I taught the second lesson without a hitch, except for my not-quite-good enough chinese. Elder Elkington had an exchange he had to go with, so I taught the whole plan of salvation in chinese myself. It was hard, but the spirit was still there, and Mrs. Ma is awesome. She's been reading so much and is accepting of everything and understands it. She is so ready for the gospel; I just wish I was better at communicating it.

We were dropped by one of our potential investigators, Ling Cao. She was very nice about it, but is too entrenched in the baptist church.

Isnt' it sad when people can't convert to the true church because they're friends with a pastor?

Our english investigator Rick Marx... I don't know if I've talked about him before. An active member, a ward missionary, with a son on a mission, just married him. So, of course he's investigating, perhaps to keep his wife happy with the show that he's "trying." We had invited to him to a baptism on friday so we could meet with him, and then he didn't show up. It was only later that we found out it was because he had heart problems, and had to rush into the hospital for surgery.

And I think this has caused a real change of heart for him, no pun intended. It injected a real dose of perspective into his life about what is really important. And he saw that the people in the church really did care about him, many of his friends were genuinely concerned and stopped by to visit him. So he says he thinks he's getting closer to joining the church. And thus we see God sometimes lets "bad" things happen to us in order to bring about his good purposes.

Yesterday, we helped a recent convert Gwen with her yard. She is studying very hard and I think she will be a great member; her heart and actions are very much in the right place. We also taught Emily again yesterday - well, we let the Prophet and Apostles do that. We watched Special Witnesses of Christ with her, and it was very good. I think. I couldn't understand all of it.

Here's a good holiday missionary opportunity- ask the sisters about getting Joy to the World cards or dvds and giving them to the neighbors. It's a good christmas video.

Also, mom, you and michelle could go on exchanges with the sisters. I think you would like that. That way they could do twice as much work, and you would both get missionary opportunities. Michelle would get to go on appointments with them. Michelle sounds like she is doing excellent in the gospel, not only sharing it, but applying it to herself. I'm really proud of her.

That's great that you are going to utah for thanksgiving, and it's really cool that you are going to meet up with Summer. We are going to Sister Ng's house with Emily's family for thanksgiving. Maybe we'll even invite Mrs. Ma too.

Make sure to tell Julie congratulations for me. Can you send me her address? Or better yet, tell HER to send me her address, that way I will get a bit more mail.

I got a lot of good mail from the mission office today, including 1500 flash cards from taiwan. However, non-mission mail was kind of sparse, I only got letters from Grandma and grandpa, and Jen Price. So make sure you're writing.

Well, I have to go, but have a great week. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

The Gospel is for both the sober and drunk

Dear Family,

Thank you for your prayers and fasting for Emily. She has progressed a bit this week; we are trying to find ways to help her strengthen her faith and her testimony. And, other good news, the church is really helping a lot in her husband's job search. I am sure that fasting and prayers will help, and hopefully she can meet her goal to be baptized by the 13th.

The new car looks nice; Michelle can count on some major arguments on who gets to drive it at college. It would be easier if we were both going to the same college :P.

Sounds like you put Grandpa to good work doing chores around the house. Did they have fun there?

What ward is Donald in? What part of San Diego does he live in? If you talk to him, ask him if he knows any Chinese people.

Yesterday for halloween, in the morning we had zone conference. We worked in the afternoon, looking for our potential investigators. But on halloween night, we are not allowed to be out; it's a really bad proselyting time, especially since we might get egged or something, so we had an evening study with President Northcutt that was very good. He's the best stake president I've ever heard of; he takes so much time out of his schedule to be with the missionaries, and it's really cool. We studied with him again this morning, as we do every p-day.

So, I guess I better back up to earlier on this week. Tuesday, I was kind of peer pressured into letting another missionary cut my hair because, hey, it's free. And to make a long story short, that'll never happen again. The guard came off, making big problems, and now I have very very little hair.

This week we spent a lot of time getting acquainted with the new ward. We met with the ward mission leader, brother Welch, who is awesome on tuesday, and Bishop Ellsworth on wednesday. We also went to a lot of entries on the Potential Investigators list, seeing how much potential they actually have. There aren't really a lot of hot ones, but we do have appointments with a few.

On thursday we did service again at the San Diego food bank in the Salvage area. It was not nearly as bad as last week, when there were flies over everything, there was rotting stuff, and it smelled like poop. This week, it was cookies, crackers, and cereal in damaged boxes. We went through them, made sure that the inside bags weren't damaged or opened, and then taped up the boxes. It was fun.

On saturday, we volunteered for a really big community event, the Carmel Mountain High School tournament of bands, where about 20 big marching bands from the San Diego area came. It was kind of like the marching band tournaments I did in 10th grade. We were security in charge of directing the buses into the parking lot, and making sure private vehicles didn't get into the parking lot unless they had a pass. That was a pretty fun job too, and we were very visible as missionaries. A lot of the band kids waved at us or said hi, which probably could have opened up some missionary opportunities.

Of the two potential appointments that we set last week, one held and one fell through. We met with Ling Cao... she's not tremendously interested in joining the church or anything right now, but she's letting us come back which does indicate some desire. One of her friends seems somewhat interested too. I think the lesson we taught was pretty good, it had the spirit, and so we're going to keep working with her.

Wu Lai, who we were excited about last time, got hung up at work, so wasn't able to make the appointment. But we have a rescheduling later this week, so we're still hoping on him.

Sunday I was at church from about 7 in the morning to 8 at night, which was pretty long. I was waiting around studying while Elder Elkington was on base, and then our meetings started at noon. Oh well, at least I got a lot of study in. I'm almost on page 600 in the old testament; I've been reading the whole thing.

On Sunday, as we were teaching Mrs. Ma, there was a fireside going on in the chapel, and a lady came in to grab Elder Elkington because a man had just walked in off the street to see what was going on, and so Elder Elkingtong went out and sat with him in the fireside and taught him a bit. So, I was in teaching Mrs. Ma by myself (not by myself, because I had ward missionaries with me too) in chinese, and that was a cool experience. Afterwards, I was able to meet Elkington's new contact. His name is Nicholas and he really liked the church and was very interested. He was a little weird though, and I later found out that it was because he was a little drunk. But we offered to meet with him, he said he'd love to, and we set up an appointment for 3:30 yesterday at the church. He didn't show up, so we went to the address he gave us. He wasn't there, but his stepfather told us that nicholas is pretty much a homeless drunk who stays there when he wants to, and that he needs help, and is going into a lockdown therapy today. So, that was a pretty weird little episode. I hope he's okay though, he was nice and if he can turn his life around, he would be a good member. The gospel is for everyone, for the solid happy families as well as the lost transient souls of the world.

Well, I'm out of time. Have a great week. Thanks for writing. Love you all.
Love,
Elder Myers