"I love Vienna boys!"

Quote of the week explanation

There is nothing whatsoever about this quote that is profound in any way. It actually comes from this weird conversation that my companion and I were having this Friday. At some point, we had seen an old church video highlighting many of the events that happened during the '80s. One of them was the then 'Mormon Tabernacle Choir' performing at the inauguration ceremony for one of this nation's presidents (Ronald Reagan, I believe). Recalling this tidbit of information, I asked my companion if he would have the aforementioned choir sing at his inauguration if he ever became president. He told me no, he would have the Vienna Boys Choir perform, and after they sang he would get up and give his speech. His entire speech, however, would be these four words: "I love Vienna boys!" This makes the quote of the week list because over the course of a weekend we have created a whole line of fictitious "Vienna Boys" memorable in preparation.

Now, after that…

Hello.

How are you?

Hen hao.

This week was pretty crazy. First off, Olivia got baptized. It was a great experience, although the water still ended up being cold... Doh! The Tongan ward had held a baptismal service several hours before; and the font had been left filled. When the time came for Olivia to enter the waters, the water had dipped below "lukewarm" and dropped all the way down to "rather cool". It was fine, though, as neither she or her husband (who was baptizing her) seemed to mind. I really didn't have anything to do in Olivia's conversion process; she had already accepted a baptismal date by the time I showed up, but it was still nice to be able to attend her baptismal service. If you remember, I was unable to attend Geng Fei's baptism when he was baptized due to the sisters holding it right in the middle of our sacrament meeting, so at least I had the opportunity to come to this one.

The main event that I would like to outline this week is how we found one person this week. Her name is Iris, and she's an older woman. We were having a pretty nice tracting session; we had already talked with one really open person who had invited us back (and, as a cherry on top we had also been screamed at by a lady). We were about to finish our tracting, and went for one last building that had seven or so apartments. We didn't find anyone who was even mildly interested in our message until we got to the second to last door of the building. We saw that she had the scripture Hebrews 11:1 hanging on her door, so my companion decided to use that as part of his tracting approach. We knocked, she opened the door, and we introduced ourselves. After only a moment of conversation, she warmly invited us into her home (in case you are unaware, this is a rather uncommon thing to happen). We had a really good mini-lesson with her; we got to know her a bit and then shared about the Book of Mormon. Towards the end of our discussion, we were talking about prayer. She opened up to us a bit at this point, and confided in us that she prays every day at 6:00 in the evening. That evening in her prayer, she had specifically asked for God to reveal to her a new way in which she could learn of him. Fifteen minutes later, Elder Carter and I knocked on her door. I don't know about you, but I believe that that sequence of events was no coincidence. It's pretty crazy how things work out sometimes. We have a return appointment this Tuesday where we're planning on teaching her the full restoration. It should be pretty good.

We are still working to help more people progress towards baptism. 

Unfortunately, one of the people we were teaching, Samuel, has pretty much dropped off of the face of the earth. He isn't responding to any of our methods of contact, so we're a little bit disappointed about that. We still are working with a lot of other great people, so we have high hopes.

Well, those are the highlights of the week. Nothing else too insane transpired. So…

Bye.

-Bennnnnnnn

P.S. In case you were wondering, transfers are this week, but both Elder Carter and I are staying.

P.P.S. According to one of our members, I have a "cosmopolitain accent"

P.P.P.S. I don't think I've ever met anyone whose favorite vegetable is an artichoke.