"Please bless Klay Thompson and the rest of the Golden State Warriors with heath, and while we're at it help Kevin Durant recover, as well as our brother Boogie Cousins."

Quote of the week explanation

The member who said the opening prayer in the first ward yesterday prayed for that. The bishop looked mildly uncomfortable (Almost as much as when one member started bearing their testimony of Heavenly Mother last week).

Howdy Ho!

We've had a week fully packed with good chills and thrills here in this Californian jungle! Quite a bit happened, as, of course is the case with most weeks. So, lets get started.

We taught Joan the law of tithing on Monday. One of our members came along, and overall it was a great lesson. Joan is such a biblical scriptorian, and the story that we shared to start the lesson (1 Kings 17:8-16) and she said it was the exact same scripture that her mother had used to explain the concept of sacrifice to her when she was young. She said that she would have no problems obeying the law of tithing once she was baptized. At this point, literally the only thing keeping her from getting baptized is her work schedule getting in the way of her coming to church. That's why she wanted to push her date back to December, because in December she graduates school and her schedule will then become much more flexible, so she won't have to work Sundays. But she's still doing well.

That was the lesson that went the best this week. We had a few other lessons, but each of them had some sort of weird quirk that made it... Unique, we'll say.

First, Luo Qing Fu (Looking For). He got back from Taiwan this week, and we met him at the Chinatown library on Friday. To start off, we asked him how his trip went. In reply he went on a long rant that I think was about money, but I couldn't really understand a whole lot. I feel like he might've been talking about the exchange rates from the US to Taiwan, but I could be wrong. After that we went into the teaching portion of it. I said the opening prayer, and after that Luo Qing Fu flipped straight to Matthew 6 and went on a rant about the Lord's prayer. After we got past that, we began a discussion about scripture and its importance. We used a bunch of verses from the Bible to help him understand why we have the Book of Mormon. And then, he shared with us his concern. It's a weird one, let me tell you. He showed us his Bible and said that it was a copy that belonged to the library. He said that he liked using library books because then he can read them and other people can read them. He said that he would only read the Book of Mormon if the copy belonged to the library. So, we asked him if he would read the Book of Mormon if we gave a copy to the Library. He said yes. We closed with a prayer, and after Elder Kendrick said the prayer Luo Qing Fu said that he'd show us how it's done and recited the Lord's Prayer for us. I still have hope that he will progress, but we'll see how long we keep teaching him for. After the lesson we asked the library if we could donate a book, and a rather annoyed librarian told us that they don't accept donations. So, we gave the book to Luo Qing Fu. It would be great if he'd have kept it, but I'm pretty sure he shelved it with the Bibles. Either way, though, he hasn't been dropped... Yet.

We taught Ryan, he's doing pretty good. We discussed prayer and he seemed to absorb the message well. He is trying to overcome some dark stuff that has happened in his past, and we are helping him to do that. He really has the desire to progress.

Our final lesson of the week was one with Anthony. We always seem to be going through some sort of crisis when it comes to him. This week he went on a rant about the conditions of the world today, in terms of economy and political relationships. After we had calmed him down a bit, we taught the first part of the Plan of Salvation, and he enjoyed the message. He told us that he, too, usually prays using the Lord's Prayer (which would've been nice to know a while ago). We explained to him, again, why saying specific, meaningful prayers is important, and he said that he would do it this week. Whew. Dodged a bullet on that one.

And those were the highlights of our teaching week. Our area is really on an uphill slope right now. A lot of solid people are starting to come out of the woodwork. It's an exciting time to be a missionary in the Oakland 1st and 7th.

Well, that's probably about it for now. I hope you are having a pleasant morning.

Bye

-Beh

P.S. We stopped by one of the people who we are teaching for the Chinese branch who we haven't seen for a while, and she told us that she didn't have time... Until we pointed out the rat that was sleeping in her front yard. She became very agitated upon hearing of the rodent, and we helped her kill it right then and there. It was pretty gruesome. She held it down with some large metal tongs and Elder Watts used pruning clippers to kill the animal. The lady, Mrs. Leung, was very grateful for the service, though. She said we could come back this Saturday, so we will see how that goes.

P.P.S. Another thing that I forgot to mention, I gave a talk in the first ward yesterday. I think it went pretty well. I told the story of Antonio de Jesus Salazar and related it to member missionary work, and it was a message that the ward members seemed to receive well. So that also happened.

P.P.P.S. In case you have forgotten, the Missouri river still exists.