We were led there to talk to them, and that was a pretty cool experience.

November 28, 2006
Dear Family,

We had a good Thanksgiving. Probably my last Thanksgiving eaten with chopsticks for a while.

Mom, I'm proud of you for how you shared the gospel with Karen. That was totally a success because you did your part. If every member of the church would be bold like that, we would reach President Hinckley's goal of doubling baptisms. How do you do it every day without being discouraged? Read Preach My Gospel Chapter 1 again.

This Sunday night, we planned to go finding, looking for people to teach. Thinking about street contacting, a certain place, a parking lot at the edge of the zone popped into my head. I had never been street contacting there. But, we went, and the parking lot was almost completely empty of cars, and we saw no people. I pulled into a parking spot anyway, and suddenly right in front of us was walking an aged man who looked Asian. He was Chinese, and I carried on a good conversation with him and his wife. They were just on a walk and had recently come from China. He seemed pretty interested, but he didn't know his address or phone number (he was living with his son; most Chinese parents don't really know their address and phone number). He said he'll call me. Why he and his wife were on a walk in an empty parking lot on Sunday night, I don't know. But we were led there to talk to them, and that was a pretty cool experience.

Mr. Huang and his roommate Mr. Han are still progressing. We started meeting with Henry (the 10 year old) again. That man we met last week on the street we taught again, and we have another appointment this Thursday. I assigned him 20 chapters out of the book of Mormon.

The tracting cards I talked about are a little card that every missionary carries with them. It has a little invitation to investigate the church on the card in 5 languages, and a place for the person to write their name, address, and phone number if they're interested. It's for use when a missionary runs into somebody that doesn't speak English. Several referrals have come that way already. It was just distributed mission-wide today. Hopefully it will be well-used.

One of the people I taught at the MCRD (marine boot camp) got baptized this week. I got to go watch and participate as he was confirmed. He's a good guy. His name is Dustin Matovitch.

We sang Christmas carols outside the Mega-plex movie theater in Mira Mesa on Friday. There were so many people there, it was insane. Several people came and just stood and watched and listened. It was fun. The sister missionaries talked to the people listening. They're not very good at singing. ;P

Well, that's about it. I hope you have a good week. Thanks for writing. I love you all,
Elder Myers

We are still in the Chinese branch

November 21, 2006
Dear Family,

How are you? I am doing well.

That's awesome that with the dead sea scrolls you got to see a lecture by Dr. Parry. He was one of my professors at BYU when I took a humanities course. Very good guy. He has written a lot of books too.

We are still in the Chinese branch; we just live in Penasquitos which is about 3-5 miles north of Mira Mesa, where we used to live. The church building where the Chinese branch meets is actually in Penasquitos. Sister pong is a temple square missionary from Hong Kong; all temple square missionaries get 4-5 months in the field, and she was assigned here. She's supposed to help us in the Chinese branch in any way we need her to, so we sent her to teach all the female potential investigators and she's doing a really good job.

This week, we went to go visit Mr. Huang and he wasn't there but one of his roommates invited us in. We taught him the first lesson, and he came to church. We have since taught them the second lesson together and they are reading the Book of Mormon. They are both good people. They have recognized the spirit.

Yesterday, we street contacted into a man who, I believe, is very prepared for the Gospel. He's not Chinese, but he works right next to our apartment. We taught him for 1 1/2 hours and got a return appointment for next Monday. We are supposed to keep teaching him until we find out which ward he lives in.

That's too bad that the Godmaker's guy is so well-known up there. Somebody had a book of his, and guess what his main quotes are to show what we really believe? Nope, not the Book of Mormon, not the Doctrine and Covenants. HIMSELF. He quotes the script he wrote for The Godmakers. Ridiculous. If people are stuck on anti-Mormon propaganda, you can always point them to sites like fairlds.org or farms.byu.edu.

Way to go inviting somebody to seminary, Michelle. Keep it up. Ask her if she'd be baptized if she knew that the church was true.

On thanksgiving, the Ng family has invited us over for dinner. That's where we went last year too... I think.

I completely finished the missionary tracting card this week. It has Chinese, Vietnamese, Spanish, Tagalog, and Korean. There have been several Spanish referrals from it already. I hope to have it distributed mission-wide by next week.

There were 4 investigators at church on Sunday, 2 of them new. So, it is going pretty well in the branch. 2 of them were our investigators, 2 were the sisters.

How is my Chinese? It's getting better. It's actually pretty good; I can understand about 90-95% of what I hear. I can't speak as well as I'd like, but I feel that I can teach the lessons, as long as I have the spirit. It's not as good as Elder Jensen's was, but I'm working on it.

Well, time is up. I hope you have a great week.

I love you all,

Elder Myers

Training Elder Moreno

November 14, 2006
Dear Family,
Hi, how are you doing? I'm doing great, thanks. We're still in the Chinese branch exclusively, and we're doing fine. Elder Moreno sounds Hispanic when he speaks English, but his Chinese sounds just like Elder Gibbons’. It's kind of funny. His Chinese can use a little work, but he's coming along. I tried to give him a good taste of mission life. We did some teaching, some tracting, some street contacting. On Thursday we taught some members about missionary work and committed 4 kids to pray that night about who the lord would like them to invite to church or share the gospel with in some way. I told them to get down on their knees and not get up until they got an answer. Each of them had a name the next day. Funny what happens when we trust the Lord's promises. I encourage you all to do that tonight - pray about who you know or are aquainted with that the Lord wants you to share the gospel with. Listen until you get an answer, even if it takes an hour, even if it takes all night. Remember Enos. Patience shows faith.

We have yet to get any new Chinese investigators this week, but we did contact many people and ultimately got about 5-10 addresses or phone numbers of potential investigators for missionaries in other wards.

We got a referral this week from one of the stake presidency of the Carlsbad stake. He gave us a referral for a Chinese husband and wife that he was going to bring to the temple to learn more about it. He met them only once, in a car shop. So, Elder Moreno and I went with Sister Pong and her companion, and taught them. They weren't interested in investigating, but we did the best we could. they're already very integrated in their own church... So we got their pastor's phone number.

Yesterday, we went to 99 ranch with our English booth and talked to a lot of people. Again, we found some people interested in the class. One Chinese lady randomly gave us flowers. And, as always, we saw a couple people I know from visiting them before.

Life is a lot different with a new missionary. They still have a lot to learn, and the MTC is a tough act to follow for a trainer. Trainers have to teach by example and explain pretty much everything, and also trust the little guy enough to let him try an important door approach or a phone call. Then again, if you think about it in a bigger perspective that's what it's all about. God could send angels to do his tracting, he could train the new missionaries with angels, but instead he leaves that work to the "weak things of the earth" like me and Elder Moreno. We have to learn that success comes from our desire and doing our best.

I am planning on going back to school in summer term, if the school will let me in for summer. If not, fall term. I'm not sure if there's some technicality in the deferment that makes it so I can't go back fall. Maybe you can check.

I don't think I'll need a bike. We secured the car for 6 days a week.

For Christmas... I still need a little thinking to do, but I have two things I've thought of. First, a Deseret Book or Borders gift card so that I can buy some good classical cds that I can listen to out here; or I could go to Borders and pick some titles that I don't have and you could order them from Amazon or something. That would save money. Second, I heard that the original releases of Star Wars 4-6 came out, as in completely unchanged from the original versions. I also heard that they're only going to be available for a limited time. So, if you could possibly get those for when I get home, that's another idea. You know how much I like Star Wars. I'll let you know if I have any other ideas. I know those aren't exactly the most useful things to ask for, but I have pretty much all the essentials for missionary work.

Well, I'm our of time. I hope you have an excellent week. Thanks for the letters. I love you too Lisa.

I love you all,
Elder Myers

Goodbye to Elder Jensen

Nov 7, 2006
Dear Family,
That's good to hear that the rains started. It was 90 degrees today. I'm not sure why.

Today, Elder Jensen left, and I got Elder Morena as a new companion. He is from Peru, but he's been in Provo for the last couple years: 2 years at a boarding high school, two years at BYU. So his English is fluent. He didn't know any Chinese before the MTC, but he's doing pretty well. I'm glad that I get to train him.

So, that wasn't a surprise at all at transfers. The surprise was - we're switching apartments back to the Penasquitos apartment. They didn't tell me, or Elder Bates who I am switching with, until today at transfers. So now I have to pack and move. It's a little frustrating, knowing that I could have done it all yesterday if I had known, but alas, it'll get done and it'll be okay. With the move, I may need to get a bike now, but I'm not sure yet. You'll know when there's a couple hundred dollars on the credit card bill :S. I hope that's possible financially right now. If not, use some of my money to pay for it.

Mom, that's awesome that you talked to a few people about the church on the field trip. Did you use some of those sweet pass-along cards you made?

Good job on the Faith in God, Lisa.

Elder Jensen had a lot of goodbyes to say. It was pretty hard for him and a lot of the branch. I'm sure the whole week was surreal for him. It was for me. On Friday, the branch had a party at the sunrise buffet for Elder Jensen. There were a few nonmembers there, and Sister Pong taught them. She has been doing a really good job with every referral we've given to her; it seems like all the former or potential investigators we refer her to start investigating. There were 4 nonmembers at church this week, all of them brought by Sister Pong.

The man at the computer next to me is reading the internet movie database and has been for quite a while. I think he is probably crazy. The whole time he is muttering about the information he's finding out, remarking about names and dates, carefully examining pictures, and it seems like he's a detective trying to put together the pieces to a mystery. His mannerisms are just like he's in a movie trying to discover the culprit behind a murder. He's probably seen too many movies. But he's just randomly clicking on the different links. I think we can draw a purpose-of-life parallel with this. A lot of people spend all their time, concentration, and energy searching for meaning in places where they really won't find anything that will bring them one iota closer to happiness. Sometimes you just have to step back, look around you, and see that the messengers of the gospel of everlasting happiness are sitting next to you; they wear big black name tags to make it really obvious. The purpose of life isn't hidden. It's in the open. So always look for the simple principles and truths of the gospel; study them and you will find meaning and happiness in life.

I don't really have anything else to write about. I think that I will have plenty to say next week. This last week went by very fast, and was mainly a lot of eating and a lot of goodbyes. So, until next week, goodbye. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers