3/14/2016
Hello
family!!
I was thinking about how bad I have been lately at responding to
letters! I feel like I have been spending all my "free time" trying
to study Chinese! So if you have sent me a letter and I haven't responded, I
apologize! I'm not ignoring any of you and haven't forgotten! I pray for all of
you daily and hope you know how much I care about and miss you all! :)
I'm so excited for Easter! If you haven't seen the Church's new
video, Hallelujah, go watch it now! FollowHim.mormon.org!
It is so amazing! I feel like this is really the first Easter where I've
actually thought about and realized how amazing this holiday is! Christmas is
great, because we celebrate the coming of the Savior into the world, but Easter
is when we remember and celebrate His triumph over spiritual and physical
death! In Chinese, the word for Easter is 复活节 (fu huo jie). 复 (fu) means "again", 活 (huo) means "life", and 节 (jie) just means "holiday"! It think it's a great
reminder of why we celebrate Easter! Not only because Christ lives again, but
because we all will receive the same blessing! Both spiritually and physically!
This weekend was Sister Lin's (Sunny) baptism! It was amazing!
The spirit was so strong during the service! Brother Li was able to baptize
her, which made it even better, because he was able to exercise the priesthood
authority he holds! What a great opportunity for a new member! She got up at
the end of the service and bore her testimony. She told us that when she first
met with us, she only wanted to learn English, but what really changed was when
we asked her to quit coffee. Coffee was one of her favorite things. She loved
drinking it! She told us that when she was in the hospital for a long time
after her stroke, her sisters brought her coffee every day, because that's what
helped her feel better. She had tried quitting before, but it had never worked.
So when we asked her to keep the Word of Wisdom, she was doubtful she could do
it. We had given her a priesthood blessing, and she said that after that she
just quit. Never drank it again. It was a neat experience, because I didn't
know how much she relied on coffee! She was confirmed by another new convert,
Brother Xiong, who just received the Melchizedek priesthood a month or so ago!
Brother Miao, our ward mission leader and unofficial Chinese
group leader, really wants to pick up the work within the Chinese group. It's
slowed down a lot lately, because everyone has just gotten so comfortable
hanging out with the English ward. They don't have a lot of responsibility,
they just show up and relax, listen to the translation, then go home. So every
third Sunday, we are going to have a sacrament meeting with just our
Chinese group! I'm very excited! The mission has had Chinese missionaries for 6
years now, and we still don't have a branch, so maybe this will help light the
fire that we need! It's also good to help out the new members, especially the
brothers! They will actually get a chance to bless and pass the sacrament!
Brother Li will be doing in next Sunday with Brother Su,
who was baptized a few years ago! I was also given an unofficial calling as the
"Chinese group pianist"! Haha I'm also the conductor for our Chinese
choir, since the usual conductor is in Taiwan right now! She volunteered us to
perform at a fireside on March 20th, but her sister is really sick, so she had to go and
see her in Taiwan.. So the responsibility of chorister fell upon me! We'll see
how it goes! We're singing "How Firm a Foundation"
I also got to go on bike this week! We went on exchanges with
the Jurupa elders, who do not have a car! It was so much fun! I hadn't realized
how much I enjoyed being on bike! Well I guess I really enjoyed it because it
wasn't hot outside, there wasn't a crazy headwind, and it wasn't raining... but
I still liked it! Haha it was a lot of fun! Not that I'm not grateful for my
car! It was nice the other day when it was pouring rain, and the wind was
blowing like crazy!
Transfers are coming up! It sounds like I'm going to be staying
in the area, though! It's nice to have a companion that knows all about the
plans for transfers and such! Haha unless they do something totally crazy, I'll
be staying in Eastvale with Elder Dyer! Because they added an extra week onto the
MTC time for missionaries, this transfer is seven weeks instead of six. So it
ends on March 27th!
Well I'm super excited to tell you all about our Chinese
sacrament meeting next week! And also how our Chinese choir does on Sunday! It will
be a good week!
I love and miss you all!!
Love,
吴长老
Elder Warren
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