I'm so happy to be here

Sept 26, 2006

Dear Family,

I'm always sure to make sure investigators get introduced to members, but really, there's something to be said for the member who will go up to somebody they don't recognize, ask their name, introduce themself, and thank them for coming. That's how all members should be. Just like if one of the girls brought a friend to the house, you wouldn't just wait around until you were introduced, you'd be friendly and make sure they felt welcome immediately. Right? Right. But, yeah, it's easier when missionaries introduce the investigator. Way to go, mom, for taking the time to seek out those you don't know.

This week has been so great. I don't remember anything before Friday, to tell the truth. On Friday, Elder Jensen and I had a planning session and I told elder Jensen, "This is your last transfer. There's no reason we shouldn't get 5 baptisms before you go home." Something sparked at that moment, and we really focused and tightened ship, concentrating on using our time effectively and making our prayers more sincere. That night, we were able to meet a new investigator and set a baptismal date of the 22nd of October with him. His name is Mr. Huang, which means Mr. Yellow. In fact his answering machine says, in English, "This is Mr. Yellow's phone." Heh.

Then Saturday, we had an English class, a car wash, and a wild goose chase. Let me explain the wild goose chase part. At a zone dinner we had, a member told us that 2 mainland Chinese warships had just landed in San Diego Harbor for a few days, meaning that in downtown San Diego there would be several hundred, if not thousands, of mainland Chinese people roaming the streets, never having been exposed to the gospel before. At least, that's what it meant in our minds. So, we grabbed a bucket to stand on for street preaching, 15 Book of Mormons, several pamphlets, and headed for the city. Well, we got downtown, and drove around for about an hour looking for them but they were nowhere to be found. We did, however, have a backup plan to visit a referral in downtown San Diego, but when we got to the address it turned out to be a business. We had been trying to operate on the WWWWD (What would Wilford Woodruff do?) principle, but apparently we left out an important step - to pray and make sure it was the right thing to do. That's an important lesson - before you do something for God that's ambitious, time-consuming, and very out-of-the-box, make sure it's actually something God actually wants you to do.

Speaking of ambitious and out-of-the-box (or, as elder Jensen says, outside-the-rectangular-prism-made-of-cardboard), we've started setting up appointments with leaders of Chinese churches in San Diego. There's about 20 churches. Statistics indicate that if we teach a first lesson to all of them, at least one will eventually be baptized. So, please pray for our success in following the spirit in those lessons. And that we'll be able to get those 5 baptisms this transfer.

We met with Sister Yue on Friday, and worked with her toward a baptism date, but she worked herself up a lot on how soon it was, so we're going to take the pressure off her next time we see her and just pray that she can join in Taiwan when she goes back in a couple weeks.

Sunday, out of the blue, we got a referral of a lady who's very interested in church and wanted to come. So a member picked her up from her home right next to the temple. She, of course, loved it, and is now a new investigator. Her name is Mrs. Jiang. After church we went with the Ongs to drop her off and then to get out and do some work in La Jolla by the temple. We talked to this Indian couple on the way, who were actually investigators and said they were on the road to baptism. That was really cool. The first referral we knocked on was pretty rude, and just said "I'm busy right now," and that was all. I doubt we'll go back. The second referral let us in and we made good friends with him. His name is Gavin and hopefully we're going to help him move tomorrow (thankfully to a place still in the area). He's been taught some by the sister missionaries in la Jolla, but we are teaching him now, since he's Chinese.

Yesterday, we checked on a couple referrals, taught Jimmy... then we went to 99 Ranch with our English table for 2 hours. We had religious discussions with 2 people, and got a phone number of one of the guys, named mister yu, whose father was china's first Christian martyr. That night, we took the Spanish missionaries over to Ronald's house to meet and teach his Mexican friend (the one we took to church) and committed him to read, pray, and meet with them again on Wednesday.

So the work is doing exceptionally well, and I'm so happy to be here. I hope you all are having a wonderful week. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers