Meeting with a Chinese Christian Pastor

October 3, 2006

Dear Family,
Thanks for writing! I'm doing great, how are you?

Yes, conference was fantastic. I haven't been able to watch the Sunday Afternoon session yet (in English) but everything else was good. I took notes, and it filled about 35 pages. The October Ensign (and Liahona) is great too. It's got a lot of really helpful information. Make sure you all read it to know how to help those who are brought into the ward around you. God can't open doors that we're not willing to walk through - when you're prepared to fellowship and bear your testimony to people, God will bring people into your lives who will join the church. They're still distributing special edition Ensigns and New Eras from the 1990s, so I think it'll be out for a while.

Dad, I'm glad you're doing well, too. I find a lot of strength in your optimism and endurance. You're a hard-working dad.

Sister Yue went back to Taiwan without a baptism. Too bad, but we sent in her information so that the missionaries there can contact her. We also saw Mr. Huang and talked to him about Family History, since the sacrament meeting last week was about family history and without a background in the doctrine, he was pretty lost. He understands it now, though. He's super busy so it's hard to meet, but he's a sincere investigator.

On Wednesday we helped Gavin, an investigator the sisters in La Jolla turned over to us, move. We have established a really good relationship with him, and I think he has a lot of promise. We also received some inspiration about a potential investigator I met several months ago, and went to go find her house. She wasn't home, but we found where she lives again (all by memory and the spirit, since we had no record of her address).

On Thursday morning, we met with Pastor Luke of the Chinese bible church. He wasn't really open (it's kinda hard for a pastor to be open to a church for which conversion would mean he loses his job) but we answered some of his questions and I think we did a good job of representing Jesus Christ and his church. We didn't argue, didn't bash, and we directed him to some non-anti-Mormon sources to get his information, since his main source seemed to be books like "Kingdom of the Cults" which he had on his desk. That night, some thing very interesting happened related to our meeting with him, though. We went Chinese tracting, and some people at the door were about to turn us away, saying "we already have a church." Well, we asked what church, and they said "Chinese bible church." We asked them if they knew Pastor Luke and told them we were just up there that morning talking to him. Suddenly, they opened the door and invited us in. I said "You know we're not from your church, I don't want to give you the impression of that, but we are Christian ministers." They still let us in. We chatted for just a minute, until I mentioned that our church was sometimes called the "Mormon" church, at which point they were suddenly very busy and kicked us out. It's silly how that word conjures up for people images of cultish satan worship or incest or some other unholy practice to some, and to others it represents a prophet, or a book that brings people closer to Jesus Christ. It was kind of silly. The community of Chinese Christians especially have very malicious rumors among them, about how we're "the evil church." Regardless, the starters of those rumors will be judged at the last day and all will hear the gospel in its fulness, so we deal only with temporary setbacks.

Saturday morning we had a "Greenie breakfast" for the new missionaries in the zone. One is named Elder Beyer; he's 7 feet tall. The other is Elder Gregory; he's my new roommate. Included in the greenie breakfast are green pancakes, green eggs, green milk, and other such green breakfast commodities.

On Saturday after the afternoon session, we went to the San Diego temple to meet Jiang JieMei and we taught her with Sister Wong on the grass outside the temple. Remember where we all stood when we took the family picture at Donald's wedding? That's where we sat. She's doing really well; God has given her a lot of faith, and it's helping her a lot.

On Sunday, Jiang JieMei came to both sessions of conference (Sister Ding picked her up and made us lunch in between sessions) and we taught her between sessions. Elder Beyer and I went on exchanges so that I could be there to take care of Sister Jiang during the first session and Elder Jensen could go to the MCRD. They had 4 baptisms. Elder Beyer fell asleep during the lesson, and snored with all the fury of a giant. It was pretty funny.

Sunday night, we had a tract-out for Penasquitos Second Ward, and I found a Chinese person who said we could come back. It was pretty awesome. I also found an English investigator for the missionaries in that ward.

Yesterday, we spent from 9 am to 7 pm at the 99 Ranch promoting English class. We found scores of actually interested people, and we think we had a successful day. We ate lunch and dinner and did all of our study there. Then last night we went to see Mr. Dai and his wife and invited them to the branch party this week.

So, hopefully that was interesting to you in some way. We had a good week. I hope you all are having a great October; make sure to send me pictures of your Halloween costumes when they're in season.

Love you all,
Elder Myers