January 5, 2015

Happy new years! 2015 is here and thats super crazy. its weird that i
> graduated in 2013 and its been almost 2 full years since i
> graduated... crazy.
>
> This week was pretty great, we had to shovel a few times out in the
> freezing cold but if you cover up -40 isnt too bad. but if you dont
> cover up your skin can freeze in 5 minutes! Canadians honestly could
> care less that its getting cold. most of them are used to it and just
> carry on their days as usual just with more clothes on.
>
> We met with a few less actives this week, retention is really hard
> right now for the chinese people that we are teaching because there is
> no chinese ward. We are working on getting a Mandarin gospel
> Principles class started so that we can atleast have an hour of church
> devoted to helpilng them get to know the gospel and how important
> church is in a language that they can understand everything youre
> saying. Most of our investigators only understand about half of what
> is going on in sacramanet meeting so that is hard but the young adults
> are really good at being nice and fellowshipping. probably because
> most of them have been missionaries and understand how importnat that
> part of the conversion process really is. This sunday we made a huge
> mistake but im kinda just laughing it off now.. the past two weeks
> church has been at 10 because there were only a few wards meeting
> since most people went home for new years and Christmas. So when we
> invited people to church we told all of them that church started at
> 10... it would have been fine if we could have just gone to the 9
> oclcock sacrament or even an 11 oclock but the 9 oclock was just about
> over and there was no 11 so we had to tell everyone to go back and
> then to try to come back at 1. only like half of them actually did
> though.. were working on strengthening our Mandarin members so that
> theyre at all of the church activites and meetings so that our
> Investigators will have more friends and feel more accepted.
>
> On new years we had to be in 6 just to be safe in case someone was
> drinking and driving. we had a little party and had some snacks but we
> have like 0 food in our appartment right now.. were going to costco
> today to stock up! Anyway New years wasnt all that special but it does
> make for an easy contacting subject to break the ice with. This week
> we road the LRT (subway system) around for a bit and thats a quick way
> to just talk to people and ask them how there new years is going. we
> met quite a few chinese people and some people from all over the
> world. When youre on the LRT you also come in contact with some people
> that arent quite as friendly.. this week there was a guy who was on
> something and was rolling around on the seats and jumping around
> mumbling something about us having on "Tabernacle of Jesus Christ"
> T-shirts on... it was pretty weird.
>
> Our investigators are doing pretty good most all of them are
> progressing its just difficult for most chinese people to commit to
> something like this.. especially since it definitely seems like a
> "white person" church when we bring them to activities and or
> sacrament. Chris (Li ming yang) is probably our most solid
> investigator right now and i think that he really will be baptized. he
> believes in Christ keeps our commitments. He even brought two of his
> friends to one of our ping pong activites! Another investigator is
> Echo, she knows that this gospel is true but she cannot commit to it
> because Buddhism really helped her. She knows that baptism would help
> her and she wants to follow Jesus Christ. She even said that if she is
> baptized that she would stay strong and be faithful. the problem is
> that she doesnt although she wants to commit one way or the other she
> has a hard time giving up what she loves. we asked her this week to
> live the gospel to the best of her ability and I know that she will
> feel the spirit and hopefully she will be able to commit once she
> knows that living the gospel helps her feel better than her life right
> now. Its difficult but it is also a testimony to me that the only
> thing that truly converts someone unto Christ is the Spirit. If she
> does see a difference in her life i know that she will get baptized
> and that she will be a great member!
>
> I think thats it! hope everyone had a great new years!!
>
> -Love Elder Ostler