2/15/2016
Hello everyone!
Thanks Grandma Clark, Grandma Gray, and the
fam for the Valentine's Day packages! I loved them! :)
This week went by really slow! The first week
of transfers always do, though! We found some
awesome investigators this week! (in total we found 16 new people to teach!
Which is a lot! I think the most I've ever found in a week was around 7!!) The
problem was that none of them were going to come to church this week! We're
going to do better at focusing on the Sabbath throughout this upcoming week
though!
I'm sure you're all wondering about my new
companion, so here's what I know so far! Elder
Dyer's from Shanghai, China. Well, technically he's from Michigan, but he moved
there when he was about seven years old. His mom is from Taiwan and his dad is
American. His Chinese is really good! But he's been in an English area for so
long that he's pretty rusty! Still a lot better than me, though! He was an AP
for six months. He started when I started as a zone leader. He works really
hard, and definitely loves the work. It's going to be a good transfer! He's
really funny and's always joking around. He's really good at sports, especially
soccer. He's going to Brown University for biomechanics.
Yesterday was a west-coast regional stake
conference. All of the stakes/districts in California, Washington, Hawaii, and
Oregon watched a live broadcast from Salt Lake City. Elder Renlund, Elder
Hamula, Elder Rowe, and Sister Oscarson all spoke! It was really good! Here are
a few of the things that stood out to me!
·
The "primary answers" are not
enough to build and develop our faith.
o Feast
daily upon the scriptures
o Pray
with all energy of heart
o Focus
on the sacrament. Church attendance should be a demonstration of our faith.
·
"If someone were to accuse you of being
a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"
·
Discipleship isn't a pick or choose pathway.
We are either all-in, or we're not on the path at all. There aren't varying
levels of being a Mormon.
·
Pattern to overcome fear:
o Keep
your eyes fixed on the Lord (the story of Peter walking on the water)
o Trust
in the Lord and the power of His deliverance (Christ's Atonement)
o Stand
with the Lord's church and it's leaders (leaders are not perfect!
But the revelation they receive is.)
·
How do we respond to questions of our
beliefs?
o We
can respond by explaining Joseph Smith's experience and how we still receive
revelation from a prophet of God today.
o Remember
of the context of commandments within the Plan of Salvation! The
"why" behind all the "rules"
We had some interesting experiences this
week.. We had a meeting with the leadership of our Chinese group
this week about how we can help the members and such. Afterwards, we were
telling them that we were going
to go and talk to some Chinese people in the park. Sister Zhang told
us that one of the other sisters in the ward had a dance class in one of the
parks, so we should go there because there would be lots of Chinese people!
Thinking it was a good idea, we searched out the park, pull up and see a group
of about ten Chinese woman doing some interesting, almost flashmob-like,
dancing around one of the playgrounds. We sat in the car for a second and tried
to figure out why in the world we thought this was a good idea!! We weren't
sure what to do! Do we go out and try to talk to them? Neither of us wanted to
go try and join in.. so after awkwardly watching the unusual spectacle, we got
out of the car and talked to the American people in the park hahaha. So if you
are ever invited to a Chinese dance class.. don't go!
Secondly...We were meeting our investigator,
Joanna, at a CVS parking lot to give her some more copies of the Book of
Mormon, and a children's Book of Mormon for all the kids. While we were waiting
outside, this guy gets out of his car and starts talking to us. Asking us who
we are, what we're doing, and all that. We told him we were waiting for our
friends to give them some copies of the Book of Mormon. Then he asked us the
"usual" questions. "How many wives do you have?", "You
guys can't have fun, right?", he brought up the Word of Wisdom, Law of
Chastity, etc.. It was weird, he seemed just too friendly and a little awkward.
He told us he grew up Catholic, but doesn't attend now. He had a friend who was
LDS in high school, but
didn't know anything about what we believed. So we
explained about how we are Christians, and also how we believe in modern-day
prophets, and revelation. We asked him if he'd ever been to a Mormon church
and he said no, but he asked if there was one
close by that we could go see. So after Joanna came by to pick up the books, he
followed us and drove to the nearest church building. It seemed kind of
suspicious to me, and Elder Dyer was freaking out a little bit, thinking that
this guy (who's name was Cody), was going to murder us or something. We get to
the church building, and showed him around. As we were in the chapel, we were
asking if we could get his info to send to the missionaries in Fullerton, where
he's going to college. We told him about YSA wards and he asked us what he needs
to do to marry a Mormon girl.
Elder Dyer pulls out a picture of the Salt Lake Temple and asked him if he had
ever seen one of them
before. So Cody pulls out his cell phone, shows us the screen and says,
"You mean a building like this?". His wallpaper was the Newport
temple!! Then he told us he was a returned missionary who had been home for a
few year.. and he just wanted to see if we would actually talk to him, etc.. It
was pretty dumb. Haha he got us pretty good. I was kind of upset, but it's
okay. He said he has been going through some struggles lately, so we talked to
him for a little bit before we left. He knows a family in our ward that we have
dinner with on Tuesday, so we
told him to come if he had time. It was definitely an interesting experience!
We're still a little upset about it haha!
That was basically our week... Sunny got back
from Taiwan yesterday, so we can go and visit her this week! I'm super
excited!!!
Love and miss you all!!
Elder Warren
