49 Weeks Remaining- April 16, 2013

49 Weeks Remaining

April 16, 2013

你們好

Hope everyone’s doing well. A quick recap of last week….. We met with this cool man who came in contact with the church through Nu Skin. He went to America and I guess, the Nu Skin boss showed a bunch of foreigners who work for Nu Skin around temple grounds.  After he went there they wrote down his information and then temple square sent it out here, but that was like 3 years ago.  I guess no one contacted him since then.  So we called him up and ate dinner with him and then yesterday we taught him the message of the restoration. He was super receptive and willing to act. We also met with this super cool less active man who we called up. We visited his house and asked why he was baptized, why he hasn’t been coming to church, etc. From what I gathered he didn’t really have a testimony (a true belief in the gospel) when he got baptized.  He just liked the missionaries. So we gave him a new Book of Mormon and are going to try and help him gain a real testimony. Right now we only have one investigator with a baptismal goal. It’s been tough recently to find people to teach. We have literally been talking to everyone on the streets, but its rejection city. That’s probably the hardest part. They just won’t even talk to you...about anything. You ask them how their day is going or what their name is and they usually just ignore you or tell you "bu yong" which means like no. "no" what? I asked you how your day was and you responded by saying no.....Anyways it’s cool. There is opposition in all things, right? There’s prepared people out there. So finding them always triumphs the rejections. Anyways, we have one investigator with a baptismal date and he told us he's moving.  But we are going to find some good people this week. Also this week, we met this super great man from the Holy Land. He lives in Jerusalem. He is just visiting for a bit. Also this week we got to listen to general conference. (This is a bi annual meeting where the apostles and prophet address the church.) Then after Saturday’s conference, we went to the Xizhi for the sisters’ baptismal service and the mission president attended. Then afterwards, he was like “how are planning on getting home?” I said that we were going to take the bus and he was like “I’ll drive you home.” So that was great! He drove us back, but on the highway back, the gps took him the wrong way. So he missed the turn off from the freeway. There wasn’t another turn to get off the freeway for 20 minutes. So we didn’t get back until late. But it was nice to chat with the President and talk about his story about how he got called to be Mission President. He said one day, Elder Christopherson’s (an apostle of our church) secretary randomly called him and his wife and setup an interview with them. Then after the interview Elder Christopherson was like “you may or may not hear from us again.”  Then like a few months later, President Eyring's (another apostle of our church) secretary called them and setup a video conference with President Eyring and them.  At that time, President Eyring called him to be the Mission President. It is cool stuff...

The gospel of Jesus Christ is true! Live it, Love it, and you'll be happy.

Peace

Elder Chatman