Wednesday, May 4, 2016

5/2/2016 P-Day #80

5/2/2016
Hello everyone who is taking the time to read this!

I hope all of you had a fantastic week! Since it's the last week of the transfer, if you mail anything, send it to the mission office! I think I'll be staying, but you never know what could happen!

We helped the Li's move this week! They just moved to a different house in Eastvale, so it wasn't too far or difficult! We're probably going to drop by tonight to see them and see their new house now that it should be all put together!

We went on exchanges with the River Height's elders this week! I went back to Sister Smith's house again because Elder Dyer is allergic to horses and would probably die if he spent the whole day in Mira Loma! I was with Elder Gulbranson, who's dad served in the same mission and the same time as mine! Small world! We were joking that in the future, our sons would be serving in the same mission, too! But we had a lot of fun! We visited member and she was showing us all of her animals in the back yard! She has two goats, a couple horses, a duck, and a few turkeys! She used to have around 20 turkeys, but a dog snuck into the back yard and killed all of them except the male.. She she bought a bunch of baby ones that were running around in their little enclosure that will start her new flock! But the duck was my favorite animal!! I think it was hit on the head as a baby or something, because it was not all there! It walks around and bobs its head really far back and forth! It also wags its tail nonstop, and can't quack. It just makes a weird hissing sound.. Haha but it was pretty friendly!

On Saturday we went to volunteer at Eastvale's Relay for Live event in the afternoon. We had half of our zone go in the morning from 7:00-11:00 and the rest of us went from 11:00-3:00. It was so small! They had maybe seven booths set up around the track, and at most 15 people walking at the track at any time! About half of which were members from the Eastvale and River Height's wards! We basically sat around and chatted for the most part until they needed us to do some small task, like move one of the EZ-Ups or check to see if the buckets were full of ice and water. We tried to offer the people walking some water, but they weren't very interested.. haha! We did get some free Chick-fil-a, though! The people at that booth were starting to pack up and asked if we wanted any of the food before the packed it all away! 

Saturday night, our Chinese choir got to perform again! This time it was at the adult session of our stake conference! It sounded pretty good to us, so hopefully everyone else thought so as well! It's was another neat experience!

Sunday was our stake conference and it was really good! Our stake president talked about why we need the scriptures. He also talked about how they are a tool for us to use within our lives to help us learn and grow. So why wouldn't we take just a small amount of time to read from them! One of his counselors, who's a seminary teacher, talked about how important the work we are in is and how we need to act!!! He gave an amazing analogy about faith! He said that we can believe a seat belt is going to save is in a car accident, but if we get in the car and don't buckle the seat belt, we can't say "why didn't you save me?? I believed in you?" We have to actually reach over and buck the seat belt across us! It's the same with faith, if we don't use it, it's just belief. Nothing more!

I've also realized how much easier it us to understand the gospel when you learn a different language! The different terminology we use takes on a whole meaning! Especially in Chinese! The words are so much more simple! I feel like I gain a much deeper understanding of the doctrines the more I learn Chinese! This week the word for repentance stood out to me, which is:
悔改
Hui Gai
The first character () means to regret
The second character () means to change, to alter, to correct, to transform
When we repent, all we are doing is changing! We feel sorrow for what we have done, we regret having done it, and then we must change! We need to transform ourselves into someone better. 

I love and miss you all! Have a great week and remember the Lord loves you!

Love,







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