Well have you talked to the school nurse?

Howdy-ho, everybody!

Another week has come and gone, and added a whole slew of things to the list of "random mission experiences" list. One of the more interesting occurrences is that I was, apparently, adopted by not one, but two separate individuals. The first occurred on Wednesday. My companion and I were out knocking doors, like missionaries do, and one of the doors we knocked on was answered by a middle-aged woman. We talked to her for a minute at her door, and she politely told us that she would not be interested in our message. She did say, though, that she was "very proud of us" for serving our religion. So we were able to carry on the conversation for another minute or so (if you didn't know, this is much farther than we get with most people while tracting), and we gave her an invitation to the Oakland Temple open house, which is coming up in May. We said goodbye, and as we were walking away, before she closed her door, she said: "Farewell, my most precious sons." So, yeah. That happened. 

The second one was the next day, at English class. The class was just moving along swimmingly, and everybody was having a grand old time when one of our students gets a phone call. She says something really fast in Chinese so that I can't understand her, and then shoves the phone to my ear. I have no idea what's going on at this point. So, into the phone, I tentatively say: "Uhhh... Hello?" the response comes: "Your parents need to pay their rent." Now, if I wasn't confused enough already, this did it. I wasn't quite sure I heard them right, so I said: "I'm sorry, what?" The woman on the other end repeats "Your parent's need to pay their rent," and then proceeds to tell me where the office is where they can go and what their hours are. At this point, I realize that our student must have just told this lady that she was going to give the phone to her son, and then handed it to me, but I still had no idea what she wanted me to tell this person. So, I went to my companion, who was on the other side of the room teaching citizenship class, for help. I walk over there and tell him that I think our student needs a translator or something, and I have no idea how to translate what was just said to me. So, luckily, he bailed me out. But, I am, apparently, that student's son. I figure that a lengthy court case may ensue between my two adoptees (is that a word?) this week.

One exiting thing that happened, we had a lesson with our interested person this week (finally!). He has come to church for the past several weeks, but has been so busy throughout the week that he has never had the time to have a formal meeting with us. It was definitely an unusual lesson, though. You see, it originally started out like a normal Sunday at church. We were just setting up our little room for Sunday school, and our brach president was getting more and more concerned that the person who had been assigned to teach the lesson this week was not showing up. After a few minutes, when it became clear that our teacher would not be coming, the branch president took matters into his own hands. He gets up to the front of the room, and starts teaching a lesson. After a minute or two, I realize that he is teaching the first doctrinal point under Lesson One of Preach my Gospel. And then he moves on to the second doctrinal point. And the third. It becomes evident to me and my companion that he is teaching lesson one, with the focus being our person we're teaching, Ken. That's not to say that the lesson was weird, or anything. It wasn't just our branch president preaching to this one guy in the midst of a multitude. My companion and I provided a lot of teaching support, and everyone else in the room made great comments and clarifying points. We even ended by giving Ken an invitation to read the Book of Mormon, which he said he would do. It was crazy. It was pretty much a missionary lesson with five members present (six, if you count the branch president's 1-year-old kid). It was a really good lesson. Our person seemed to like it, even though he didn't feel comfortable saying the closing prayer. Small steps, though.

The final experience that I would like to share happened yesterday, as well. Our stake has a really big push for members to go out with the missionaries, so yesterday afternoon we went to go contact some people with one of the members of the high council. The first person that we thought we'd stop by was a less active member of our branch. We had called him at the beginning of last transfer, and he seemed like a really nice guy. When we called him, he said that he was very busy, but if we came by his apartment in a month or so on the weekend he'd talk to us. Johnny, was his name. We tried to call him again on Saturday, to see if he'd be available to meet, but his phone number was acting up. So we thought: "He said we could come by on the weekend. It's been a month. Let's just try it." So we (and our high council member) go knock on his door. A man answers. My companion greets him, and then asks if Johnny is there.

"No, he's not here" the man says.

So my companion asks if he's just out of the house.

"No, he doesn't live here.”

"Oh." My companion says. "Did he move recently?”

"No, I don't know any Johnny.”

By this point, we're confused. Whoever answered the phone that one time had answered to Johnny. We weren't about to give up, though, so we decide to use his real name.

"Is Yang Jin here?"

"Yes, that's me."

So, we tell that we're just from the church and he had said that he would talk with us if we came by.

"What church are you from?"

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."

We see a lightbulb go off in his head. "Ohhhh..." he says. "You're the Mormons. I have no interest in the Mormons."

Now we're very confused. "OK, it just said in our records that you were a member."

"Oh, no, I'm not a member, but I've been to Salt Lake and I'm not interested in the Mormons."

He then closed the door.

This left us rather befuddled. The man with whom we had spoken on the phone had been very friendly with us, had immediately answered to the name Johnny, and had seemed very willing to meet with us. When we knocked on his door, though, he was the opposite. And, of course, there was the fact that he said he wasn't a member, even though we have his baptismal records. Interesting stuff.

Well, life continues to putter right along. If it isn't too irksome, I'm just going to recommend that you read/watch/listen to a talk. It was given in the general women's session of the October 2015 general conference by (then president) Dieter F. Uchtdorf. It's called "A Summer with Great-Aunt Rose.”

Well, I've taken too much of your time already. I hope you have a pleasant week. Like it or not, you'll be getting another letter from me next week, so if necessary make sure to spend some time mentally preparing for that.

Bye.

-The "Ben"t one

P.S. I think that you should only eat gross food until I get back. I find it rather unfair that I have to read all these detailed descriptions of the banquets you're all having when I'm here living on macaroni and the occasional quesadilla.

P.P.S. Did you know that snails are cannibals?

P.P.P.S. I heard in passing from a member that Antonio Brown is now on the raiders. Is this true?

P.P.P.P.S "A Broken Horse Christmas" is a really annoying movie.