Elder Myers' Notes from the Mission Field

She had a coworker who was a really good example.

2007-05-30T06:49:00.001-07:00

May 29, 2007

Dear Family,

Well, we ended up emailing today. Yesterday was p-day, but the libraries were closed. I don't think I will be able to check my email next week; I'll just get the mail.

Michelle's working at Eastside Harley, eh? Is that a motorcycle dealership?

Bryana didn't get baptized yet. She was really sick again this weekend, not able to come to church, and so we have to push the baptism back. It'll be soon after I come home though, I'm sure.

The Twiggs are coming back home today. They're down to 2 cigarettes a day. They're almost there. Nicole came to church this week and after a great sacrament meeting (one returning, one departing missionary) I felt the spirit tell me to go up to Nicole and tell her that she needs to be baptized, and soon so that she can start having the benefits of the gift of the holy ghost now. I was able to give her a very strong baptismal commitment, and so now she just has to set a date. That was probably the highlight of Sunday. Also, in gospel essentials class, we talked about baptism for the dead and she started crying because she had a sister who had died at 16 years old without ever being baptized and she felt regret at not trying to help her sister believe in Jesus Christ. The doctrine in the class really did fill her with joy and hope.

We did a lot of service this week. It was my first experience being an electrician helping a guy with an addition to his house. We haven't plugged in the electricity yet, but by the time the moment of truth comes, I'll be long gone, heh!.

I saw Caitlyn Hermann at church on Sunday. We chatted. She's like 19 now; that's so OLD. She knows the Porterfields in the Encinitas ward. She says that the CV4th ward reads my letters like every week. That's kinda cool.

Elder Burton and I got in a door on a follow-up and taught a lesson and got a return appointment this week. It was his first experience with that, and he was thrilled. Her name is Diane and she's interested because she had a coworker who was a really good example.

The progression of our investigators is pretty slow, though, and it's not looking like any of them will be baptized before I go. But Elder Burton should have some good baptisms next transfer.

I hope you guys are all doing well. I better get going. I love you all. I'll email next Wednesday.... if you really want me to. The mission's been the best, and I'm trying to finish strong and work my guts out this last week. Thanks for the prayers.

Love,
Elder Myers

She had a coworker who was a really good example.

2007-05-30T06:49:00.000-07:00

May 29, 2007

Dear Family,

Well, we ended up emailing today. Yesterday was p-day, but the libraries were closed. I don't think I will be able to check my email next week; I'll just get the mail.

Michelle's working at Eastside Harley, eh? Is that a motorcycle dealership?

Bryana didn't get baptized yet. She was really sick again this weekend, not able to come to church, and so we have to push the baptism back. It'll be soon after I come home though, I'm sure.

The Twiggs are coming back home today. They're down to 2 cigarettes a day. They're almost there. Nicole came to church this week and after a great sacrament meeting (one returning, one departing missionary) I felt the spirit tell me to go up to Nicole and tell her that she needs to be baptized, and soon so that she can start having the benefits of the gift of the holy ghost now. I was able to give her a very strong baptismal commitment, and so now she just has to set a date. That was probably the highlight of Sunday. Also, in gospel essentials class, we talked about baptism for the dead and she started crying because she had a sister who had died at 16 years old without ever being baptized and she felt regret at not trying to help her sister believe in Jesus Christ. The doctrine in the class really did fill her with joy and hope.

We did a lot of service this week. It was my first experience being an electrician helping a guy with an addition to his house. We haven't plugged in the electricity yet, but by the time the moment of truth comes, I'll be long gone, heh!.

I saw Caitlyn Hermann at church on Sunday. We chatted. She's like 19 now; that's so OLD. She knows the Porterfields in the Encinitas ward. She says that the CV4th ward reads my letters like every week. That's kinda cool.

Elder Burton and I got in a door on a follow-up and taught a lesson and got a return appointment this week. It was his first experience with that, and he was thrilled. Her name is Diane and she's interested because she had a coworker who was a really good example.

The progression of our investigators is pretty slow, though, and it's not looking like any of them will be baptized before I go. But Elder Burton should have some good baptisms next transfer.
I hope you guys are all doing well. I better get going. I love you all. I'll email next Wednesday.... if you really want me to. The mission's been the best, and I'm trying to finish strong and work my guts out this last week. Thanks for the prayers.

Love,
Elder Myers

The best way to drop a non-progressing investigator is to try to commit them to baptism.

2007-05-22T18:58:00.000-07:00

May 22, 2007
Dear Family,

The Twiggs are doing a job up in Riverside county right now. They have been staying in a hotel up there. They're still struggling but want to have quit by the time they come back.

Sunday, the Samoras didn't come to church again, so Monday we went over and were ready to tell them to get serious or we're not going to spend any more time over there. Well, our mission president always says that the best way to drop a non-progressing investigator is to try to commit them to baptism. So, Bryana Zamora is getting baptized next Saturday. She's not going to wait for her cousin Victoria any more. It's pretty solid and they're really committed. So, that's good news.

We've had some good work with less-active members this week. We were able to get in there and not beat around the bush and challenge them to read and pray. This week we've had a lot of lessons and I've seen a lot of progress in those members who are struggling.

Nicole is still not really progressing. I'm sure she's going to be more of a long-term project.

Our zone had 6 baptisms this weekend. A lot of time this weekend was helping the other missionaries prepare for the baptisms. We gave invites at 2 of the baptismal services. The stake leaders are thrilled with the success in the stake right now. I think the members are getting pretty excited in some of the wards too. A couple years ago, the stake was having about 6-8 baptisms a year. Last month, as a mission, we had 69 baptisms, compared to our average of 40-50. There's an added measure of excitement about missionary work at many levels.

This week, on a tract-out in the Olivenhein ward, we tracted into one guy named Rudy and made him promise to read the pamphlet "The Restoration." He called us back that night and told us that he really liked it, agreed with a lot of what was in it, and was going to start reading the Book of Mormon.

Well, there's not much else going on here. I hope you all have a great week. We're still working hard.

Love,
Elder Myers

He said he'd probably come to church. He also might have been drunk.

2007-05-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

May 15, 2007
Dear Family,

I'm glad you had a happy birthday, Becky. I sure had a happy your-birthday. It was nice to talk to all of you on Mothers Day. I have made good use of the jokes.

Well, this week, I went on exchanges with Elder Navarette (from the Phillipines). Earlier in the day, we went to check on a less-active member; she had moved but we talked to the neighbor, and got in and sat down and taught a lesson. He said he'd probably come to church. He also might have been drunk.

That night, we had some time before one of the members of his ward picked us up to go out, so we went street contacting and tracting. First, we walked through a parking lot of a shopping center. I thought I was helping a little old lady, when she started taking her cart back from the car, I took it from her and said not to worry, I'd take it back for her... well, she went into the store and got another cart, so, I guess I stole that lady's cart. I felt pretty stupid Heh. Then we went tracting in this neighborhood where there was a little kid skateboarding. Three times, as we passed each other, Elder Navarette said, "Hello, little girl!" Finally, the third time, the kid said, "I'm not a little girl" in a rather low voice, and Elder Navarette felt stupid.

This week, Elder Baadsgaard and Elder Navarette had a family randomly come to church who wants to be baptized. They scheduled all the lessons for this week and a baptism in just a couple weeks. Then yesterday, they got a new investigator and in the first lesson, they asked her if she wanted to come to the baptism. She said yes. They asked her if she'd like to be baptized then. She said yes. So, there's some pretty amazing success going on in the district.

We taught the Linkowskis again last night. We took them locally-famous VG's donuts to teach them the gospel. We illustrated faith by the fact that there were donuts in the box which they couldn't see, but they believed they were there. We illustrated repentance and baptism by requesting that before they could eat the donuts, they had to go wash their hands. Then we ate the donuts. Their grandpa is going to baptize them, and not within the next couple weeks, so it's not going to be while I'm here.

The Twiggs are doing pretty well. Still having a hard time quitting smoking. Today is 25 days without alcohol.

We went street contacting in the grocery store parking lot, and there was a guy selling newspapers at a table out front. So we went up and talked to him. He was Christian and converted to Buddhism. We taught him the first three lessons and went back the next day to give him a Book of Mormon and the pamphlets. He says he'll read the Book of Mormon. He lives out of the area, though.

We went to the bible study again this week. He asked us to prepare the discussion for next time. We're glad to do that. He is also working on an addition to his house and Elder Burton is a certified electrician, so Elder Burton offered to help him. That should be later this week. It's a good service opportunity.

The Twiggs were the only ones who came to church. The others all had mothers day excuses.

Well, that's about it for what's going on here. I hope you're all doing well. Good luck training for the bike ride, mom. I love you all.

--Elder Myers

Nobody came to church this week.

2007-05-08T15:14:00.000-07:00

May 8, 2007
Dear Family,

I heard about the missionary getting killed in Seattle. We still haven't got killed yet. Prayers, helmets, head and tail lights, common sense, and speed limits have kept us unharmed.

Okay, about what's going on now:

Nobody came to church this week. The Twiggs were up camping. They said that Sunday the temptation to drink again hit pretty hard but they didn't, and it scared them but it was a good victory so they know they can do it. It's now been about 2 and a half weeks since they've had a drink. They quit smoking this morning; we went over with the bishop and gave them blessings and read scriptures with them. Keep them in your prayers.

The Linkowskis and Zamoras were out of town. We met with the Linkowskis last night. There's not a ton of progress, but we're taking little steps. I was pretty frustrated that the Zamoras didn't come again (they went to Tijuana to see some family) but we need to keep being patient. Nicole and John didn't come to church either; they seem stuck in a time warp in that hotel - Nicole's high blood pressure causes her to have a lot of trips to the hospital and doctor's office, which causes John to miss work, which is stressful because of the high cost of where they're living, which keeps the blood pressure high. They're still trying to find more housing. I wish they'd be able to come to church.

We taught a guy named Sammy this week. He was a referral from Tammy, a young lady in Carlsbad who just got baptized. He had a lot of questions about the church that he was asking her, apparently, and she said that she'd have the missionaries contact him to answer his questions. Well, we called him and left a message, and he called back that night and left a message saying he would be interested in learning more. The next day, we hadn't called back yet, and he called again to make sure we had got his message. We called him back and set up an appointment. On Wednesday, we taught him the first lesson and answered a lot of his questions. He said he'll think about it and pray about it and then when we call him again he'll tell us whether he wants to hear more of the lessons.

We've been getting some practice teaching with the less actives and recent converts in the ward. Elder Burton is making progress in his teaching; I try to give him as much time to teach as possible in those settings.

Thursday was zone conference. It was really good, as usual. Friday's bible study cancelled. Saturday's car wash yielded a potential investigator. We'll call him tonight.

So, really, where we're at right now is this: We're still trying to find some good new investigators, and our existing investigators are progressing pretty slowly (except for the Twiggs; they're doing really well.) The Twiggs want to be baptized before I go home. Let's hope it happens.

I look forward to talking to you on mothers day. Make sure to have some good stories or jokes to tell me or something. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

We had a really good car wash this week.

2007-05-01T21:14:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

On Wednesday morning, Elder Burton and I went to see Nicole with the bishop of the Encinitas ward. He's giving them some financial assistance now. John, her husband, is working two jobs right now. Nicole's health fluctuates a lot; she wasn't able to make it to church again. I finally talked to John on the phone and he agreed to try to meet with us this week. Nicole is still interested and wants to be baptized, but we're going to wait so that they can be baptized as a family.

We did some street contacting and tracting this week. Nothing big came of it, but at least Elder Burton got the experience to write home about. He's a good match for the Zamoras - he was a primary teacher before coming out. It's still not happening with them though - but one of these weeks I'm sure they'll come to church.

The Twiggs are doing really well. They came to church again this week. They say that every time they get the temptation, they just think about how sick they were last time, and it goes away.

I told Grandma to work through the Wilsons on Elsie Whitnack. She agreed to let Elder Burton practice teaching on her. We're trying that approach on a couple other people too.

We got appointments with a couple referrals this week. We'll see how they go. It's nice to visit or call a referral and they actually want to set something up to learn more.

We did go to the Bible study - none of their friends showed up, so we just taught Jeff and his wife about the Book of Mormon. It was pretty cool. We'll go back this week. I don't know how much potential is there, but at least we have the opportunity to testify.

Brother Ek, the Cardiff ward mission leader, helped me raise the seat on my bike, so that's all good now.

Becky, do you still play Neopets? There's a 40 year old man sitting next to me playing it. Heh.

We had a really good car wash this week. I met two cars of Chinese people. It was extremely busy - at times we were washing 5 cars at once with one or two waiting.

We didn't get to meet with the Linkowskis this week. Bummer. We'll try it again.

Yesterday, while street contacting, we found a guy named Fletcher. He was painting some doors at a shop on the highway 101 and he's pretty open to the gospel. He said we could drop off some stuff for him to read and chat with him about it. He lives out of our area, but his wife owns the shop, so he's always there.

That's about it. I've done a lot of training to get Elder Burton into the groove of things. He's a good kid. I hope you all have a great week.

Love,
Elder Myers

This is what Californians do all day

2007-04-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

April 24, 2007

Dear Family,

Well, my second son, Elder Burton, was born today. Elder Archibald got transferred so I'm training a new missionary straight from the MTC. He's from west valley and I think he will do very well. Brother Ek the ward mission leader in Cardiff ward drove 4 of us from transfers, bought us in-n-out burgers, and we ate them in the car on a cliff over the ocean and watched some dolphins. "This is what Californians do all day," claimed brother Ek.

Elder Archibald's last week in the Cardiff ward went well. The Mastergeorge family in our district got baptized. We gave the baptismal invite. The Twiggs slipped - and the thing about alcoholics is that once you've slipped a little bit, you go all the way down. We gave them blessings and helped them pull themselves out of it - after they had that first drink, for six days they'd fight the urge until the withdrawal pain and shakes were so bad they'd go drive down to the liquor store and buy more. The recipe for getting out: Scriptures, Prayer, Priesthood Blessing, and.... taking their car keys, with permission. The next morning, they were through the worst of it, and wanting even more not to fall again.

We taught a few other part member families this week, but didn't get any new investigators. Lots of long-term projects in this area. The Twiggs AND the Linkowskis all came to church this week. That's very good.

They split the area of the other two missionaries in my district, so now there are two more elders. Elder Baadsgaard is training a missionary from the Phillipines. I served near Elder Baadsgaard in orange county; he used to serve in my current area and is all the members' hero. He goes home next transfer also.

The bible study that I lined up at the carwash postponed till this week. We're still planning on going.

We met this lady a couple days ago named Elsie Whitnack who is pretty much an 80-year-old dry Mormon. ("Just add water," you're familiar with that term, right?) Her late best friend was a member. That family is the Wilsons, who own Wilson Diamonds in Orem. She has read the Book of Mormon several times, subscribes to the Church News and Ensign, and encouraged both of us to marry active members of the church in the temple. She's trying to get her kids to convert too. I think her husband is holding her back. How strange. She'll be baptized -- someday.

On Friday we rode in the rain to the Zamoras. My pants were soaked. My Mr. Mac jacket kept the rest of me dry though. The parents still, despite all the assurances they could give that they'd be there, didn't come. The kids have to come to church to join it.

That's about all that I can remember. The other investigators I haven't mentioned this letter we've been keeping track of by phone until they can meet. That should work out soon.

Elder Gibbons is coming to BYU during summer term too. He might come over to Grandma and Grandpas once or twice.

Elder Moreno got called to a Spanish area. He'll do great there. The new Chinese missionary is finally in Chinese, and he couldn't look happier about that.

Well, the work is going well here. I'm enjoying myself. I love you all.

--Elder Myers

that's just as good as a baptism

2007-04-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

Apr 18, 2007
Dear Family,
Well, this week, p-day is on Wednesday. I hope that didn't throw you off too much.

Well, I'll give you this week's report on the investigators. The Twiggs missed church and afterwards "fell off the wagon." Yesterday they were drinking. They don't want to be drinking. They still want to change. But the baptismal date is not on.

The Linkowskis are doing really well. The dad helped us teach. We also had the stake president and ward mission leader at the lesson. It was really good. We're hoping that they can all, dad included, get baptized together if possible.

Nicole is still sick. We didn't see her this week.

I got Frank Xie the Book of Mormon, but he had to go back to work so we weren't able to sit down and have a discussion.

At the car wash, I talked to a guy named Jeff. At first, he just wanted to argue about how we weren't Christians or something, so I showed him our beliefs about Christ from the Book of Mormon and... well, he was pretty much confounded. "You sound like a Christian!" So, we're going over on Friday night to his Bible study to teach them what we believe about Christ.

Somebody else at the car wash wanted to give a donation. They told him we can't take it, but if he came to church on Sunday he could give it to the bishop. Well, he actually DID come and gave it to the bishop. That was pretty cool.

We saw Steven Wilson once this week. He says he's thinking a lot more about Jesus lately. This year, he's quit drinking, lost 50 pounds, and become determined to "make it" in life. He says he wants to repent of his sins. He's a little flaky on appointments though... but we'll keep trying to work with him.

The Manguses were busy this week. Maybe in a couple weeks we'll have more to say.

The Zamoras also didn't come to church. They're sick. There's a lot of sickness going around. I'm trying not to catch it. The Zamoras are learning though and they're getting prepared for baptism.

After the carwash on Saturday, we went to check on a Chinese guy who had been found on a zone tract out. He let us in and I taught him about prayer and some other basics. I don't know how interested he'll be in continuing the lessons but he said I could come back this Saturday. His English is not very good.

This week we had a lead for somebody named Tinker who has been inactive for decades. Her sister, who was in a similar situation, just became active again and told us to go over there. Well, we went and we got her a ride to church, and she really liked it and wants to stay active. So, that's just as good as a baptism. Now she's got a nonmember family who are really supportive and so there maybe some teaching opportunity there.

My companion and I went to lunch at one of the Chinese restaurants here in Cardiff-by-the-sea and our server was none but Jennifer Xie, the mother of Henry who we taught for a while in the Chinese branch. We talked quite a bit in Chinese as she came around. She says Henry still asks her to go to church. So I called the Chinese elders and told them not to forget about him.

That's about all that I can think of from this week. It's been busy. We've been doing our best and the members are noticing that and really supporting us as best as they can. The work is going really well. Transfers are next week, and I don't know if I'll stay or go. I love you guys. Thanks for all you do.

Love,
Elder Myers

t's good to have a lot of investigators

2007-04-10T17:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

Well, I don't have a lot of time today, so I'll try to be a fast typer.

Frank Xie is now investigating, that Chinese guy that I knew before I got transferred here. He's pretty good.

We also went to see a part-member family, and they were like "what a shock, the missionaries." They told us that missionaries had been coming before to prepare the two unbaptized girls for baptism and they at a tranfer stopped. So, they're about ready to set a baptismal date again. They're named the Zamoras. It's spring break so we should get a couple meetings in with them this week.

We taught Nicole another lesson and she's doing good. We taught the Linkowskis and they're doing well. The Twiggs stopped smoking yesterday, and are pretty on-track. It's good to have a lot of investigators and them all making progress.

There's not really much else to say this week. Everything is hunky-dory. How was Easter? It was good here. I love you all.
--Elder Myers

We set a baptismal date

2007-04-07T19:34:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
How did you like conference? It was really good. The Saturday afternoon session was pretty interesting - the rededication of the tabernacle. It wasn't really as good as the rest though. I especially liked Saturday Morning and Sunday Afternoon. Elder Miller and Elder Taylor in our district had 5 of their investigators go to Salt Lake for General Conference. They got back yesterday and all of them want to be baptized. Those elders have 6 investigators with baptismal dates for next month.

We set a baptismal date of April 28th with the Twiggs. I hope it comes through. They've got a lot of changes to make, but they're completely willing to make them. When we asked them if they'd be baptized they said "absolutely." So, we're trying to stay close and talking to them every day.

I went to the bike store and had a couple repairs and upgrades made to my bike. I got a water bottle. The crank was actually coming off as I was riding it; I got a correct allen wrench to put it back on, but I was eventually having to stop every mile to tighten the crank back up. So, I went to the store, and they got me a new bolt and it's working fine. The biggest problem with my bike right now is that I can't raise the seat - it's one of those "Liahona -Mission" models that they sell at Missionary Mall, and the screw on the seat needs some 5-sided tool. I even went to the "tool depot" to try to find something and they had nothing that would fit it. I'll make sure to check on my tire pressure. I'm not racing on the bike; the hills are just VERY steep in some places. Most of the time, though, I can relax and enjoy it. The ocean keeps it cool around here.

This week, we had an appointment with the Linkowski's. We taught the plan of salvation and got a return appointment. Yesterday, we went to a family, the Manguses, where the father is the only member- and he's less active, but active in the ward's scout program with his 13-year old son. Elder Archibald and I are both eagles, so they really listened to us, and invited us to come speak with the scout group. As we left, we gave them our number, written on a pass-along-card, for finding Faith in Christ, and told them if they wanted the video, they could just tell us. They said they actually did, and so we're going back there next Monday to share the video with them. I challenged the son to read one of the four gospels before Easter and he said he would. There may be potential there.

We found a new investigator named Steven Wilson. He just found out he has diabetes, and had just stopped drinking a week before. He said he had met missionaries before but had felt unable to join the church because of his drinking. Now that he had stopped, he was really interested. He's also 400 pounds. We watched the Saturday morning session of conference with him. He wants us to talk to his mom about the church too. The big obstacle with him is, I think, smoking. He smoked 11 cigarettes during the one session.

We dropped Diana Whitney. She wasn't progressing and had decided (without praying, of course) that she doesn't want to get baptized.

That's about all the significant news from this week. It's great to hear that Michelle's keeping up with the missionary work. I hope you're all doing well. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

It's going very well here.

2007-03-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

Mar 27, 2007
Dear Family,

Yes, I had a good birthday. Not only was I surprised with a cake and some balloons, but we also had 3 investigators come to church (The Twiggs and Diana Whitney) and found 3 new investigators in a part member family. So, It's going very well here. We're having dinner with the Goates tonight. Both wards are really great.

I received the book this week, thanks mom. It's the first edition, which is not that much different from the second edition, so it should bring me up to speed just fine.

I used the Discover card this week to buy a couple essentials - soap, laundry detergent, and a couple banquet dinners. My funds this month have been really tight, but in a couple days it should be better.

The bike riding is going a lot better. I no longer have to stop while going up hills. It's still hard, but we're making a lot better time.

The Twiggs are doing really well. They've been off alcohol for about a week now and they came to church and really enjoyed it. We taught them a few times, and I think they're doing their best to have sincere and lasting repentance.

Diana Whitney came to church, but I'm not sure she's any closer.

Nicole was sick the last couple days and hasn't been able to come to church. We did meet with her a couple times last week though and she's reading the Book of Mormon.

The new investigators are the Lynkowskis. The mom and oldest son are members and have recently been coming back after 10 years of inactivity. She wants the youngest two sons baptized. the husband is willing to allow it, but he's Catholic. We invited him to join with us for the missionary lessons as we teach the sons and to come to church with them and he agreed that he would. So, this is a really good opportunity.

We're planning on challenging the Twiggs to baptism this week, and setting a date with the Lynkowski kids next week. We'll see how it goes.

Yes, Elder Gibbons and I will be on the same plane home. Maybe you and the Gibbons can plan a super party bash for when we get back or something. We could all go down to Chinatown and show off our Chinese skills. If you do it before we get released we'll probably do some street contacting too :P. Uh... is there a Chinatown? Maybe just a Chinese restaurant.

This week, the Laus had the Huang family (the one I started teaching right before I left) over for dinner at their house and invited me. So I got to go and see them and Elder Gibbons and Elder Moreno. That was really cool. They all seem to be doing well. I got into Frank Xie's house and taught him a bit. He said I could come back. So, I'm getting a little chance to speak Chinese.
Last night we went street contacting, and one guy was a real jerk to me, trying to intimidate me or something. Well, he came back 10 minutes later and apologized for how he acted. That was really cool. That's the first time I've seen that on my mission.

Are you guys inviting anybody to watch General Conference? This one's gonna be good. (Not that I know any more about it than you, but you can usually be pretty confident that it'll be good.)

I got the cookies. They were delicious.

Well, another week flew by. I hope you are all doing well.

We have to ride bikes 3 days a week

2007-03-20T18:17:00.000-07:00

March 20, 2007
Dear Family,

Michelle got accepted, huh? That's really good news! I hope she comes to BYU Provo.

Brother Goates is a really good ward mission leader. Actually, he used to be bishop, so we call him Bishop Goates. We cover two wards, the Encinitas 1st and Cardiff wards. In the Encinitas ward, Bishop Goates is the ward mission leader, and the bishop is Bishop Sessions, who is about to retire from the Navy. Other prominent members in the Encinitas ward boundaries are the LAUS from the Chinese branch. They are trying to arrange a dinner this Friday at their home with the Huang family who we found just before I was transferred, and they invited us to go. I hope it works out. In Cardiff, the ward mission leader, Bro Ek, is the father of our bishop, Bishop Ek. We reside in Cardiff ward. We're the only elders that live there.

We have to ride bikes 3 days a week, and we have exchanges go out 5 nights a week. It's a pretty hilly area, actually, and it's pretty hard being out of shape with a little bit of asthma, but I felt an improvement. We rode about 15 miles a day this week.

On Wednesday, our dinner appointment wasn't there. It was in this apartment complex and suddenly I had a major deja vu, like I had been there before. I realized that a year ago, we had contacted a referral in that area named Frank Xie, who had a family. For some reason it didn't work out. It was a long drive, so we weren't able to go back and try again. Well, here I was, my first full day in the new area, wondering why I got transferred, and I'm one building away from a known, open Chinese family. That was pretty interesting. So, we're still trying to contact them. I found another Chinese person in the area book that I am trying to contact. Yesterday we had an appointment with an investigator lady named Nicole that is just moving into the area and she lives in a motel room right now. Well, when we approached the motel, a lady with the keys came up to us and asked us if she could help us get a room. We said no, we were here to visit a friend, but she looked Asian. I asked her name before she walked away and she said her name was "June." I asked her where she was from. China. So, I talked to her in Chinese and eventually got her to take a pamphlet in Chinese. I told her that I'd come talk to her again. The appointment with Nicole went well, and we arranged to teach her twice a week. She has really been prepared for the gospel. Her husband is probably going to join us as well. This will be good.

We have another investigator couple, the Twiggs. They hit rock bottom this week, going into a really bad alcohol binge. About 5 days of straight drinking. By the end, they wanted nothing more than two things: 1) to stop drinking and repent and 2) find more alcohol and keep drinking. They weren't doing very well. Finally they got some professional help. Yesterday they were sober and doing much better. They are making plans to stay away from alcohol entirely in the future. They also set up a regular schedule for us to come over twice a week.

Our other investigator, Diana Whitney, is kind of elderly. She speaks some Chinese, too. She lives in a retirement community. She didn't have any belief in God before, but has been coming to church and attended a baptism. We shared with her about faith as taught in Alma 32 and encouraged her to act upon her desires and little bit of faith in experimenting upon the word. She said she would. She's very intelligent.

So, that's our investigators right now. 4 of them. We have some really hot potential investigators too. We're working hard and exercising our faith through much bike riding. Thanks for all your prayers. I love you all.

Elder Myers

2007-03-13T17:15:00.000-07:00

March 13, 2007
Dear Family,

Well, today, I was transferred to Encinitas 1st ward and the Cardiff ward. It was kind of surprising. I'm back in English work. My companion is Elder Archibald from somewhere in Utah I never heard of. I'm in the Del Mar zone, which is a very small zone of only 5 companionships of elders. Elder Gibbons went back to the Chinese branch.

This week, we had a similar experience to your dinner experience. We were invited to dinner at the Johnson's house, where they had a nonmember over. We taught the compete restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon. It was pretty good. We also helped somebody move this week - there was a nonmember there also, and Elder Moreno taught her the restoration during lunch. If somebody can listen, we've got to teach them.

The Huang family was doing really well. They showed up to church - an hour late because nobody told them about daylight savings. We taught them again Monday, and Mr. Huang said the closing prayer. The spirit was definitely there, and I think they're recognizing it, but, alas, I'm gone. It was a good week, though.

Uh, not a lot else is happening that I can really remember. Transfers always create a blur. I'm excited to be here. I hope I can go back to Chinese for the last transfer though.

Yes, I know the Heaths, and I know they're Brother Heath's parents. I saw them today, in fact. We've talked several times about the Heaths.

Good job on missionary work Michelle. Keep it up.

I better go. I love you all.

--Elder Myers

He lives right by the temple (doesn't everybody?)

2007-03-07T05:46:00.000-08:00

March 6, 2007

Dear Family,

I'm so proud of you guys for taking the challenge. You guys did a great job, even if you didn't reach the 70. :) Yes, you can count any sort of talking about the church. We reached our goal this week (barely, we had to spend Sunday night street contacting at the movie theater) and taught some good lessons.

We were really blessed this week to get a message with a referral from elders in La Jolla. They told us they met a guy on the street and got his address and phone number. He lives right by the temple (doesn't everybody?) Well, last night, we went over there, and he was busy right then but we arranged an appointment for 7:00. We called Ronald and he came and taught with us: we taught the whole family, and they seemed really interested. Their names are Mr. Huang, Mrs. Lu, and their daughter Evelyn (not to be confused with the other Evelyn). We're going back Friday. They are from Taiwan and don't know a lot about our church except that it's really focused on families and that's very important to them. So, hopefully that works out.

The testaments is now out on DVD according to the April Chinese Liahona. So, maybe it's not quite out yet, but that's a good way that you can teach people more about the Book of Mormon.
We found out that the new mission president for this mission (starting July 1) is going to be Richard Brady from Orem, UT. His wife's name is Janice.

Was that our next door neighbor?

Mr Fan came to church again this week. There were a lot of nonmembers there. We had a new student in English class. Not much else has happened this week. Tonight, we're teaching Mr. Fan at Ronald's house.

Well, that's about all for this week. I love you all.
--Elder Myers

Chinese New Years celebration

2007-02-27T13:54:00.000-08:00

February 27, 2007
Dear Everybody,

How are you doing? I'm doing pretty good. It's raining here. It's supposed to be a pretty intense storm today.

I did read the New Era this month. I learned so much about being a missionary - I felt kind of shafted for not knowing this stuff already! I mean, seriously, I am a missionary, I should be able to write it, right? But yeah, I learned a lot. I recommend it highly.

We're doing okay on finding people, but we still don't have any baptisms coming up. Steve Dow is probably the closest. We took him to the fireside with President Garner on Sunday night. It went pretty well. We went with our ward mission leader Brother Lao in his very fast car.

Anyway, about this week. Wednesday, I went on exchanges with Elder Ellis in PQ3 and had a good night. That's the ward where I used to serve. We did some tracting and taught some lessons to some less-than-interested people. That night, we went to Gwen's house for dinner - she was a recent convert when I was serving there. She's still active. She fed us some fairly weird food, but it was still good. That night we went to the Albertson’s parking lot and found some kids. We got six teenage kids to sit down on a bench and we taught them all and answered their questions. We committed them to call for a free Book of Mormon. We'll see if they do.
On Thursday, we did some checkbacks and taught a lesson to Steven Dow. That night we passed out some fliers for the party at 99 ranch. The security guard was out there with us and we taught him as we stood there. He was kind of interested.

On Friday, we did service with Elder Mendoza and Elder Ellis, moving a whole bunch of rocks. That was a good work out. That night, we went and visited Evelyn, and she told us she is very busy lately. We taught her about the standards of the church and told her we'd get missionaries in contact with her when she goes back. She probably won't investigate right now, unfortunately. We also checked on a referral we got in the same apartment complex, and he was nice but busy and not super interested. He gave us his email address, so Brother Lao is going to work on him through email.

On Saturday night was our big New Years party. However, when we were at 99 ranch, we saw an advertisement for a big Chinese New Years celebration down town. So on Saturday morning, we loaded up our display and table into the trunk and went downtown, parked and took our table. There were lots of booths there. Unfortunately, we got kicked out pretty quick. They wanted 300 dollars for us to have a booth. I guess they could do that because they had the streets blocked off and a permit from the city. We tried just talking to some of the Chinese people that we saw, but most of the people there were Americans. So, it was kind of disappointing. I haggled with a Mexican guy who had a booth of Mexican wrestling masks and belts to get a cheap Nacho Libre mask. No, I haven't seen the movie, but I don't care. Have you guys seen Nacho Libre?

The branch's new year party had about 400 people. There were probably 20 Chinese nonmembers there. We taught a few lessons and gave a few Book of Mormons out. No new investigators, though. There was an extremely cool lion dance, where the lions jumped into the crowd and scared all the little kids.

On Sunday we went to the MCRD and taught some lessons. I taught less active members who didn't know much about what we believed but wanted to get back into it.

Yesterday we went to La Jolla to tract. We found a couple noninterested Chinese people, and got in a door of an Indian lady. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and gave her a copy. We also taught this kid we had tracted into before named Tom. He's kind of closeminded, but openminded enough to let us in and listen. If he hasn't read what we told him to by next time, then we're not going to waste any more time on him.

Michelle, if you have any questions from the person that's trying to convert you, just ask me and I can give you advice. Remember, all that your friend has to do to get a testimony is to read the Book of Mormon, ponder, and pray sincerely about it. That's it. It's easy and it works every time. I really really really recommend that you read Preach my Gospel.

Keep sharing the gospel guys. I challenge you to a duel - each week, each missionary is supposed to make an invitation to at least 70 people about the gospel outside of tracting. I challenge the whole family to beat me this week. (This is an idea our mission president gave us.) I'll be talking to seventy, can you guys combined come up with that? Yeah, you'll have to stretch your comfort zone and pray a lot, but I promise you it'll be the best week in a long time. Make it a subject of conversation at the dinner table. There's no reason to hold back, the church is true. Will you take my challenge?

Well, that's about it for this week. We've been tracting a lot. I hope you're all doing well. Thanks for your support and prayers. I love you all.

--Elder Myers

I think the spirit must have touched down

2007-02-23T07:41:00.000-08:00

February 20, 2007
Dear Family,

How are you doing?

I'm doing pretty fine. This week, I went on exchanges twice. Once with Elder Wickham our zone leader, and once with Elder Mendoza. The highlight of the week happened with Elder Mendoza, an Elder in my district - we worked really hard, tracting a lot and contacting lots of people. Finally at night time, it was down to, well, do we want to keep tracting or go visit a less active or something. At that point it was very clear to me that we needed to do whatever was going to help somebody get baptized. So, we went tracting. We knocked on one door that turned out to be a Spanish member who manages the complex, and she told us that upstairs (which we were going to knock on anyway) was somebody we should try who was a single mom with 3 kids. We knocked on the door, and she said that her neighbor upstairs one more floor had just moved, but was a member of the church and before they moved, they had given her a Book of Mormon. Sandwiched between two member families, I think the spirit must have touched down in her house a time or two because she was prepared, she was receptive. She let us in to teach her, said we could come back, and also said that she was thinking about coming to our church.
God IS preparing people. If we work hard and are willing to just get in there and keep tracting, we'll find them. Her name is Linda.

Yesterday it was raining SUPER hard. Elder Moreno and I decided to rack up some "hot wife points" by tracting in this weather. We got pretty wet, but we found a couple people who said they'd accept a Book of Mormon. We're tracting the same complex again tonight. It's in La Jolla. It was pretty interesting - we prayed for the rain to stop ("thy will be done") when we pulled up to the complex but nothing happened. The building we were doing yesterday had two sides, both with about 20 doors on each side, so we started with the side on which the face of the building protected us from the full deluge. Literally at the last door of that side, when it was time to tract the other side, the rain stopped. It didn't just get a little lighter, it completely, utterly ceased. Just an example of the tender mercies of the lord. The last door we knocked on the second side was an inactive member from the Philipines who I think can be cracked with a little help from Elder Bednar's talk from conference. He still knows the church is true, I think he just needs a little kick.

We've been completely out of touch with Steve Dow this week. I've tried calling several times and he hasn't returned my calls. I wonder what happened. I sent the missionaries in his area over last night to make sure he was still alive and his car wasn't there. Maybe this mystery will be solved this week.

We had a good stake conference this week on scripture study. I love studying the scriptures. I'm about to finish the Book of Mormon again, for about the 5th or 6th time on my mission.
In our English class, we have a kid named Sibo coming now. He's been in the states for 3 months. He's about 10 years old. I think his parents might bring him to church one of these weeks. We met him at 99 ranch.

We did some contacting outside of Chinese restaurants this week. We didn't meet anybody who was really interested, but we talked to a lot more Chinese people than usual.

We did some reconnaisance work at the local college campus and found some "free speech zones" in which we can freely contact lots of the students there. That's a great opening for us.

On Sunday we went to our roommates' baptism, a Mexican named Eric. Elder Moreno gave the Missionary Invite and started crying all over the place when he bore his testimony. There was one nonmember there, a Mexican man who lives in Escondido, who went and gave him a hug after the invite. The Spanish elders are now trying to get this guy taught.

Anyway, that's all the highlights from this week. I hope you guys are doing well. I love you all. Thanks for the letters.

Love,
Elder Myers

This may be the last post.

2007-02-13T21:16:00.000-08:00

Blogger is upgraded.

I just called them to repentance.

2007-02-13T21:13:00.000-08:00

February 13, 2007

Dear Family,

How are you doing? I'm doing pretty good. It's raining right now and has been since yesterday.
I'm sorry if this week's report is short and boring - not a lot happened that's noteworthy. We did have many good street contacts and got their addresses and phone numbers- none of whom are Chinese. We're currently looking for a place to street contact which isn't 99 Ranch, because we don't want to lose permission to have our English class booth there. We don't care about getting kicked out of other places. This week we did find a new English class student (Yay) and Mr. Fan and Steve Dow came to church. The branch did a little food drive for Steve and we took him a whole lot of food.

We had a great zone conference on Friday. President Garner gave a lesson on the gathering of Israel and at the end bore the most powerful testimony I'd ever heard. Ever. Not in the words alone but in the power of the holy ghost.

We cancelled going to the MCRD this week to take Steven to his local ward, but he got sick and wasn't able to make it. So, we were able to have a bunch of extra time on Sunday with which we street contacted at the movie theater and asked people if they went to church today. When they said they hadn't, (most of them "didn't have time") I reminded them of the first and great commandment, and the first of the 10 commandments, and invited them to do better. I actually liked it. I didn't have to preach hellfire and damnation, I just called them to repentance. None of them wanted to hear the restored gospel though. Oh well.

There was a big 'ol tractout for one of the wards in the zone, in which 16 companionships were able to go out. My companion ( a priest in that ward) and I were able to find 4 checkbacks and commit 2 people to read the Book of Mormon. We were quite blessed to be able to testify to them and have them really become interested.

Yesterday, I got to go up to Escondido for a district leader training. President Garner trained us on how to do baptismal interviews. There were a lot of good insights given.

I met somebody that knows Donald. His name is Brother Obarr and he's the branch mission leader for the Spanish branch. He used to be Don's branch president in Linda Vista.

Well, that's about all that's happened. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Happy Valentines Day. Love you all.

Elder Myers

Recruit McDonald was baptized

2007-02-06T13:57:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Dad, yes, I'll be coming home to the Redmond stake, that's right. I think. I hope they don't send me to the wrong state.

Happy 18th birthday Michelle! I hope you have the best birthday EVER.

Not a lot happened this week. We contacted a lot of people. I made sure my district all met the goal of contacting 20 people a day per companionship. We did.

We had a car wash this week, and an 18-yr-old Chinese kid showed up to get his car washed. He seems interested in the church, and he's next door neighbors to one of the stake presidency, President McPhie, who actually introduced us to him a couple months ago when we went to dinner at the McPhie home. It's good to introduce neighbors to the missionaries, even if they don't seem interested in the message.

On Sunday, Recruit McDonald was baptized. We didn't get to go, because my companion took forever getting ready and by the time he was ready, we would have arrived at the place where we meet the APs too late, so I had to call the APs and tell them to go without us. That was a bummer. But it's great that he got baptized.

We're making a way better, way sweeter booth for Chinese people. It's one of those science fair tri-fold style things. It'll be fun.

Anyway... Mr. Fan and Steven both came to church. I'm going to try AGAIN this week to get Steven into the English ward. Pray for us.

That's all this week of any interesting note. We're doing a lot of street contacting and finding. I hope you're all doing well. Give missionaries referrals- giving the missionaries one personal introduction to somebody is better than an entire day of their own tracting and contacting. Look for ways to help them. Keep them in your prayers, and keep your own missionary experiences in your prayers. There's no reason to hold back - this IS the true gospel, the everlasting gospel, and if we act out of love we'll do anything to help the people we love find salvation.

Love,
Elder Myers

Don't get trunky.

2007-01-30T15:51:00.000-08:00

January 30, 2007

Dear Family,

In response to your question, where do I consider "home"... well, right now, I consider my apartment in Mira Mesa home. When people ask me "Where's home" I say "Seattle.... kinda." I guess I consider both Seattle and BYU home in that sense.

Well, my release date is confirmed: June 6th. Give or take a day. Don't get trunky. Yes, I'm planning on living at Grandma and Grandpa's house until I can get a place to live, probably fall.

Heh, mom, when you told me about Michelle's double date, the visual in my mind of only two boys and two girls together sent off a neon warning sign. Then I remembered that she's not a missionary, so it's okay.

Today was transfers. We spent last night after we got in cleaning the apartment and all this morning. There's a lot less clutter now. Clean houses are much better. Elder Gregory got transferred so our new roommate is Elder Manning from Las Vegas. He's been out for 5 months, just like Elder Moreno. They rode in on the same plane. I'm still with Elder Moreno - for the third transfer in a row.

We taught Steven a couple times this week. He didn't come to church. Evelyn didn't come to English class or church either and isn't answering the phone. I don't know what happened. Our roommates had a baptism on Saturday night that we went to so that Elder Moreno could give the missionary invite. That was very cool. The sisters found him tracting. He's having his family down in Mexico listen to the missionaries too.

One of Ronald's coworkers who lives in Vista is starting to take the missionary lessons too. He's having his whole family listen. It's important to find families to investigate.

We went again to where the Chinese people play soccer on Saturday and talked to about 20 people there. We gave out a few pamphlets, but we didn't get any new investigators. We'll keep trying.

We also tried something new this week: we made a poster that says, in Chinese, "What is the purpose of life? Is there a God? Is there life after death?" We then bought 4 helium balloons from the party store, and filled our trunk with Chinese proselyting materials, opened the trunk, taped the sign and balloons to it, and parked in the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant. We talked to several Chinese people there too. We may keep trying this. We call it our "Guerilla Booth" because if we get kicked out of a parking lot, we can just go somewhere else.

On Sunday, Toby wasn't there (we're not sure why) but I taught someone else, and committed him to be baptized next week. His name is Shane McDonald. He's a good kid.

Last night, we were walking to an appointment at Ronald's house and we street contacted a lady who was crying and lost; she got off the bus at the wrong place and wasn't sure how to get back to her home in down town San Diego. Elder Moreno said, "Well, we're missionaries." "Are you missionaries with a ride?" "Uh, we don't have a car right now, sorry." "Then I can't waste my time, I need to find a bus that'll take me to a trolley." So she walked away. As we walked on, we had an idea to use Elmer for a ride, so we ran to Elmer's had him get ready, and drove the direction she was walking. Sure enough, she was waiting at a nearby bus stop, where she had just missed the bus and it was starting to rain. We pulled up and said, "Now we're missionaries with a ride!" and she got in and we drove her to the trolley station. She told us that we had just answered her prayer, that she had just prayed for a way to get home. And you know, for missionaries, we had the perfect opportunity -- a captive audience who was willing to listen. We taught her the message of the restoration and she was receptive. We gave her a pamphlet and got her phone number. That'll go to other missionaries, and so we never know what'll happen, but I know that when we try to talk to and serve the people in our path, opportunities will open up to share the Gospel.

Well, time's up, I hope you have a great week. I love you all,
Elder Myers

I don't think the prophets of old had it very easy.

2007-01-23T21:40:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

How are you doing? I'm doing fine. The orange crop here was ruined? I didn't hear that. I hope the farmers have some orange insurance. It was pretty cold.

I got some news from Orem today. Nick Clark got home a couple weeks ago. Wow, crazy.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for Michelle. I hope she gets in.

I should have my actual release date finalized this week. I'll let you know next Tuesday.

Steven Dow is doing pretty well. He came to church this week. He's still progressing; we taught him a few times. We lost contact with Evelyn this week; she didn't even show up to English class. We got Mr. Fan to church again this week, and set up an appointment for the library yesterday, but when we got here, we found that the library was closed, and we saw Mr. Fan leaving. We were 5 minutes late because Elder Moreno is compulsive about brushing his teeth. So, we have to find another time he's free.

I'm sorry, I don't have my planner with me, so I'm not sure of all the details of what happened and when and all that, and I don't think a lot really did happen this week. But, there was one cool experience that I wanted to share.

Elder King and I went on exchanges, and during the afternoon we went to go street contact by Scripps Ranch High school right after it got out. After over an hour and a half of contacting, there were no more kids, and our ride back was late, so we found a place to sit down about half a block away and read the scriptures for a minute. After just a few minutes, a school bus pulled up and a lady got out to smoke. She was waiting 15 minutes or so for when she had to pick up some kids at the school We started a conversation with her and it turned out that 1) Her mom used to read the book of Mormon, 2) she wanted to quit smoking and 3) She had just left her church and was praying for God to show her which church she should go to. We told her it was no coincidence that we met her, gave her our last Book of Mormon, and got her information. I'll probably never find out what happened with her, but we can have faith and pray that the missionaries who got the referral will have success.

We did some service this week, helping Elmer get his yard under control, and helping the Spanish Branch President move. He gave us his old table, which now replaces our "midget table." It's nice to have a table that your legs can fit under.

We were street contacting a few nights ago and walked past a bar. A lady walked out and started smoking, so we started talking to her. She said she was catholic and believed in Jesus Christ. She agreed that faith and repentance were necessary. We didn't really beat around the bush for too long, I told her something like, "I don't mean to be offensive, but I'm concerned for you because you're at a bar. God doesn't want you here. We're his messengers inviting you to change your life. You can know Jesus Christ better than you know him now. You can be happier if you keep his commandments." She of course, said that this was a very offensive thing to say and told us to go away. Oh well. Nephi said the wicked take the truth to be hard, for it cuts them to the very core. I don't think the prophets of old had it very easy.

At the MCRD, Toby had gone up north. So I hope the missionaries up there were able to talk to him and prepare him for baptism. He should be back next week. There was a baptism this week. I made sure the font didn't flood.

Well, that's about it for this week. I love you all,
Elder Myers

He had gained a testimony

2007-01-16T17:01:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,
How are you doing? I'm doing pretty well. Today we went to the temple, did laundry, and that's about it so far.

Here, it is the coldest winter in 11 years. There was frost on the car a couple of mornings ago- not exactly snow, but it was pretty cold.

We got stood up on both of those Spanish people appointments that we made last week. No good.

We spent Saturday with Steven Dow, helping him to clean his house and arrange all the stuff his parents left behind.

On Saturday night we went to Evelyn's house for dinner. We taught about how the gospel blesses families. They didn't come Sunday.

Sunday morning, we went to the MCRD. I taught the same recruit I taught last week. during the past week, he had gained a testimony that what I had taught him was true. In fact, he said that that knowledge is what got him up "the reaper," which is the most difficult part of their training. I think it entails running up a mountain with an 80 pound backpack. I taught him the plan of salvation and invited him to be baptized. "Next week?" he asked, expectantly. I had to push it back another week, because he still had more to learn. So, in two weeks, Toby Whitehead should be getting baptized.

Sunday night, we had a tract out. I went tracting in Mira Mesa 2nd, on a street I had worked on before. They STILL weren't interested, heh.

Yesterday, we spent helping Steven Dow. His house looks much better and I think he's starting to get hope for the future. He didn't have any food in the fridge, so we gathered some of the food from the cupboards and took it to his house. We can only do so much, which is frustrating, but I know that God can make up the rest.

And that's about it. It's been a short "week." I hope you guys are doing okay, and that the storm is not too bad.

I love you all,
Elder Myers

That was such an amazing night

2007-01-11T12:00:00.000-08:00

January 11, 2007

Dear Family,

Well, the letter's even later this week- we had interviews on Wednesday, so today, Thursday, is P-day.

I hope you can stay safe for the storm and that you won't be too isolated.

This week, we did a lot of street contacting right when the schools got out. We gave away lots and lots of Book of Mormons, but we only gave them away if they promised to read them. We gave out many more pamphlets. We got several phone numbers, emails, and addresses. The English missionaries will be following up with them. We've talked to several hundred people outside of regular tracting this week.

We also taught Georgio, Patrick's 7 year old son, a couple times. He went back to Arcadia, and I made sure the missionaries up there got over to take care of him.

Something interesting happened this week. Elder Long, my roommate, happened to be serving in Ramona, about 20 minutes away, last transfer. He asked me if I had ever gotten the referral he had tried to give to me- a Chinese lady in ramona was interested. I hadn't. he said he had given it to the zone leaders in the Poway Zone, so I called them and they gave me the phone number for this lady. The next day, my zone leader approached me and said, "Hey, Elder Myers, I found this name and phone number in my old planner, do you know who this is?" It was the same person. So, a referral, lost for 2-3 weeks now surfaced not once, but twice in less than 24 hours. This is what we call a good mistake, for the timing was miraculous: when I called her (her name is Wen Ying) she had just found out that her mother had passed away. I was able to help a little bit, but then I had sister pong call. People are so much more receptive to the gospel at those times when they know they really need it. Anytime you know somebody who has a death in the family or a new baby, you need to give a referral for that person to the missionaries.

We got the new pamphlets in Chinese this week. We were able to give a few out- we gave one to each of Mr. Fan's roommates. Mr. Fan was very busy with work this week, so he didn't make much progress, but he's still okay.

Friday night we went to Evelyn's house for dinner -but neglected to call and confirm. She wasn't expecting us, there had been a communication error. They had other guests over, but she still invited us in and made us food. We're going over again Saturday. We were hoping to teach a lesson, but the situation didn't permit it. One of the people they had over was studying film, so I was able to talk to him.

It's looking more and more like Ronalds wife Yunnie is going to be able to be baptized. We fasted for her with many of the branch members this week. At the testimony meeting, their son Calvin bore his testimony on the unity that has come into their family since the sisters came and started teaching his mom the gospel. He was crying and Yunnie started crying. It was a very moving experience. Elder Moreno also cried during his own testimony.

Steve Dow has resurfaced. He showed up to church on Sunday. Both of his parents have passed away in the last year, since he last investigated, and he's having a really hard time. We have an appointment tonight with him.

We went to the MCRD on Sunday, and I taught a marine who is very open. The marines there are all so prepared. The one I taught last week is doing well too.

One night, as we were tracting, we street contacted a couple Mexicans and it started raining, so we asked if we could go to their house to teach them. They let us, and we had a return appointment for our roommates. Also, one time when a member was taking us out to dinner once and we were waiting there for him, we saw a kid outside down the block who looked Mexican. When we got closer, we saw he was rolling some cigarettes and had some alcohol. We sat next to him, and Elder Moreno taught him that one day he was going to wake up and realize that he wasn't going down the right path. His name was Michael; he's only 17 years old. Michael knew he was right and gave us his address and phone number and said he wanted to change. We went over to his house that night (on the way, we talked to a guy sitting on a chair in his driveway and he was really interested; now he is reading the Book of Mormon) and Elder Moreno told his mom we wanted to help their family by teaching the restored gospel, and we thought since we were young, we could identify with the son. She let us in, and he taught her the restoration, and we have a return appointment. On these Spanish return appointments, Elder Moreno will be going with one of our roommates so that we can turn them over to them. That was such an amazing night; we had a lot of success, and things just worked out right.

Tuesday's zone conference was awesome. Elder Marlin K. Jensen of the first quorum of the seventy (he is also the church historian and recorder) spoke for 2-3 hours and gave a lot of good insights. His main training was on faith and missionary work. There was truly an outpouring of the spirit.

Yesterday I went on exchanges with our roommates so that Elder Moreno could hand over some of the Spanish investigators. I went with Elder Gregory and we taught Calvin and Jimmy, then went to some Mexicans. I still can't speak Spanish, but I am understanding it more and more.

My backpack's zipper broke. I might have to use some of my Christmas money on a new backpack.

That's about it from this week. I hope you survive the storm comfortably. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

Happy New Years!

2007-01-02T21:30:00.000-08:00

January 2, 2007

Dear Family,

Happy New Years!

Next week, P-day is Wednesday. That's because on Tuesday, we're having a conference with a general authority, Elder Jensen. Not to be confused with my former companion, Elder Jensen.

Elder Elkington came to visit this week. Er, Brother Elkington. He was my first companion in the field. He brought his wife; they came for their honeymoon. That was really weird. He's keeping up on his Chinese and seems to be doing well.

We went to the tail end of the fireside broadcast on new years eve. We had to be in our apartment all night after that. Our church didn't end until 5:30, actually. Elder Moreno gave a talk on the Second Coming in Chinese. Sister pong also spoke, also in mandarin. Brother Elkington bore his testimony. I translated into English (I don't know if I've told you, but for translation, we have headsets and the translator sits in the back of the room and reads into a microphone).

Mr. Fan is keeping the word of wisdom. We saw Evelyn a couple times. Her husband got back a couple days ago, and we have a dinner appointment at their house on Friday. She said the Book of Mormon's small print is hard to read, but she really likes the pamphlet I gave her on the family and is studying it diligently.

Jimmy's roommate Patrick has a son named George who is 7, almost 8, and we are teaching him a couple times before he goes back to LA with his mom. We are working on hooking him up with a ward there to go to church. Patrick isn't religious, but he's seen the good it did in Jimmy's life and wants that for his son, so he asked us to help his son go to church. I have permission from President Garner to call the Arcadia mission where he'll be and arrange it with Elder Lee - who was in my MTC district. He's the one who said the opening prayer the first day at the MTC, remember?

On Tuesday night we went street contacting and weren't having much success, then we realized we had forgotten to pray. So we prayed and then the first person we talked to was interested - she's now being taught by English missionaries. That was a cool experience.

Our English classes were sparsely attended this week. I hope it was just because people were on vacation.

On Sunday, I went to the MCRD on exchanges with our district leader, Elder Bates and the assistants, Elder Vance and Elder Pebley. They had a baptism, so Elder Vance and I went to fill the font. We put the hose in and let it start filling, and then Elder Vance wanted to check on something, so we left. About 5-10 minutes later, we came back, and the hose was still in the font, but pointing OUT into the room, spraying water onto the carpet floor like a fountain. It was very very very wet. We had to mop it up, use towels and use a huge fan to dry it up. The baptism still happened.

That's about all the interesting stuff this week. I hope you guys are all doing well. I love you all.
--Elder Myers

A Merry Christmas

2006-12-26T11:30:00.000-08:00

December 26, 2006

Dear Family,
It was great to get to talk to you on the phone yesterday. One more phonecall left...

Not much has happened since the phonecall, but I'll briefly recount the significant events of the week for record-keeping purposes.

We got spit on while street contacting at a bus stop this week. That was fun. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. I'm not sure what his problem was. He kept swearing at us too. We had to just walk away.

We had a party for the Chinese branch this week. Elder Moreno and I were assigned to do a skit, which we finally came up with in the car that morning. I'll have to send a video, but it went something like this.
"I'm sorry, but I'm closing the store."
"It'll only take a second: I need to return this snowman" (puts a bucket of water with a carrot, a couple rocks, and a couple sticks on the table)
"...It's melted."
"That's why I'm returning it."
"Did you keep it cold?"
"Nobody told me to."
"It's common sense!"
(Arguing back and forth for a minute)
"No, I can't let you return it!"
Then Elder Moreno threw the bucket of water on me and walked off the stage. The end.

As a Christmas gift, we delivered a cake, a family pamphlet, and a Book of Mormon to our English student Evelyn. She lives in a condo right next to the San Diego temple; it is the highlight of the view from her balcony. She was receptive to the gift. She also gave us some oranges. She is doing very well.

Mr. Fan is doing well too. He came to the party and I think he made good friends with Brother Lau.

I lost my wallet twice this week. Yes twice. Once at Carls Junior (the person who found it got ahold of me and returned it) and again the next day, but luckily I found it in my apartment.

Christmas was good. I got some good gifts. I won't enumerate them all here, but thanks to everybody who sent me things. I appreciate it.

We went singing a couple of the nights this week on Christmas Card Lane. It's a very very decorated street in Penasquitos that attracts visitors from miles around. As we sang, some people street contacted.

And that's all that's happened really. I hope you have a great New Years. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

A wonderful letter full of stories

2006-12-20T20:34:00.000-08:00

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

The Lord always provides.

2006-12-12T20:58:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Well, our car has been in the shop since Wednesday, so it's been a different kind of week. We had 2 days to borrow a car, but the rest have been hitching rides and walking. We spent a lot more time on the streets and met a couple people who were interested who we passed off to other missionaries. On Sunday, we walked to church (about 1 1/2 - 2 miles away) and taught lessons to 6 Mexican migrant workers and 2 teenagers. Well, Elder Moreno taught the Mexicans. I'm starting to be able to understand a little Spanish, but I don't speak it at all.

Our English class is exploding. We're getting more people every week. The Koreans had a lot more on Saturday too - they had 10 new people in one week. We had 2 nonmembers from English class at church and one of them, Mr. Fan, is now investigating. We taught him yesterday. He has come to church twice now. Evelyn, a lady from Taiwan with two children, came with her kids. A member gave her a ride to English class, then offered her a ride to come to church and she accepted. In total, there were 6 nonmembers at Sacrament meeting. It was a good time.

We dropped Rod. He's starting his own church. He was close, but not openhearted enough to read at least more than a chapter of the Book of Mormon and pray about it.

Elder Moreno and I last week tracted into a couple, the Barerras - he tried following up by going over with the Spanish missionaries and they didn't open the door, even though they looked through the peephole. So nothing happened there. We'll just have to leave them a message saying to call us when they want to learn more about the gospel.

We taught Mr. Han and Mr. Huang the word of wisdom this week. They see it as being a big challenge. They're not sure they can do it. We'll hope and pray and help them as best as we can.

That's great that you're able to do baptisms for the dead now, Lisa. How do you like it?

We've had a couple times we've gotten stuck without a ride and had to pray for a solution. Last night was one. For our last appointment, we got a ride to Ronald's house, and he didn't show up. Miraculously, just before 9, a member named Dicky showed up with a Christmas gift for the family, and we were able to get a ride home with him. The Lord always provides.

I hope you are all doing well. Next week, I'll let you know what time to call. Next week is transfers, and after the transfer meeting we're having a Christmas devotional. Elder Tenney from the 5th quorum of the Seventy is going to speak to us. I'm predicting we're going to get sent back down to Mira Mesa. If not, we'll still be in Penasquitos.

I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

It's good to have a supportive mission president.

2006-12-05T14:14:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

How are you all doing? That's pretty cool that you had such a huge snowstorm.

Yes, I saw the Christmas devotional, and yes I saw the brother from our stake who played the clarinet. It was a good devotional.

This week, we made a booth for the Book of Mormon and set up about a block away from a high school right when it got out. We talked to about 50 people and gave out 10 copies of the book of mormon. I was glad that we were there - we touched people who were interested in the Gospel, who just didn't know where to find it. Some of the members in the stake, however, were not so positive. At the stake missionary correlation, the mission president was there, (I wasn't there, I just heard it from a couple sources) and some of the leaders of different wards were negative about it, but President Garner completely backed us up. He called me on Monday morning and told me to keep doing it. This is the way I see it: If they really got it - that this IS the church of Jesus Christ, this IS the everlasting gospel, that we need to reach everyone with the message, they'd be out preaching on the streets too instead of condemning it as "hurting our image." We know from the scriptures that popularity is overrated. It's good to have a supportive mission president.

Yesterday we set up our booth at 99 ranch. We had a couple new people sign up (and people have been trickling into our English class so that we're steadily growing). We, as usual (it's strange how often it happens), ran into a member there who bought us lunch. We also were "a sign" to some other members who walked in, who had just barely been talking with their Chinese friend about finding an English class for their friend's brother who was coming over from Taiwan that week; then they walked past our booth. That was pretty neat too.
Last night, Elder Moreno and I went tracting, and we got in our first door together. They are a recently married couple who speak Spanish, and we taught them a first lesson and have permission to return. We'll transition them to the Spanish missionaries Wednesday night.
We taught Mr. Han again. He is progressing. He keeps his commitments.

We went singing again on Friday night. Several contacts were made.

Not a lot of other things have happened this week. It has been pretty normal. I hope you are having a great Christmas time.

Love you all,
Elder Myers

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

2006-11-28T12:42:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-21T12:42:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-14T13:09:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-07T17:32:00.000-08:00

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

I'm dressing up as a missionary this year.

2006-10-31T20:02:00.000-08:00

October 31, 2006
Dear Family,

Happy Halloween. I hope that you all eat plenty of candy and stay safe. I'm dressing up as a missionary this year. We're staying in because that's the mission rule. We're planning on using tonight for having Elder Jensen make calls to all the former investigators he's taught and try to make appointments with them before he leaves. Next week, I'll be with a new companion, and Elder Jensen will be gone.

Keep working on Faith in God, Lisa. That's a great accomplishment.

That's awesome that you got contacts, becky. I'm surprised mom didn't mention that they were colored as smiley faces or something.

I think the mixer is a great birthday present, mom. I look forward to partaking of some of the goodies.

Dad, how was your trip to Texas? Did you have a good time? Did anything interesting happen?

Yesterday, we spent another day down at 99 ranch for about 6 and a half hours. We found a new English class student, and he seems to be somewhat interested in learning the gospel too. Many more people seemed like they wanted to come, but didn't sign up yet. One of our current English class students actually brought a bunch of Chinese friends to the stake Halloween party.

We had dinner with the Johnson family last night. We set up a time to have another lesson with the mom. We're pretty excited about that. This is the part-member family, where the mom is Chinese Buddhist.

On Saturday, we went singing/contacting in the park. 5 missionaries stood and sang hymns, while 3 contacted people. I sang. It was a good experience. This unique idea was suggested in zone conferences by President Garner.

We met with Gavin again on Saturday, but we weren't able to get him to come to church. His roommate Rubin says that if Gavin converts, he'll start coming to church too.
On Saturday night, we had a tip-off that there was some sort of Chinese party (non-church related, just Chinese community) at the Poway Civic Center, so we went to check it out. It turned out, it was just a karaoke dance, and so we left some flyers and went our way.
Besides those things, we just had the typical missionary work schedule. Some tracting, some contacting, some check-backs. Nothing phenomenal, but we're optimistic that things will happen on the Lord's time-table.

I hope you have a great week. I love you all. Send me some Halloween pictures.

Love,
Elder Myers

2006-10-24T08:36:00.000-07:00

Oct 24, 2006
Dear Family,

How are you all doing? I am doing well. Thanks for your letters.

This week, I went to two baptisms. One was somebody that Elder Jensen taught before they gave Mira Mesa 2nd ward to some other elders. Another was of a family in Penasquitos, the Esmaeli family. They're from Iran. Brother Esmaeli has been in America for 5 years, working for enough money to bring his family over here. He had to flee from Iran because he was put in jail and tortured for possessing a Bible. His family is here on assylum. They hardly speak English, but they have a lot of faith and knew it was the right thing to do. The baptism was great - the father, mother, and one of the sons. The night before the baptism, one of their family friends said she wanted to be baptized too, so they quick taught her the rest of the lessons, had her interviewed, and she was baptized too. What a great step in opening doors to preach the gospel in the middle east.

This week, we taught a few lessons to nonmembers while checking back on our potential investigators list. However, we didn't find any who were willing to investigate. So, we move on.

On Wednesday, we went to 99 Ranch with our English stand, then we went to teach Jimmy. He had some infections and asked a blessing. We gave him one; he's getting better now. Here's an interesting experience he had: he was feeling really weighed down by trials and he prayed for God to guide him to know whether he should keep going with the church. The next day, he got a call from the secretary asking him to speak in sacrament meeting on the topic of trials and enduring to the end. He recognized this as the answer to his prayer. So even in small callings, like assigning someone to speak, you can be the lord's instrument in answering prayers.

Last night we watched a video called "Family Answers" with Ronald and Calvin. It's a pretty interesting video, and even though it's a little bit cheesy it has some good ideas on building stronger families. It would be good for family home evening one of these nights, I think. You should be able to get it from distribution.

Do you guys still have ensigns saved up? If so, how would you like to send me all the conference editions you can find (except for the last two - I have them)? If possible, that is...

On Thursday we had lunch with Jessica Yan, who was baptized on Elder Elkington's last Sunday here. She's been in Hong Long for the last several months, but she's still doing well in the church. Do they have Souplantations up in Seattle? That's one of my favorite places to eat down here, besides some of the great Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants.

Other than that, not many noteworthy things happened. We're still working and trying to help the lord's will get done, however we can help.

I love you all,
Love,
Elder Myers

Buddhism doesn't teach that

2006-10-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

How are you doing?

Well, I found out what was wrong with me. Pinkeye. I got clued in when my eye turned pink. It was viral, so the antibiotics weren't doing anything; I just needed to get better. I'm thinking I'm about there, though.

Sounds like fun having rain. I'm glad for it to start cooling down again.

Today we went to the temple. It was a great experience. Elder Sawyer is sick (From what? Pinkeye.) so Elder Jensen stayed back with him and I took 7 foot Elder Beyer to the temple. Elder Jensen gets to go in 3 weeks when he goes home anyway, so he didn't think of it as that much of a sacrifice.

One of the best moments this week is when we went to go teach a kid named Max Johnson - his dad is a member, his mom isn't. He's 15 and he's been active in the church all his life, but never been baptized. So we went over there to see what we could do to help. Turned out, when we got there, we ended up teaching his mom, who claimed responsibility for him not getting baptized cause he doesn't want to disappoint her. She's Buddhist. Lately she's been having a very strong feeling that she wants to be together forever with her family. Hmm, Buddhism doesn't teach that. So, long story short, now she's going to read the Book of Mormon with her husband. Awesome.

Emily's husband found a job. They've been coming to church every week since I got back down here in Chinese work. We'll see what we can do with that...

We started teaching a man named Jingfeng from China. We've met with him twice, and he's keeping his commitments to read the Book of Bormon. He's going back in a couple weeks, though. We've taught him the plan of salvation and the message of the restoration.

We taught Gavin Huang, and his roommate wanted to join too. That was fun. We taught the message of the restoration, and the roommate was fairly interested. We gave him a Book of Mormon.

Sunday we translated talks for the Chinese from English into Chinese. It's kind of frustrating when they ask people who only speak English, who aren't even high council speakers or stake presidency, to give talks and make us translate. It took us several hours to write out a translation: the talks were on Nauvoo. Not really the most typical sacrament meeting topic. Not really a topic with vocabulary that's really easy to just look up in a dictionary. But it was fun anyway.

3 new Chinese people came to English class last week. Up to 5!

Not much else happened. I spent some time with Elder Sawyer this week since he had the same sickness as I did, and he needed somebody to stay with him. So I got a lot of study in this week.
Well, I'm out of time, I love you all. Take care, be safe.

Love,
Elder Myers

Sick. Again.

2006-10-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
How are you doing? I'm doing fine, thanks.

No, I didn't get the cookies. Hopefully they're still good next week. I appreciate the effort, though :).

I've been sick this week. I don't want to go into it very much, because I don't have much time today, but I have bronchitis. Again. I should be better in the next couple of days.

We met with MeiHui twice this week. We had a really great lesson on Saturday with president Ong there. President Ong just got back from being a mission president in Hong Kong, so he knows his stuff. We also taught Sister Jiang once this week at the temple; she's not going to be able to meet for about a month though, since she's going to be taking care of a family who just had a baby, and Chinese traditions just after a birth are very weird.

This week, we had the Mid-Autumn festival. It was pretty cool. There were a lot of non-members who came, and a lot of the people we're focusing on came.

That's about all that happened, actually. I hope you're all having a great week. Awesome that you invited your new ward family over for dinner. I'll be sure to make friends with them.

I love you all,
Elder Myers

Meeting with a Chinese Christian Pastor

2006-10-03T21:23:00.000-07:00

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

I'm so happy to be here

2006-09-26T12:50:00.000-07:00

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

Conference talks and Chinese restaurants

2006-09-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

Hello! How are you all doing? I'm doing great.

Elder Jensen has 7 weeks left in the mission as of today. He's trying not to think about it too much. He's a big help, but my Chinese is still slowly approaching par.

Michelle, how's school going? Are you enjoying cross country? It's not giving your legs any trouble, is it?

On Sunday we were over at Ronald's house so he could give us a ride to church, and we met a Mexican friend, Herman, that's been living with him for a week. I didn't see any harm in inviting him to come to church with us, so I did. He accepted, and Ronald got him a white shirt and tie to wear. So we brought a Spanish-speaking nonmember to the Chinese branch, and he had a good time. Last night we went to their house for family home evening and showed a conference talk on the multilingual DVDs. We actually watched it in Spanish with English subtitles so that Calvin, Ronald, and Herman could watch it. It went well.

I'm really excited for conference too; I have been for months. Yesterday, we watched several conference talks in Chinese with people. We watched Elder Holland's "Broken Things to Mend" talk (Definitely a top notch missionary talk to give to non-members) with Sister Yue, and it made her cry. It's super-powerful. She's really bummed about having to go back to Taiwan soon. She really likes the church, the missionaries, and everything. She says she'll keep reading and everything when she goes back to Taiwan. I'm not sure that her baptismal date is going to hold - not that she's not ready, but that she doesn't feel ready. That's a common sentiment among most Chinese investigators. She wanted to know so much more. So we gave her "Gospel Principles" book and challenged her to read it within a week. Yesterday, the only real question she had was some confusion from some Jehovah's Witnesses' pamphlets she had been given. We had to explain that the J-dubs were well-intentioned and taught many good things but that they, like other churches, are also part of the confusion of the apostasy, and we have clarity of who God is through the added strength of the Book of Mormon and modern prophets.

And last night, we showed another talk, "Beware the evil behind smiling eyes" to Jimmy, and then again to Ronald (which I already talked about). At Jimmy's house, he had a friend visiting from Vietnam (she's Chinese-Vietnamese) and watched it in Chinese. We then gave her a Book of Mormon and got her contact info. Elder Jensen is going to be in Vietnam in December, and going to try to visit her or something. His brother and sister-in-law live there. They hold church meetings in their house, since the government won't allow them to have a chapel.

On Sunday Morning, we went to the MCRD again to teach the marine boot camp recruits, and we set some baptismal goals with people. It's pretty cool down there. The APs are in charge of the work down there, we just teach lessons. One guy last week came up and told me "I've been coming to church the last several weeks, how do I join?" I don't know how we missed him before, but he'll probably get baptized.

Last night, President Leung took us out to eat at a northern Chinese restaurant, where all 4 dishes were nothing I had ever eaten before. There were some new vegetables, a very spicy lamb, Chinese-style ribs, and a very good marinated smoked duck (not Peking duck). The only thing I was accustomed to was the rice and the water, but it was a very good meal. I think I'll be very good at ordering Chinese food for when we all go to Chinatown in Vancouver... except Vancouver's Chinatown all speaks Cantonese, so maybe I'll have to reconsider.

Sunday night we had a Chinese tractout. 10 branch members teamed up with 10 missionaries, and we got some pretty good leads. I'm excited to see how it turns out. I heard that in my old area they picked up a new investigator from the tract out we had there.

We got a referral for a Chinese family this week who went to temple square and were able to set up an appointment with them. We taught them the basics and invited them to church, but weren't able to get a return appointment. It was nice to have a referral that actually let us teach, though. :)

Thursday we went with the Korean missionaries to help one of their part-member families move from Chula-Vista to la Jolla. All 4 of us helped load the truck, then Elder Jensen went on exchanges with Elder Bates to go teach Sister Yue, while I stayed with Elder Kim to ride up with the non-member husband to go to la Jolla to unload. On the way there (about a 30-40 minute drive), Elder Kim taught him the whole time and committed him to read the Book of Mormon, and from what I hear things are going well. So service does help. We moved him into a 17-story building not far from the temple. I've never been in a residential building that tall before.

On Thursday, Brother Lau, the branch mission leader took us to dinner at the Silver Ark Chinese restaurant and it was really excellent. Not just the dinner, but the conversation. He is a really good leader to work with; he has lots of good ideas and, even better, he actually puts them into practice.

I am about 4 pages from finishing Jesus the Christ, that 793 page whopper. Yes!

And that's about it for this week. I hope you all are doing pretty well and that dad is still recovering. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

Back to Chinese

2006-09-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

September 12, 2006
Dear Family,

Well, I'm back down in San Diego now. Elder Gould went home Thursday morning, and I got the call right afterwards to pack and get ready to leave that night. So I spent Thursday saying goodbye to people in Foothill Ranch and that night, the APs picked me up and brought me down to Mira Mesa. I'm with Elder Jensen again.

I had lost a lot of the Chinese. But, the Lord helps me a lot, and it is coming back very fast. I still have about the same listening comprehension as I had just before I left. Speaking is a bit harder, but I can still say what I need to, generally, and I've got Elder Jensen to fill in the gaps. We don't have an English ward right now; we're exclusively Chinese work. We have a car 4 days a week.
We have an investigator named Sister Yue who has a baptism date in 2 weeks and is pretty faithful. We've joined with the Korean Branch in teaching English Class, and now there are LOTS of students, mostly Korean. The Chinese branch hasn't had any baptisms since I left, but a former Hong Kong mission president moved into the ward. Emily's husband moved back and now lives with them here, looking for a job full-time. They come to church every week, but still haven't accepted a challenge to baptism. We have a new Ward Mission Leader named Brother Lau, a very sharp businessman who is extremely on top of everything. Ronald was inactive for a few months, and is now active again. And that's how the branch has changed since I've been there.

As far as things happening while I've been here so far... Ronald and Calvin's dog died on Sunday right before we came over to visit. So we helped them dig a grave in the back yard and we had a memorial service. It was actually a really good experience.

On Sunday morning, we went to MCRD, the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. There is an LDS branch there that baptizes very regularly. The APs are in charge of the missionary work there. I taught 5 nonmembers at once right after sacrament meeting. 11 other nonmembers were taught by other missionaries. The 5 all committed to read from the Book of Mormon and pray, and to be baptized if they felt that our message was true. There is some promise with some of them.

We taught Jimmy and went to dinner with him yesterday. He is doing really well, and is very faithful. He's had a couple small miraculous healings lately, and he's hoping to be able to walk soon. Jimmy's been in a wheel chair for 20 years, but he can feel something in his legs and he's starting to be able to move his toes. When we gave him a blessing in the hospital last December, a brother from Mesa Arizona was there at the hospital and we had him give the blessing. He blessed Jimmy that he would be blessed with increased mobility and that he'd be able to use that as a testimony of the Gospel. He didn't even know Jimmy was paralized from the waist down. Jimmy is expecting a miracle, but not because he's seeking a sign. He's just that full of faith.

I'm glad Dad is starting to get better. I'm glad we've been blessed with stability. That's great that you were able to do the bike tour and raise so much money.

That's about all that's going on. It's still taking some adjustment, but it's good, and I'm happy here. I love you all, and I hope that all the recoveries go well.

Love,
Elder Myers

Tracting in the park

2006-09-06T13:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

So, this week has been interesting. On last Tuesday night I went on exchanges with Ryan Schoessow, who is leaving on a mission in 2 weeks. We tracted and then practiced teaching the first lesson to the family he home teaches. On Wednesday, I went on exchanges with Elder Bird in Lake Forest; we did some gardening in very hot weather for an old lady. That night we taught a lesson to a member family. Thursday, we did service at the library and taught Mary. We also did a lot of finding activities, but I can't remember exactly what we did. On Friday, we planned, and then made a lot of check-backs. No new investigators from it.

On Saturday morning we made another checkback - a Muslim man named Hameed. He let us in and we taught him the message of the restoration. He told us we could come back. He had a couple questions, but I asked president garner how to answer them, so now we're prepared. I don't know if he's sincere about really investigating though.

Jeff Evans got back this week and we taught him. He had done a lot of reading on his vacation, and now he's really excited about what it all means. So, we're working with him. We have a couple appointments lined up for this week - tonight, we're seeing Nadre, and tomorrow night, we're going to visit Jeff.

Also, on Saturday, President Warnick from the mission presidency called and wanted to interview elder Nielson. So we had to go down to Mission Viejo and have him interviewed. It had to do with a false rumor (started by a less-than-stellar missionary) that he had called a girl in his last area and told her he wanted to marry her. Uhh.... whatever. so that got cleared up.
3 times this week, I went to give a baptismal interview for Elder Bird and Elder King's investigator, and 3 times, he didn't show up. He's got a pretty hard crazy life, so I can't condemn him for it, but hopefully the fourth time's a charm. He's supposed to be baptized this Saturday.

On Sunday, I went with Ryan Schoessow on exchanges again, and we went to the park to contact people. It was awesome; we taught a guy while he was washing his truck, then we taught a few other people just hanging around (and left them with commitments), and finally, we approached this couple with 6 kids, and taught them for 2 hours. They had a lot of questions (they had heard a LOT of anti-Mormon stuff) but by the end they were very interested and I got their address and phone number. Unfortunately, it's not in our area, so we'll have to hand them over to other missionaries. They kept telling the kids they can go play, but the kids just sat watching, saying "no, this is interesting."

Monday was labor day, and we got special permission to go play ultimate frisbee with our ward. After that, I went on exchanges with Elder Pebley. Holidays are the BEST days to contact people and to tract. We taught 4 long lessons at the door that day, plus teaching Mary. A couple of those people were REALLY hard-hearted; one man in particular refuses to read any book but the bible. Period. Not magazines, not novels, anything. Uh, okay. How do you teach the restored gospel to somebody like that?

And finally, tuesday, yesterday, we had interviews with President Garner.

We also were able to get in the house of Brother Andre's Taiwanese neighbors. He just asked them if we could go see their huge fish tank, and of course they wanted to show. Then I happened to speak Chinese, and talked to the kids and them, and it was very cool. Brother Andre's going to keep working on them, but now they've at least met the missionaries.
Anyway, that's about all the time I have. Thanks for the letter, Michelle; I'll have to write back, eh?

I hope you're all doing well. I'll make sure to write Grandma and Grandpa and thank them for their awesome support. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

Tyler, the 9 year old missionary

2006-08-29T13:26:00.000-07:00

August 29, 2006
Dear Family,

How are you doing? I'm doing pretty well. I hope the physical therapist is helping dad. It's a big relief to know what's wrong and that he will be able to get help for it. I'm glad the food storage is helping out. Hooray for food storage. Someone asked me about food storage this week, actually, so I'll be happy to tell them how it's helping our family.

Next week, Wednesday is P-day for us, so don't expect a letter until then.

Last week, we had people at church just because invitations were extended. We have new spiffy invitations to church that we gave to all the youth we could and committed them to inviting a friend to church.

Yesterday was zone conference, it was really good, and gave some good motivation. Zone conferences give such a high to the work. Also, last night we went to the stake presidents house for dinner and a gospel discussion about the Abrahamic covenant and the spirit of prophecy. It was really good, and now we're ready to go out and convert some people.

We contacted 5 referrals this week. One of them was a media referral, and the person hadn't lived there for 6 years. Just so you know, it really wastes the missionaries time when you call the number pretending to be somebody else just to get the missionaries over there. The right way is to go through the referral phone number.

Nadre didn't end up coming to church. Nobody did. But it's okay, we're still working hard and trying to find people to teach and helping the members make invitations and get out of their comfort zone.

We taught Sunday school to the teenagers on Sunday. It was really interesting. I wanted to tie them all up and tape their mouths shut. Good Sunday school teachers are really admirable and hard to come by.

Anyway... honestly not much of note happened this week. Just a lot of knocking on doors and trying to find people.

OH! One thing did happen that was real interesting. We got a referral for a 9 year old from the Kirtland visitor's center- Tyler Feist in our ward had referred this kid named Noah, the visitor's center had called, and the dad agreed to let us come over. So we had Tyler (also 9) write his testimony in the front of a Book of Mormon and come over with us to take it to him.

Noah is Jewish, and unlike most jews we meet, his family is VERY observant. He and his dad were wearing yamakas; and it was their Sabbath so they didn't have any lights on and had nothing in their pockets. I really saw an illustration of the law that Christ fulfilled, or rather the strict hedge about the law that was the law of Moses. Too bad they didn't have the spirit of prophecy, or they'd know that Jesus Christ is the messiah they've been waiting for. Noah didn't accept the Book of Mormon, but they were complementary about Tyler wanting to share what he believed. I told them that this was Tyler's idea, and we didn't push him to introduce us to his friends, and they were really nice about it. I asked him a bit about what they believed, testified a bit, and that was that. A little weird, yes, to have somebody not interested at all to let us in, but good all around. Now Tyler has to find somebody else to give the Book of Mormon to.

Well, that's about it. I hope you all have a great week. I love you all.
Love,
Elder Myers

Some good potentials

2006-08-22T18:51:00.000-07:00

Aug 22, 2006
Dear Family,

How are you doing? Is dad doing okay? Dad, I appreciate you taking the time to write me; I'm glad to hear from you.

Elder Peterson met Stass, eh? I don't really even know an Elder Peterson. Heh. Maybe I'm forgetting somebody. There are two elder Petersons in the mission, but I don't know any of them that would be in Ventura.

I'm sorry the pain is still going. I've been praying hard for you this week, dad. I hope now that the girls are home they're taking good care of you and making you velveeta macaroni and cheese, just how you like it.

That's cool that you got to be there and testify to Scott. Is he coming to church? My old companion, Elder Holt says that seeing the Testaments was a big part of his conversion. While he was investigating, he still wasn't sure about everything when he took a trip to
Salt Lake City and visited temple square. During that movie was the first time he RECOGNIZED feeling the spirit, and after that he knew he had to be baptized. It took him a lot (his parents weren't real supportive) to be baptized, but now he's a great missionary.

This week, we taught a Hindu man who is the Harris's neighbors. (The Harris family is like the missionaries family in the ward. They have two boys out on missions, in Australia and Argentina.) We have met him several times before, at ward activities and a scout thing, and just going to their house to talk to them. He was interested in meeting with us, so we went over and talked to him about the ten commandments because he wanted to know about them. He likes talking to us and says we can come by anytime. which is a lot, since we're always working on referrals for sister Harris.

On Thursday morning, we taught a new investigator named Jill at Sister Feist’s house, only to get a call from Sister Feist that afternoon saying that Jill was too concerned about what her family might think and that she didn't want to meet anymore. *sigh* what can you do?

We taught Mary again twice this week. she's working her way through the Book of Mormon; she's in 1 Nephi 10. She's actually understanding it really well so far, and she keeps asking "what's going to happen to those naughty boys?" Heh.

We started a zone fast on Saturday night for missionary work in our ward. Sunday night, we were fortunate enough to have the entire zone come to help with a tract-out, since our ward's work is going slow right now. So, for two hours, we had about 10 companionships in the area looking for people. We got a LOT of good potentials found from that, so we're really excited.

We're working on Alex, the 10 year old kid, through the scouting program right now. The mom, yes, does want to let Alex get baptized, but she has to take him to church first and that's out of our hands. Scouts is a good way to get him in with the boys his age, though, and we're definitely working on that.

This week, I taught a man named Nadre for the second time. The first time I had a high priest named brother Scott, and they had a very good connection. This week, I had a priest with me on exchanges. Nadre really wants to meet with Brother Scott there, and he really wants to come to church with his son this week. Potential, potential is everywhere, but these people have to take the steps themselves. All we can do is invite.

We helped a lady in our ward clean her house this week, and something amazing happened - I was grateful that I grew up doing chores. That house has 6 kids and it was SUCH a mess. Now our house wasn't always perfect, but it was pretty good, and I'm suddenly thankful for that. It's so hard to even stand being in a place with so much stuff lying around, much less live there. We did some good service, but it hardly made a dent in what had to be done. The weird thing is, nobody even asked us to do that, we just felt like we should go to this certain family's house (which we hadn't actually seen the inside of) and ask how we could help. You know how sometimes you can't tell if a thought is your own or if it's the spirit? Well, if the thought tells you to go do something good, it's probably the spirit. And even if it's not, at least you do something good. So, when you get an impression and don't know which it is, and it's good, just do it.
That's all the time I've got. I love you all. I'm praying for you, Dad.

Love,
Elder Myers

Moving to the Murris House

2006-08-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
This week, the Millwards time with the missionaries was up, and we moved out to the Murris house. It's kind of weird cause it's just a block away and it has the exact same floor plan. Yet it's entirely different, mainly because there aren't any animal heads on the walls. We're not sure yet if this is temporary. It took all day saturday to pack up and move our stuff and the furniture and dispose of all the junk on the shelves from missionaries in past generations. The murris may be temporary, so we're basically living out of our suitcases right now until we find out for sure where we're staying. Bro Murri is the first counselor in the bishopric and Sis Murri is the relief society president, so you can expect they're a really great couple, and there's a wonderful spirit in the home.

Transfers were today. Nobody in our district was transferred.

I'm glad you guys are working on clearing out the boxes from the garage. We've done a lot of moving people here, and I think people would be a lot better off and a lot happier if they were more organized and stored less junk.

Yesterday we helped move a guy named Shane Yates. It was long, but I'm glad we were able to help. While we were moving, we had an appointment with Mary that we completely forgot about. However, Sister Lake, one of the ward missionaries, knew we were having that appointment, and wasn't planning on going, but strangely felt inspired on attending the lesson with Mary. Well, we didn't show up, but Sister Lake was still able to read scriptures with Mary and teach a good lesson, so we see that even when we screw up sometimes, the Lord is still mindful of his children and his work will get done.

We had one investigator, Amanda, at the Mission President's fireside on Sunday and it went well. We had to give her and Britney over to the singles ward missionaries, though, and now we have zero progressing investigators. Patricia came to church, though. Sister Harris thought it was a really long shot, but that morning I felt like I needed to commit her to inviting Patricia to church, and so I called her up and did. Next thing I knew, I saw Patricia there at church. Interestingly enough, that week a missionary returned home who had just been serving in the area where she was from in Mexico, and he gave a phenomenal talk.

This week, one of the nights we had nothing to do. So we spent a long time street contacting, and talked to 35 people. Nobody was interested, but we kept going, and the very last person was named Grant, and he was super interested in going to church with us. He promised he'd come next week. We stopped by his house, just around the corner from us, and dropped him off a Book of Mormon and a Bible. However, we probably have to give him to the singles ward too.

And that's about all that's happened this week. We have a few more potential investigators, but nothing really groundbreaking. Have a wonderful week; I love you all.
Love,
Elder Myers

Lots of street contacting

2006-08-08T08:58:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

I'm glad you're having a good time in orem. Thanks for praying for Kyle. I'm not sure how he's doing; I know he's really confused. His parents won't let him talk to us and have been trying to have anti-mormons brainwash him. They even wouldn't let him go on their family trip to yellowstone, making him go to a Saddleback weeklong camping trip instead. Weird. Kyle has graduated. The school he was going to go to is in Riverside county.

There's not really much more news on anybody else. It has been kind of a low week; a lot of appointments cancelled, and a lot of working with the members who know Kyle. Mary is doing well. We had another good meeting with her yesterday. She's still coming to church. I'm glad Michelle's car is doing better and wasn't expensive. Phew. How are the missionaries in your ward?That's awesome that you're giving referrals.

I'm sorry that not much happened this week, but there really isn't that much to say. We made sure to get over 70 street contacts this week, and guess what? Two of them were people who we had already met and were potential investigators. One of them told us she hopes to see us again soon. Oh boy, will she ever. I actually had made a 13-page compilation of scriptures and teachings on the ressurection for her member friend to give to her, so I feel good about it. The zone leaders also tracted into a guy who we had given a pass-along card for a family booklet to, and he recognized them as associated with us, so he let them right in. Cool, huh? So, the challenge to contact 10 people outside of tracting every day is inspired, and the Lord has been putting people in our way. We mostly just stand out in front of Wal-mart.

We taught Britney again too, and answered her main questions. She's still reading and praying and she's felt the spirit, but she still wants to learn more. Excellent.The Chinese family all got sick and so they'll call me when they have time. :( But I got a referral from the mission office for another Chinese person :)

Well, I'm racking my brain but nothing else really happened. I hope you are having a wonderful week. Thanks for your prayers and your thoughts and letters. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

Mary was baptized, Alex is ready, Pray for Kyle

2006-08-01T12:41:00.000-07:00

August 1, 2006

Dear Family,

Thanks so much for the letters you wrote on family night! It was awesome to hear from every one of you. I hope you can all write again soon. Girls Camp and Lisa's corresponding week sounded really fun. You girls have definitely grown funnier in the year I've been away. It must be one of the blessings of my missionary service. ;P. Becky, I'm disappointed you were only able to eat 8 sugar packets.

Oops, I forgot to bring the letters to the library to respond to them in my email, so just know that I really, really appreciated the letters from every single one of you and that I love you all.

This weekend, we baptized Mary without a hitch. Her first words after being baptized were "Wow!" It was pretty cool. She was confirmed the next day. That night, we had a zone tract-out, and two missionaries tracted into her. She told them about her baptism and confirmation and they thought she must be some crazy old lady, until we heard the story and set them straight. It was a good experience for all who were involved.

I got a referral for a little Chinese family who want to start coming to church, so we went down and met them at a ward party in Aliso Viejo (in another zone) and we're teaching them again on Friday.

We taught Alex again and he's doing well. His mom asked, "How do we get him baptized?" We said we could take care of that. He should be coming to church this Sunday. We're going to get him hooked into scouts.

We taught a few referrals and picked up a few new investigators this week. It was pretty good.

The big news this week comes regarding Kyle, though. We challenged him to baptism on Wednesday, with a date of Monday, August 14th. He accepted, and he was excited. He came to church on Sunday, fasting for the Lords help in telling his parents. We prayed for him also.

Well, from what I heard, he told them yesterday, and they absolutely flipped, to say the least. His dad threatened to entirely disown him if he joins the church. They already took away his cell phone, his car, and his job. And they aren't going to pay for his college. I haven't been able to talk to him, but he has many good LDS friends that told me what is going on. So it's a really tough situation. He turns 18 in less than two months. Some of us are fasting for him today. Please pray for him.

John Moran spoke in Sacrament Meeting this week and did a great job. I kept wanting to brag to people, "I taught him, that's my convert!" He's a great member.

On Saturday we were also able to go to Mission Viejo for the baptism of one of Elder Nielson's old investigators, Truc. He was excited to see her join the church.

We started doing service at the library. We shelve books mostly, and it's a pretty nice way to spend a couple hours. A guy started talking to us, trying to bash with us. He got really mad when I walked away after he made it very clear that he wasn't going to listen to anything we said. Oh well.

It's rained like 3-4 days this week. It's been much nicer weather here too.

That's really all that happened this week. Pray for Kyle. Thanks for writing, and I hope you guys have a wonderful week. Stay safe. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

Mary schedules baptism on Saturday

2006-07-25T21:03:00.000-07:00

July 25, 2006
Dear Family,

Actually, we did celebrate pioneer day; we had a ward activity. The Ward Band came, and I was able to pull out my harmonica and show them just how much I've lost my groove in the last year. I've got a video on my camera of it.

It sounds like you guys had a fun week. I'm glad to hear that.

Yeah, it was 108 here the other day. It was the hottest day IN A DECADE. In some places around here, it was the hottest day IN RECORDED HISTORY. I hope you guys can find some sort of air conditioner.

I'm glad you're still able to ride your bike up in Seattle. Was the weather as hot as that hottest day you told me about? Or is it more temperate when you ride? This week, every day has been at least 95 until night time, when it drops down to about 80. It's pretty nasty.

We were able to get Kyle and Mary to attend a baptism. Mary is being baptized this Saturday. Her brother Everett passed away yesterday, but she still wants to be baptized while family is in town for the funeral. Mary is so amazing; when she's just chit-chatting she's very senile, but when we pray for the Holy Ghost to open her mind and enlighten her, and then get down to teaching, she gives US the lessons, and all the stuff she's studied recently begins to make sense to her. It's really a cool experience; the Holy Ghost is real. She's been coming to church also, and she's ready for baptism. It's too bad that Everett died, but when I blessed him, the Spirit didn't tell me to heal him. I blessed him that he'd be comforted, that he'd know of Heavenly Fathers' love for him, and told him that whether it was God's will that he stay or go, we exhorted him to accept the gospel. We're going to teach Mary about baptisms for the dead, which I think will be a great comfort for her. The plan of salvation already made her remark, "Everybody should know this, because people don't need to be so sad when people die." Then she tried to think up ideas to share the message with everyone; I think she concluded that we should put the plan of salvation on dollar bills and scatter them on the beach. He he.

Thanks for the pass-along cards, mom. I'll be sure to use them.

We've been doing more street contacting ever since zone conference on Monday. A tactic that works pretty well is cards for a "3 simple ways to a happier family" book. Most people are pretty nice and open about it. Of course there are still jerks: "I have a happy family, and I already studied all the stuff in that book in college." "Uh... this isn't even religious. It's just a book on improving families cause we think that's important and we're trying to serve people." "I'll take your book if you read the New Testament." "I read the New Testament. Will you take the card?" "No!" Yeah, that was a real conversation we had yesterday.

We're going to the Newport Beach temple today. It should be good.

We ran into a couple other people that have good potential, but I'll tell you about them later cause I'm running out of time

Alex is doing great. He is still reading and praying lots. His mom is really open to letting him come to church and choose this as his religion, if he wants to. That's exciting.

The recent converts are still doing well. Everything's going pretty fine. I hope you're all doing well too. Have a super week. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

The Car Fast

2006-07-18T18:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

How are you all doing? I hope you're doing well. We have been doing okay; a lot of appointments fell through this week, but we did get Mary to church again this week. We found Patricia again, and we're teaching her tomorrow. On Sunday night, we did a tract out for a ward in the stake. They have no investigators and were discouraged, so we had about 10 missionaries on exchanges who all went tracting for 2 1/2 hours. They were able to find a lot of good contacts. I was with George Saadeh, and we got in a door, taught a lesson, and she said we could come back. Elder Nielson also got in a door. So it was good to be able to help them.

We helped set up for and serve a wedding "rehearsal dinner" for some people on Thursday. That was pretty fun. We even built and painted a picnic table for it.

Yesterday we went to zone conference and had a good time. We also gave a blessing and visited Alex. He finished all three books we gave him, so we found some more childrens books about the gospel to give him. He's a smart kid.

On Saturday, we helped a lady clean up a house of a less active member of our ward who died. He lived alone, separated from his wife; they never got a divorce though. So, she had to clean up his apartment and get it ready to sell. She has also been inactive for 10 years, but told us she'd be coming back to church now; we didn't even ask her about it. It's funny how just our presence makes people realize the changes they need to make in their lives. Saturday was a good day to do it, since it was a mission-wide mandatory car fast. Apparently, there were 11 car accidents in the past month in the mission, so the car fast was supposed to help us "appreciate" the car more. I'm not a really big fan in that, but I hope it helped some people. It just happened to be the hottest day of the year. Some missionaries got heat stroke. We coped all right, though; we tried to spend a lot of time inside. We checked back on a few referrals and got in a few doors.

Everything else is going fine. It still feels like we're on the verge of an upswing. We're teaching Kyle again tomorrow, and he's the most promising investigator. We're going to try to challenge him to a baptismal goal, and Mary too.

Well, that's about all that's happened lately. Sorry if the letter's brief but not much really happened. I hope you guys have a super week. Love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

Teaching about the Godhead

2006-07-11T12:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

Well, it's been an interesting week. Our investigators are doing all right. Mary cancelled our appointment and didn't come to church; I think her brother's condition (which hasn't changed yet) is taking a big toll on her. We're supposed to be meeting with her NEXT Wednesday. *sigh*

Chris has been in London, so I haven't talked with him recently.

Kyle came to the investigator fireside. I gave him a list of scriptures in the Bible last week about the nature of God and asked him to study, ponder, and pray about whether the trinity was a true doctrine. He told me at the fireside that as he read the spirit testified to him that the spirit testified that what I had said was true. That's awesome. Plus, there were 3 recent convert testimonies at the investigator fireside that really brought the spirit, and no bashers! We taught Kyle a LOT yesterday, and he's still got a lot to study and think about. I gave him the article by President Hinckley "In These Three I Believe" in the Ensign this month. It's an excellent article. We also went through scriptures in the Book of Mormon that teach that only through Jesus Christ are we saved and also the 17 points of the true church. We'll try to commit him to a baptismal date next time.

Elder King and Elder Bird, the other two elders in our district, have a baptism coming up, which we're all excited about. It'll be on the 22nd. He's a really great guy named Todd; he asked some questions at the fireside.

We spent a lot of this week introducing members to Elder Nielson and soliciting referrals. A lot of our lessons this week got cancelled, which was a bummer. But, despite the lapse in numbers, we're still optimistic. We're trying to contact all our potential investigators and get a "sink or swim" status on all of them.

We helped with a move on Saturday, and there were around 20 elders and high priests. It was a pretty marvelous sight to behold. I was one of the three tetris players inside the truck.

We started teaching a lady named Gloria and her daughter Virginia. They are both inactive members who want to find their faith again. So we are helping with that.

The ward is still doing well. It's definitely getting stronger since we started here. We're happy about the work and how it's going.

Anyway... that's about all. Not much has happened exciting in terms of news.

Mom, I really like that pass-along card you made. Could you make some for me? That would be awesome.

I'm glad it's nice and cool in Seattle. Yes, it is a lot cooler close to the ocean... but we're not close to the ocean :(.

Hah, mom, I've always wanted to go to the Experience Music Project. So, I'll have to take the kids there when I get home.

Well, that's really everything. I'm sorry I don't have a ton to say. I love you all and I hope you have a great week.

Love,
Elder Myers

One Year Hump Day Package

2006-07-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

July 5, 2006

Dear Family,

Thanks for writing! Sorry I wasn't able to write yesterday; the library was closed and we couldn't find any other computers to use.

Transfer news:

Yesterday, Elder Holt got transferred down to Laguna Hills. That's too bad.

I've got a new companion, Elder Nielson. He's been out for 9 months. All I can say about him is that he'll be great at helping me to learn patience... if you know what I mean. He's from Salt Lake.

I'm now the district leader in this area.

Ha, I got a letter from Saddleback church, eh? I didn't think they'd send anything, and that it wouldn't matter since I put my old address. They actually called one of the elders here and sent him a free bible.

We had Chinese food for lunch today. I'm glad you were able to have some for my one year birthday.

That's really cool that you have discount cards for Seattle attractions. You'll have to keep track of which ones are the best.

I'm sorry you lost the missionaries in your ward. WAY TO GIVE REFERRALS, Michelle. We visited a couple referrals and actually taught a couple lessons from it this week. It was really cool.

I sent you guys a slim package today. It has pictures, pass-alongs, and a few other things. I hope you enjoy.

Thanks for the one year package, too! I was in desperate need of socks AND pens. I'm not sure where the water bombs will come in handy, but I'll be sure to use them some time. The Take 5, Rice Krispies, Goldfish, and Snickers will be perfect for helping me regain the weight I've lost on my mission.... oh wait. The toothbrush is a good practical gift too. I really like those pens as well; you got just what I like - fine point Rollerball with a cap. Excellent! Thanks so much for the stuff.

Next package you decide to send, I could use more socks and stamps. That's about it. And no hurry. If you can get the same kind of socks, that would be great, so I don't have to worry about matching them. I accidentally bleached almost all my black socks, so.... uh... my sock situation was perilous until I got those from you. In fact I am wearing them right now, and they look fantastic.

On Monday, we spent nearly the whole day for Elder Holt to go around to the members and say goodbye. Some people cried when he left. He made a really good impression on the ward, and they won't forget about him soon. We also taught two lessons- one to Kyle that went very well, and one to Jeff Evans.

We gave a blessing to Mary's brother on Sunday morning, and got held up in traffic on the way back from the hospital, but we were able to get to church on time. Mary came to church, but she wants to move the baptism back because she had to miss an appointment and she's worried about her brother. So we'll see what happens. She is doing well, though. She is learning AND retaining. That's what the spirit can do. She wants us to try to tell everybody about the Plan of Salvation. We told her we're doing the best we can. ;)

On Saturday, we went to a baptism for 4 kids in the stake, and the entire chapel and part of the overflow was full. Wow.

This week was very hot, over 90 degrees every day. Sometimes we have to change shirts during the day because they're soaked with sweat. I'm glad I'm not in Ramona or Escondido, though. They're even hotter. The areas near the ocean are at a cool 75 degrees.

Well, that's all for this week. Have a fantastic week and write back soon. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

The importance of enduring to the end

2006-06-27T15:54:00.000-07:00

June 27, 2006
Dear Family,

There are passalong cards for mormon.org with the Salt Lake Temple on it. Unfortunately, none of them have pictures of Christ on one side. But, you could probably make something yourself, mom. You're crafty (in a good sense). In fact, I'll send you a couple of the Salt Lake Temple ones.

That's awesome that Dixie was able to bring a neighbor to church to hear her son speak. That's an awesome opportunity to share the gospel. I expect each of you to have at least one nonmember there when I get back ;P.

Next week is transfers, and I'll probably get a new companion, so stay tuned. Elder Holt and I have done a lot getting the members to trust the missionaries (before elder holt there was a pretty infamous missionary kind of wreaking havoc). Not that we've done anything but do our job and be obedient, but it's gone a long way.

We have another baptismal date with a lady named Mary. She's 80 years old. She had been taught before by elders, then sisters in her ward. She dropped the sisters because they didn't teach to her understanding. But, she really liked the elders, so we're teaching her again now, and it's going very well. Her baptism date is July 8. We'll have to work hard to get everything taught to her (she is eighty years old; she's not quite senile or anything, but she does need more help understanding basic concepts)

On Sunday night we went on exchanges with the priests. After visiting all the people we had planned to, we still had an extra half-hour, so I took my exchange ( the bishop's son ) tracting. We could have taken the easy way out and just gone and visited an active member, but instead, we just knocked doors and endured to the end, when it was time to meet back. Heh, members never like tracting. Anyway, we tracted an apartment building, and the last door we knocked on before going home, we met a really nice guy who said we could come back and meet with him in a few days. It just goes to show the importance of enduring to the end.

We had a couple other good meetings. Chris is progressing very well; hopefully he'll get his answer soon. I'm impressed that he reads and prays about everything that we give him; he has the "real intent required."

We've been teaching a lot of lessons; we taught 4 yesterday alone. So, we're keeping busy, and that's the way we like it.

Today, Elder Holt was called with a survey, and after he answered the question, he asked the lady if she'd be interested in learning more about Christ from missionaries. She said yes (whether out of politeness or not, we'll probably never know) and he gave her the number to the referral center in the MTC.

We met a Chinese family who has a 9 year old son who wants to learn about Christianity. (sound familiar?) His name is Alex. His parents said he can come to church, and we're going to give him the children's Book of Mormon stories. His mom is Buddhist, but fine letting him convert as long as the religion stresses him being a good person and doing good things. So, there's a really big potential there.

That's about all, though. Thanks for the letters and the support. I love you all.

Love,
Andy

The Great and Spacious Building

2006-06-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

June 20, 2006
Dear Family,

That's awesome that Elder Wells is in your general area. He has a really cool family.

How is Utah right now? Is the weather good? It is very very hot here. It has been over 90 degrees most days. I know it's not quite Phoenix heat, but it's pretty intense in a collared shirt and a tie.

I'm glad you're getting to read Preach My Gospel, mom. It is a good handbook. I'm also reading the Doctrine and Covenants straight through right now. I already finished the bible, and the Book of Mormon twice on my mission so far.

This week, we had some good success. Sister Harris reluctantly gave us a referral that she didn't know what kind of response would be met with. Her name was Patricia. We stopped by and made an appointment for Saturday morning. Then on Saturday, we came, and sister Harris was already there. Patricia is going through a nasty divorce and her husband had taken a whole bunch of their stuff and the house was a mess. So we helped them clean up a bit. We hooked up one of Sister Harris's old TVs and set up the sound system, and I figured out what was wrong with the computers. So we were able to do some good help for her. We also taught her a first discussion and are going to meet with her again and have dinner at Sister Harris's house. So, that's a great referral. People in crisis are great referrals for missionaries. The other great referral is teens Michelle's age. Michelle, if you knew how critical that age was, you'd probably do nothing but share the gospel with people you know. Do anything you can to bring nonmember friends home, to church, to seminary. Don't be pushy, but be firm and unwavering.
We also met with Chris again, and we met some other people. We're pretty busy checking back with people and teaching at nights. This week, we are double-booked every night; we need those exchanges. John Raney and John Moran are both doing excellent, still coming to church and reading and praying and meeting with us. John Moran is coming on exchanges this week; he was ordained a priest on Sunday.

On Saturday, we went to the Great and Spacious building, Saddleback Church for an adventure. We went to one of their services. It was definitely entertaining, and the pastor was a very motivational speaker. We were stared at by a lot of people, but many people came up to us and introduced themselves and thanked us for coming. There were a couple thousand people at the church during that service, and there are several services throughout the weekend. I wish everywhere we went, people would come up and meet us; we'd sure baptize a lot more easily. The holy spirit definitely made a welcome showing when we went to our ward on Sunday, though.

Happy Fathers Day, dad! I'm sorry I didnt' get you anything, but I was with you in spirit.
We taught a Hindu lady this week. It is pretty tough to relate to them, but she said she'd read through the Book of Mormon and we could come back sometime. That's about all we could ask for.

When we went tracting on Father's day, we did a "Happy Father's day, we're sharing a message about our heavenly father, may we come in?" approach with this lady. She let us in. Then she said, "I wasn't supposed to let anybody inside." Then we saw a big hand-written sign on the door that said "Mama, if anybody comes to the door DON'T ANSWER IT. PRETEND NOBODY'S HOME." so, I guess maybe she was a bit senile. She was the only one home, but we knew we had to make the message quick. We bore our testimonies about God as our loving heavenly father and asked her who god was to her. She looked around warily for a few seconds then whispered, "I think I met him once." I wasn't sure if she was crazy or what when she said that, but I asked her to explain. She said she died once when her exhusband was beating her and she was brought back to life in the hospital. she said she saw god. When asked what he looked like. She said he had long hair and was dressed like us. We asked if he had a body. She said yes. She said her mother was there and said, "You're not supposed to be here, you're supposed to be in Hell" and then she came back to life. Crazy, huh? We bore our testimonies about Christ to her and then left. It was very interesting.

That's about it for this week. Good luck on the bike tour, Mom. Keep up the good work, everybody. Stay safe. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

The anti-mormon basher makes a fool of himself

2006-06-13T19:09:00.000-07:00

June 13, 2006

Dear Family,
How are you all doing? Good? Good.

Yesterday, I went back to the doctor's office about the cough that almost went away a month ago, but has been slowly coming back again. It seems that the antibiotics didn't kill the bacteria that caused bronchitis. Interestingly enough, the doctor said I have a borderline asthma that gets triggered when there's a bacterial lung infection. So, I got another antibiotic and an advair inhaler. The church insurance covered the antibiotic, but unfortunately, not the inhaler any more than 30 dollars. So, I'm sorry but there's another charge on the credit card. This should help, though. I guess the "gold mine" came to defray some other costs :P. If you need to take it out of my checking account go ahead and do that.

End of school, eh? It's that same time of year here too. People are very excited to get out and have a summer of freedom.

That's cool that Michelle is [possibly] transferring to Redmond High School. It's definitely better to go where the friends are.

Kyle is doing... okay. He should have started fasting last night. He hasn't got the answer yet. We're meeting with Chris again tomorrow. We visited him at his work, a Christian bookstore.
We're also teaching a couple named Stephanie and Isaac. I don't know how committed they are to finding out it's true, but we're teaching them anyway.

We went to a mission president's investigator fireside on Sunday night with brother and sister Saadeh and a convert of just under a year named Danny Jambon. Danny hits his 1 year mark in about 4 days, and he's going to get his mission papers right then. He's got such a fiery testimony; he went tracting with Elder Holt and was running from door to door. He's an awesome member. After the fireside, he went up to one of the investigators there and talked to him and bore his testimony. It was cool. One of the nonmembers there was actually an uninvited (and unskilled) anti-Mormon basher. When President Garner opened it up for questions, the anti-Mormon tried to run the show and pretty much made a fool of himself. If I was an investigator there, I'd definitely have a stronger testimony just because of the bad spirit emanating from the guy. I think everybody could tell when the Holy Ghost left that meeting. President Garner did a very good job of not arguing, just giving the right answers and keeping his cool.

One less-active family that we and the bishop have been working with is coming back to church now starting this Sunday. That's a success! (even though it was mostly the bishop)
So, it's going pretty well right now. Still no real great progressing investigators, but we're working on it. Keep praying for us to have success in finding the people who want to hear it.
We had a couple eating days this week. Wednesday, we had lunch, then an investigator took us out to lunch, then we went to do service and help a new move in and she had bought us double cheeseburgers (surprise) then we had dinner, then at my appointment with Jeff Evans he made me pizza bagel bites. That's consecutive appointments. Then on Friday, we had a dinner scheduling problem and so had to go to two dinner appointments. We didn't tell either of them. So, being a missionary is fun; we get a lot of crazy experiences.

Girls, seriously, keep passalong cards for mormon.org in your backpack. When you're asked about being Mormon, or anything, find a way to invite somebody to learn about what we believe. Pass-along-cards aren't for full-time missionaries, they're for members. We just use them sometimes too. But way to have missionary experiences. Keep being the good people you are, that's the best way to share the gospel.

Anyway, that's about my entire week. Thanks for the letters and the support. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

Carry pass-along cards

2006-06-06T13:40:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

Yes, John Moran's baptism went through. He's 21 years old. He was very excited about it. He was confirmed and received the gift of the holy ghost on Sunday. I gave the talk on The Holy Ghost at the baptism and it went pretty well.

