March 26, 2012

I am very glad to stay in Liverpool as well!! Unfortunately for the
next three weeks all of the University students have something called
Easter Break. Don't ask me what that is, but seriously, three weeks? I
think it is a bit much. I think I don't like it very much because it
means all of the Chinese students who we are teaching are going on
Vacation trips to other parts of Europe the whole time so our teaching
pool decreases quite a bit for a few weeks. I guess it will give us
some good time to find new investigators who are staying. Because
those who are staying really have nothing to do but meet with us
right? I think so....

Not much new to report since last Wednesday except for the fact that
things are still going well here in the Liverpool Zone. There are some
great new developments in the works with the Stake and Chinese work.
We met with the Stake President yesterday to speak about what we can
do extra and unique to help missionary work in the Liverpool ward move
forward to a greater level, and specifically with the Chinese
population. We ended up deciding that we want to hold a culture class
every Thursday night right before institute. This will be headed by
the ward and taught by members of the ward which is great for us
because it means we as missionaries don't have to do much extra in
regards to planning and we can focus on getting them to the class. We
feel that this will really entice the Chinese to come to the church
and then stay for Institute which has been a struggle getting them to
in the past. We are excited to put this plan in motion starting April
19th.

It was also great to see the Stake Presidency sit down with all the
the Recent Converts of the last year who were at church yesterday. All
of them were Chinese in the meeting. President Marshall and President
McCallister really took an interest in who the Recent Converts were,
what they were doing and how the feel about being a member of the
church. The opened it up to questions and some of the questions asked
by the Chinese were very good and well thought out. I feel that the
Recent Converts felt more of a part of the ward and closer to the
leaders who they had not known previously. We are very grateful for
the time the Stake Presidency is putting into the Chinese work. AND
after the meeting President Marshall took four of the Chinese Members
home! How great is that! I really appreciated all of the work I saw
done yesterday and previously between the Leaders of the Liverpool
Stake and Ward.

I had an interesting experience the other day as we were taking the
Tuebrook Elders back to their flat one night before going home. If you
remember, I started my mission in Liverpool in the Tuebrook flat and
boy looking back it was a great learning experience those first three
months. As we dropped the Elders off you could almost say at that
instant I had a flashback of all of the things I have learned on my
mission and the growth that has happened in a years plus time. All of
the hard times, happy times, frustrating times, rainy times and sunny
times came back to me and I couldn't believe I was a year down the
line, sitting in the same place I had been a year previously. You
could say it was a surreal experience. I really appreciated the time I
had to think about the many things I have learned and the changes that
have happened in the mission and in my life as a missionary. I look
forward to the continued learning experiences that will come whether
they be hard, or easy to bear because I know from experience that new
opportunities help us learn and grow! I truly love my mission.

Some funny stories: At the Chinese activity during the part when
people were holding onto the "Iron Rod," I was trying to guide a
Chinese girl I didn't know in Chinese. I was talking for a little bit
and she would NOT do what I advised her to do, so I intensified my
comments in Chinese. Finally she yelled out, "would you please just
speak English!!!" You can imagine how I felt, I mean, really was my
chinese that bad that she couldn't understand me. I was pondering on
how rude she was when later i went up to her and told her that I was
the one speaking Chinese to her with her blindfold on and she told me
to speak English. I asked her if my chinese was really that bad. She
burst out laughing apologizing that she only speaks cantonese and she
didn't even know I was a native english speaker. All she could hear
was a language she didn't understand so she told me to speak English!
Good times....

After the activity we had some snacks, among those snacks were fortune
cookies. Before we bought them we were trying to figure out if they
wre really Chinese or if we as foreigners just think it is chinese.
Well we found out. One of the Chinese Recent Converts opened one and
proceded to plop the whole cookie in his mouth. My companion hurridly
tried to explain to him that it had a piece of paper in it and he was
eating it right now. The recent convert didn't understand so Elder
Okeson opened another one, cracked it open and showed him the piece of
paper at which time the Chinese person pulled a surprised and
incredulous look on his face. I guess we found out that Chinese people
don't really use fortune cookies. :)