Elder Elkington went home, Jessica was baptized

Dear Family,

Well, Elder Elkington went home this week.

And Elder Jensen got transferred up north to vista.

So, Elder Gibbons and I are together, the only two chinese missionaries. We are covering the whole chinese branch and what I had been covering before, Mira Mesa 2nd ward.

Jessica got baptized on Sunday and it was great. After the baptism and confirmation, she told her story and testimony for about half an hour. It was all in chinese, but thankfully, I understood it all. It was very spiritual.

On the other hand, both appointments with JR Tuioti fell through this week, so I haven't seen him at all since last week. I'll keep you updated.

On Friday or saturday night, the branch took us missionaries all out to dinner at a chinese buffet. Today, elder Elkington's parents took elder Gibbons and I (and him) out to a different chinese buffet. I'm sure there was another buffet in there somewhere. There's been a lot of feasting this week, I guess. Last night, we had one last caveman dinner as a Chinese district. We had chicken and mashed potatoes (skins included) and gravy and drank "grog" from bowls. Finally we had ice cream with chocolate chips. All eaten with our hands. It was a blast. We saran-wrapped the table, and yes we took pictures.

Yesterday, as Elder Jensen was packing he found he had accumulated a lot of stuff over the 13 months he's spent in the chinese branch without really being transferred, which he had ought to send home. So he loaded up some boxes and we went to the post office and he sent them for a pretty good price, mainly because he told them it was all books, so he got the media mail price. However, later on in the day he looked back at it and told me it actually hadn't been ALL books and realized that perhaps he had been a bit dishonest; there had also been a calligraphy set in there, which technically didn't qualify. And, thinking that one of the temple recommend questions is "are you honest in your dealings with your fellow men?" we decided he needed to follow the repentance procedure we always teach and "right the wrong." So later that afternoon, he went back, had them dig the box out, get the right (though much more expensive) price and pay the difference. It was a good example to me of doing something awkward to repent, an example of striving for the higher standard.

We got two more investigators this week named Dan and Danielle. They are a married couple of 20 and 18 years old respectively. Dan is in the marines. They are thinking about having children and are searching for how to bring their children up and what to teach them. They should be coming to stake conference on sunday - it's a broadcast with president monson.

Well,that's about all that happened and all I have time for. I love you all; have a great week.

Love,

Elder Myers

A baptismal challenge accepted

Feb 21, 2006
Dear Family,

Thanks for writing! I'm glad Vancouver was fun. There are a lot of Chinese people that live there. I do drive both on I-5 and I-15 very often. They both go right through San Diego. The Temple is actually right off of the 5.

We don't know what's going to happen next week when Elder Elkington goes home yet, but we do know that President Garner has a game plan. There's a new sister missionary named Sister Wong from Hong Kong in the San Diego Mission, so we might have to get her to help us a bit with some of our more southern investigators; she speaks good mandarin and English, and I'd assume, probably was raised in Cantonese.

That anti-beaver contraption in the pictures you sent is pretty ingenious. Way to go, dad. I don't know if I could even figure out how to dam that. Thanks for the other pictures too, it's always nice to get them. Mom, you and Midnight both look like you're doing well, and the woods the house is in look beautiful.

So, onto about this week. Well, we had something very interesting happen. Remember how last week, I told you that we had an appointment from a previously-opposed father who now wanted to meet with us? His name is Brother Tuioti. Well, when we met with him, he really was sincere. The spirit was very strong, and actually, within the first 5 minutes, I committed him to be baptized when he knows these things are true. That was without really teaching anything first, just sharing a scripture and telling him our purpose as missionaries, and making the invitation. Now, we've met with him 3 times, and he's working on setting a date to be baptized. He has really turned around 180 degrees, and it's so amazing to see how sincere he is. I'm glad that he was humble enough to put aside his pride and learn from us. When he's baptized, so will their 3 kids. Unfortunately, if I'm transferred next week, I won't be able to keep teaching them until baptism.

