7/25/2016 P-Day #92

7/25/2016

大家好!

This week was quite interesting to say the least! On Tuesday, we met one of investigators, Brother Yang, at the park to practice some Tai Chi! Haha I'm sure we all looked pretty ridiculous but it was a lot of fun! We met him while walking around his neighborhood and he started coming to English class. He told us how he has been doing Tai Chi for 22 years and has taught a lot of people before! It was surprisingly difficult! It's all very slow and controlled movements. He also came to church on Sundayand really enjoyed it! He joined a Christian church in China and was looking for one out here. So, it's a good thing we ran into him!

On Thursday we had our multi-zone conference in Riverside! It was a really long day (7:00 am-4:30 pm), but it was amazing! I really enjoyed President Mullen's training that he gave at the very end. He talked about having the faith to baptize. He asked us if we each have the faith that the Lord is preparing people to meet with us right now. Do we believe that there are multiple people within our are who are ready and willing to listen to us? If we do believe that, then how are we going to exercise our faith to find them? Elder Dyer and I gave a short training on contacting referrals that we get from Church media (mormon.org, temple square, etc...). We went through a bunch of scenarios of how not to go about visiting these people! It was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed doing it.

After the multi-zone conference, we had to drive all the way out to Hemet to go visit a family who had three foreign exchange students from China staying with them. So we spent over an hour talking with three 14-year-old Chinese girls... It was definitely an unusual experience. None of them were interested in church and thought it was really boring when they went the Sundaybefore. But we gave them both copies of the Book of Mormon and some pamphlets, so hopefully they will have some interest later on. They go back to China this week, so we won't need to drive all the way out there again!

Friday was also very interesting... We were supposed to exchange with the Jurupa elders Thursday night, but because we were out in Hemet, we didn't get home until really late. So we went by Friday morning to exchange with them. It was a "Mission Heat Alert" day, which means the temperature was over 100 degrees, so missionaries who are on bike are not allowed to go out and work during the day unless they have a team-up driving them around. I was with Elder Olsen back in Jurupa. Thankfully we didn't have to bike for very much! We just had to get a ride over the the church building where they had left their bikes and then bike back to the apartment! Even at 9:00 in the morning when we were biking, it was really hot! Afterwards, we took them to a meeting they had in Riverside and exchanged back the same afternoon!

Saturday was another exchange! We both went with the APs in their ward.It was a little weird for both of us to be away from our area for a full day, but it was a lot of fun to both be in the other ward! I went with Elder Sy and it felt like we knocked on a ton of doors without much success! When we had knocked on one door that nobody answered, we went to talk to this old lady who was taking a break in the shad across the street. She was walking home from the grocery store with a bunch of stuff, so we helped her carry the groceries back home and they have a return appointment next week! 

Sunday was our Chinese sacrament meeting again! These are probably my favorite Sundays during the month! The Jiang family gave talks this week, and their two kids gave them in English and their parents translated for them! Their daughter is really smart and I felt so bad for her mom who was translating! She used some really big words and really long sentences! Thankfully I wasn't the one who had to translate for them!

Q was also confirmed this Sunday! I was able to confirm him in Chinese, and it was an awesome experience! (I only made one pronunciation mistake during the blessing, so I think that's an accomplishment haha!) We're going over tonight to visit with them since they've been on vacation for two or three weeks! 

Well that's all for this week! It's pretty busy and this week is going to be the same! We're working hard and seeing blessings each and every day!

I love and miss you all!

Love,

吴长老

7/18/2016 P-Day #91

7/18/2016

大家好!

Thanks Brother Farr for the letter this week! 

Gloria's baptism happened on Saturday! It was a great experience, as always! Brother Yu was able to baptize her, which was really cool because his family were the ones that invited her to come and meet with us in the first place! After her baptism, she bore her testimony and told us that even though she has only known many of the people there for about a month, she feels as if we were all a part of her family! 

There rest of Saturday was actually a lot of fun as well. We had a young man from the ward come with us all day. He's submitted his mission papers and the stake president wanted him to come and spend a whole day with us. We took him out to talk to people on the street, he came with us to the baptism, and then we went to go visit some people! We had a lot of fun with him! He is way more prepared to serve a mission than any other young man I've ever met! 