Don't worry about going back over what you could have said in missionary experiences. Just make sure that you're able and willing to open your mouth and share an invitation. Even if it's a pass-along card for Mormon.org or a video or something. Practice it in family home evening, and you'll realize it's really not that hard. When you go out to eat, leave a pass-along card with the tip. We showed that to some members who took us to Chilis on Saturday and we had to leave early. They said that when the waitress came and got the tip, she put the pass-along card with the picture of Jesus prominently on the computer screen and they thought that was pretty cool. I find that it's really easy to say, "You ought to be informed about what we believe, and this website has it." and maybe throw in a little, "There are a lot of misconceptions, but if you want to know about a Chevy, you don't go ask Ford about it." Most people will agree with that, and will think it's a good idea to find out what we believe from us, and the website is a perfect nonthreatening way. Or do whatever the spirit prompts, just make sure you keep pass-along cards in your purse or something.

I wanted to respond briefly to something you wrote in your letter, Mom, about how the guy at the gym who said we keep changing so much. Well, when people have that concern, I share the following scriptures:

Hebrews 13:8, which says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
1 Corinthians 12:5, which shows that God doesn't change, but he changes things. Administration changes. How do changes in adminstration come?

Amos 3:7- through prophets.

An example:
Matthew 10:5-6 - Jesus commanded his disciples to only preach to the house of israel.

Ephesians 3:3-6 talks about how revelation to also preach the gospel to the Gentiles was received through apostles and prophets after christ's time.

The truths about God don't change, of course not. People who accuse changes in practices and administrations don't understand that God adjusts his church and commandments according to the condition of His people in the world. The truths of God have been the same revealed through every dispensation since Adam.

Anyway... we're still teaching Kyle; we have an appointment with him tomorrow. We started teaching another referral, Chris, from a young man preparing to go on a mission. "Can I practice on you?" is a very good excuse.

Not much else is really going on. Just teaching Kyle and Chris and Jeff Evans right now. Plus all the recent converts. We really need to work hard on finding some new investigators who will progress towards baptism. We dropped a couple investigators this week who weren't willing to do anything like read or pray, so we were just wasting time on them that we needed to be using to prepare other people.

Anyway, I'm out of time. Thanks for writing and have a great week. Also, thanks for the pictures. I love you all.

We are working a lot on finding.

2006-05-30T21:36:00.000-07:00

May 30, 2006
Dear Family,

How are you doing? It sounds like your trip to Vancouver was fun. I hope to get to go there with you guys someday. I doubt that the aquarium you went to even compares to Sea World down in San Diego... which is, unfortunately, not in our mission, so we can't go there. Someday, though, when we all come back to see the mission, we can take a couple detours... to Disneyland... to Legoland... to Sea World... San Diego zoo... etc.

Anyway. We are doing fine here. We are working a lot on finding. Yesterday we got a member referral; Kyle is an 18 year old high school senior. He is Christian, and planning to go to a Baptist Bible college next year for school. His friend, a member named Steven, set up an appointment for us to meet him, play Apples to Apples with him, go to lunch, and then have a lesson. Two other members that are his friends came over for the lesson. It was good, the spirit was there, and we have another appointment on Thursday. He teaches his own Bible study in his home, so if he is sincere, when he gets his answer he'll be in a position to influence a lot of people. I wish we got more member referrals like that. "I want you to meet the missionaries." Our stake High Counselor over missionary work has used a very interesting approach. He tells his friends and acquaintances, "I am sending two missionaries over with a gift for you. I want you to listen to them; you don't have to believe them, but please listen to what they have to say." And then he sends the missionaries there with a Book of Mormon in which he's written his testimony in the front. Six people have joined the church because of him doing that. His name is Brother Andre, he went over to Jakko's house with us this week and talked him into coming to church. He's an awesome missionary; he converted when he was 20. He is also an artist who works in film and media; he owns an advertising firm, so I really want to sit down and talk to him.

John Moran's baptism is set for Saturday. He passed his interview. I look up to him a lot for the decision he is making.

We are still teaching John Raney in the Saadeh's home. I really like the Saadeh's; they're the perfect member family, and the dad being a nonmember doesn't take away from that at all. He is a really admirable guy, very supportive to his family. He always comes to church and leads his family in scripture study and prayer. He sits down with us for the discussions we have with John too, although from what I understand, he isn't really up to being taught himself at this time; he's had the discussions many times before. So, I don't really get to talk to him much about the gospel directly, but if I could I would try to find out what his hang-up really is. And I'd help him understand that he really needs to be committed to God above everything and really seek wholeheartedly after an answer from Heavenly Father. Maybe he's putting his heritage and family as his first priority, but isn't his true family the one he has now? Isn't his heritage the one he is creating. Besides, God is even above family. Like Matthew says, anybody who forsakes family or possessions or anything for Christ will gain it back a hundred fold. Even if his family from Lebanon don't agree with him now, they'll admire him for blazing a path when they finally understand the truth. I know Satan works hard on him because he is middle eastern and he could open so many doors as a mission president or something. He's such a good guy though, and he does good, and I know he believes in Christ. I just wish he'd understand that once he's willing to act on an answer from God, he will get that answer.

Yesterday morning, we got up at 4:45 to go help with registration for a marathon. There were about 50 missionaries there, it was pretty cool. We got free t-shirts.

We saw Jeanie again this week, and she says she wants to learn more about the church after she finishes this big project she's working on in about two weeks. So that's an awesome potential that we still have.

That's about all that's been going on this week. I hope you guys have a great week and stay safe. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

No transfers

2006-05-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

May 23, 2006
Dear Family,

The missionary in the Everett mission from this ward is named Elder Wells. We ate breakfast at the Wells house this morning; brother Wells cooked bacon and eggs for us; afterwards we washed and waxed our car there. They are an awesome family.

Last night we taught a referral from a member in another ward. It was a good, spiritual first discussion; however, his fiancee seems somewhat opposed to his learning about it, so we don't know if we'll ever be able to meet with him again. We tried, though, and committed him to read and pray.

John Moran is going to be baptized on June 3rd. He's doing great; we're meeting with him again tonight. He is recognizing the spirit working in his life and feels that his prayers have been answered. I think John Raney has been a good example for him.

Oh, today is transfers, and neither Elder Holt or I are leaving. But half of our zone is leaving. We're the only companionship that didn't go to the transfer meeting today.

Otherwise, there hasn't been a lot of progress with people we've been working with. We've been visiting a lot of less active members, and a bit of tracting. We found one pretty promising lady named Jeanie (I'm not sure if I mentioned her last week) who was nice enough to let us in but told us she wasn't interested -- until we told her that we did, in fact, believe that Jesus was the Son of God, at which point she told us she actually WOULD be interested in learning more. So we're going to keep trying back.

We also saw the ward this week come together to help out a young man who seemed to be going wayward. Several of his young mens leaders took him out to lunch or dinner to chat with him, and another member of the ward took him and his mom to the temple to do baptisms for the first time. He is now doing much better, and I'm sure that the high activity rate in this ward has to do with how the members give of their time to show each other love.

But honestly, not a lot has happened this week. We've been working hard and things are right on track, but unfortunately, we're about to baptize the rest of our teaching pool. Or, fortunately, I guess. So we need to keep finding new investigators.

Anyway, I'm sorry that this letter is short, but there's not really anything more to say. I love you all. I hope you have a great week.

Love,
Elder Myers

I bet you don't go making any more deals like that!

2006-05-16T13:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
How are you guys doing? It was nice to talk to you on the weekend. I'm sorry to hear that Becky got sick, but I hope she's doing a bit better now. It sounds like those baked goods from boys were poisoned or something, eh? Mom, I'm glad you were able to talk to somebody while on the bike ride. That's really cool that you were able to bring up the gospel. Next time, maybe you can have a pass-a-long card for mormon.org or something.

Not a whole ton happened this week. We helped a nonmember named Judy move. While we were there, we met one of her neighbors, who recognized us as "Men of God" and made her son come down to meet us. We offered to bring him a Finding Faith in Christ DVD, and she consented - with the added bonus of her feeding us dinner. So, that was a cool service opportunity. Judy's mom has Alzheimers and kept telling us "We got the best end of the bargain!" (referring to how we offered to help last week, and that got Judy to church). She literally said that, and "I bet you don't go making any more deals like that!" about 15 times. It was funny. And at the end, Judy said, "I think I might start going to the Mormon church in Georgia." So, that's really cool. Mission accomplished there.

John Raney is still doing well. He blessed the sacrament this week. John Moran is still reading and coming to church and doing well. He's planning on being baptized mid-June.

I went on exchanges with Elder Doria this week. On one door we knocked on a guy let us right in. When they do that, you know they're either a member or a minister. I didn't recognize him, and it turned out he was a minister. So we talked about his responsibilities at Saddleback, and just prayed we wouldn't get into a bash -- and we didn't; he had to go, so we said a prayer together and it was a positive experience.

We taught a Finnish man named Jakko at the doorstep the other day. He said he is open and we can come back sometime, so we're excited for that. We're going to take our amazing stake mission leader Brother Andre over there; he's also a convert from Lutheranism.

And that's about all that's happened this week. Things are going good, we're doing fine. Thanks for all your support and your letters. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

Baptism!

2006-05-09T21:58:00.000-07:00

May 9, 2006
Dear Family,
It has been a good week. Today we went to the Newport Beach temple. It was the first time I have been. It is a fairly small temple, smaller than the stake center next to it, but it is very nice. It's nice to go to the temple once in a while.

Saturday was John's baptism. His parents came to support him, as did many members. His brother opposed it, but he did it anyway. After the baptism he bore his testimony and everyone was blown away. It was a great baptism. The next day, Sunday, his parents came to see him confirmed in sacrament meeting, then he was ordained a priest afterwards in the Bishop's office. His parents were touched by the whole thing and very proud of their son. The Saadehs think that the family is very close to investigating themselves. Brother Saadeh has been affected a lot also by having the discussions at his house. In all, John's conversion has started ripples that no one can comprehend the effects of.

We taught the Chinese lady Xiao Yan again last night. She was very receptive and we had a good discussion about faith, prayer, scripture study, etc. My Chinese is definitely digressing, but it's not terrible.

John Moran is also progressing and coming to church. He actually drove us to the temple today, so we've had a lot of contact with him. He is reading every day.

On Saturday morning, we taught the Kim family the plan of salvation, and they are doing well. They're still not coming to church, but they're progressing in their own way.

Also on Saturday, one of the ladies in our ward gave us an assignment. She had her car fixed by a guy who she started talking to about the church, and felt prompted to send us over to his house with a plate of cookies. He was so touched that he was brought to tears, and he invited us back.

We also talked to an old contact of Elder Holt's this week, named Judy. They had tried everything to get her to church, but she never came. Well, she's moving soon, so we asked if we could help. she was very touched by this, then we invited her to church. So she came, and she was BAWLING during fast and testimony meeting. It was a very good experience for her. We will send the missionaries in Georgia to go get her.

Well, that's about it for this week. It was exciting and good. I hope you all have a great week this week. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

I don't know the first thing about teaching a Muslim

2006-05-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

May 2, 2006

Dear Family,
Hey, Becky and Michelle, that's cool that you won a contest. I want to hear more about what happened. Those pictures look like you had a good time. Did you get their CD for free? :P.

Okay, so on to about my week.

John Raney is still on to be baptized on Saturday, solid as solid can be.

We started teaching John Moran on Sunday, and he's doing well. He has a tentative date of mid-June, when he graduates from college. He's studying video game design, and got interested through his girlfriend Jill Zor. He's keeping up on his reading assignments and coming to church, so he's pretty solid on the road to getting his answer from God.

During the first couple days of this week, we met with a lot of rejection. We tracted a lot and were turned away and received rude or offensive comments several times. But we kept going through a few hard days, and finally started seeing some success.

A couple days ago, we did a check back for a young man named Abrar, who looked Indian. When we knocked and asked for Abrar, his father answered and scolded us for asking for him because he was a minor; if we wanted to talk about religion we should talk to the father. So we asked if we could talk to him, he said yes, he let us right in, and we had a great discussion. We gave him a book of Mormon and he gave us a Koran, and at the end, he apologized several times for getting angry. It just goes to show that a soft answer to an angry person can turn away their wrath and open hearts to you. Now, I don't know the first thing about teaching a Muslim, but at least he's reading the Book of Mormon, and maybe he'll come to the knowledge of its truthfulness. It was very interesting to get to know him. He said we can come back sometime.

Yesterday, we tracted and, for the first time ever with Elder Holt, got in a door. His name was Luis; we taught him the restoration and committed him to read the Book of Mormon and come to church. He's not an investigator yet, but he has promise. He is from Mexico and has very good English. Then, a few doors later, we met a lady who seemed very anti at first, and we nearly got into a bash with her at the door, but we were able to bring it down a little bit and ended up talking for about 1 1/2 hours at the door. Elder Holt apologized for getting a little bit intense and flustered, and she really warmed up to us. she said she'd invite us to have dinner with her except she didn't know what they were having or when, but said she'd like to see us again when we're in the neighborhood. She had a lot of questions, and we invited her to go to mormon.org and look through it. She said she would, and I think she had a little more understanding when we left than when we got there.

We did a little bit of service this week too. Actually... a lot. We helped move a couple people.
So, basically, it was a fairly slow week at first, and we found a few potential investigators later on in the week. We have two progressing investigators with a lot of promise.

I hope you all have a great week. I love all of you.

Love,
Elder Myers

Some committed investigators

2006-04-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

On P-day night, we taught a nonmember married to a member. His name is Owen Mongan. We committed him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Honestly, that is the only way to gain a testimony; all other things are just supports to that. He seems sincere.

Don't think that when I tell about a new person we find and then stop telling about them in future letters that we don't teach them. We teach about 20-25 lessons a week; I don't mention every lesson we ever teach to every investigator. Many investigators drop out, but in the old area in Mira Mesa, we had 19 current investigators when I left that we were regularly teaching.

This week we spent some time helping a lady named Antonia Pischke. She's a member who has had a really stressful last few months. Her husband really went off the deep end, got into drugs, moved to Mexico and started a house of ill repute, and last week came and robbed her house. So I helped her to set up her new computer, and we helped put the curtains back on her windows. She is very touched by the outpouring of love from the ward members.

We are still teaching our golden investigator John Rainy. It's green lights all the way, and he'll be baptized on May 6th at 1:00. He's very sincere and he'll make a wonderful member. His parents have noticed a big change in him since he started learning the gospel. Elder Holt is a big help to him since he converted so recently and can relate very well.

Our investigator Jan is not progressing. We did, however, show her The Testaments yesterday, which she enjoyed a lot. She was touched by the new perspective that Christ's visit to the Americas brought. We asked her to pray about whether it was real, and she said she would. But, people have their agency; people often don't pray because they're afraid that they WILL get an answer and they'll then be committed.

Such is the case with Brother Saadeh, the father in the home in which we teach John Rainy. He is not a member, but, as the bishop says, he's the "most active nonmember in our ward." He comes every week, participates in family prayer and scripture study, sits in on the lessons, supports his kids going to BYU, and even has an assignment in the ward (basically a calling... but only members can have callings). It comes down to, he's basically afraid to really pray with real intent to ask if it's true because he knows that he'll get an answer.

I'm sure he'll join the church someday.

On Sunday, we had a Bishop's fireside. Brother Saadeh was there, John Rainy was there, a new investigator John Moran was there too. There was a great lesson by the bishop and then he committed John Moran to baptism, and tried with Brother Saadeh. You could tell that he wanted to say yes, but he said he felt he wasn't ready. The situation was very intense. So the bishop instead committed him to go to lunch with him and discuss it. The Saadehs are a very great family.

Xiaoyan came to church on Sunday. We went on exchanges so I could accompany her to the ward in her area. She only had time for sacrament meeting, but I think she liked it. I haven't taught her again yet.

Yesterday we had Zone Conference. We learned about the great apostasy. We also heard a reaming on obedience issues. 4 missionaries have been sent home this transfer and there has been too much disobedience, so president thought it important to do a bit of chastening. I hope the missionaries his message was aimed at take it into practice and get their acts together.
Anyway, that's about it for now. It's been a good week. we're working hard, doing our best. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

EVERYBODY goes to Saddleback

2006-04-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

It has been a good week. We have done a lot of tracting. We live in the shadow of a mega-church with tens of thousands of members called Saddleback. EVERYBODY goes to Saddleback, and they occasionally hold anti-Mormon classes there. It's hardened a lot of peoples hearts against the true church. So, we don't have a lot of success tracting, but we do it to show the Lord our willingness to work and in hopes to find that golden family.

We have an investigator who will be baptized early next month named John Rainy. He is friends with a girl who is at BYU right now and decided to look into the church and discovered its truthfulness. So, he's very steady and we are excited for him. We are also teaching a Korean family who are very nice and open. There is a 17 year old girl who is just waiting until she turns 18 to be baptized. There is a woman named Jan Smith who is very involved in Saddleback, but is also very nice and lets us in; we have a few roadblocks though, so we might not be able to teach her much longer. There's a nonmember married to a member named Owen Mongan that we are also working with. And those are the investigators that I "inherited." This transfer we are fasting to find a family that we can teach and baptize by the end of the transfer. We fasted Sunday. On Sunday night we checked on a Chinese referral named Xiaoyan Song and she was interested and made an appointment for Monday night. I worked my Chinese networking skills and got a couple Chinese members from Irvine to join us for the lesson and she's going to be coming to church and taking the lessons now. So, already a new promising investigator. Also, on Sunday a member brought a nonmember named John Moran who agreed to take the discussions and we're going to meet with him next Monday night at the bishop's house. Things are already looking up from that fast, and we'll keep working hard. There are some other people who look like they'll come to fruition soon too.

Our ward is a very large one. It has over 10 missionaries out in the mission field from there. We had a good Easter program and a good Easter dinner with one of the families. So, everything is going well. Tracting long hours during the day is kind of frustrating, but it's okay.

I don't need a bicycle. We have a full-time car because it's just that hilly.

Have a great week. I love you all.
Love,
Elder Myers

Transfered to Lake Forest

2006-04-11T15:52:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
Things are going well. they are about as hectic as they could possibly be - I got transferred up to the northernmost part of the mission, Lake Forest in Orange County. We serve in a beautiful green hilly country; and we are living with a member family. My new companion is Elder Holt from Montana. He converted to the church in 2004. He is a very well-mannered respectable young missionary. He's been out about two months. I am now a senior companion and am going to be doing English work for a while.

Well, so things have kind of started anew for me. It's a brand new area, a new companion, new place to live, everything. It feels like the day I arrived in the field again, almost, except that I have memories of the people I taught down south. Last night I said goodbye to Darla, and amazingly her husband seems to have opened up to coming to church on Sunday. We had 7 investigators at church on Sunday, which was certainly a testament to fasting. One of our investigators, Min Lin got up in testimony meeting and bore a testimony of the reality of God. This is from a lady that, when I met her a few months ago, had no interest or knowledge about God; she was raised in China where they had taught her that God doesn't exist. To see her stand up and talk for a minute was a very moving experience.

Stan that we found also came to church. His fiance flipped out at the last minute and tried her hardest to get him not to come, but he finally made it. That was a huge success, he's going to be such an asset to the ward, and it's going to help his life so much.

Elder Gibbons now has abrand new Chinese missionary straight from the MTC. His name is Elder Gould, or Guo Zhanglao. His Chinese isn't bad, from what I've heard so far, so I hope they do well.

We found another family to teach too. The parents are less active and have two 16 year old boys (not twins-- Brady Bunch style) who they haven't raised in the church. But they had always planned on letting the boys learn about the church and choose for themselves when they got older, and so we came in and committed them to hear the lessons. In all, Elder Gibbons and I found 23 new investigators last transfer, which is a mind-blowing number. I definitely attribute the success to praying by name for all the people we have been working with. Earning the Lord's trust is the most important thing we can do, and when we do that, He puts more people in our path. Remember, the Lord won't open doors if you're not prepared to enter. Maybe your part would be to open your mouth about the gospel, or give a book of mormon, or a pass along card. But if you are prepared, he will prompt you with the holy ghost, and you will help the missionary work go forward.

I'm glad you watched Elder Ballard's talk. We talked about it in our wards too.

Well, I still have a little bit of time, but I can't remember anything else that happened, my mind is kind of fried from the move. I've got a new planner, so I can't just look through the last week's plans. So, I better end it up now. I love you all, and I hope you have a great week.

Love,
Elder Myers

more investigators

2006-04-05T08:35:00.000-07:00

On thursday, we found two new investigators, a part member family named the Steinbornes. The parents are less active but they want us to teach their kids now. So, that's excellent news. They are a brother and sister named mark and alexandra. They have heard the lessons before, but for some reason the mom put a halt to it, saying it was "going too fast." So, we'll take our time. We're going to teach them every friday now. We also met with a chinese investigator, Mr. Dai, with the new sister in our zone from Hong Kong. We brought her and she taught wonderfully in chinese and really brought a lot to the lesson. So we're going to let the sisters teach them now.

Remember how last week I told about looking for this elusive family named the Cole family? We knew their complex but not their door? Well, we found them. We didn't know it was them, but we knocked on the door and met a black man named Derek. We asked if we could visit with him, and he let us in. He is very well versed in the bible, and is willing to let us come back and visit. However, he's not the most golden investigator. He wants proof of the book of mormon's truth and although we can provide evidences, it's impossible to prove, just like it's impossible to prove that Christ is the Son of God -- except through the influence of the holy ghost. At the end of the discussion, I asked his last name, and he said Cole. We were really excited we had found them. But, we taught again today (yes, on P-day... it was a sacrifice :P) and I don't know how far we can get with him. I lent him "Our Search for Happiness" by Elder Ballard and we'll give him a book of mormon.

On friday, we went up to Orange County to teach a recent convert, Kristin. She's the 9 year old adopted from china. Her english has really gotten good in the 4 months she's been here.

Saturday and Sunday were conference, of course. We watched all 4 sessions and the priesthood session. It was very good. I hope you saw the talk by elder ballard in the last session about becoming a gospel-sharing home. Those things he said were very very true. I hope you will be able to watch that talk again or read it again and incorporate what he taught. Remember that he said that if we do this, it will help tens of thousands find the gospel.

Yesterday, as we were walking to our next appointment, we, in the habit of talking with everyone, walked to a bus stop a little out of the way and there found an old investigator Derek that we had been looking for! He told us he'd be ready for church this week so we could pick him up.

On sunday we taught a couple named Roselilly and Harry at a members home. They want to keep meeting with us and learning about Mormonism. They have enough desire, I think, if we can help them and taech with the spirit. They are good people. He's an austrian, a former professional competetive skydiver and a current computer programmer. She's from the phillipines. They met online and are now happily married.

We finally met with Tyeshay's mom last night. She's now investigating too. It seems so easy to get people to hear the lessons, but it's really a blessing from the lord that hearts have been softened enough to let us in and let us teach. And that's about it for this week.

Well, that's all for now. I hope you have a great week. Stay safe. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

Tracting the apartment buildings

2006-03-28T19:32:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Thank you for the birthday stuff! I actually got the package on Wednesday morning at multi-zone conference. The office was nice enough to notice the happy birthday sticker and make special arrangements to have it brought to me. I really like everything you sent; thanks for getting 100% of what I requested! The backpack is wonderful: it doesn't hurt and holds books and pamphlets just right. Very nice. I'm taking the multivitamins every day now too. And eating the candy. Lisa, thanks for the birthday book, it's very cool. It's amazing how you did that.

On Tuesday night, Jimmy took us out for dinner for Pho. It was very good. The members here are very nice. After that, we had a lesson with the Sapiens neighbors and got the boyfriend, derek, to agree to come to church. And guess what, he actually did. And he really liked it. Then I went and taught Paco with my exchange; he's doing well. He told us that Lehi's dream really hit him, he felt like he had been in the mists of darkness and that he's found the iron rod and that's strengthening him. He's so sincere, it's great.

On Wednesday, we had our multizone conference with Elder Lance Wickman of the seventy. He gave us some good encouragement and there was a wonderful spirit in the meeting. He didn't really teach anything new, but helped us focus on the most important things - if an investigator isn't willing to keep their commitments and find out, you can't spend all your time with them. There are people prepared to hear the gospel that we need to find. Spending time with someone who's not going to progress may be denying somebody else the chance to hear it. It's a depressing thought, but it is true. We dropped several investigators this week, actually. The most heartbreaking was Emily; we went to her house and she told us to stop wasting our time. She's upset at God because she's been demanding a sign of her husband getting a job even though she's received a spiritual confirmation. Her faith was based almost entirely on how much she thought her husband was going to get a job here. We've tried to help her time and time again, but on Friday, we met with her and she's outright not willing to accept anything less than a sign. She gave her Book of Mormons and gospel principles books back. It was sad, but it had to be done.

On Thursday, some missionaries in Poway set up an appointment for us to teach a chinese person. His name is Mr. Wang and he's a Chinese medicine doctor. He agreed to hear about the church because he has friend patients who have shown amazing spiritual and mental strength in the face of cancer and other illness. We hope we can see him again. The lesson went very well.
On Friday, for lunch, we went to another Chinese members house where she made us Chinese bbq noodle soup and Chinese spring rolls. It was very good. Chinese food is much better in homes than at Chinese Potluck.

Last Sunday on exchanges with our ward missionary brother Bitton I went tracting in a certain complex. The reason we were going there is that a family in our ward met another family at the park who seemed to be interested in the church, but they didn't find out exactly where they live. So, something as trivial as a lack of address wasn't going to stop us from finding a potential investigator. Sure there are about 15 buildings of apartments, but that wasn't going to stop us. So brother Bitton and I tracted this area at night and with most doors had moderate success ( we gave out a few pass along cards). But at one door, we met this guy named Danny who we got talking to and eventually got in and shared a scripture with him and asked to come back to give him a Book of Mormon. He was interested in that, so brother Bitton dropped it by a few nights later ( but he wasn't home).

Well, in that couple days, we received a referral from HQ; somebody named Carl we had given a card to in that same neighborhood for a free bible had actually called the number. So the next night after Brother Bitton took the Book of Mormon over, Elder Gibbons and I went back into that neighborhood to check on Danny and deliver the bible to Carl.

So, we stopped by Danny's, and his girlfriend answered the door; he wasn't home from work yet. We taught her a first lesson on the porch, and she said she'd be interested in listening when we came back to talk to Danny. Then, as we finished, Danny walked up and invited us in, we shared a couple good scriptures and had a prayer then got going. Danny said "Joseph Smith could never have written this!" So, interestingly enough, we found a couple who were both independently prepared and they're letting us come share brief lessons with them. Two new investigators there. Then we stopped by Carl's house. Carl's girlfriend answered; Carl was in the shower, not available. We talked to her about the church, invited her to learn about it, and she gave us her address. And Carl said we could come back later. So even more promise there.

Last night we tracted a few more buildings of that neighborhood and found an inactive member that has felt the call to come back to the church so strongly that he read the Book of Mormon again in the last couple months and read a lot of church history. He said we can expect him at church next week (after conference) and said we can keep coming back. He definitely has a testimony, but it's so hard for them to have the courage to come back. So that's another fruit of tracting this particular complex. And we still haven't found that family that the members met in the park.

On Saturday, our English student Cici brought me Costco pizza for my birthday and I ate about 6 pieces. then we went to a party for one of the Chinese members sons, and I ate lots of Chinese food. Then another less active member had us for dinner that night. I was pretty much very stuffed on my birthday. Thanks again for the presents.

Well, that's about all that's been happening lately. I hope you're all doing well. I haven't looked at bikes yet. thanks for fasting for the missionary work, keep opening your mouths and sharing the gospel. Have a great week. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

It's great to be busy

2006-03-21T10:53:00.000-08:00

Hi family,

First of all, President Garner asked me to modify the blog that you update a bit so that when people searched for the carlsbad california mission, it wouldn't be something that seemed that officially represented the mission. So I did so. I don't get on there usually so today was a special exception because president Garner asked me to.

