Elder Jordan Chatman: 40 Weeks Remaining -June 23, 2013

June 23, 2013

40 Weeks Remaining

What’s up everyone,

Day by day recap-

Monday - a member took us and like 8 other missionaries out to eat curry chicken. Then we went to the stake center and practiced some basketball. Then we took the bus back to our apartment and had a lesson with an investigator. His problem right now is overcoming smoking and keeping the Sabbath day holy. He reads, prays, and comes to church though and so he is making some good progress. After his lesson, we took the bus to a member’s house for Family Home Evening where we and the sisters, taught a lesson.

Tuesday - we had district meeting. Then after that we went on exchanges. Elder Gerrard came with me. He's from Utah and has been out for like 5 months. We passed out English class flyers. Later we had some fried rice for dinner. After that we did some street contacting. It actually went really good for a change. We were able to give out two Book of Mormons during that time, which was sweet. After tha,t we met with a less active member. We taught him about the Atonement and invited him to come back to church. He ended up coming on Sunday and stayed for all 3 hours. His wife isn’t a member so we are hoping to be able to teach her down the road.

Wednesday - we met with a less active new convert and then he took us out for a meal. After that, we walked back to the church and talked to everyone we saw on the street. No one of was interested though. Then we had a lesson with our investigator - Gao. He's 18 years old and wants to be baptized, but his parents won’t let him because they don’t like religion. After we spent time with him, we took a 30 min bus to Xizhi and exchanged back. After getting back, we walked 30 min to Luo's house – one of our recent converts. He took us next door to a 13 year old young man named Su's house. He had brought him to church the previous week. We taught the young man about prayer and then invited him to be baptized next week. After that lesson we walked back to the church. Later that night we had English class.

Thursday - we met with Shi - a less active recent convert. We taught him about enduring to the end and invited him to come back to church. He said he would come but never ended up coming on Sunday. Later in the afternoon, we walked to go visit a former investigator, but he wasn’t there. That night, we met with Wang again. Afterwards, we took a bus and tried to find some less actives but unfortunately, they weren’t any home.

Friday - we had zone conference all day. The mission president basically talked about working better with the ward and teaching better lessons on member visits. Then his wife talked about developing Christlike attributes. When we got back that night, we walked out to another less active recent convert’s house, but he wasn’t home either. So we just talked to people in the area for the rest of the night.

Saturday - we visited Ah Bei. His wife is a member and has been coming to church for the past 8 years. His struggle is in keeping commandments like the Word of Wisdom. So we are trying to help him with that. After him, we met with Zheng. We taught him the plan of salvation and set a baptismal date for July 7th. He’s pretty good. After him, we taught Luo, one of the new member lessons.

Sunday - they had ward conference. It was awesome because the stake presidency came and just talked about missionary work and how the members need to be helping out. They gave some pretty great talks! I just hope it didn’t go in one ear and out the other with the members, like it has in the past. Later that night, we went to the bishop’s house and had dinner. We also sang happy birthday to Wu mama. I think I’ve mentioned her before, but she’s this super cool member that takes care of missionaries so much. She feeds us every week, sews our clothes, helps us teach lessons, and so much more. There’s always a group of like 8 missionaries hanging out with her every pday - climbing hills, eating food, etc. Plus she's going through chemotherapy right now and you would never know if someone didn’t tell you.

But anyways that’s the happenings for this week. The gospel is true.

Love,

Elder Chatman