"Congratulations! You're having twins!"

Quote of the week explanation

This week my new companion arrived, straight out of the MTC. On Wednesday evening we had a little meeting, at which we became acquainted with one another, did some paperwork, took some pictures, stuffed some food down our gullets, and then went off on our merry way into this brave new world (I hate that book, by the way). This Friday we had a new missionary training meeting, at which President Durham informed us that we would be getting four more new missionaries, originally bound for Hong Kong, who are coming here to wait out some civil unrest. They are called Cantonese speaking, and President informed us that one of the Elders will be coming to Oakland to be in a trio with me and my new companion, Elder Kendrick. We will pick him up from the mission home later this morning, and he will have the privilege of his first teaching experience in the mission field being... Teaching Joan the law of chastity. It should be a good time.

Hola.

This week has been pretty crazy, with the aforementioned new companion and associated meetings and the like. Transfers were on Tuesday, but since new missionaries don't arrive until Wednesday night, I stuck around with one of the Spanish Elders who is also training for those two days. It was an insane two days. We just destroyed the work, in English, Spanish, and Chinese. Some of the highlights occurred as follows.

On Tuesday we went to Chinatown to go talk to people around there. We were met with some success, having a lot of good conversations but nobody who was really interested. We taught a Spanish lesson (or, I should say Elder Tribe taught a Spanish lesson while I sat there looking pleasant) that day as well. The highlight came, though, that evening as it began to get dark. We were out contacting Chinese potentials and knocking doors, and hadn't been met with much success. After one attempt in particular which wasn't entirely a success we decided to knock on this one random door. Elder Tribe knocked and started to introduce us, but but the man who answered the door waved his hands in the air and said in a very heavily accented voice "No English!" So, we tried in Mandarin. Upon hearing this, he lets out this high-pitched giggle (which sounded very much like old hermit Yoda from Episode 5) and immediately ushers us into his home. This guy is probably in his 70s, so it was quite the sight to see him running around his front room, clearing off chairs and literally leaping for excitement as he quickly commanded us to sit. He introduced himself as 羅慶福 (Luo Qing Fu), and also said that his English name is... Wait for it... Looking For. That is literally his name. Looking For. It's just an English phrase that sounds similar to his name, so he decided that it would be his English name. We had a great conversation with him, and he is super super super into the Bible. He showed us this notebook that he has where he has written pages upon pages of Bible verses and notes (all in Chinese, of course). We had to get going before too long (to get to a Spanish funeral), but Mr. Looking For was very eager to meet with us again, so we set up a return appointment, which happened last Thursday in a library in Chinatown. It was a return appointment that... Turned out to be a bit more than we had bargained for. But more on that later.

On Wednesday (before the new missionaries arrived; Elder Tribe and I were still together) we had an insanely solid lesson with these two new guys for the English ward. They really opened up about some things that had happened in their past, and said in all sincerity that they wanted to find the truth. We talked about the restoration, and when we got to the end we paused for a moment, to let the spirit permeate the room. We sat in silence for around thirty seconds, and then Elder Tribe asked the people we were teaching: "how do you feel?" One of them, who at that point was kind of staring off into the distance immediately looked straight at us, stuck up both of his thumbs and almost split his face open with a grin that stretched from ear to ear, and told us that he felt good. It was a super solid lesson. We'll be going back this Wednesday with Elder Kendrick and I, as well as our new Elder. It was a great couple of days. As we were drawing towards the close of our time together, Elder Tribe kept saying "These have been like the best two days of my mission." It was a great time.

Now... Looking For... On Thursday after lunch, we went to Chinatown to teach him. This was Elder Kendrick's first lesson of his mission. We  go into the library, and see Looking For sitting at one table with is Bible open. "Great" we think, "He's already studying the scriptures." We sit down, and he is super nice in inviting us to share. We shared with him, too, the message of the restoration. He was going along with it; seeming to agree with everything and participating a lot in sharing his own experiences and understanding. It was going very well, until we got to the invitation. The conversation went something like this (translated from Mandarin):

Us: (Talk about the Book of Mormon and stuff) "so are you willing to start reading the Book of Mormon"

羅慶福： "I am not willing" （Just a quick note, it is considered rather impolite to phrase it in that way in Chinese culture)

Us: (Politely) "Why aren't you willing?"

羅慶福："Because it's not the Bible"

We talk to him for a minute, reaffirm that the Book of Mormon is scripture that will bring us closer to Christ and shared a few scriptures (notably 2 Nephi 33:10, you can look it up if you want), but he was adamant in his refusal. At the end, we decided to invite him simply to pray, and he refused to do even that. When we asked why not, he flipped right to Matthew 6, jabbed his finger towards the Lord's prayer, and told us that those are the only words he uses when he prays (which I don't quite understand, because literally the verse right before the Lord's Prayer is Jesus telling his disciples not to use vain repetitions in there prayers "as the heathen do". So we left that lesson a bit confused. He went from insanely excited to see us on Tuesday, to very happy to hear our message on Thursday, to very blunt and immovable on his stance of strictly Bible reading. He was still more than happy to say that he would love to meet with us again, so we are in the process laying down our plan of attack on how we are going to tear this man apart and smash him back together so that he loves the Book of Mormon. 

OK, maybe not so extreme as all of that, but you get the idea.

And that's most of it. A pretty solid week, I'd say. 

Until next week, my friends.

-B

P.S. Oh yeah, General Conference also happened. Us missionaries watched it at the Oakland Temple Visitors Center. It was great, as usual. Based on President Nelson's final remarks on Sunday afternoon, I imagine that next April they will broadcast general conference from the foot of the Mount of Olives, and instead of a big announcement or anything like that the Second Coming will just happen.

P.P.S. That wasn't meant to be taken entirely seriously, stop freaking out. I am not a prophet, after all.

P.P.P.S. The mission is already around 10 missionaries above capacity as it is, before the four newbies arrive today. Just a little fun fact for you.