I will look for bikes in the area. I don't think the missionary mall bikes are quite worth what they charge, but I'll check the stuff around that price range. I can easily take it when I am transferred. I did buy a helmet and a seat cover at target.

I can't just check the mail whenever I want on P-day. The mail is sent to carlsbad which is a half-hour drive away. It is collected throughout the week and put in a tote, then on tuesday mornings at 9:00 it is delivered to our zone by the APs. So basically, if it's not received by monday, it doesn't come til next week. But it's okay, I'll look forward to the birthday package for next week. Maybe you could call the office an ask them to send it with the APs for zone conference tomorrow :P.

It's great that you're meeting your new neighbors. Keep being a true friend to the neighbors.

How does your monthly ward missionary correlation meeting run? That sounds interesting. We have a weekly missionary report with our ward and branch PEC meetings.

Dad, that's a big calling that you have to be stake Family History guy. Good luck with it; you can do a good job with it.

We challenged Tyeshay to baptism this week and he wants to do it. We talked to his mom a bit at the door and she seems willing to let him if he wants to do it. She's going to join us for a lesson tomorrow night at the Sapiens' house. We are teaching Millie and Nani, two of the Sapien family's other neighbors, tonight; we keep the sapien family very busy. Don't be afraid to introduce the missionaries to your neighbors.

Henry came to church again this week. He likes it. He got a primary CD and is practicing the songs. Paco also came to church and liked it. He is progressing well. We're going to give him to the spanish elders though - it's kind of a shame that we don't get to keep him, but it'll be the best for him and for the spanish branch.

We are still working with Darla. She almost came to church this week, but had to go out of town. Next week, we hope. The baptists are working pretty hard on her too. We cast the evil spirits out of her home.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but once a week, we walk Jimmy home from school. Jimmy is a recent chinese convert who is in a wheelchair. He lives pretty near mirimar college, the local college, and he takes english classes there. It works pretty well to street contact with him; I am ahead pushing Jimmy, which softens the hearts of the contacts, and Elder Gibbons follows behind talking to the people and giving them pass-along cards. It's pretty fun and fairly effective.

This week we have appointments coming out of our ears. I don't even know how we're going to fit it all in. It's like everybody wants to hear the gospel. Well, that isn't the case, but we have found lots of people who do, and it's great to be busy.

Michelle, I swear I wrote you a letter last week, but I forgot to send it. You should get it this week.

I think that's about all I can remember about this week; it was busy with appointments but it was good. The spanish elders found a great family to teach this week from Guatamala by just talking to a guy on a bike as he rode past. They're really excited about that.

Well, I love you all. Have a great week, stay safe.

Love,

Elder Myers

Ukrainians

2006-03-14T14:09:00.000-08:00

March 14, 2006
Dear Family,
Thanks for writing, it's good to hear from you again. I got two letters in the mail this week!

There is only 1 mandarin missionary coming from the mtc that we know about. We'll do the best we can, though; Elder Jensen will probably come back soon. We are doing our best to find and teach Chinese investigators still - we had an appointment last night that went very well - a whole family that wants to learn about the church. They are very nice.

I hope you get to meet the new neighbors soon. Make good friends with them, then they'll be more willing to hear the message of the gospel. Also, never hesitate to invite them to come to church with you.

I do appreciate the pictures you send with letters, thank you. Please keep sending them.

Heh, a pizza delivery bag would be cool (you could get one on ebay) but probably not keeping with the professional look we're going for.

Thanks for planning to fast on my birthday. That's a good idea that your ward has, fasting 40 days. Is it supposed to be like lent?

That's great that you're doing the MS bike ride up there too. I see signs for the MS walk here in San Diego all the time.

I'm sorry to hear about Michelle's back injury. Is she doing okay? She can maybe spend her time playing video games instead of running, it's just as productive :P. I hope it goes all right, Michelle. Have you gotten a priesthood blessing for it?

We got 3 more investigators this week. We met one guy on the street named Ricky who lives in a group home. He invited us over, so we went over Saturday night. We came in and were about to share a short message when one of his roommates came over and said he had been looking for the Mormons so he could become religious again. It was clear that something was a bit amiss with the mind of the other man, Derek, because he asked us to teach a lesson about revenge, then sang us some Josh Groban, and finally we smelt liquor on his breath; he was pretty drunk. But they both said they wanted to come to church. We came the next morning, and though Derek didn't remember he wanted to come to church, he agreed to come again. Ricky couldn't get up - he was still sleeping. Derek was still a bit intoxicated at church and got up to go outside a couple times to smoke but he still enjoyed church and wanted to come next week. He's not the most perfect nearly-Mormon golden investigator I've ever met, but for sure he needs the gospel, and if it can help him, so much the good that will bring.

On exchanges, Elder Gibbons tracted into two Ukrainians who we are now teaching. One translates for the other. We got them a Book of Mormon in Russian (which they say they can read as well as Ukrainian) and they are very intent on reading it. They are very good. With them, though, we will also have to help to conquer a smoking and drinking habit too, though not quite so debilitatingly serious as with Derek. Their names are Sergei and Glib.

We finally got Henry to church this week! and he liked it. We sat with him during primary and the rest of church. Eventually his dad came to pick him up and ate dinner with us at the potluck, and they should be coming to our branch party on Friday. Henry's a good kid; I hope he can join the church.

We are teaching also a 12 year old young man named Tyeshay. He is doing very well, and we will teach him the 3rd lesson tonight. He is progressing very well.

It seemed for a little while that Darla had dropped us, but we are still working on her. She agreed to come to our church this week, as long as she can also go to the Baptist church that's working really hard on her. It's tough to have to compete with a church that has an all-black gospel choir.

We also have a few referrals that we hope will pan out this week. Things here are going reasonably well. The number of new investigators we have been getting here is far out of the ordinary, and we have been very blessed. Now if we could only baptize them.

I could probably use a better bike, honestly. Mine is purple and rusty. However, it being hard to ride gives me a better work out than I otherwise would get, so it's a bit of a tradeoff. How much would a reasonable bike cost?

Well, I'm out of time. Thanks for everything. I love you all.
Love,
Elder Myers

18 investigators

2006-03-07T11:22:00.000-08:00

March 7, 2006
Dear Family,
Well, it's been another good week. Let me reply to some of your questions first, starting with the most important questions:

My birthday. You don't need to get me a cake or a cake mix or anything like that - the members and other missionaries here do a good job of getting every missionary at least 2 entire cakes, and I definitely don't need more than that. However, I do have a few things I want for my birthday, if that would be okay.

I would like a backpack. Not my lame shoulder bag that I have now, but a backpack. With two shoulder straps. That would be wonderful. If it could have two compartments or more, or good places to keep my scriptures, a few copies of the Book of Mormon, and passalongs, that would be great too. Whatever you find that you think would be best.

Also, I know this is weird to ask for for my birthday (and it's a real sign that I'm in the adult world now. Another one was that our apartment was talking about the high quality of certain brands of rice and I realized then that my childhood had ended) but perhaps you could send some sort of multivitamin supplement too. I've gotten sick too many times in the past few months and I want to fight that if possible.

Other than that, there's not really anything I want or need.

The Vancouver trip sounds like a lot of fun. I have always wanted to go there, so maybe we can all go when I get back. I hear there is a very big Chinatown there.

That is strange that you said in Vancouver they're not allowed to have missionaries over for dinner. Here, that's our source of generating referrals and working with the members, so I wonder if even though they have "more prime time" they get less referrals. But I'm sure that their mission president is following the spirit and it'll make a difference in that area. Evening is definitely our prime time for finding people home, but the problem is that the sun goes down very early, so when we knock on doors people tell us it's too late. And it's like 6:00 or 6:30. I guess they expect us to find them home while they're still at work. Weekends are even more of a prime time because we can use daytime hours to find people.

The Tuiotis moved up to Long Beach and are meeting with the missionaries and preparing for baptism there. It's too bad that we didn't get to follow through with it, but they're doing great.
Our investigator Jie is moving to Monterey tomorrow too. So, our investigator pool took a big hit. But then, we've gotten new investigators every day for the last 5 days - 6 in total, with some appointments set up for potentials. On Sunday, we knocked on a door while tracting, asked to come it, and came away with a baptismal date for two weeks from now. We hope it'll work out, it was pretty surprising. He had met the missionaries before. His name is Paco Marquez.

Four of the new investigators came from one member family we have called the Sapiens. Two of the sons friends (named Tyeshay and Stephen) and a few of the neighbors (Millie and her daughter Nani) are taking the lessons now. Plus, one of the people renting a room with Henry's family decided she was very interested in learning more too. So we are certainly trying our best and teaching a lot of lessons. We're up to 18 investigators total, which is kind of overwhelming, especially since we only have our car 3 days a week. But it is good to work hard.

We had a stake conference broadcast this sunday with President Monson speaking. It was very good. He wiggled his ears for us.

I am out of time so I must go, but I hope you all have a great day. I love you all.

Love, Elder Myers

Elder Elkington went home, Jessica was baptized

2006-02-28T21:14:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-21T19:13:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-14T14:19:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-08T13:51:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-01T05:24:00.000-08:00

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

Hard work pays off

2006-01-24T10:40:00.000-08:00

January 24, 2006
Dear Family,

Well, this week has been a great week, and a very hard week. I got the flu this week, and we also worked harder than perhaps we ever have before. We asked 67 people for referrals, and we did 20 hours of finding, which is far beyond our weekly records so far. We found 3 new english students, got several referrals, and got 2 new investigators. So let me tell you about it.

Last Tuesday was transfers. We got a new roommate, Elder Tree. He is a fine missionary, and easy to get along with as a roommate. That's definitely a blessing. We also gave part of our P-day up to go down to Serra Mesa (pretty near where uncle Donald lives) and teach English to a nice Chinese lady named Grace who we met while we were giving out the Chinese fliers to one of the restaurants. We scheduled a weekly Tuesday visit with her, but last night she called us and said that she all the sudden went to LA and she might not ever come back. We sure hope she does - especially since she had us buy an English book for her. She gave us the money in advance, so maybe we'll just have to ship it out to her in LA. We will definitely, once we figure out what's going on, try to get the missionaries up there over to her place.

One other English student that has resulted from the fliers happened like this-- We got a message from an American saying that his mother in law is Chinese wants to learn English and she had a flier that said we taught it. So we're arranging times to come teach her English lessons too. The thing with Chinese people here is that they work A LOT. They do not have much free time - usually one free day from work a week - and that free time usually doesn't line up with our Saturday English Class. So, we do a lot of private English lessons. But, as people learn who we are, what we represent, and accept our invitations to come to church and hear the gospel, the time we spend teaching English will pay off.

Oh, today we got some sweet new name tags that we ordered a couple months ago from the Hong Kong mission. They have our English name and the name of the church in English on the left, and then our Chinese name and Chinese name of the church on the right. It's very cool.
On Thursday, we started using the free bikes that we got from the mission office. They're not very good bikes (mine's purple and has bad brakes) but they help us travel MUCH faster on days we don't have the car. Mira Mesa is a very flat place, which, though it doesn't do much for beautiful scenery, is definitely a plus from the seat of a bike.

That night on exchanges, I went with Brother Harrison to visit a lady in our ward that we felt we should visit, and it turned out that us showing up was an answer to her prayers: she had been wanting someone to come, but she didn't have the courage to ask her home teacher or anyone else to come. She has a lot of health problems right now and we gave her a blessing and the spirit was strong. It was cool.

On Friday night, we went over to Jennifer and Henry's house. Henry mentioned that he'd read the book I'd given him. Not the whole thing yet, but he brought it to me and told me what he'd read, and then we read some more together. We got up through 3rd Nephi. He has since finished it. At that same time, Elder Jensen worked on talking to Jennifer and, miraculously, a brand new immigrant from China who is staying with them as she looks for an apartment. She is a doctor and her English is very good - in theory- but she needs practice. So he invited her to English class and she came. During English class, each missionary took a student and had some one-on-one practice (all in the same room). I was with the new lady, min-lin was her name. We spoke in English and practiced phone conversations, and eventually got into a discussion about missionaries and our religion. She seemed receptive and we invited her to church but she said she had some other plans. But she has some potential. Also we invited Jennifer and Henry, but they also didn't come for some or other reason. But we keep working with them. We took Ronald and his son Calvin over there on Sunday before church to introduce them and try to get them to come to church, but it didn't work. Oh well, maybe next week. Now that they're introduced, we're going to try to have a family home evening/lesson at a member's house with Ronald's family; maybe Ronald’s house, even.

We have gone down to UCSD (The hugest campus I've ever seen) twice in the last few days to try to contact the referral we have down there. He hasn't been home. The second time I went with an exchange and we decided that we weren't going to make an entire trip in vain, so we started tracting. College dorms- now that's a way to get a LOT of doors opened in a short period of time. That's also a good way to find an RA who politely kicks you out, asking you to get express permission first. So we'll have to make some phone calls before we go door-to-door tracting there again.

On Sunday, a potential investigator came to church again and we taught her, moving her into investigator status. Hooray. Elder Jensen spent his night with his exchange mingling and asking for referrals after a huge temple worker fireside. They figured that 1000 very active members from all over the county was a good crowd to ask about Chinese referrals. He seems to have gotten a few good leads, and he gave a lot of Chinese New Year fliers out.

Yesterday we had Zone Conference. Zone conference is always great, but special about this one was that we got these new awesome pamphlets from the church to go along with the missionary lessons.

Yesterday afternoon, I went on exchanges with Elder Elkington down in our English ward, tracting for a couple hours. At the end of our time, we knocked on this door where a lady told us to come back in half an hour because she was taking a nap but she really wants to hear what we have to say. So, we exchanged back up to our regular companions, and then I went back with Elder Jensen. She invited us right in, and then started crying. She opened up to us about how she felt that she had drifted away from God and explained some of her problems. We taught her the message of the restoration in such a beautiful spiritual way that seemed to apply to her like we had never taught before. And we left her with the awesome pamphlet for her to read and study before our return visit on Friday. So, Darla is a new investigator, and we are very happy about what happened yesterday. I'm still a little cautious though, because of what happened with Diamond up in Penasquitos, where we saw the entire Nephite pride cycle happen within about a week. If they don't truly convert and commit while they're humble, as soon as they get their feet under them again, they forget all about God again.

Well, I have exceeded my time, so I had better go. I love you all. Have a great week; thank you for the letters, the stamps, and the gift of a month of money for my mission. I appreciate it very much.

Love,
Elder Myers

Caveman Dinner

2006-01-17T14:52:00.000-08:00

Hi Everybody,

We've heard about that raining streak down here; I can't imagine it raining for a month straight. It only rains once every two weeks here - on the days we do car washes. That's interesting that you have to go clear out what the beavers have put in. Maybe you need to just go beaver hunting.

So, this week has been pretty good. We've been keeping track of how many referrals we ask for every week, and this week we got up to 50, the most we've done. We got 3 referrals total, and one of them seems to be a pretty good one, so we're hoping something comes of that.

We also took a few hundred english class flyers to a very asian part of town and asked every chinese store we could find (before we ran out of fliers) if we could place fliers in their store. All stores but 2 were very accomodating and allowed us to put them in a good place. Some even put them right next to the register.

We've gotten one call from a lady who wants to learn english who we are going to meet today. Hopefully we continue to find interested people; many people who get to know us are usually very open to hearing the gospel. That's not only true for missionaries, but any member of the church.

Today was transfers, and my roomate Elder Harty is going home. It's been pretty interesting to see him in the last few days of his mission. Tonight he sleeps at the mission home, and tomorrow he goes home to North Carolina. He was a good missionary, and it's sad to see him go. I'll meet my new roomate later today. Elkington goes home in just 6 weeks now.

Yesterday, we had a Caveman Dinner to send Elder Harty off. It was the chinese missionaries, Elder Harty, and Elder Vance. We covered the table with plastic, poured pasta and sauce on the table, and ate it with our hands. Then we emptied a bucket of ice cream on the table, poured chocolate chips, chocolate syrup, and caramel all over it, and ate it with our hands. All the while, we communicated in grunts. It was pretty funny. I didn't really participate that much because I had a bad stomachache yesterday, but it was still funny to watch. I have a picture that I'll have to send you of it.

Our investigator Rita dropped us this week. She has "decided to stay catholic." If only she had read and prayed like we asked her to. She never even came to church.

Did you guys do anything fun for Martin Luther King Jr. Day? We just tracted, but we found a lot of people home.

On wednesday we went to Deseret book to buy things to give to the people we're teaching. We got a copy of The Great Apostasy for Ann, True to the Faith and the Book of Mormon Study Manual for Kris, a recent convert, and the children's Book of Mormon stories book for Henry. Deseret book is right across the highway from the temple, which is always good to be near.

We saw Henry and Jennifer again this week, and the dad Tommy Fu was there too. He bought us pizza. They're a nice family. The dad isn't as interested as the mom or the son, but he is supportive and very nice to us. I gave Henry the childrens version of the Book of Mormon, read through the Tree of Life with him, and committed him to read 2 chapters a day. He prays every day. We're excited about him.

Well, I'm out of time again. Have a great week. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

Hard work is starting to pay off

2006-01-10T15:02:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Thanks for your letters this week again!

That's really cool that you got to fly with some fresh-out-of-the-MTC missionaries. I'm sure they were very excited. The missionaries I flew with straight out of the mtc had barely been out 3 weeks, and I felt like a grizzled veteran compared to them with my 11 weeks in the mtc. But I feel even older now.

If you hadn't heard from him, I had dinner with Donald and Lolis this week. It was fun and a good dinner. Thank you guys for the snacks you sent, although I must admit, I probably won't be able to eat all of that. Our apartment got swarmed with snacks in christmas, so, in interest of health, I'm only eating my favorites. Thankfully, some of what you sent for christmas falls right under that category.

Now about Jennifer and Henry. Jennifer is a chinese mom from Hainan, which is an island in southern china. Their accent is a bit weird but I usually can understand it okay - unless I really need to; I called them sunday afternoon to invite them to church, and I didn't understand a word they were saying and eventually just shoved the phone to Elder Jensen. Henry is very very interested in the gospel. It's a challenge to keep the answers to his questions pushing us in the direction that the lesson is supposed to be going. He's a very bright kid, though, and he has a good family. I think they have a lot of promise. He reminds his mom to pray. He should be praying about the book of mormon and joseph smith, so I'll let you know if he got an answer to his prayers yet.

Michelle, thanks for sending the pictures. Whenever you have some more, feel free to send them, I love seeing them.

Emily is slowly progressing. she doesn't have a solid baptismal goal yet, but she's good. I sat next to her at church on sunday, she's been coming to the chinese branch for as long as she can - she has to leave about 10 minutes early, but you can tell she really likes it, feels the spirit, and has the desire needed.

Yes, we do leave short spiritual thoughts after dinner with people. We actually shared one a couple weeks ago with a family and challenged them all to place a pass along card. I don't know if the parents did, but the kids did, and told us about it. The kids gave it to their teachers and the teachers weren't offended - they thought it was cool. one said "I totally dig jesus" and the other said that she would definitely get the finding faith in christ video. Cool. So, all you need is a little courage.

On sunday, President Garner spoke in the Mira Mesa 2nd ward (the English ward we cover) about member missionary work. He's a master teacher, and I think his talk should get the members thinking about missionary work. He mentioned 3 keys to member missionary work:

1- Pray for missionary opportunities
2- Be a true friend to your neighbors, work associates, and everyone you know.
3- Help us find people to teach.

He also mentioned again that the success in member missionary work isn't in the baptism - it's in the invitation. He said that in his life, inviting people to share the gospel has resulted in one case, a baptism; in another case, the person didn't want anything to do with it. In which case was he successful? BOTH. He did his part.

Becky, I hope you're putting your ipod to good use, cause if not, I'm gonna steal it when I get home. Have you gotten any new cds lately?

We teach English class every saturday at 11 am at the church. We try to teach applicable conversation things. The topic varies every week; we try to make it less a course, and more an open thing so that anyone can join in the class any time. We only have 3 students right now, so we are pretty focused on their needs.
I haven't gotten my patriarchal blessing yet, but I'm sure it'll come by next week.

I've got something interesting to tell you guys - on thursday we went out to dinner with some chinese investigators to a chinese buffet. And I ate frog legs. Well, only one, but I did. Are you proud of me? It honestly did taste like chicken.

Also the bishop calling has paid off a bit this week - we found some great chinese members who will be perfect fellowshippers. Then the next day, we got a referral for a chinese guy who lives right by one of those perfect chinese members and is the same age and everything. So, getting our name out there is helping us to make the work go more smoothly and everything.

Well, I'm about out of time. I hope all is going well, and that you are all staying healthy. I love you all. Have a great week.

Love,
Elder Myers

2006-01-03T10:59:00.000-08:00

January 3, 2006

Dear Family,

I hope you are doing well, and travel back to Seattle safely. Did you have a good new year? What did you do?

I talked to Donald last night on the phone. We are having dinner with him tomorrow night. He helped give us information about other english classes in the area.

We have two new investigators as of last night. They're praying together, and we're happy about how they're doing. It's funny, cause we take the mom to one side of the room and the son to the other side of the room because the mom needs to hear it in Chinese, and the son in English.

Yesterday, we set up a booth and handed out fliers for English class INSIDE the 99 Ranch chinese market. We got permission from the store manager to do it, and we found some interested people, so yesterday was a good day. It was also nice because yesterday it was raining torrentially, and it wouldn't have been very fun to be tracting in that. Though we might have gotten in a couple houses.... Anyway, we are always trying to find new ways to meet new people and find new investigators, so that was good.

Friday night, the Chinese missionaries were all invited to one of our English student Jodi's house for dinner. Elder Elkington and Elder Gibbons couldn't make it, so Jodi told us to bring our roomates. She prepared quite the feast for us, dishes of all sorts of wonderful chinese foods. We ate until we were stuffed, then ate some more. Then we participated in the official favorite pastime of Asia- karaoke. Most of the songs were, shockingly, in Chinese, but we found some English. That was a fun night. Jodi had fun too, and invited us to come back to her house any time. Which, as missionaries, is something we are more than happy to do.

I finished reading the Book of Mormon on Saturday night. I was glad that the prophet gave us that challenge. Did you all finish it too? As I was reading, I got a call from the branch president, asking me to speak in church the next day. So, I wrote my talk in my free time on Sunday and gave it in Sacrament Meeting. It was about 9 minutes, in Chinese and English. I think it was pretty good.

I got your letter from the 22nd today. I'm glad that you guys all keep making the invitations to come to church. Don't ever get discouraged; you're planting seeds in the right direction.

Last week, I got some small letters from the Canyon View 4th ward. Did you know that the heaths used to live in the stake I'm serving in? There's a ton of Chinese people in their old ward's area. We go there all the time. I was also glad to hear about the other missionaries heading out. I bet Nick Hansen is having quite the adventure... whether he's in Zambia or Zimbabwe. They're neighboring countries, anyway. I've heard stories about how hard it is to send packages to third world countries; it kind of makes you glad we have the US postal service, doesn't it?

Well, I'm out of time. I hope you have a good week, stay safe. Love you all. Thanks for the Christmas stuff. And the stuff that Donald's supposedly bringing up for me tomorrow.

Love,
Elder Myers

After Christmas

2005-12-27T15:00:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

I'm glad the calling worked out with grandpa's new phone. It was good to talk to you all again. I hope you're still doing well and that you had a good rest of christmas. I know I did. After I talked to you, I went to Chinese Church, then we went to one of Gibbons and Elkington's investigators, Jessica Yan(who miraculously just showed up to church and started investigating.) for dinner. There was waaay too much food. We talked to her 15 year old son for a while, who isn't technically an investigator, but he says he's thinking he wants to serve a mission, so that's really cool. He needs to join the church first, though.

The branch members gave us lots of Christmas presents, it was pretty cool. We got some cups and bowls, along with gift certificates for restaraunts, macaroni, socks, toothbrush, toothpaste, a mini leatherman and stuff like that. Besides the package from you, I also got some packages and letters from friends, and cards from family, friends, and ward members. It was a good christmas all in all. Thank you for what you sent. I have been eating Star Wars cereal every morning.

That's good that the girls weren't disappointed in how much stuff they got. It really is attitude, I think. On christmas morning we stopped by the Suns' house, and their only child, 9 year old calvin, got only one gift, a $5 chinese chess set. But he was still as happy as any other kid on christmas, especially since along with that gift was the promise that his dad would teach him how and play it with him. I think giving of your time is the best gift you can give.

If you send me temple names for endowments sometime, I can probably do some next time we go to the temple in a couple months. It's good that you got the chance to go do more sealings.

Yesterday, we helped some chinese eternal-investigators set up for their daughter's 5th birthday party. We blew up balloons, set up a moon bounce (one of those inflatable rentable jumping house things), helped cook, clean, etc. It was pretty fun. We got some cool pictures on the moon bounce. Most of the branch was there at the party. It was pretty fun.

Last night, we visited a potential investigator family. The mom's name is Jennifer Xie; she invited us for dinner last week, and they always let us in if we stop by. I have a pretty good friendship with the 9 year old kid Henry, so while Elder Jensen talked to the mom, I talked to Henry, and we both taught them each a lesson, and they were going to pray together last night; it was a good experience. We all prayed together before we left, and Jennifer felt the spirit; it was really good. So we'll see how that goes; we invited them to hear the lessons and they accepted so we'll be able to count them as investigators when we teach them on wednesday.

Well, I'm out of time. Have a great week, and a happy new year.

Love you all,
Love,
Elder Myers

Almost Christmas - looking for investigators

2005-12-21T10:50:00.000-08:00

Dear family,

How are you? I'm doing well. I got a couple packages from you today, but I haven't opened them yet. I'm looking forward to it.

Our 1 progressing investigator left to taiwan today. Now we have 0. We better keep finding. We've actually been focusing on asking everybody for referrals this week. We haven't got any, but it will pay off eventually, I'm sure. We called a lot more bishops this week. We found one that baptized an investigator 3 weeks ago from taiwan, who has since moved. That should have been our investigator! Thankfully, now almost all the wards in San Diego know about us, we only have a few left.

Good news - Emily told Elder Gibbons and Elder Elkington that she thinks she's felt the spirit more lately and she thinks she wants to be baptized. So that's great! They're having some success up there.

Elder Jensen's grandparents are Myers. Cool, huh? I don't know if there's any relation, though.

Today, Elder Jensen and I, with another Elder named Elder Doria and a guy from our ward named Brother Sapien jammed in the relief society room. It was pretty fun. We played amazing grace and a song I wrote based on an old church movie called uncle ben.

Yesterday we made some flyers for Sunday church in Chinese. We're going to go down and carol at this Chinese store called the 99 Ranch. It should be pretty fun, and maybe we'll meet some people. We went there last wednesday and it was pretty interesting. We met a guy who works for a magazine called We Chinese in America, and invited him to a chinese branch party on the 22nd. Maybe he'll come.

Not much else has really been going on. We've been staying busy, though, and my Chinese is improving a lot faster with Elder Jensen.

I hope you have a good Christmas at grandmas. Will Julie be there? Thanks for the pictures of Ethan.

Yesterday we visited a lady named Jennifer Xie, and her family is so crazy. They were watching Chinese TV which has the weirdest commercials I have ever seen. I laughed pretty hard because they had people waving bags of cookies around and about 50 people waving around cell phones. Everything seems funner when they're speaking chinese. They also gave us some coconuts and chips to take home. We are helping them with finding employment through the employment office.

Well, I have to go. I hope you have a great christmas. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

Dang it, the computer ate my email.

2005-12-13T12:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Dang it, the computer ate my email. Sorry about that.

This week has been not too eventful. the big work of the week has been getting publicity of the chinese branch out to all the bishops and missionaries in the san diego mission, because we found that most don't really even know that we exist. We're hoping to get more referrals because of that.

I will try to contact Donald in the future; I know where he lives. You can tell him I live in Mira Mesa on camino ruiz.

As for Christmas calling, I get 30 minutes on the phone. You can call me or I'll get a calling card. I'll give you my phone number next week, since I don't know what it is right now. What times would be good for you?

That's great that you're inviting nonmembers to church functions. Keep it up. Invite them to the church service on Christmas.

It's been strange getting used to the new area, but it's a pretty small ward. We've met a few people. We don't have too many investigators in the ward, so we definitely need to find more. Our Chinese work is going all right; our main Chinese investigator is moving back to Taiwan in a week, so there's definite need for improvement there.

I look forward to the package of Christmas goodies. Thank you.

Well, sorry about the brevity and typographical errors. I tried to get through everything important in 6 minutes; I hope you understand. I hope you all have fun in utah. Love you all.

Love,

Elder Myers

Transferred to San Diego

2005-12-07T13:57:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Sorry I didn't get to write yesterday; it was a busy day. I was transferred, and that was made official yesterday, so first I moved all my stuff to the other apartment, and we, wanting more space in the room, took apart our beds and my new roomates' (who were fine with it)bunkbeds, and switched. So, that took up a couple hours, settling in and getting the beds set up. I am now companions with Elder Jensen, who is from New York City. His chinese is the best in the mission, so it's cool to be with him. This morning for companionship study we read a chapter of the book of mormon in chinese. It was cool... but took about an hour :P.

So, yesterday, after we got set up, we went with Elkington and Gibbons to the park and played Urban Golf, which is just a made up game where you golf with tennis balls and clubs from a thrift store and try to hit something, like a garbage can or 2nd base. It was a lot of fun, but I lost because I've never done anything but minigolf before.

Then, at 2:00, we had to leave to go help one of our investigators named Steve Dow who was moving. He's having a hard time in life and the situation of moving was hard, and we ended up helping him until 6:00. At 6:00 we were in carlsbad but we had to go; we had another appointment at SDSU in san diego, so we had to drive a while down to make it to... the very end of the appointment. But a set of Elders from the San Diego mission were there and taught her, so it went okay. Then we had another appointment near campus, which we made it to on time. Her name is Tiffany Yeh, and she is leaving back to Taiwan in 2 weeks, but she is developing a testimony. By the time that was finished, it was 9:00, time to go home, but Steve called a member we were with and wanted to meet because of his personal crisis. So we met with him and president leung in the church, and I think we really helped him, and gave him some spiritual direction in life. Anyway, we got home at 11:30, which is way past our bedtime, but it was pretty important and we try not to do that sort of thing.

So, that explains why I wasn't able to write yesterday- we were exceptionally busy. And we're taking 4 hours of our missied preparation time today.

And now, I am with none of my previous investigators, which is kind of weird and sad, but it happens to every missionary. We have Mira Mesa 2nd ward and the south side of the Chinese Branch. So, our proselyting area is... the San Diego mission. A pretty big area. We're going to try to get the word that we actually exist to more of the members in San Diego so that we can get more referrals.

Before I was transferred, a good step in the right direction happened with Emily. She told us that every time she comes to sister Ng's house for the lessons, her faith grows. But now, you won't be getting regular updates on the people I've been talking a bout before, sorry. Unless they get baptized, in which case I'll let you know.

Now, on to answering questions:

As missionaries, we are allowed to go to the temple once every quarter. It's a mission-wide temple p-day. I dont' know if I saw THE grand staircase, but I saw a few pretty grand ones.

Happy birthday, Lisa! 11 years old is OLD.

That's great that sister bessey emailed you. The Besseys are good members.

I don't really know what I'd like for christmas. Classical Music is always good, but all I can really ask for is to continue helping me financially to stay out here. If people want to give me cash that's fine, but I have enough money from my allotment for my needs, so you could give them the option of just using it to help me pay for the mission.

The idea of getting things for kids is a good idea, but I really don't know that many kids. There are maybe 8 kids in the chinese branch I could give things to, and we generally don't work with the children too much.

That's great that you got snow! We have still been having pretty summery days here. It hasn't even rained in months.

At church on sunday we had at least 6 chinese nonmembers at church. It was pretty awesome. We've been getting about 2 maximum the past few weeks.

Well, there hasn't really been a lot that has happened this week besides the major transfer. Thanks for the letters. I love you all.

Love,

Elder Myers

A rough week

2005-11-29T14:48:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Well, that's exciting about Ethan! He's a cute little baby.

We went to the San Diego temple for the first time today. It was really cool, and I liked it a lot. It was great to actually get to go inside this time; it was a little surreal to be at the same place we traveled to see donald's wedding, though. The temple was very peaceful and I feel spiritually renewed.

Which was kind of needed; we had a kind of tough couple of days. First of all, the baptism is off. Sister Ma called us on saturday and said that her husband isn't letting her be baptized, and she didn't come to church. So we're hoping she still has the desire and that we can work towards it, but for now, it's not happening.

One of our potential investigators, the ukrainian kid named Daniel got yelled at by his mom in russian when we were there last. We invited him to come to the Turkey Bowl (a thanksgiving morning football game) and he wanted to come - and he wanted to bring a friend! So I showed up with an exchange to give him a ride, and they were all ready to go, and his mom freaked out yelling in russian and stuff and wouldn't let him go, and kind of shut the door on us. And we were all ready to play football too, no tags, no suits, no ties, nothing. But, from what we know, she's 7th day adventist and pretty opposed to us. But Daniel still wants to meet with us, so we've arranged a meeting in his neighbors' the Rogers apartment and hopefully that will go well.

Remember the chinese kid Kai that I met tracting and gave a book of mormon and his mom has read about half of it? Well, get this, HE is the friend that daniel was going to bring to football. Crazy, huh. None of us knew the others knew eachother. So it's really too bad that his mom is such a hindrance. That would have been great to have both of our youth contacts come to an activity.

Sunday, I called diamond to invite her to a fireside and she flat-out dropped us and we don't know why. That's sad and we were kind of upset about the insult added to injury after the other setbacks to the work we had, but everyone has their agency.

Okay, about investigator status, since Mom asked:

An investigator is someone that officially:

1- You have taught a lesson to, extended commitments to, and have a solid return appointment for them.

However, often we get stood up on the follow-up appointments, so we don't count them as an investigator until that appointment happens. But you can also count:

2- Those who have accepted an invitation to hear the lessons, and you've taught them once, and they're positive enough that you feel you can count them.

Someone being nice and letting you come in and talk to them about the gospel once in a while isn't good enough to be counted as an investigator, unless they start following through with some commitments.

We got 2 new investigators this week. One was Brother Bradshaw's neighbor Quay, and we taught him again and set up another appointment. Another was Wu Lai because I stopped by with an exchange and he let me teach him (we've had 2-3 stop by lessons before) and I committed him to be baptized when he felt it was true.

So, despite the setbacks this week, we do still have hope, and we are still working hard.

Thanksgiving was fun; we had it with the Ng's and Emily for lunch and our ward mission leader Bro. Welch for dinner.

When we taught emily yesterday, I think we made some real progress. She recognized that she was feeling the spirit, and we taught some good principles.

Rick Marx is also making good progress. We gave him a blessing for his ankle on friday and talked for a while, and I think he's getting closer.

We still have some MIA investigators, Wa Suddeth and Jessica Yan. When they get back from china, we hope to teach them again.

I might be getting transferred next week, or Elkington might. He has 2 transfers left, and they'll probably want to give Gibbons a turn with him.

That's awesome that Carol and John got a mission call to new zealand. Didn't Nate Jones from CV4 just get called there too?

Well, I need to get going. Thanks for the letters. I love you all,

Love,

Elder Myers

Some new contacts

2005-11-22T10:08:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

So, what has happened this week? Well, Diamond "Tanya" Young is now a new investigator, and we met with her again, and she accepted our invitation to teach her the gospel. So, we'll see how she progresses, but we're hoping that we can bring her into the church. We have a lot of people with really really high potential for becoming investigators too, so we're still working on them and any day now they could start. We took a finding faith in christ dvd to one of them, Wu Lai, for his birthday. He's been really busy so unable to make appointments with us, but his job was a temporary job with Katrina relief, and since the disaster's over, his job is ending too. So this week we should be able to start meeting with him. He accepted a challenge I gave him to read the book of mormon 10 minutes a day, and he is pretty open.

Emily isn't progressing too much. She's still in that kind of sign-mongering mindset and we can't break it, so we've kind of pulled back on the reigns and are just going to take it slowly, teaching lessons every week to strengthen her testimony for as long as we need to.

One time this week, I was on exchanges with Brother Bradshaw in our ward, and he had a taiwanese neighbor, so we went to the house, and I invited Mr Chan to hear the gospel. And he accepted. So we had a discussion with him on saturday, and have another one next saturday. I don't know how interested he is, but we're sharing the lessons. And why did Mr. Chan accept? Cause he had seen that Brother Bradshaw was a good guy, so his church couldn't be bad. So, remember, your good examples of who you are can open opportunities to sharing the gospel.

Mrs. Ma is still right on track to be baptized on lisa's birthday (December 4). She is awesome. It will be my first baptism of the mission.

I have also been learning a lot of chinese reading and writing. I have been using some flash cards that the mission office sent us, and now I can read at least 500 commonly used characters. So that's helpful. I can probably understand about 70% of the words in the book of mormon.

Anyway, other than that, not much has happened this week. There seems to have been a larger than usual number of cancelled appointments this week. That was disappointing, but we're still pressing forward and working hard.

Thanks for writing this week. I hope you all stay safe and have a wonderful holiday.

Love,
Elder Myers

Hagoth, the van

2005-11-14T17:45:00.000-08:00

Hi Family,

I am glad that you are trying to be a missionary family. You know, those are the kinds of families that missionaries like best. Remember, you can invite anybody to hear the gospel. Teachers, hairdressers, neighbors, the clerk at the bank, whatever. Yesterday, president garner told me, and told me to tell the members, people you know best aren't always the ones the lord has prepared to hear the gospel. Also, success in missionary member work isn't measured by baptisms, it's measured by how many invitations you make. If you're talking about the gospel, then you're doing your job and the lord can step in in ways you don't know.

This week has been a very good missionary week. VERY good. First of all, I should mention that emily's baptismal date came and went without a baptism. She's just not sure yet, she needs more of a testimony. But she is developing a desire to know. So she's still on the right path. she invited Elder Elkington and I out to dinner with her and her son tonight, so we are looking forward to that.

On wednesday, we got an awesome referral in San Clemente in orange county - over an hour north of here. So we drove up there and taught a first discussion in chinese with a couple members there, it was well-received, and we made a follow-up appointment from saturday. Her name is Wa Suddeth and she has a masters in art and two teenage sons. She has heard some of the lessons in english and come to church about 6-7 times, but they decided it would be best if she was taught in chinese, so we were happy to go up there. On saturday, though, she had forgot about it and was in LA, so we had to cancel it. She is taking a trip to china with her family this week, so we will meet with her again soon. But there was a wonderful spirit in the lesson, and one of the members present, Sister Ryan (who is chinese) was crying. Even though we got stood up, we still feel that Wa is a very serious investigator and we're happy to be teaching her.

Lisa, remember Mrs. Ma? Well, guess what? She's getting baptized! On your birthday! Yep, last night, we taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ - faith, repentence, baptism, and the holy ghost. And then she told us that she wanted to be baptized. That was the easiest baptismal commitment ever. So, in my broken chinese, I said "Wo xiang san ge xingqi shi hao de. shier yue si hao hao bu hao?" Which means "I think 3 weeks is good. How about december 4th?" She accepted, and this is a very solid date, so we are very excited.

In the fun department, we christened our minivan on saturday. Elkington and I bought 3 jones sodas: one for me, one for elkington, and one for the van. We poured it on him and named him Hagoth, named after the great shipbuilder in the book of mormon. Then we washed the car at the carwash.

Every couple saturdays we have a free carwash at the stake center. And we get some referrals from it. Elkington and I got 3 in our area of people who were interested to hear about it. And then, some sisters in del mar called us with a referral from a carwash there.

This woman's name was Tanya Young. We had her address and phone number, and I decided to stop by and visit her and see her level of interest on exchanges. So we drive to the address, and find that it's an apartment building, and that we don't have an apartment number. So, I use my exchange's cell phone and call the number - busy. So we know she's home, and I decide that we should tract the apartment. So we do, and meet all sorts of people, none of them americans. We found this one ukrainian kid who seemed sort of interested and I gave him a book of mormon and invited him to church. And then we knock on this door, where we hear somebody talking on the phone. She calls "who's there?" and I reply "the missionaries." She says "hang on."

Now, usually, that's not the reply we get to "it's the missionaries." It was obviously somebody kind of interested, and we found out that it was Tanya, who we were looking for. She had one of her friends answer the door, though, cause she was on the phone using long distance. We left our number and wrote down the apt number so that we could return later.

And yesterday, Elkington and I did return. When we got to the door, she was in tears, sobbing. We arrived at a moment when she was completely overwhelmed by the world because of some situations which she explained and we knew that it wasn't a coincidence that we showed up at that time. So we came in and talked and shared some scriptures of comfort and prayed with her. It was a really great experience and we have a return appointment. I feel like we had been guided to choose to visit her at that time so that we could be God's way of comforting her and guiding her. We have a return appointment tomorrow and are going to introduce her to some of her neighbors who are members. We also invited her to church. So, that's a great referral that we got, all from a car wash.

We actually got 7 referrals last week - an enormous amount compared to how many missionaries usually get. We have been very busy this week, and haven't had to spend much time at all tracting. It is good to be busy. Even though tracting feels like missionary work, it's much better to be doing the real missionary work, working with people.

I want you all to know that I have a testimony that what we're doing, you included since you're member missionaries, is true, and that it really helps people. The church is true and it is God's way of blessing the lives of those who draw near to him.

Have a great week,
Love,
Elder Myers

Lots of investigators

2005-11-08T11:45:00.000-08:00

Hi Family,

Well, I don't know if you sent a letter last week, cause I didn't get one today. So I don't have too much to respond to.

Thank you for your prayers and fasting for Emily. I'm not sure that she'll be baptized this week, which is unfortunate, but she is still making progress. She fasted and prayed for an answer too. On saturday night, to start her fast, I went over to her house with my exchange for the evening, Brother Manning. We just answered a few questions she had, then had a prayer circle, where we would each say a prayer in turn, around the circle several times, in hopes that we could feel the spirit and have a confirmation. Afterwards, after some silence, I asked her how she felt, and she felt happy, peaceful, and she said it was almost like a voice told her "don't worry, it's okay." She definitely felt the peaceful comfort of the spirit. But it's so new to her, and so she's still not sure if that is her answer. So she needs to still spend some more time in the scriptures and pondering and praying. But she's doing great on all the commandments; we've taught her everything, and she's living it. She just feels she needs faith or else baptism is meaningless.

We have been getting to know her son too, through playing tennis. Elder Elkington is good at tennis, and Steven is really into it, so we've gone over there twice now, and I discuss the gospel with Emily while Elkington plays tennis with Steven. We're going out to dinner with them next week to get to know steven better. So maybe we can start teaching him the gospel too; his mom is a good example to him.

Tonight, we are having dinner with another investigator family, the Forkuses. The father, Rod, is a member, but has been inactive since childhood. But they are very open to us, very kind, and somewhat interested in educating their children in the church, so we are meeting with them weekly. So, dinner tonight will be a good step. The relationship of trust with the missionaries is really a big part; they won't even listen to what you have to say otherwise.

Mrs Ma, the elder Groberg referral, is doing excellent. I taught the second lesson without a hitch, except for my not-quite-good enough chinese. Elder Elkington had an exchange he had to go with, so I taught the whole plan of salvation in chinese myself. It was hard, but the spirit was still there, and Mrs. Ma is awesome. She's been reading so much and is accepting of everything and understands it. She is so ready for the gospel; I just wish I was better at communicating it.

We were dropped by one of our potential investigators, Ling Cao. She was very nice about it, but is too entrenched in the baptist church.

Isnt' it sad when people can't convert to the true church because they're friends with a pastor?

Our english investigator Rick Marx... I don't know if I've talked about him before. An active member, a ward missionary, with a son on a mission, just married him. So, of course he's investigating, perhaps to keep his wife happy with the show that he's "trying." We had invited to him to a baptism on friday so we could meet with him, and then he didn't show up. It was only later that we found out it was because he had heart problems, and had to rush into the hospital for surgery.

And I think this has caused a real change of heart for him, no pun intended. It injected a real dose of perspective into his life about what is really important. And he saw that the people in the church really did care about him, many of his friends were genuinely concerned and stopped by to visit him. So he says he thinks he's getting closer to joining the church. And thus we see God sometimes lets "bad" things happen to us in order to bring about his good purposes.

Yesterday, we helped a recent convert Gwen with her yard. She is studying very hard and I think she will be a great member; her heart and actions are very much in the right place. We also taught Emily again yesterday - well, we let the Prophet and Apostles do that. We watched Special Witnesses of Christ with her, and it was very good. I think. I couldn't understand all of it.

Here's a good holiday missionary opportunity- ask the sisters about getting Joy to the World cards or dvds and giving them to the neighbors. It's a good christmas video.

Also, mom, you and michelle could go on exchanges with the sisters. I think you would like that. That way they could do twice as much work, and you would both get missionary opportunities. Michelle would get to go on appointments with them. Michelle sounds like she is doing excellent in the gospel, not only sharing it, but applying it to herself. I'm really proud of her.

That's great that you are going to utah for thanksgiving, and it's really cool that you are going to meet up with Summer. We are going to Sister Ng's house with Emily's family for thanksgiving. Maybe we'll even invite Mrs. Ma too.

Make sure to tell Julie congratulations for me. Can you send me her address? Or better yet, tell HER to send me her address, that way I will get a bit more mail.

I got a lot of good mail from the mission office today, including 1500 flash cards from taiwan. However, non-mission mail was kind of sparse, I only got letters from Grandma and grandpa, and Jen Price. So make sure you're writing.

Well, I have to go, but have a great week. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

The Gospel is for both the sober and drunk

2005-11-01T10:10:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Thank you for your prayers and fasting for Emily. She has progressed a bit this week; we are trying to find ways to help her strengthen her faith and her testimony. And, other good news, the church is really helping a lot in her husband's job search. I am sure that fasting and prayers will help, and hopefully she can meet her goal to be baptized by the 13th.

The new car looks nice; Michelle can count on some major arguments on who gets to drive it at college. It would be easier if we were both going to the same college :P.

Sounds like you put Grandpa to good work doing chores around the house. Did they have fun there?

What ward is Donald in? What part of San Diego does he live in? If you talk to him, ask him if he knows any Chinese people.

Yesterday for halloween, in the morning we had zone conference. We worked in the afternoon, looking for our potential investigators. But on halloween night, we are not allowed to be out; it's a really bad proselyting time, especially since we might get egged or something, so we had an evening study with President Northcutt that was very good. He's the best stake president I've ever heard of; he takes so much time out of his schedule to be with the missionaries, and it's really cool. We studied with him again this morning, as we do every p-day.

So, I guess I better back up to earlier on this week. Tuesday, I was kind of peer pressured into letting another missionary cut my hair because, hey, it's free. And to make a long story short, that'll never happen again. The guard came off, making big problems, and now I have very very little hair.

This week we spent a lot of time getting acquainted with the new ward. We met with the ward mission leader, brother Welch, who is awesome on tuesday, and Bishop Ellsworth on wednesday. We also went to a lot of entries on the Potential Investigators list, seeing how much potential they actually have. There aren't really a lot of hot ones, but we do have appointments with a few.

On thursday we did service again at the San Diego food bank in the Salvage area. It was not nearly as bad as last week, when there were flies over everything, there was rotting stuff, and it smelled like poop. This week, it was cookies, crackers, and cereal in damaged boxes. We went through them, made sure that the inside bags weren't damaged or opened, and then taped up the boxes. It was fun.

On saturday, we volunteered for a really big community event, the Carmel Mountain High School tournament of bands, where about 20 big marching bands from the San Diego area came. It was kind of like the marching band tournaments I did in 10th grade. We were security in charge of directing the buses into the parking lot, and making sure private vehicles didn't get into the parking lot unless they had a pass. That was a pretty fun job too, and we were very visible as missionaries. A lot of the band kids waved at us or said hi, which probably could have opened up some missionary opportunities.

Of the two potential appointments that we set last week, one held and one fell through. We met with Ling Cao... she's not tremendously interested in joining the church or anything right now, but she's letting us come back which does indicate some desire. One of her friends seems somewhat interested too. I think the lesson we taught was pretty good, it had the spirit, and so we're going to keep working with her.

Wu Lai, who we were excited about last time, got hung up at work, so wasn't able to make the appointment. But we have a rescheduling later this week, so we're still hoping on him.

Sunday I was at church from about 7 in the morning to 8 at night, which was pretty long. I was waiting around studying while Elder Elkington was on base, and then our meetings started at noon. Oh well, at least I got a lot of study in. I'm almost on page 600 in the old testament; I've been reading the whole thing.

On Sunday, as we were teaching Mrs. Ma, there was a fireside going on in the chapel, and a lady came in to grab Elder Elkington because a man had just walked in off the street to see what was going on, and so Elder Elkingtong went out and sat with him in the fireside and taught him a bit. So, I was in teaching Mrs. Ma by myself (not by myself, because I had ward missionaries with me too) in chinese, and that was a cool experience. Afterwards, I was able to meet Elkington's new contact. His name is Nicholas and he really liked the church and was very interested. He was a little weird though, and I later found out that it was because he was a little drunk. But we offered to meet with him, he said he'd love to, and we set up an appointment for 3:30 yesterday at the church. He didn't show up, so we went to the address he gave us. He wasn't there, but his stepfather told us that nicholas is pretty much a homeless drunk who stays there when he wants to, and that he needs help, and is going into a lockdown therapy today. So, that was a pretty weird little episode. I hope he's okay though, he was nice and if he can turn his life around, he would be a good member. The gospel is for everyone, for the solid happy families as well as the lost transient souls of the world.

Well, I'm out of time. Have a great week. Thanks for writing. Love you all.
Love,
Elder Myers

English too

2005-10-25T18:52:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

That's cool that you now have a new Avalon. Is it blue? Oh, I bet it is. What's gonna be the plan with it when I get back?

That's amazing that it's cheaper to fly becky back to utah to do orthodontia. It must be very expensive there... almost like here. It costs a lot more than the $400 a month to keep us supported, but luckily there are people in south america who don't need quite that much money so it evens out. Our apartment alone is like $1200 a month for us 4 missionaries. They're trying to move us into members homes if possible.

I got your letter today; I also got a letter from a lady in the ward. I appreciate her thought in sending a letter and the ward newsletters.

Happy birthday mom! I hope it was a good one! I wish I could have called you or something, but it was just business as usual... actually, yesterday was a really GOOD day for proselyting. We followed up with some potential investigators, and got our first appointment on thursday with one of them named Ling Cao; got in a door, taught a first discussion, and set up another appointment with Wu Lai, who seemed very open to it; got in a door of someone elkington used to know, and as Elkington talked to her (Grace is her name) in english, bearing his testimony and just chitchatting and what not, I taught her mom from China a first discussion. She's a funny lady, but not really interested; she wants to learn english first, she says. Oh, and yesterday morning we also met with Emily again, and here's the big news from this week: She has a baptismal date. Yep! It's set for November 13th. It's not exactly the most solid date ever set, but she's working on preparing herself for that day and hoping she can keep reading and receive a spiritual confirmation. So, yesterday was a pretty positive day, teaching 3 lessons and getting 3 more appointments, two with potential investigators, one which I think has really good potential. But numbers don't matter as much as that we got to see, teach, and help a lot of people yesterday.

But there are also some more exciting things that happened this week. The two new good potentials I wrote about last week that came to church -- well, they're now both officially investigators, bumping our total up to a more comfortable 3. We met with both Mrs. Ma and Mrs. Yan after church in the relief society room with 3 convert fellowshippers (Ronald, Ronald's Mom, and Sister Ding). We had the first of what I guess is going to be a weekly appointment, and for this one, we just all went around the circle and introduced ourselves. The members told their conversion stories, we missionaries told why we're on missions, and Mrs. Yan and Mrs. Ma told about their contact with the church. Mrs. Yan says she has had all the lessons and wants to progress, slowly, towards baptism cause she has some questions. Mrs. Ma says she wants to be baptized by her brother in law when she gets back to beijing in 4-5 months, and wants us to teach her all she needs to know to get baptized. Talk about a golden investigator! She's pretty old (about 70) but very nice and the members really like her. So, we are teaching more people now and that's very exciting.

Another bit of good news from this week is that we actually got our new English ward. It is Penasquitos 3rd ward, and we took it over from the sisters; yesterday we met with them and they handed us over the area book and gave us a 3 hour briefing on the area. So, as a consequence, we'll now have dinners 5 times a week instead of 1, we'll have exchanges most nights so we can do twice the work, and we have 2 investigators we're inheriting, plus some good potentials. So we're going to be supported by that ward too. The support of missionary work out here is a LOT different than I expected, it's much different than in utah. We meet with the bishop/branch president weekly, the ward/branch mission leaders twice weekly, the ward missionaries actually DO things like go on exchanges, etc. It's pretty cool and inspiring. Once this week, we were out at Farrell's for dinner with the Bradshaws, and some members came up to us and gave us $20 to use for food sometime. So, we got a double food help in one night. This old man in the stake named brother bardsley gives us more leftover bread than we could ever use every week, and that helps too. So now our time of fruitless finding efforts is over - we have people to teach, and although we still need to use much time finding, it feels like we have some good leads to use like it should be.

Well, that's all my time that I have. I'll write again next week. Keep the letters coming; I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers

Two new investigators

2005-10-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

I'm glad you're all doing well, too. This week has gone pretty well, and I will tell you about it.

We have met with Emily twice this week, and both time at Sister Ng's house. That is great progress! As I've said, it's far more effective to teach in a member's home, because then you not only have a member's testimony backing up what you say, but that investigator also starts making friends in the church and knows that the members really care about them. So those meetings have gone well. We taught her the word of wisdom on Thursday, and she committed to obeying it. She had to give up drinking tea, like every Chinese person has to, but she'll be fine without it. On Monday we taught her the first principals and ordinances of the gospel all in one (faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the holy ghost) but she's still getting hung up on faith. She doesn't feel she's received a spiritual confirmation in her prayers yet, so we need to help her get that faith. We committed her to reading 5 pages of the Book of Mormon a day and being more grateful and humble in her prayers. She realized that she had been very demanding in her prayers ("God, you have to tell me and you have to help me.") and she says "Now I am change my ways. I am going to pray very humber and very grateful." So she is definitely still making progress. Elder Elkington and I have prayed about a date to give her as a goal for being baptized, and we have felt a confirmation, but we haven't presented it to her yet. We meet with her again on Friday.

So, Emily's been our only real investigator, so you might think this letter would end there. But you'd be wrong; we had some very interesting experiences in finding this week, and we now have not one, but TWO promising potential investigators.

The first starts last P-day as we are getting ready to go back out and do another evening of work. We get a call; I answer it. "This is President Garner" I hear, and he asks for Elder Elkington. The Mission President doesn't call missionaries very often, so we knew it was pretty important, whatever it was. So, I told Elkington it was President Gardner, and he thought I was joking, but he was wrong. They started talking, and I heard him say "Elder Groberg.... oh THAT Elder Groberg?!?"

So, what had happened was that President Garner had just got a phone call with a referral from Elder John H Groberg from the Presidency of the Seventy (and from The Other Side of Heaven). There was a grandma-aged woman from china visiting her youngest, pregnant daughter here in southern California, but she also has an older daughter who is an active member and returned missionary in Beijing, China. This visiting lady was interested in coming to church and maybe more, so our job is to invite her to church and teach her if possible before she goes back to China.

So we enlisted some members' help and got her a ride to church. She came, was well-fellowshipped, and we're meeting with her after church next week. So that's really cool that we got a referral from Elder Groberg, and we're taking it pretty seriously, cause we report directly to the mission president on this one, and he reports directly to Elder Groberg.

Another potential investigator we got was a lady from china who just moved here and who just showed up to our Chinese branch not knowing anyone. She had taken the lessons in Hong Kong and actually apologized to one of the members at church for not having been baptized yet. So, we're hoping to start meeting with her too. Apparently, according to Elkington, he has never found a single one of his investigators himself. The lord always gives them to him, and they show up, just like Emily showed up and we started teaching her.

We do do a lot of finding activities anyway, though. We do a lot of tracting. Yesterday while we were tracting, I went on splits with Elder Vanscoyk, an English Elder who is our roommate. We knocked on a door and this 16 year old boy from China answered the door, and I was able to place my first Book of Mormon, which was really cool. We also got in our first almost-bash. I say that because we were talking to this born again lady from Iceland and it easily could have degraded into a bash, but we made sure to try to keep the spirit with us and just testify like we're supposed to. So that was actually a positive experience.

So things are going well here. There's a lot of promise for a couple new investigators, and we need them desperately. So that's very exciting.

Anyway, I have to go. Love you all, thanks for all you do.
Love,
Elder Myers

Dear Grandma and Grandpa Kitchen

2005-10-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Grandma & Grandpa,

It was nice to hear from you. Thank you for your letters. How was
Washington? Did you enjoy the trip up there? How is the Genealogy class
going? I bet it was nice to get to see Jesse again last summer. Thanks
for the tip to date my letters. I am trying to remember to do that.

Does your GPS have maps, too? That's pretty cool that you were able to
use it in Seattle. We use maps all the time here. I bought a street map
book of San Diego County called the Thomas Guide. It was about $30 but
it is indispensable. The roads here are incredibly windey and it would
be impossible to find anything without it. It wasn't laid out like Utah,
that's for sure. I usually end up navigating, since my companion is the
designated driver.

I thought you might be interested to hear about how our mssion is using
genealogy. We use this packet called "The Gift of Family History", where
anyone can fill out a card with some of their genealogical information
and Stake Family History Researchers will do some research on their line
and make a nice binder, then the missionaries go with the researcher and
present it as a gift and along with that, tell why family history is so
important to us. It is supposedly a fairly effective finding tool, so I
thought you might be interested to hear about that. Some missionaries
are using the gift as their primary door approach.

Well, I better go. Thanks for writing! I hope to hear from you again
soon.
Love,
Elder Myers.

Another week

2005-10-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

Hi Family,
Thanks for the letters. I don't have much time, so I will try to reply as quickly as possible. That's what happens when I get so much email from you all, it eats into my 30 minutes of email time :P But I don't mind. I might have to send a hand written letter today or something.

So, first of all, the Small and Simple things video... it was actually made in San Jose, according to what I know. Elder Elkington's second companion was transferred down here from the san jose mission and brought it with him. I first saw the DVD a couple days ago, and it is very good, whoever made it! It really helps in member missionary work!

So, this week hasn't been too exciting. We have not made any new investigators, but we have marked even more people off the list of potentials. Hopefully, as we keep working and praying, those who have been prepared will magically appear just like Emily did.

Emily is doing well. We met with her twice since I last wrote. The first time, I was on exchanges with the zone leaders, and we taught a very in depth lesson on prayer, and how our prayers are answered. That was well received and resolved some of her concerns, I think. Then last night, Elder Elkington and I taught the 10 commandments, along with Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy, and the LAw of Chastity. She had been shopping on sundays, but she was willing to give it up. And she didn't really have any problems with any of the other commandments. she was actually really excited to commit to keeping all the commandments that she knows, so we are very happy. She is progressing very well.

We have been doing a lot of tracting without much fruit this week. We may start covering an English ward next transfer, so that way we can tract every house and not just hit a house, skip 3, hit another, skip 5 like we've been doing. We'll get a lot more doors. The problem is that most people aren't home during the day, so we have a lot of time that we don't really have an effective way to use it. We only have 1 investigator, so we don't have that much work; that's why they might give us another ward.

I received the flash memory card today; thank you for sending it. I will send the other card today.

Becky-

That's awesome that you're playing in Jazz band. Those are some great songs that you're playing. I hope that it's fun.

I bet school is hard, but just work hard, I know you can do it. Why is it so hard?

Nope, we aren't allowed to read the newspaper, isn't that sad? We have to concentrate on our missions, but that's a blessing.

I'm glad that your owies are getting better. It sounds like you had a rough fall. Remember that when life gets hard, you grow, right?

Okay, well, I'm out of time. I love you all. Stay safe and healthy!

Love,
Elder Myers

Conference Weekend

2005-10-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

I'm glad you were able to watch conference this weekend. It is great that you had the sister missionaries over for dinner. We went to a member's house for dinner this sunday, the Ng family's house. You can pronounce it Ing, though. Or Woo, if you say it in mandarin instead of cantonese. They speak fluent english, though, and have about 6 kids, the oldest of which just started her first year at BYU. The rest are sons. They are a very nice, very mormon family. Brother Ng is the first counselor in the branch presidency, and Sister Ng helps us with teaching visits sometimes. We ate a good chinese dinner with them and the Cao family. ShuMing Cao is a recent convert. Her husband isn't really interested in the church, but is supportive. She has two daughters, Elena and Michelle, who are 5 and 3 years old. They are very cute and funny. So, after we ate dinner, we all had a big family home evening in the Ng's, where the missionaries taught pretty much the first lesson about the restoration, and shu-ming's husband was there, so it was a good opportunity.

We invited Emily Tsai our investigator to conference and a baptismal service on saturday, and she said she was going to come, but then she got busy and didn't show up. We had even made sure to arrange for some branch fellowshippers (the Ng's) to be there instead of watching at home. So I called her that night to invite her to sunday morning, she said she would come, we arranged for the Ng's to come again. They came, but emily didn't. However, she did show up for the afternoon session, when we didn't have any fellowshippers. So we scrambled and called a few branch members, and some of them showed up. Jensen and I watched that whole session in Chinese, which was exhausting, but I was able to understand a lot of it. Emily really liked the conference, and I think it was a good experience for her. We have talked to her a few times about baptism, and she is open to it if she can develop her testimony. Right now she is kind of hung up about God answering her prayers - she has been praying for a long time for her husband to get a job here in america so her family can be together again, but she says "I dont a feel god is a helping me, do you know?" However, when she came to conference, we were able to give her some Stake Employment Center information. Hopefully that will help her husband and be an answer to her prayers. That's what the church is for, after all. But we have a very good relationship with her, she trusts us, and is learning a lot, so we're still feeling good about her.

We haven't, however, found any more investigators yet. Yesterday evening, Elkington and I went out in the car for a few hours to contact as many people on the Potential Investigators list as we could. We ended up dropping about 5 of them who really weren't all that interested in the church. We met one person on the list who let us in the door, we taught a first discussion, gave her a chinese book of mormon, and said that when we were in the neighborhood we'd stop by again. She wouldn't set up a next appointment... most people don't. Another person on the list was a referral from a temple square visit. We dropped by and gave the book of mormon, kind of talked about what it was about, and invited him to read it. It isn't an especially strong contact right now, but it's a seed. We have to plant many more seeds than the number of souls we reap.

Yesterday after that, we tried calling a family again which had been referred to us, Jerry Lu and Robin Xie. (As a side note, in mainland china, wives don't usually change their surname to match their husbands.) I had talked to robin on sunday, and she had watched general conference and loved it, and she said she was going to call us monday for a time we could visit. But yesterday, Elkington called and jerry answered, and he basically told us to stop trying to contact them, period; they don't have time. So there's not a lot we can do about that. It was actually rather sad, because the lady who referred them has talked so much about how ready Robin is.

How are your missinoary experiences going? You should invite the neighbors over to your house for a family home evening with the missionaries. You know, most people who are taught in a member's home end up joining the church. It's true. I think it's about 70-80%. About 10% of investigators tracted into by missionaries and just taught on their own join the church, so it's a really big difference. Keep praying for missionary opportunities.

Well, I'm out of time, and better go. We are doing well here.

Love you all,
Elder Myers

Rancho Penasquitos 2

2005-09-27T17:23:00.000-07:00

Hi Family,

How are you? It sounds like last week was busy, with mom and dad going down to utah and grandma and grandpa going up to seattle. I bet you're all settled back down again.

So, on to talking about the work here. Emily Tsai is now a progressing investigator, she's doing very well, and has expressed desire to be baptized after she gains more understanding about the church. We met her at her house 3 times last week to teach her, she came to english class where I taught with elder gibbons, and we went with her to church. She has a schedule conflict to come to the Chinese branch, so we went with her to the english ward by her house in Rancho Bernardo. We're going to try to get her coming to the Chinese branch one of these weeks, though. Not this week or next week because of general and stake conference, but it will happen. I think we're going to get her to come.

As for other investigators, well, we still don't have any. We have a lot of contacts and potential investigators, but arranging appointments is very hard: Chinese people, like everybody, don't really like to schedule stuff and always say they'll call you back when they have free time. So we're trying to figure out ways to stop by when they'll be home on weekends without scheduling. We have one reference in particular that we have called several times this week, and she hasn't been able to talk to her husband to set up a time yet. So, Elkington and Jensen went during english class on saturday to just try to stop by, and though they were headed out the door, it almost worked, and they at least were contacted face to face.

We have spent a lot of time organizing the area, making tracting cards, etc. The work needs to be organized so that we don't just waste time in unproductive areas. I think we are pretty much done with that organization, though, so we are starting into full-gear finding work now.

We have also been meeting weekly with 3 recent converts. Ronald and Calvin his son are really cool. Ronald's mom is also a recent convert, but she's not in our area. Ronald is trying to get his wife to join, and we think that we can probably get her mother too eventually, so the misisonaries have been meeting with them consistently. The other recent convert is ShuMing Cao, a young married woman with two kids. She's very nice and shy, but she has a testimony and is finishing the book of mormon this week. There are a lot of good people here.

Well, that's about all that's been happening this week. I am doing well and I have been happy. The weeks here go by so much faster than in the MTC. We often have a lot of fun.

That's really cool that your mentor at microsoft is from hong kong. Maybe he needs a book of mormon. Our chinese branch has probably more cantonese people than mandarin, so I am starting (but only starting) to understand a little bit of cantonese. All the talks and testimonies are given in one form of chinese and english, so that's helpful. I might need to learn some cantonese out here eventually. :P

Thanks for the letters, mom dad and michelle. I love all of you, and becky and lisa too, although I love them just a little bit less because they haven't written lately. Just kidding.

Have a good week,
Love, Elder Myers

Rancho Penasquitos

2005-09-20T18:30:00.000-07:00

Hi Family,

I am sorry about last week's email. I will save messages before I send in the future.

I am allowed to receive emails from immediate family and grandparents, that's all. However, if people want to write you and you put it in the email, that's fine. I can receive as many emails as I need to.

We are in Rancho Penasquitos, known as PQ, which is a section of northern San Diego. We have divided up the area; my companion is Elder Elkington, and we're from Penasquitos north, as far as we need to go until about LA. Elder Gibbons and Elder Jensen are the other two Chinese missionaries, and they cover from Mira Mesa south, all the way to the border with Mexico.

When we arrived, we were "whitewashing" in, which means that we were a new companionship who both got transferred into a new area. Elder Elkington has spent the last six months in Orange County doing English work, so he's a little rusty but his chinese is coming back. Elder Jensen and his old companion who just went home and was replaced by Gibbons were in charge of the entire area, and now we've split it. We have yet to get an area book, and all the investigators were in their area, so Elkington and I basically had to start from the beginning in order to find investigators. We have a goal of 1 new investigator a week.

In order to find, we have a couple things we do. We sometimes tract and street contact, but that's not really that effective. For tracting, we get street directories at the library, look for asian names, and then write down the places with high concentrations of asians, then try to go find some chinese people. It works pretty well, since we know which houses to knock on. When we knock, they see two white boys and if they don't speak english they try to turn us away, then they're shocked when we start speaking chinese. But we haven't actually gotten in any doors that way.

The Branch is very much centered on missionary work, though. We meet in Penasquitos and have... maybe 40 people, give or take. I'm not sure. but there have been several baptisms by elder jensen in the last few months, so the branch is doing well. The Branch President, President Leung, is from Hong Kong (I think), and he speaks cantonese and english. He is very supportive, and helps plan activities that will bring investigators. Last Saturday we had the annual Mid-Autumn Festival, or the Moon Festival. It was the night of the full moon, and has kids carrying lanterns around and food and other festivities. There were a few non-members there that we met. One was a previous investigator that Elkington already knew, Jia Zhang. We are hoping to meet with her on Saturday, but she has to check her schedule. Another was a couple who Elkington and Gibbons helped move while Jensen and I taught English Class. They are in Gibbons and Jensen's area, so we don't have much to do with them.

But the final non-member we met was named Emily Tsai; she had been brought by some friends and had asked for a chinese book of mormon. so, we met her and she already had a book of mormon and gospel principles book in her hand. She wanted to meet with us. So we set up an appointment for yesterday. Yesterday we prepared lots for the lesson - we were hoping to turn her into an investigator.

And the lesson yesterday went very well. She felt the spirit, we taught her what that was, and taught her about God and prayer. she had been having doubts about their being a god, but said that she felt God close by when she came to the church and that there was a peace in her home when we came. We told her we would help her overcome doubt and develop faith and knowledge about god. We assigned her Alma 32, and had a really great lesson. We invited her to pray at the end, and she did and the spirit was very strong. We set up an appointment for tomorrow, and she asked us how often we could come, and wanted us to stay for two hours next time. We're only supposed to stay 45 minutes, or an hour tops, so we told her we couldn't stay quite that long, but it's great that this lady has such a desire to become close to God and it's very exciting. So, we're both feeling very good about her joining the church. we were very fortunate to find her. Oh, and we taught mostly in chinese, but she wants us to use english sometimes too cause she's working on her english.

Well, I had better wrap it up. I cannot give you my new address - I do not know it, and we are all supposed to use the mission office address. So, we get mail once a week on p-day. It's kind of hard to only get it once a week, but time is going fast.

Elder Elkington is from Federal Way.

I am doing very well. It's good to be doing the lord's work. I hope you are all doing well too.Keep writing; it's good to hear from you.

Love you all,

Elder Myers

First Night at Mission Home

2005-09-12T18:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

Today I arrived at my mission. Apparently there are 2 other Mandarin Missionaries here, though I haven't met them yet. I will get my new companion tomorrow.

President and Sister Garner, along with both APs, were waiting for us at the airport. They are very nice, and I believe President Garner will be a great mission president. He gave us mustard seeds in a bookmark; mustard seeds are very small, and the bookmark talks about how if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can expect miracles.

We were taken to the mission home in a big van; it was about an hour drive from the San Diego airport, on very scary freeways. Once here, we ate our first home-cooked meal in 3 months - tacos. They were very good. The other elders have been at the MTC only 3 weeks, so they're not quite as mature and humble as I am. I feel like the MTC has prepared me well. And I'm joking about the "mature & humble" thing.

It was good to hear your voices today! I hope you're all doing well; it sounds like you are. Sorry we didn't get to talk longer, but Christmas and Mothers Day will have to do.

I will write more tomorrow, which is P-Day, but they gave us some time tonight and I just wanted to say hi. Be safe! Love you!
Elder Myers

Mission Address

2005-09-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

Elder Myers leaves the MTC and arrives in California on September 12. His new address is

Elder Andrew James Myers
California Carlsbad Missionary
785 Grand Ave Ste 202
Carlsbad, CA 92008

To California at Last!

2005-09-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

I hope you're receiving the letters I'm sending. I have been writing every week.

I'm flying on Monday the 12th at 6:30 pm. We have 14 missionaries. I've met a few; it should be interesting. I'm getting used to the MTC now, but sadly, and yet happily, it's almost over, and I'm about to have to pretty much start again getting used to everything. I'm not too worried though.

My new address, until I get an actual address, is what I used for a return address on this envelope. (Elder Andrew Myers, California Carlsbad Mission, 785 Grand Ave Ste 202, Carlsbad, CA 92008)

I'll call you on Monday; Grandma said she'll send a phone. I've been working on a tape to send you too.

I'm excited to get out into the field. I guess it's getting scarier, though, as it becomes more and more near. Yesterday during class we talked a lot about the practical parts of the mission with the teacher. He let us ask any questions we had, and it was very useful.

I've spent a lot of time at the RC this week, but didn't really have any inspiring experiences. I got hung up on on an inbound call, which was pretty silly; the lady got offended when I kindly asked if she was Christian while she called in for a Bible. I don't feel bad about it though; I didn't do anything wrong. Two of the 3 other inbound calls accepted missionaries, so I felt successful.

Sister Atkinson send me cookies and Summer sent me a pie this week. They were very delicious.

We learned something very important today. A pamphlet can speak Chinese and teach clearer than us missionaries, but we're there to bring the Spirit. Elder Huey came up with a motto: "Don't let a pamphlet beat you." I think that's a good slogan to strive to live by.

I must be off to dinner. Write back soon and have a great week.

Love,
Andy Myers

MTC week 8

2005-09-06T14:40:00.000-07:00

Dear family,

Well, you're moved! How is Seattle? Are you getting close to closing on the house and registering for school? Is it still hectic?

Mom, I'm glad that you think that you are being blessed because I am serving. I hope the blessings keep coming and everybody stays happy.

I'm glad that you got to see Jesse and that he is doing well!

What is going to happen/has happened to Carefully, the minivan?

Lisa, thank you for the drawing of Jesus. It is very good and I'm hanging it up. Your hair is very cute.

I got my first name ("Hero") from a teacher that had the privelege of naming everyone. I didn't dare choose it myself. I will send some videos of me speaking Chinese soon.

Okay, so on to what I've been doing this week...

It took a little while to adjust to the new companion but he's very easy to get along with. He needs lots of help with gospel terms, but he's catching on fast. I think the threesome is definitely a good thing.

This week at the RC is one of transition. Instead of using the dialer, we're now able to make our own calls. However, we have to clear the database of bad numbers, so for now, we don't get to talk to many people. That, in a way, makes it more exciting to talk to someone; it's kind of like tracting.

We got a new teacher this week named hu laoshi. He is very good. We also had a substitute names li laoshi. Even though they were both brand new, they did a great job.

At gym, I have been lifting weights and making good progress. Of course, I do still allow for a little 4-square time during gym.

At the TRC this week, our "investigator" while introducing himself, told us he was baptized in 2002. That kind of ruined the sense that it was a real investigator, but it still went well. He was a very nice mainlander and it was exciting to meet him. That morning at the TRC was the first time we had ever gotten through the entire 2nd lesson (Plan of Salvation) in Chinese in only 20 minutes. It felt lika a great accomplishment.

I had heard that there had been a tragedy in a cave on Y mountain, but I was shocked when I saw the picture of the girl from my high school. I didn't know her well, but I did have a few classes with her and she was nice. It was sad that she died. I hope their families and friends are doing all right.

It finally rained a couple times this week! It was very welcome.

Mom, you remember that lady who has called you twice to get permission for medical care? Well, her parents are from Shanghai, China, and so she is fluent in Mandarin. While I was outside practicing contacting, she was walking by, so I got to contact her in Chinese. It was a great experience because I understood everything she said. I was very excited after that "contact."

So, all in all, it has been a good week. I hope you're all doing well. I love you.
Love,
Elder Myers

MTC Week 9

2005-09-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

I haven't heard from you at all this week, but it is understandable. I bet you've been extremely busy. I just hope you're all safe, healthy, and doing well.

I'm working on a tape for you with my Chinese. I will send it soon, once I put everything I can think of on it.

Mom, I got the book from Amazon. Thank you. It is very helpful and I am learning how to read and write at a good pace.

We got our flight plans today! Elder Huey is very jealous. He still has 12 weeks left. I am, on the other hand, very excited.

I got sick this week... most of the district had it and it just went epidemic on us. Yesterday was really bad, but I am feeling a lot better today than I was yesterday. I feel that it's due to the power of prayer that I'm recovering after only one bad day. I don't think I've ever had such a brief sickness. I know prayer works and that God is working on us missionaries extra hard to keep us safe, healthy and able to do His work. Thank you all for your prayers too.

I am enclosing finished temple cards, and will send the remaining ones next week, once done. Thanks for sending them to me.

So we've heard bits and snippets of the news about the hurricane. It sounds very bad. It's strange to be so cut off from the world.

Learning is going well. The days and weeks are going past very fast. I'm understanding more and more Chinese and speaking better and better. I'm anxious to get out into the field.

Well, I hope all is well. Write soon. I love you all!

MTC Week 7

2005-08-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

It sounds like you've all been busy. I hope all is going well, and moving is not too difficult. The house looks great, and very exciting. Does the land include the forest? Will the fence keep Q in? How much is Becky going to get paid to mow that lawn? How is the Orem house selling/not selling?

It sounds as if you all ate like kings (or Bill Gates) up in Washington. I bet it was really fun. If only they'd keep up, eh?

How did the Moving Sale go? I hope you did't sell too much of my stuff but I'm sure the art went fast.

This week had quite the surprise: we got a new companion. That's right, we're now a three-some with Elder Huey or Huang Zhanglao. His parents are Chinese, so he already speaks some, and he's learning more for 5 weeks. Then he's learning Tongan for 9 more weeks because he's going to Tonga speaking Mandarin and Tongan. 14 weeks in the MTC is hard to imagine, but he'll hopefully do well. He's nice and easy to get along with.

Ke Laoshi gets married tomorrow and he's not coming back, so we're getting a new teacher.

I donated the Icelandic and Italian Book of Mormons to the Teaching Resource Center, Mom. Thanks for sending the books.

I can't really think of much more that has happened this week. Just a typical week of studying all day and sleeping all night. We have not had a chance to go to the RC this week much either, so I haven't had interesting experiences there either. I am, however, keeping quite busy with the studying and new companion. I will hopefully have some more experiences to share next week.

Love to all,
Elder Myers

P.S. By the way, I now have a first name. It is Jie. It means Hero. So I am Mai Jie.

MTC Week 6

2005-08-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
This week has been pretty good. I've been learning a lot of Chinese, it comes easier all the time. I can usually get at least 30 words a day, but I can do more if I have more study time. I am also trying to learn to read & write. I have been borrowing a book from Elder Otte called, "Reading and Writing Chinese", I think, and it is good.

We'll be getting a new teacher instead of KeLaoshi next week because he's getting married (to another Chinese teacher) and starting school.

We've started going to a place called the LRC where we get to talk to native speakers. Last week, we had a lady named Noah who was very funny. And not just because she had an English name that was for a man. She taught us lots.

Apparently, many Chinese people choose (or are given) terrible English names. We've heard of names like "Cloud" and "Seven." Tang Laoshi told us the best one, though. This was a name given by a missionary at an English class as a prank... he named him "Chewbacca" or "Chewie" for short. So after a few weeks, the Chinese man returned and asked why everyone would laugh when he would say in broken English, "My name is Chewbacca. You can call me Chewie." He got very mad and refused to talk to that Elder for about a month.

I did well on a test we had Saturday on 6 pages of vocab words. I missed 3, got 2 incorrect tones, and 1 wrong letter out of 48. Not too bad.

Elder Gibbons fell out of bed Sunday night. It was funny because in the morning he didn't remember it at all, but in the night when he fell he groaned very loudly and I talked to him to make sure he was okay. Apparently that same night, I was calling out in Chinese in my sleep.
I've got a little RC Gushi (story) for you. Well two. First one: I got a call from a Catholic saying that he thought "we should respect right to your own religion and not force everybody to be in our church, and that we shouldn't workhip that Gordon Hinckley!" I resolved some of his concerns, pointed out that we do worship God, and at the end, pretty much all his emnity was gone, and he said he could tell by my voice that I was a good person and a Christian, and that I should tell the other missionaries to be more like me. That was a good experience because I saw that man had a complete change of opinion towards the church. He wasn't about to be baptized or anything, but he was very nice by the end.

Second story, to put it briefly: A 17 year old girl whose parents are athiests called, and when I asked a few questions, I found out she was calling more to be taught about God than to get a free video. She didn't want missionaries (she said her parents wouldn't like that) but she wanted to learn more about God. So I taught her a first lesson on the phone, starting very basic because she hadn't had religion in her life. And know what? When I taught her about the Holy Ghost she said that she had felt it telling her everything I said was true. That has probably been the single greatest moment yet of my mission -- helping someone who has never known God feel that He's there and loves her and wants her to know about the Gospel. The Spirit testified of it, and that's real missionary work. Unfortunately, her dad yelled at her and she had to get off the phone, but hopefully she'll have more contact with the church. God will provide a way.

Anyway, have a great week everyone. Love to you all,
Elder Myers

MTC Week 5

2005-08-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

First of all, thanks for the letters this week. It's always great to get letters.

It sounds like you've all been very busy. Good thing you have Grandma and Grandpa to be your slave labor!

Mom, it was awesome to get those brownies. It was good that you didn't send the ones you made on Monday, cause the mail staff got the day off for Pioneer Day! They were delicious anyway.

Wow, I just found a large beastly winged insect on me, it was scary. I killed it, though.

So, you're probably wondering about the situation with the toe. It's been hurting for a while, and it had been getting worse, so I decided to just go to the nurse to see if it was ingrown. It didn't take a second of looking at it for her to say "Ouch. Yep, it's ingrown." Thanks to mom's suggestion, they called Dr. Jaramillo's (our neighbor) office and made me an appointment for him for Tuesday. I figured I could make it 3-4 more days fine, and I did, but I was definitely ready Tuesday to have it fixed.

When we arrived, Sister Jaramillo got out of the car with a box of donuts for me from Mom. (They were very good, and are making me fat, so you probably shouldn't send many more... though it would be awfun hard to ever turn down more of those blueberry ones. I think they're my new favorites.)

Sister Jaramillo also had a card for me with some stamps... they are very kind. They told me not to worry about the copay too.

For the actual surgery, I first got the three most painful "numbing" shots I've ever had, in my toe. The nerves down there don't go out without a fight. Then after letting the anesthesia set in, he went to cut part of the toenail, but, oops, that part of my toe wasn't numb! So, after 2 or 3 more shots, I was numb enough to go ahead and cut the part of the toenail off, and it really hasn't hurt since. I soak it twice a day, and use neosporin.

Will you send me pictures of the houses you like? I think I get 5 votes myself. I hope you find something we'll like!

I got 3 more names done in the temple today. I will need more.

In the last 2 days, I've learned 125 words. If I keep this up, I'm going to really need some more humility... I think this counts as prospering in the language, and I need to make sure not to fall into pride because I'm able to memorize amazing amounts of words. I need to remember that I'm not doing it myself.

We had 2 only-Chinese days this week, and they went well. More missionaries come in 6 dyas, so that's exciting. All the old ones left, and it was hard to say goodbye to all of them at once, but it was a good reminder that the MTC does have an end. We also inherited a Christmas tree, some candy, and I got a robe.

Gospel study has gone very well lately, and I've been feeling like there's been some spiritual progress. It's kind of nice to just be able to study scriptures for a few hours a day.

So, all in all, things are going well. I've been well taken care of, and studying is getting more and more helpful.

Love to you all,
Elder Myers