More good news: Jessica's being baptized. Elder Elkington and Elder Gibbons worked their magic, and after 3 years of investigating, she's had her baptismal interview and will be baptized on Sunday. That is, if her husband doesn't forbid it.

We tried to pick up Henry again for church this week, and again fortune wasn't on our side. We'll make sure plans are absolutely solid next week.

Our appointment with Darla this week was cancelled because her family came into town. So far we've only taught her twice.

Mr. Dai and Mrs. Ren were sick this week when we tried to visit them, and so we didn't teach them.

It seemed that this week was kind of a pause in the work with some people; a lot of appointments fell through, but we got brother Tuioti who now has more promise than all of our other investigators put together, so it was definitely a good week, all in all.

On Sunday I taught Sunday school in Chinese about Our Heavenly Family. Ever tried to answer a question about Heavenly Mother in Chinese? It was very hard and I didn't do an amazing job, but I learned a lot from preparing the lesson anyway. Then in Sacrament meeting, we had Skyler Ng's baptism; he's the 8 year old son of the first counselor in the branch presidency.
Yesterday I went on exchanges with Elder Gibbons. We taught Yang Jie and Annie Zhang. Elder Jensen wanted a chance to go up to orange county with Elder Elkington, which is why we made the exchange. They had lots of fun, and we got pizza from the members in whose home we taught Yang Jie, so everybody won.

Well, I'm about out of time. I hope you all have a great week. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

All of our investigators are doing pretty well

Dear Family,

Happy Birthday Michelle! I hope you had fun at your big date. You're 17 now? Wow.

Becky, thanks for sending me the email. I will have to bring some headphones to the library next time so I can listen to the recording. It sounds like you are having a lot of fun in band. I remember some of those songs you are playing. So you're playing some solos? That's awesome.

I'm glad the photos work. If you have questions about any of them, you can send me the picture and ask me.

That's fun that you're going to vancouver canada. One of the missionaries in my mtc district was from vancouver canada. His name is Elder Ivor Lee, and he's in Arcadia California chinese speaking. When you go to church, you should look for his plaque on the wall, maybe he's from where you'll be.

So anyway, on to me. Well, first of all, that man we met last week who lives by the temple is now investigating, and he came to church. Isn't that great? I don't know if he can be baptized before he goes back, but we'll certainly try our best to help him however we can.

This week, one of the previous missionaries to serve here came to visit. His name is Elder Chen and he is from taiwan. He is visiting with his fiance. They will be here for about 6 more days, after which he will go to BYU. So, he's been the most popular guy of the week in the branch. Even moreso than elder Elkington who, as of today, has 2 weeks left.

We found out from President Garner that the replacement for Elder Elkington won't be coming until april. So it'll be interesting to see what happens.

We are still teaching Mr. Dai and his wife. They find the things we teach exciting and a little bit hard to accept at first, but they are willing to keep working with us.

Bill Thompson got sick this week so our appointment was cancelled.

Last night, Elder Jensen and I had a cool street contacting experience. We were walking home and a truck stalled at the corner we were at so we helped him push it around the corner. He offered to pay us, but we turned it down and gave him a pass-along card with our number written on it if he needed any more help from us.

We have been receiving far more referrals than we can keep up with lately, which is very cool. Some of them have little or no promise, but some of them are rather good. We still have about 13 or more still uncontacted, but we've been trying. It turns out that asking more people for referrals actually gets us referrals. I don't think us missionaries will ever cease to be amazed when by following our leaders counsel, we actually achieve more success.

The work in this area is actually pretty exciting right now. It has picked up a lot from when I first came into the area 2 months ago, when it was pretty much a dead area. Something actually happened that was pretty cool this morning. I'll have to tell some backstory.

So, when I first came into the area, a baptismal date fell through. There is a recently reactivated mother named Sister Tuioti, who is married to a nonmember. She has a few kids from a previous marriage, as does he. Elder Gibbons and Elder Jensen were teaching the three oldest - her two daughters and his son. The father refused to let the son be baptized, and after that, Sister Tuioti was impossible to get ahold of --

Hehe, Elder Rees our zone leader is talking to a lady right now at the computer next to him about the church. He's a great missionary. I just took a covert picture of it. He's actually teaching a lesson.

-- anyway, so, after that, Sister Tuioti was impossible to get ahold of, and so the baptism didn't happen. And after that, we still couldn't get them to arrange a time for a lesson. They came to church twice, but it was still pretty impossible to get ahold of them. And then, last week we heard that they had been having some family problems - the mother took her kids and moved out to LA where her parents live, and even got a restraining order against the husband. At least that's what we heard. And so things were looking grim for the 2 girls who wanted to be baptized. But then, amazingly, they met with the bishop last night and what came of that was that the father now wants to meet with the missionaries. Wow. We are teaching him tonight. What an opportunity we now have, to bring a family back together and unite them in the gospel. I don't know how open he really is, but we'll do our best.

I'm about out of time, but all of our investigators are doing pretty well; I'm glad to be here. Thanks for all of your support. I love you all.

Love,

Elder Myers

Four new investigators, all with promise

February 8, 2006

Dear Family,
Sorry this letter is a day late. We had an appointment yesterday so we couldn't get all our p-day things done then.

Yesterday we went to the temple. It was nice, as usual. Afterwards, we had our appointment with a Chinese man who lives in the neighborhood of the temple and walks there all the time. He wants help with his English but he's also moderately interested in religion in general and our church specifically. We have another appointment with him soon.

We got some good news today that Elder Elkington will be replaced by a new missionary from the MTC. It's not 100% reliable news, but it's certainly good to think that it'll probably happen.
This week was good in some ways, but not completely terrific. I got sick again (I don't even know how many times I've been sick already on my mission) this time with the stomach flu. We had to cancel some of our appointments with recent converts because I just didn't feel up to biking across town to visit them. We did some work in the library making tracting cards instead.
On Wednesday, our stake president President Northcutt took all of us missionaries out to lunch at the China East Buffet. He payed for all of us which was very nice. He is very well-off and can afford it, but it was still a very big thing to do. He not only supports us like that, but also always brings donuts and fruit to the weekly study sessions with us, invites us over to his house once a transfer for lunch, and has a weekly meeting with the district leaders. He really gives everything of himself and magnifies his calling - he's more active with the missionary work in the stake than anyone with any other calling, and yet that's just a small facet of his calling. If there's any priesthood leader out here to look up to, it's president Northcutt.

Remember that guy we met at the bus stop? Well, we met with him, have a return appointment, and he's a new investigator. Hooray. Also, Mr. Dai and his wife? We met with them, have a return appointment, and they're new investigators. Darla stood us up on another appointment but we got her phone number and talked to her for a little while and she definitely still wants to investigate. Last Tuesday, Elder Jensen tracted into a guy on exchanges who let him in, and he's investigating now too. So, since last week, we've picked up four new investigators, all with promise. We're pretty excited about this. Also, we taught Henry again, and he wants to be baptized, but we've first got to get his parents more familiar and comfortable with the church. He wants to come, and we've nearly been able to pull off getting him a ride to church for the last two weeks; this week should happen successfully. We haven't met with his mom for a while because she got a new job at a restaurant and is never home. But we'll still work on it. So, things are going well with our area.

As for Yang Jie she is still reading and praying. she hasn't gotten an answer yet and she finds some of our beliefs hard because she originally became Christian in the Baptist church. But we have high hopes for her.

Annie is not progressing. She's not reading or praying, and she's still not taking it seriously like she should. so we're calling her every night to remind her to pray.

