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