Saturday was our last time to visit Liu TingTing. :( She flew back to China really late Saturday night! We saw here to say bye one last time! She told us that she plans on coming back to the US in two years since her son is an American citizen and can only be in China for two years at a time! And she said that at that time, she wants her daughter to be baptized in America because it's much more sacred that in China! We told her that it's just as sacred in China, but she was set on having her daughter baptized in America! Haha I'm going to have to go to visit her and Elder Zeng in Chengdu when I get home!

On Saturday, we also got to have dinner with the new couple that just moved from BYU-Hawaii! They took us out to eat at a buffet and I was sooo full afterwards! They are both extremely funny! She served an English speaking mission in Australia, so her English is really good. He served a Chinese speaking mission in Vancouver, so his English is not so good! Haha but it's still pretty good! I'm super excited to see them working within our group! One step closer to a branch!

We had ZDM again this week! We had Costco chicken wraps for our snack, and Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the side! Haha we trained on remembering our Savior, and faith! I thought they were both really great messages! It focused a lot on us as missionaries instead of on our investigators. We talked about what we need to do throughout the week to remember our Savior and prepare to partake of the sacrament on Sunday. We also talked about how we develop our faith through daily prayer, scripture study, and church attendance. And also how our faith will help carry us through the trials that come. To go along with the faith activity, we all planted seeds in little terracotta pots! (We started germinating them a week ago, so they are growing really fast now!)

In English class, I have been moved down to teach the basic level class! It's exhausting, but I like it! I feel like I get to see them make more progress! One of the students, Brother Yang, is probably one of my favorite people I've taught! He's just really curious and asks a lot of questions that really make me think about all the crazy rules in the English language! He said that he wants us to come to a park with him on Tuesday night to learn some Tai Chi! It should be really fun! He told me that he has studied it for 22 years, and went to competitions in China! I'll let you know how it goes! Haha

On Thursday, we had three people invite us to their home to eat meals with them! We had lunch with a recent convert, Cheryl, and the Jiang family! They made 羊肉串, which are really yummy lamb kabobs! We ate a lot of them! Then the Jiang family took us to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. An investigator also called and said they had made a ton of food for us to come and try! So right after the Vietnamese restaurant, we went to have second dinner with Gao Lei! We were so full afterwards, we could hardly move! 

On Wednesday, we went with the Li family to go help them buy a car at CarMax! It was pretty fun, but Elder Dyer and I know nothing about buying used cars! Unfortunately they weren't able to find anything that worked for them, but we had fun going with them!

This week was pretty eventful! I hope this makes up for the past few emails that have been pretty short!

I love and miss you all!

Love,

Elder Warren

吴长老

7/11/2016 P-Day #90

7/11/2016

大家好!

This week was insane! So many miracles!

Gloria was supposed to have her interview Saturday afternoon. We were going to go pick up Elder Zeng from Lake Elsinore to come and do it, but we found out that she was going to go with the members to their day activity in Oceanside! So we set up the interview for Saturday evening and Elder Dyer translated while our district leader interviewed her. She is all ready to go on Saturday! I'm so excited for her! It's been so different teaching her. Everything went so smoothly and she fits in so great with the members in our group! 

On Sunday we witnessed an amazing miracle! During sacrament meeting, I usually scan the congregation to see if there are any Chinese people around who need translation. This couple walked into the back and the wife looks very Chinese, but I wasn't 100% sure about the husband. I leaned over and asked Elder Dyer if he knew who they were, but neither of us recognized them! I thought they were nonmembers until I looked back during a hymn and they were reading the hymn off their phone. After the meeting was over, I went back and introduced myself and they told me that they had just moved to Rancho Cucamonga from BYU Hawaii. Both of them joined the church in China and served missions! All of us have been praying for new strong members to move into our ward, so it was great to see such a direct answer to our prayers! They signed up to feed us dinner this Saturday and said that they have a friend that wants to learn more about the gospel! I'm so excited!

We went by and visited Liu Ting Ting this week and she came to church on Sunday! After Chinese women give birth, they all stay inside for about a month afterwards.. It's a little strange, but we were excited to see her! And sad, because she is leavingon Saturday :( But she said that if ever we go visit in Chengdu to give her a call! I may have to make a trip over there when Elder Zeng gets home and see both of them! Her husband flew in this last week and she brought him to church!

I'm super excited to see our branch growing and progressing! They definitely have the fire! They've changed so much since I got here last November. Soon we'll have a branch!

Thursday was MLC again. I really enjoyed the trainings that we received this time. President Mullen gave a really powerful training on Remembering Christ. As we take the sacrament, we promise to always remember Him. It seems like a bit of a hard task, to always remember the Savior, to always have Him on our mind. But I don't think it means that I literally have to be thinking of Christ and His Atonement every second of every day. Remembering Him ties into our actions, it ties into having clean and pure thoughts, doing what He would do. If I serve someone around me, I'm remembering the Savior. If I repent and change, I'm remembering the Savior. It's how we use the Atonement each and every day to help us become a better person. That's how we continually remember Him and as a result, we are promised that we will always have His spirit to be with us. Isn't that amazing? As we just do our best to change and become more like Him, we can always have the presence of the Holy Ghost with us! 

Well that's all I have for this week! I hope each of you can find something different you can do this week to remember your Savior. I love and miss you all!

Love,

Elder Warren

吴长老

7/5/2016 P-Day #89

7/5/2016

大家好，

国庆节快乐！Happy Fourth of July!

Thanks Momma for the package this week! 

Yesterday was a lot of fun! In the morning we went to a car show that two of the wards in the stake put on. Apparently last year, it was a whole stake activity and was much bigger! They had a free pancake breakfast, and some musical performances too! We invited a bunch of our investigators and a few of them came. It seemed like they all had a pretty good time! For some reason, a lot of the missionaries in the stake didn't have anyone signed up for dinner last night. So Elder Dyer and I planned a big barbecue for all of us! There was only one companionship that couldn't come, so in total we had 20 people there! We barbecued hamburgers, hot dogs, and some carne asada. We also had some watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple, salad, chips, etc.. It was all really good! We have tons of extra food now, but we'll probably just have another zone barbecue to finish all the meat and buns off! After the barbecue, we went and played glow-in-the-dark chair soccer at the stake center! To explain... in chair soccer, each person has their own individual chair you place anywhere on the gym floor. The object of the game is to kick the ball into someone else's chair to get them out. The last person standing wins! We bought 476 glow sticks and threw them all over the gym, attached them to the soccer ball, chairs, and ourselves! It was so much fun! Afterwards, we cleaned up all the glowsticks, drove home, showered, and went to bed because we were so exhausted!

Q's baptism was on Sunday! One of the priest in his ward was able to baptize him! I gave the talk on baptism in Chinese and had to translate into English as I was giving it! Haha it threw off my train of thought having to switch between English and Chinese, but at least I had notes written down! I'm super excited for him! He has a lot of good support from the family he's staying with, so he's going do be great. He's out of town at the beach for the next few weeks, so he won't be confirmed until the end of the month.

We taught Gloria this past Sunday again! I'm blown away every time we meet with her! She is so willing to live and accept the gospel! Not that she has to make many changes in her life, but she's so excited for everything that we're teaching! During church, we all introduced ourselves during open exercises before Sunday School, and she announced her baptism and invited everyone to come! This is truly the Lord's work and He's preparing so many people to accept the gospel!

On Sunday, we had to opportunity to accompany the Li family as they received their patriarchal blessings. We went to help translate for the conversation the patriarch had with them before the blessing. It was an incredibly spiritual experience to be there! They were both so excited to be able to receive the blessing. The patriarch told them before hand that there were blessings the Lord would promise them and also things that He wants them to do within this life. Brother Li wanted to make sure the patriarch would write down the things Brother Li would need to do so he wouldn't forget! I'll never forget that experience! It also made me realize how grateful I am for my patriarchal blessing and the guidance and hope it has given me!

Thanks everyone for your love, prayers, and support! I love and miss you all! 

Love,

Elder Warren

吴长老

6/27/2016 P-Day #88

6/27/2016

大家好！

Hope everyone had an awesomely amazing week! I know we did over here in SoCal! Where the average temperature is now about 100 degrees!

The first week without Elder Merriman has been a little strange! It took a while to adjust to having three people together all the time, and now we have to adjust back to only having two of us! Nothing too crazy happened this week, but we have definitely seen many miracles!

