39 Weeks Remaining- July 2, 2013

你們好

Good week. Some cool things that went on.
Last week this man from Vegas came through Taiwan.  He was a pilot and was doing some Asian flights. His hotel was near our area so we got to go eat with him. We went to this high end Chinese barbecue and hot pot restaurant. For him it was probably just average, but for us out here (we never eat at high in places like that) we were loving life. He was just stopping by and his brother had gone on a mission here. So he wanted some missionaries to take him to a place to eat. He was a cool guy. I guess his daughter was a track star at BYU and won a national title in some event or something - last name was Cramer.
Our investigators are progressing really slowly right now. Wang has a million of questions. The more we teach, the more questions he has. He keeps asking why we can't drink coffee, alcohol, tea, etc. He wants like scientifically evidence, etc. I was just like, "Look, bottom line... God gave us this law, so we keep it. Pray and see if this law is from God. If it is, then you don't need to know every reason why, just follow it because God said so." He's going to China this week, so we'll see how that goes. He's really scared to go over there because he says all they do is drink tea.
Our golden investigator, Zheng, had a falling out. He called me last night and said his parents don't like Christians.  So he doesn't know if he can come to church anymore. He is like 30+ years old and his parents are in their late 60s. I was like, "Zheng, your are an adult man.  Obviously you need to respect your parents, but you got to make the right decision here. What does God want you to do?" He's gonna go pray about it but he didn't sound too willing to do anything against his parents' will. Chinese people respect their parents tons here. For some people what their parents say goes even when you are a full grown adult with your own family.
Pretty funny! Yesterday this older member who grew up in Hong Kong, but has lived here for a while, took us to this restaurant and trained us on table manners haha. For example, he poured some water into my cup and then was like, "I'm okay with it but other Chinese might be offended by that."  I laughed, "I was like what did I do?" He like stands up and then bows down to me and says how in old days servants had to bow down and then pour the water. But now days the receiver just faces their palm up, bends 2 fingers and knocks on the table while they pour the water. So whenever he poured us water we had to knock on the table. I had never heard of that before. the younger generation of Taiwanese people do not do any of that. Pretty funny!
That is what is going on for this week. We are going to the temple today. Oh yeah,  we are getting a temporary companion for 1 week. They send out the YSA's (young single adults- which are young men preparing to go on a mission) to practice being missionaries. So we are getting some young man today who will be with us for a week. Yeah! we can speak Chinese all day! I love it.

Elder Chatman