A wonderful letter full of stories

Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Dear Family,

Sorry this email is a day late. We didn't get to our P-day stuff yesterday.

I'm glad you are doing all right. I heard about the storm from down here. We got a little bit of rain once this week.... not quite a blizzard.

We had a bunch of great experiences this week, so let me just get to those.

We were without a car for the week until Friday.

On Tuesday night, we went to teach Ronald. His son Calvin turned out to be sick with the stomach flu. the branch president was going with us to our next appointment, so when he showed up, we sat Calvin down to give him a blessing. When he sat, he vomited all over the floor. After we cleaned it up, Elder Moreno annointed with oil and President Leung blessed him that he would be well by the next morning. (He was; the next day, his vomiting stopped, and he felt better). With President Leung, we went to the next appointment where we blessed a house because a lady (former investigator) felt something wrong there. The couple's son came in while we were giving the blessing, and Elder Moreno thought it was a ghost. But it wasn't. There was a classic conversation between President Leung and his wife on the way home. President Leung commented on a few of the things that probably were why the house felt a little weird, mainly that in their living room they had a huge painting of a tiger. He said "I used to have a poster of a tiger in my room. But she [sister Leungh] made me take it down."
"Because it made you feel uncomfortable," she replied.
"No. It made YOU feel uncomfortable. I like tigers."

Later on Sister Leung, on the topic of superstition, for some reason talked about a couple that she had introduced to each other. The man was a bit strange. He carried aluminum foil with him wherever he went. When the woman went to his house, she discovered that everything in his entire house was covered in aluminum foil. When asked why, he responded, "I suspect someone is trying to kill me with radiation." They eventually got married and he no longer uses aluminum foil. Chinese people are funny.

On Wednesday, we had New Missionary conference up in Carlsbad, where we heard a lot of the experiences from the other new missionaries and their trainers. It was a very good meeting. Then that night, we had English class. Lots of people were there.

Thursday afternoon we taught Mr. Fan another gospel lesson. He wanted an English name; his Chinese name was Qunli which sounded like Charlie, so I named him Charles. It was only after that that I remembered how hard of a time Chinese people have with pronouncing r's and l's. Chaaaas is about the best a Chinese person can do. So he might need a name change. We talked to him about faith in particular and he is starting to read the Book of Mormon. On Sunday, when he came to church, he asked us how he can become a Mormon. We said we'd help him with that.

Also, on Thursday night, a member took us out to dinner to Souplantation; Elder Moreno gave passalong cards to 3 Mexicans working there, and then an employee came to our table, offered us free cookies, and then asked us to fill out a short survey about the cookies. Elder Moreno said, "Okay, if you'll sit down and give me two minutes." It wasn't busy, so the employee obliged, and Elder Moreno taught him the message of the restoration and gave him a pass-along card for the Book of Mormon. Elder Moreno has a strength for never taking his calling lightly; he finds ways to teach everyone he can, even when we're just at a restaurant for dinner.

That night, we went street contacting for a little while and we met a man with alcohol on his breath who looked like Heber J. Grant. I told him that, and I told him who Heber J Grant was. A strange street contacting approach, I know, but we were able to talk to him for about half an hour and teach him about the plan of salvation and the word of wisdom. I told him I'd like to give him a Book of Mormon as a Christmas gift and he said he'd like that, so I sent the English missionaries in that neighborhood over to his house. He was a kind man. Elder Moreno said it was the most sober drunk person he'd ever met.

That night, we borrowed a car from the sisters and drove up to Carlsbad and checked on a referral. They weren't home. I sure wish the person who got the referral would have got a phone number. We left a note and a Book of Mormon in Chinese at the door.

Friday we finally got our car back. We also, interspersed throughout the week, had a couple zone music practices for the mission Christmas party. They had me direct the music. We sang Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, featuring Korean, English, Spanish, Tagolog, and Chinese verses. I also played an organ part so that we'd have a little variety. It went pretty well. It wasn't as bad as some of the other zone's musical numbers ;P We also saw a little Christmas program at the Catholic church. The Catholic church in Scripps Ranch was designed by the same person who designed the temple in La Jolla. The temple is, of course, much better, but it was a nice church. We were invited by a part-member family whose son was in the program. Afterwards there were refreshments and a bunch of people just came up to talk to us. We're not allowed to proselyte at other churches, but it was neat that people came up to us and wanted to know about our missions and why we also had Chinese on our nametags, etc. In all, we probably talked to 20 people.

On Saturday, we had English class again. Evelyn, who I've been teaching English to, is planning on coming to the branch Christmas party this week with her family. She came to church again on Sunday. She also asked me to introduce her to some Elders or Sisters in Taiwan when she goes back there in August so that she can go to church every week there. I'm going to give her a copy of the Book of Mormon as a Christmas gift.

Saturday afternoon, we got a lead from some elders in a nearby zone and went to play a pick-up soccer game with some Chinese people. Actually, Elder Moreno played, and I street contacted the people there who were waiting for their husbands. We invited some people to the party and actually found some people interested in English class. I met one lady who said she'll make copies of the flier we gave her and put them up on all the bulletin boards at work.

Saturday night, we went to a baptism in the Mira Mesa 2nd ward (where I served before with Elder Jensen and Elder Gibbons) to give the "missionary invite," which is the message we direct to nonmembers while the recent convert is drying off and dressing right after the baptismal font. We testified of the restoration and of God's love for us and it was, at least for me, very powerful. I think it also touched the people we were directing it to, because after the baptismal service was over, one of the nonmembers there asked to talk to the missionaries. They met with him in a side room and he asked them some questions for about an hour. That was cool to be able to be there.

After that, we street contacted and met a homeless man named David. He had a grocery cart full of his only belongings and empty beer cans and he was working on drinking a 6 pack of mountain dew. He was very hardened by the world he's been experiencing; we told him we couldn't give him any money but we asked if there was anything we could do. He said no. We asked if we could sing him a song. He grunted. So I said, "We're going to sing a song right here, and you can listen if you like." We sang him a song, wished him a merry Christmas and left. It's easy to be Christlike to the friendly people you meet, but a little harder to be that way towards the scary-looking smelly people.

Sunday, we went to teach the Mexican homeless immigrant workers. We gave away two copies of the Book of Mormon, taught several lessons and found a less-active member. Unlike the homeless people holding signs in Mira Mesa, these "amigos" sleep in the canyon and stand by the side of the road in Penasquitos, for hire at $10/hour. They are very humble and several are teachable. I think we will continue to do that on Sundays.

On Monday, we found out that we'd be moving back down to Mira Mesa for the next transfer. So we packed, not only our personal items, but also all the Chinese materials. We taught Ronald again that night.

Yesterday was transfers. We went up to Carlsbad and had transfer meetings (for us, the only change was the apartment) and afterwards, we had our mission Christmas party. The food was really good. We watched a slide show. We took a mission photo. It's the only time of the year where the entire mission is all together at once. Finally we went back into the chapel to have a concluding devotional. President Garner talked about the prophecies of Joseph Smith not recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants and their fulfillments, and then Elder Tenney of the seventy talked about Jesus Christ, the Atonement, etc. He lovingly chastened a couple people for getting up and leaving to go to the bathroom during President Garner's talk. "Do you ever see President Hinckley get up to go to the bathroom during General Conference?"

Last night, after we got back, we had some "singing telegrams" with cakes to deliver. We only got to one: we showed up at the first house with two hymnbooks which we had grabbed off the shelf, gave her the cake and sang her a song. It turns out she's a less-active member in an English ward who hadn't been to church in 20 years (but she just went this last week). We asked if there was anything we could do for her. She said no, but for some reason told us that one of her friends' husband had just passed away at only 51 years old. Elder Moreno told her to tell the friend about the plan of salvation. "The plan of what?" Sister Singer asked. She invited us in. We taught her briefly about the plan of salvation, but only had our hymn books in hand; we hadn't had the foresight to bring scriptures or pamphlets. All we had with us was the hymnbooks we had grabbed off the shelf. She went to the kitchen for a second, and as I flipped through the hymnbook, guess what I found inside the cover? A pamphlet on the plan of salvation. That was a tender mercy of the lord. We left it with her and, I hope, nurtured that dormant seed of testimony just a little. It was a great example of being at the right place at the right time to be an instrument in the Lord's hands. She was very grateful that we had come by.

Finally, last night, we stopped by Mr. Han and Mr. Huang's house and taught by the spirit. Honestly, we didn't teach based on any lesson plan (we had planned to watch a DVD with them - turned out they didn't have a DVD player), we just shared verses from the scriptures and touched on faith, repentance, and obedience. That's why Preach My Gospel is so powerful - we know the doctrines and can just teach directly to their needs. Not that we're perfect at it yet, but it feels a lot different.

Today, we had district meeting, I had an appointment with the dermatologist. Diagnosis on the toes: "Dermatitis." Which means an inflammation of the skin. Inflammation means redness and itching. So, a diagnosis of red itchy skin.... I could have told you that. But this doctor used a microscope to make this diagnosis. Not fungal. Got a better prescription. Maybe some sort of eczema or something.

And for lunch, Sister Ding took us out to Souplantation for the second time in a week. Elder Moreno followed up with some of the Mexicans and made them promise to call the number.

And that's it for now. I hope you're having a wonderful Christmas time. I hope your power's back soon. Hope you enjoyed the extra-long letter.... now I just wish I would have saved some good stories for the phone call so we'll have something interesting to talk about. Oh well. You'll just have to tell me the things interesting that have happened to you lately.

I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers