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