One miracle happened when we had to park our car on the opposite end of the apartment complex because they are repaving the roads inside! We were pretty annoyed because we had to walk all the way back to our apartment that night! But on our way home, we ran into a lady from China who has been looking for a Christian church in the area! She was so excited to meet us and was so excited to come to church with us! She actually lives just a few buildings down from us on the same street! Unfortunately she had to work on Sunday, but we're going by this week to visit with her!

This Saturday our Chinese group had a baptism! The Teng family has twins that just turned eight. It's funny how much more things we need to do than missionaries who are serving in an already established ward!! We were in charge of printing and making copies of the programs, getting the key to the baptism font, and then I was the chorister! But it was a lot of fun, and there were a lot of people that come to support them!

Then Saturday night we went to Eastvale's "Picnic in the Park"! Which was a big fair for the whole city! Saturday night was packed full of people, so we went to go see if we could hand out our English class cards to anyone! We ran into a bunch of members and investigators, so that was a lot of fun! The had fireworks that started at 9:00, but unfortunately we had to leave at 9 in order to be home on time. But we did get to see a few on our way out! 

Sunday was our Chinese sacrament meeting again! We had 58 people there, which I think is a record high! There were maybe two empty seats in the Relief Society room, and it was incredibly quiet too! Usually the kids and all the whispering is extra loud because the room is so small, but this time it was unusually reverent! Our stake president came to visit the Chinese group, and he picked the perfect day to come! It was an amazing experience! It's so great to see the progress our group is making! Hopefully after this next stake conference, we'll meet the requirements for a branch!

This week I want to share the word for "gospel" in Chinese, which is 福音。

福 means happiness, blessing, or good fortune.

音 means sound, news or tidings.

I remember hearing the word "gospel" and not entirely understanding what it meant, because in Hebrew (and Chinese!) it means good news. We don't quite get that meaning in English word! But that's exactly what it is! Good news! It's through the gospel of Jesus Christ that we are able to find lasting happiness and peace in this life, and eternal joy in the life to come. I'm grateful for a loving Heavenly Father that has provided a way for us to go. He hasn't left us on our own! He's in each and every one of our lives.

I love and miss all of you! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Warren

吴长老

6/20/2016 P-Day #87

6/20/2016

大家好！

Thanks Auntie Myra (and Leatherman clan) for the package! The cookies were delicious!

The weather here has been incredibly hot! It got up to 113 degrees yesterday! Yikes! Unfortunately I was not in an air-conditioned car this week! One of the elders went home in the Jurupa ward on Wednesday, so I got put with Elder Olsen for the remainder of the week on bike!! It was sooo hot! I got a nice tan, though! I drank lots of water so don't worry! They had been struggling the past few transfers, so when I got there they only had one investigator they were working with. So we spent the whole week walking on the streets and talking to people. Just trying to build up the area as much as we could before I got moved back to Eastvale! This week was another testimony builder that there are always people prepared to receive the gospel! We received so many blessings this past week. A member met a lady who moved into their neighborhood this past week, invited her to come to church, and the elders are going back this upcoming week to visit her! It's amazing to see how the Lord blesses us as we are faithful and obedient!

As we were spending a lot of time walking around in the heat, I saw so many tender mercies that I can't even count them! For example, since it was so hot, I was incredibly thirsty! I'd go through a water bottle in a minute or two. Every time that I ran out of water, the next person we talked to would offer us some more! 

Elder Merriman is going home tomorrow! We're dropping him off at the Miao's around 3:00 and they are going to take him down to the mission home. I missed out on the goodbye party last night because I was in Jurupa, but I'll get to spend today with him, so that will be fun! It's sad to see him go, but exciting for him as well! We're going to miss being in a trio, but it will be fun to spend time with Elder Dyer again! After this transfer, we will have spent six months as companions!

We're not entirely sure when Q is getting baptized now. He went to Utah for scout camp and then the member he's living with called Elders Dyer and Merriman and had some concerns.. So we'll be going by tonight to figure out what's going on. I'll keep you posted!

Besides all the heat, and all the people we talked to, I can't think of much else that happened this week!

I love and miss all of you! Go out and end each day with no regrets!

Love,

Elder Warren

吴长老