Mom, I'm really proud that you worked up the courage to share the gospel with the neighbors. You definitely did your part and I think you should consider that some of the blessings that the family has received recently may have come from that. I wish the people in the ward I am serving in could get up the courage to do that with their neighbors.

You said you have two new sisters in the ward. Does the one from Hong Kong speak Cantonese or Mandarin? I met a sister missionary from Hong Kong yesterday at the temple; she just arrived in the San Diego missionary yesterday.

That's a great story about praying and getting Michelle the $60 and camera. Keep telling me about stuff that continues to happen like that.

Well, I am out of time and better go. I love you all.
Love,
Elder Myers

This week's rundown

Dear Family,

Michelle, I'm sorry your money was stolen. As missionaries we have a rule to only carry as much cash as we'll need for the day. That way if one of us is robbed, the other missionaries don't become targets. Because, what would a criminal think if he got 100 dollars off of two missionaries? He'd go look for some more, right? That's awful that you were robbed at the church, though.

Well, we've worked hard this week. We have done even more finding this week: we spent 22.5 hours finding this week. That's even more than last week. I think some of that time is beginning to pay off. So, here's the rundown on this week:

Darla, who Elder Elkington and I found last monday, wasn't there at our appointment we set up this week. We haven't been able to contact her again :(. We'll see if anything works out with her.

Elder Jensen and I went to go tracting in that neighborhood again yesterday, but we decided to talk to everyone we saw on the way. So we talked to this old black guy who's a professional sign holder - he just stands out there on the street corner holding a sign for various things (in this case a used car lot) all day every day. We talked to him about God for about an hour then went on our way. We gave him our phone number and said hi to him a couple more times that day, since he was quite near our apartment. Nothing really came of that, but it was fun to talk to him.

Also, at a bus stop, we talked to a guy for a few minutes who, shockingly, really WAS interested, gave us his contact information, and arranged an appointment with us at his home. So, we'll see how that pans out.
While tracting, we knocked on a door of somebody who we've talked to before at the 99 Ranch Chinese Market, actually. When she opened the door, she laughed and said "do you remember me? I work at the bookstore." She was actually very warm and though she didn't want to let us in, she took a pamphlet (in english, but she does know some english) and we taught a lesson in chinese at the door. So that was a pretty cool coincidence. She not only remembered us, but remembered exactly what we had bought at the chinese bookstore. I guess they don't get many white people buying chinese books there.

We stopped by a potential investigator one evening this week, and nobody was there. So, we were going to go, but I was a little bit interested by something on the bulletin board across from their apartment, so I was fiddling with my camera for about a minute to take a good picture of it. Lo and behold, before I could get a picture, there came Mr. Dai and Mrs. Ren around the corner. We talked to them, and they invited us in, and they agreed to hear the discussions just like that. So, we'll teach them a lesson tomorrow. We were happy about that.

Yang Jie came to church again this week, and we taught her the Plan of Salvation. She accepted everything we taught and, since she is sincerely praying she is, as elder jensen says, on the high road to getting an answer.
Annie, our other chinese investigator, also came to the chinese branch for the first time on sunday. She's very nice but is also kind of wishy washy on commitments and hasn't read very much at all. Nor is she really praying. So we're trying to get her back on track. We taught her a lesson yesterday that was basically just "you need to be reading and praying every day or you'll never find out if these things are true." If she doesn't show Heavenly Father that she's serious about gaining a testimony, he can't help her gain one.

Henry wanted to come to church this week, but when we tried to arrange for that to happen, his family kind of dropped off the face of the world, and we weren't able to contact them. Maybe next week.

Elder Elkington and Elder Gibbons had another Mrs. Ma-esque experience. They had a very solid 17 year old baptismal candidate whose mom suddenly refused to let her be baptized or go to church. Ironic, isn't it, that our families were given to us by God to help us grow spiritually, but yet they can be exactly the thing that keeps us back.

Well, that's about all of note that's happened within the last week. I hope you all have a great week. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers