Hard work pays off

January 24, 2006
Dear Family,

Well, this week has been a great week, and a very hard week. I got the flu this week, and we also worked harder than perhaps we ever have before. We asked 67 people for referrals, and we did 20 hours of finding, which is far beyond our weekly records so far. We found 3 new english students, got several referrals, and got 2 new investigators. So let me tell you about it.

Last Tuesday was transfers. We got a new roommate, Elder Tree. He is a fine missionary, and easy to get along with as a roommate. That's definitely a blessing. We also gave part of our P-day up to go down to Serra Mesa (pretty near where uncle Donald lives) and teach English to a nice Chinese lady named Grace who we met while we were giving out the Chinese fliers to one of the restaurants. We scheduled a weekly Tuesday visit with her, but last night she called us and said that she all the sudden went to LA and she might not ever come back. We sure hope she does - especially since she had us buy an English book for her. She gave us the money in advance, so maybe we'll just have to ship it out to her in LA. We will definitely, once we figure out what's going on, try to get the missionaries up there over to her place.

One other English student that has resulted from the fliers happened like this-- We got a message from an American saying that his mother in law is Chinese wants to learn English and she had a flier that said we taught it. So we're arranging times to come teach her English lessons too. The thing with Chinese people here is that they work A LOT. They do not have much free time - usually one free day from work a week - and that free time usually doesn't line up with our Saturday English Class. So, we do a lot of private English lessons. But, as people learn who we are, what we represent, and accept our invitations to come to church and hear the gospel, the time we spend teaching English will pay off.

Oh, today we got some sweet new name tags that we ordered a couple months ago from the Hong Kong mission. They have our English name and the name of the church in English on the left, and then our Chinese name and Chinese name of the church on the right. It's very cool.
On Thursday, we started using the free bikes that we got from the mission office. They're not very good bikes (mine's purple and has bad brakes) but they help us travel MUCH faster on days we don't have the car. Mira Mesa is a very flat place, which, though it doesn't do much for beautiful scenery, is definitely a plus from the seat of a bike.

That night on exchanges, I went with Brother Harrison to visit a lady in our ward that we felt we should visit, and it turned out that us showing up was an answer to her prayers: she had been wanting someone to come, but she didn't have the courage to ask her home teacher or anyone else to come. She has a lot of health problems right now and we gave her a blessing and the spirit was strong. It was cool.

On Friday night, we went over to Jennifer and Henry's house. Henry mentioned that he'd read the book I'd given him. Not the whole thing yet, but he brought it to me and told me what he'd read, and then we read some more together. We got up through 3rd Nephi. He has since finished it. At that same time, Elder Jensen worked on talking to Jennifer and, miraculously, a brand new immigrant from China who is staying with them as she looks for an apartment. She is a doctor and her English is very good - in theory- but she needs practice. So he invited her to English class and she came. During English class, each missionary took a student and had some one-on-one practice (all in the same room). I was with the new lady, min-lin was her name. We spoke in English and practiced phone conversations, and eventually got into a discussion about missionaries and our religion. She seemed receptive and we invited her to church but she said she had some other plans. But she has some potential. Also we invited Jennifer and Henry, but they also didn't come for some or other reason. But we keep working with them. We took Ronald and his son Calvin over there on Sunday before church to introduce them and try to get them to come to church, but it didn't work. Oh well, maybe next week. Now that they're introduced, we're going to try to have a family home evening/lesson at a member's house with Ronald's family; maybe Ronald’s house, even.

We have gone down to UCSD (The hugest campus I've ever seen) twice in the last few days to try to contact the referral we have down there. He hasn't been home. The second time I went with an exchange and we decided that we weren't going to make an entire trip in vain, so we started tracting. College dorms- now that's a way to get a LOT of doors opened in a short period of time. That's also a good way to find an RA who politely kicks you out, asking you to get express permission first. So we'll have to make some phone calls before we go door-to-door tracting there again.

On Sunday, a potential investigator came to church again and we taught her, moving her into investigator status. Hooray. Elder Jensen spent his night with his exchange mingling and asking for referrals after a huge temple worker fireside. They figured that 1000 very active members from all over the county was a good crowd to ask about Chinese referrals. He seems to have gotten a few good leads, and he gave a lot of Chinese New Year fliers out.

Yesterday we had Zone Conference. Zone conference is always great, but special about this one was that we got these new awesome pamphlets from the church to go along with the missionary lessons.

Yesterday afternoon, I went on exchanges with Elder Elkington down in our English ward, tracting for a couple hours. At the end of our time, we knocked on this door where a lady told us to come back in half an hour because she was taking a nap but she really wants to hear what we have to say. So, we exchanged back up to our regular companions, and then I went back with Elder Jensen. She invited us right in, and then started crying. She opened up to us about how she felt that she had drifted away from God and explained some of her problems. We taught her the message of the restoration in such a beautiful spiritual way that seemed to apply to her like we had never taught before. And we left her with the awesome pamphlet for her to read and study before our return visit on Friday. So, Darla is a new investigator, and we are very happy about what happened yesterday. I'm still a little cautious though, because of what happened with Diamond up in Penasquitos, where we saw the entire Nephite pride cycle happen within about a week. If they don't truly convert and commit while they're humble, as soon as they get their feet under them again, they forget all about God again.

Well, I have exceeded my time, so I had better go. I love you all. Have a great week; thank you for the letters, the stamps, and the gift of a month of money for my mission. I appreciate it very much.

Love,
Elder Myers

Caveman Dinner

Hi Everybody,

We've heard about that raining streak down here; I can't imagine it raining for a month straight. It only rains once every two weeks here - on the days we do car washes. That's interesting that you have to go clear out what the beavers have put in. Maybe you need to just go beaver hunting.

So, this week has been pretty good. We've been keeping track of how many referrals we ask for every week, and this week we got up to 50, the most we've done. We got 3 referrals total, and one of them seems to be a pretty good one, so we're hoping something comes of that.

We also took a few hundred english class flyers to a very asian part of town and asked every chinese store we could find (before we ran out of fliers) if we could place fliers in their store. All stores but 2 were very accomodating and allowed us to put them in a good place. Some even put them right next to the register.

We've gotten one call from a lady who wants to learn english who we are going to meet today. Hopefully we continue to find interested people; many people who get to know us are usually very open to hearing the gospel. That's not only true for missionaries, but any member of the church.

Today was transfers, and my roomate Elder Harty is going home. It's been pretty interesting to see him in the last few days of his mission. Tonight he sleeps at the mission home, and tomorrow he goes home to North Carolina. He was a good missionary, and it's sad to see him go. I'll meet my new roomate later today. Elkington goes home in just 6 weeks now.

Yesterday, we had a Caveman Dinner to send Elder Harty off. It was the chinese missionaries, Elder Harty, and Elder Vance. We covered the table with plastic, poured pasta and sauce on the table, and ate it with our hands. Then we emptied a bucket of ice cream on the table, poured chocolate chips, chocolate syrup, and caramel all over it, and ate it with our hands. All the while, we communicated in grunts. It was pretty funny. I didn't really participate that much because I had a bad stomachache yesterday, but it was still funny to watch. I have a picture that I'll have to send you of it.

Our investigator Rita dropped us this week. She has "decided to stay catholic." If only she had read and prayed like we asked her to. She never even came to church.

Did you guys do anything fun for Martin Luther King Jr. Day? We just tracted, but we found a lot of people home.

On wednesday we went to Deseret book to buy things to give to the people we're teaching. We got a copy of The Great Apostasy for Ann, True to the Faith and the Book of Mormon Study Manual for Kris, a recent convert, and the children's Book of Mormon stories book for Henry. Deseret book is right across the highway from the temple, which is always good to be near.

We saw Henry and Jennifer again this week, and the dad Tommy Fu was there too. He bought us pizza. They're a nice family. The dad isn't as interested as the mom or the son, but he is supportive and very nice to us. I gave Henry the childrens version of the Book of Mormon, read through the Tree of Life with him, and committed him to read 2 chapters a day. He prays every day. We're excited about him.

Well, I'm out of time again. Have a great week. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

Hard work is starting to pay off

Dear Family,

Thanks for your letters this week again!

That's really cool that you got to fly with some fresh-out-of-the-MTC missionaries. I'm sure they were very excited. The missionaries I flew with straight out of the mtc had barely been out 3 weeks, and I felt like a grizzled veteran compared to them with my 11 weeks in the mtc. But I feel even older now.

If you hadn't heard from him, I had dinner with Donald and Lolis this week. It was fun and a good dinner. Thank you guys for the snacks you sent, although I must admit, I probably won't be able to eat all of that. Our apartment got swarmed with snacks in christmas, so, in interest of health, I'm only eating my favorites. Thankfully, some of what you sent for christmas falls right under that category.

Now about Jennifer and Henry. Jennifer is a chinese mom from Hainan, which is an island in southern china. Their accent is a bit weird but I usually can understand it okay - unless I really need to; I called them sunday afternoon to invite them to church, and I didn't understand a word they were saying and eventually just shoved the phone to Elder Jensen. Henry is very very interested in the gospel. It's a challenge to keep the answers to his questions pushing us in the direction that the lesson is supposed to be going. He's a very bright kid, though, and he has a good family. I think they have a lot of promise. He reminds his mom to pray. He should be praying about the book of mormon and joseph smith, so I'll let you know if he got an answer to his prayers yet.

Michelle, thanks for sending the pictures. Whenever you have some more, feel free to send them, I love seeing them.

Emily is slowly progressing. she doesn't have a solid baptismal goal yet, but she's good. I sat next to her at church on sunday, she's been coming to the chinese branch for as long as she can - she has to leave about 10 minutes early, but you can tell she really likes it, feels the spirit, and has the desire needed.

Yes, we do leave short spiritual thoughts after dinner with people. We actually shared one a couple weeks ago with a family and challenged them all to place a pass along card. I don't know if the parents did, but the kids did, and told us about it. The kids gave it to their teachers and the teachers weren't offended - they thought it was cool. one said "I totally dig jesus" and the other said that she would definitely get the finding faith in christ video. Cool. So, all you need is a little courage.

On sunday, President Garner spoke in the Mira Mesa 2nd ward (the English ward we cover) about member missionary work. He's a master teacher, and I think his talk should get the members thinking about missionary work. He mentioned 3 keys to member missionary work:

1- Pray for missionary opportunities
2- Be a true friend to your neighbors, work associates, and everyone you know.
3- Help us find people to teach.

He also mentioned again that the success in member missionary work isn't in the baptism - it's in the invitation. He said that in his life, inviting people to share the gospel has resulted in one case, a baptism; in another case, the person didn't want anything to do with it. In which case was he successful? BOTH. He did his part.

Becky, I hope you're putting your ipod to good use, cause if not, I'm gonna steal it when I get home. Have you gotten any new cds lately?

We teach English class every saturday at 11 am at the church. We try to teach applicable conversation things. The topic varies every week; we try to make it less a course, and more an open thing so that anyone can join in the class any time. We only have 3 students right now, so we are pretty focused on their needs.
I haven't gotten my patriarchal blessing yet, but I'm sure it'll come by next week.

I've got something interesting to tell you guys - on thursday we went out to dinner with some chinese investigators to a chinese buffet. And I ate frog legs. Well, only one, but I did. Are you proud of me? It honestly did taste like chicken.

Also the bishop calling has paid off a bit this week - we found some great chinese members who will be perfect fellowshippers. Then the next day, we got a referral for a chinese guy who lives right by one of those perfect chinese members and is the same age and everything. So, getting our name out there is helping us to make the work go more smoothly and everything.

Well, I'm about out of time. I hope all is going well, and that you are all staying healthy. I love you all. Have a great week.

Love,
Elder Myers

January 3, 2006

Dear Family,

I hope you are doing well, and travel back to Seattle safely. Did you have a good new year? What did you do?

I talked to Donald last night on the phone. We are having dinner with him tomorrow night. He helped give us information about other english classes in the area.

We have two new investigators as of last night. They're praying together, and we're happy about how they're doing. It's funny, cause we take the mom to one side of the room and the son to the other side of the room because the mom needs to hear it in Chinese, and the son in English.

Yesterday, we set up a booth and handed out fliers for English class INSIDE the 99 Ranch chinese market. We got permission from the store manager to do it, and we found some interested people, so yesterday was a good day. It was also nice because yesterday it was raining torrentially, and it wouldn't have been very fun to be tracting in that. Though we might have gotten in a couple houses.... Anyway, we are always trying to find new ways to meet new people and find new investigators, so that was good.

Friday night, the Chinese missionaries were all invited to one of our English student Jodi's house for dinner. Elder Elkington and Elder Gibbons couldn't make it, so Jodi told us to bring our roomates. She prepared quite the feast for us, dishes of all sorts of wonderful chinese foods. We ate until we were stuffed, then ate some more. Then we participated in the official favorite pastime of Asia- karaoke. Most of the songs were, shockingly, in Chinese, but we found some English. That was a fun night. Jodi had fun too, and invited us to come back to her house any time. Which, as missionaries, is something we are more than happy to do.

I finished reading the Book of Mormon on Saturday night. I was glad that the prophet gave us that challenge. Did you all finish it too? As I was reading, I got a call from the branch president, asking me to speak in church the next day. So, I wrote my talk in my free time on Sunday and gave it in Sacrament Meeting. It was about 9 minutes, in Chinese and English. I think it was pretty good.

I got your letter from the 22nd today. I'm glad that you guys all keep making the invitations to come to church. Don't ever get discouraged; you're planting seeds in the right direction.

Last week, I got some small letters from the Canyon View 4th ward. Did you know that the heaths used to live in the stake I'm serving in? There's a ton of Chinese people in their old ward's area. We go there all the time. I was also glad to hear about the other missionaries heading out. I bet Nick Hansen is having quite the adventure... whether he's in Zambia or Zimbabwe. They're neighboring countries, anyway. I've heard stories about how hard it is to send packages to third world countries; it kind of makes you glad we have the US postal service, doesn't it?

Well, I'm out of time. I hope you have a good week, stay safe. Love you all. Thanks for the Christmas stuff. And the stuff that Donald's supposedly bringing up for me tomorrow.

Love,
Elder Myers