Well could you do me a favor then?

Knee how.

The weeks are flyin' by!

Another one has passed already, and let me just say it was not light on content.

Tuesday, we had exchanges. It was with our zone leaders, and I went to their area for the day. The morning started a bit different then usual, because we happened to have interviews with President Durham on that particular Tuesday, so our morning schedule got disrupted. That was good, though, because interviews are great. (And President Durham is a big U of U guy, so that makes it even better). 

The main thing of any interest that happened on the exchange, though, was the lesson that we had. The zone leaders had found a new person to teach, and the first lesson that they would have with him (at all) I just happened to be teaching. So, our plan was basically to teach this guy about the restoration (since that's lesson 1), and I'm pretty exited because I actually speak this language (English), so I may be able to participate more in the lesson. Well, we go to his house, and he lets us in. He seems like a nice guy, and we sit down and start to talk to him. I started to realize something was off, though, when the first thing he wanted to know about was "our mode of baptism." So we tell him about baptism by immersion (you know, like Jesus), and he seems to accept it. But then... He basically just tries to Bible bash with us for the next half hour. Squabbling over kingdoms of glory, modern prophets, the priesthood... I was just sitting there, dumbfounded, while my companion tried to reel the conversation back in. By the time I recovered from my shock that someone was actually having a war of words with us, I tried to jump in, but by that time the conversation had just gone so far off the rails that we had to end the lesson. We politely excused ourselves from the situation, and went on our merry way.

So that happened on Tuesday. And then, Wednesday was probably the busiest day of my young mission! It started around midday, because we had a lunch appointment with May, one of the people we're teaching. She's come to church for the past two weeks, which has been awesome. Anyway, our plan for the lesson was basically to teach her the first lesson with an emphasis on the blessings that the gospel can bring to one's life and the Book of Mormon. So, we get to her house with this plan in mind, but, due to extenuating circumstances, we were left with very little time to actually teach her (because we had somewhere to be right after our lesson-more on that in a moment). So, instead of rushing through what would have probably been a sloppy lesson, we decide to change our plans last minute and just read the introduction to the Book of Mormon with her. It went well, and she committed to read from the Book of Mormon daily. 

We followed up with her at church yesterday, and she said that she had read First Nephi, so that's great. The next thing that we had to rush to was... Another lesson! This one was with the guy who we taught with the Oakland Chinese sisters at the visitors center a few weeks ago. The sisters are still teaching him (He wants to go to the Oakland branch, even though he lives in our area, because he lives at the very top of our area (near Oakland) and our ward meets at the very bottom of our area, so the Oakland branch is more convenient for him to get to... It's kind of a complicated situation), so they had most of the lesson covered. My companion and I mostly just offered support and added in comments here and there (admittedly, my companion mostly did this, because I still have difficulty understanding what people are saying most of the time). But... He's on date to be baptized!! I can't remember the specific day, just that it's sometime next month that they committed him to. I didn't really have much to do with this, it was pretty much all the sisters and the spirit that have been teaching him, but it's still cool that I've been able to see his conversion. 

After that joyous lesson, we had yet another teaching experience. I may've mentioned that we were starting another English class in a different place, so that we could find more people through that venue, and Wednesday was the first time we've actually had a student in the new one. It was actually two students, a man and his wife. So, we taught them at English class, and then we went over to their house to teach them the gospel. Crazy. We taught them some pretty basic doctrines, and they seemed to get it. We'll see if we can get another appointment with them. Should be exiting.

Thursday we had the fun experience of accidentally tracking into some members. It was refreshing after doors upon doors of rejection. And they gave us cinnamon rolls, which was good.

And then yesterday. Our most exiting moment was that we ate dinner with some members of the Spanish ward. I've decided that the Spanish members are some of the most fun people on the planet, even though they always make fun of me for not speaking Spanish when I tell them my name.

Well, that's all for now.

I'll talk to you later.

Bye.

-Benny

P.S. "47... Actually, 52. I don't know why I lied just there."

P.P.S. We had a member visit earlier this week, and when I asked the member how her week was, she looked at me for a moment, and then said: " 谢谢赖长老." (Thank you, Lai Zhanglao). Just in case any of you thought that I would be really good at speaking Mandarin by this point.

P.P.P.S. Of course, that doesn't even come close to matching my personal favorite moment of our members thinking that I'm just a clueless american. We had a Chinese New Year branch activity a few weeks back, and when we were getting the food, one member points at the big platter of fried rice, looks directly at me, and says in accented, yet very clear English: "This is Chinese food!" Good times.

P.P.P.P.S. Somebody should get a pet dachshund and name it Martin Van Buren. (No particular reason why, you just should).