January 26, 2015

> We actually didnt have too many weird things happen last week.
>
> We met with our Investigator Chris this week after English class and
> he seems to be moving a long really well, he will most likely be
> baptized sometime in February and we also picked up a few new
> investigators over the last week that are progressing pretty well.
> Chris's main concern is that he is part of a Daoism group that helps
> him to get better jobs and/or promotions  back in China and if they
> found out that he was baptized then they would take his name off of
> the list. It doesnt sound like that big of a deal to me but to him it
> is a big problem. We talked about how all of that is personal
> information and people can't just access it. He said that if he can put
> his English name then he will Gladly be baptized but the more we
> talked with other people it seemed like that isnt ok to do. We are
> going to talk to President Manion to see what would be the best thing
> to do.
>
> Also we met a guy names Aaron, he just showed up to English class with
> our friend Lionel. His English is already pretty amazing but he likes
> coming and seeing us. He has come to church the last two weeks and we
> are meeting with him this week. At church the speakers were talking
> about family history and temple work and he was kind of confused so i
> explained that we do temple work for the dead. I was worried at first
> because even though i tried to explain it to him with some tact it is
> still a pretty weird thing to hear for your first time. But as I
> explained it he kept saying how much sense that makes. He really asks
> the perfect questions that were leading to things we teach in our
> lessons so we set up a date to meet. I really think that he will move
> along really quickly. He is a great guy.
>
> A lady also brought a girl named Jessica to church with here to meet
> us. Her English is also really awesome but everyone needs to hear the
> gospel in their own native tongue. She isnt in our area though so we
> passed her off to the Elders in River bend area. They dont have very
> many investigators so its great when we can pass of a few
> investigators to them every once in a while.
>
> We did a booth called 21 tips for better grades at the University of
> Alberta and that went really well. We went on splits with the zone
> leaders so that we could have a chinese speaker at the booth the whole
> time. Elder Bird went with Elder Monks and I was with Elder Sears.
> Side note: we have like the best zone leaders in the mission, they're
> super great guys. Anyway Elder Sears and I did our studies and a few
> things together. It was nice to take a look at how other missionaries
> do their day to day tasks because i only have my experience with Elder
> Bird. We then went and got some lunch. We tried this thing called a
> "tombstone" Its a huge donair (kind of like a gyro) with poutine
> (french fries with gravy and cheese curd) in it! it was sooo good. But
> definitely not very good for you. Elder Sears and i split it since its
> so huge. I think ill try to eat a whole one some day :). So then went
> to go to take our turn at the booth. It was going great and we were
> talking to a ton of people. I just tried to say hello or hows your day
> going to everyone that walked passed. If someone stopped then we would
> tell them about our 21 tips for better grades and also our English
> class if they or some of their friends were interested. We got a whole
> bunch of English class sign ups but then this lady from the U of A
> came down and started getting really mad at us because we were
> "Soliciting" we had read the rules but she went back through and
> highlighted the No Soliciting section... it was pretty ridiculous. She
> told us that we had to sit behind the booth and we could even say hi
> to people..... If i wasnt a missionary i really would have just given
> it to her straight and probably went and talked to her supervisor. but
> we just listened to her and tried to gather as much information as we
> could and then said that we were sorry and wouldnt do it again. So we
> sat down and it was a complete waste of time after that. No one wants
> to just walk up and talk to us, especially chinese people! So
> hopefully we can get that figured out before next time since that
> booth is usually one of our greatest finding tools.
>
> In Canada they have speeding traps that just take pictures of your
> license plate if they catch you speeding. They are literally
> everywhere in Edmonton.  It makes it even harder since all of the
> speeds are way slower than what they would be in the states. The main
> road we live on is only 50 k an hour which is about 30 miles per hour.
> Elder bird got flashed the other day for going 60 in a 50. He cant
> drive for a little bit so im going to be driving the whole time now.
> Its ok because i need to get to know the area better so that i can
> actually get some places without a GPS.
>
> Today Elder Bird got called as the new District Leader so thats gonna
> be pretty fun. Our district consists of one companionship of Spanish,
> Tagalog, and Mandarin Elders. Its pretty sweet being an all language
> district. Elder Silva ( a friend from little league football, he lived
> in Clearfield) is joining our district and he is going from an English
> missionary to Spanish so thats pretty sweet, I heard that his spanish
> is already pretty good though.
>
> Last thing, I started reading one random verse right before i got to
> sleep and right after i wake up. sometimes its a random dumb one that
> doesnt make any sense out of context, but sometimes i get a sweet one
> that is really applicable to me. Either way it helps me to start and
> end my day off really well. I like it a lot!
>
> Heres a normal day with Elder bird :)
>
> Elder Garver and I like a week ago
>
> and i also got a haircut the other day!