Feb 4, 2013

Zao an! [Good morning]

 

Wow I can't believe it has been a week already. What a crazy and fun week it has been. I am loving it here in Xin zhu.  Those people are so ready to hear the gospel from what all my friends tell me who come back from that area.

 

So life here in Xin zhu keeps on going. It seems that the day is over to fast. I want it to last longer. This week we have done a lot with our eternal investigators and it feels that we our turning a leaf over with them. Either they are progressing or we will be dropping them for a time.

 

Ding Jie mei- she is actually from Vietnam but has lived here for 4 years and knows a fair amount of Chinese. We give her the lessons in Chinese but have given her a lot of pamphlets and BOM in Vietnamese. Her baptismal date passed in January. She told us she does not have enough faith to be baptized. I told her that we could bear our testimonies but until she acts on our commitments and exercises her faith it will never grow. Bold right? I could not believe that came out of my mouth let alone in Chinese. At the MTC all our teachers told us to be bold I really took that to heart.

Lai jie mei is our golden investigator. She is one who is so ready to hear and accept the gospel. She is married and has two kids but her marriage is not great. She is keeping all the commitments we ask her to. She has come to church these last 2 Sundays and is loving church. Yesterday in Sunday school we talked about revelation and she said wow this is cool. We will definitely cover it more this week in our lesson with her.

Wu jie mei is our real eternal investigator. Her baptismal date is 2014. Yes the year I get home. Really? She has not come to church in months and feels that she does not need to learn anymore. SO it has been really hard to know what to teach her because she is always like I know all of this. Saturday we meet with her and challenged her to come to church. She told us her kids would not behave in church so she could not go. We left that lesson a little disappointed and dis heartened. To our surprise I am sitting in Sacrament meeting and who do I see walk by going to the other ward. Her and her 3 kids. They only stayed for 2 hours however and missed sacrament meeting. At least they came. That is a huge step for her. I feel really good and pray she will get baptized while I am here.

 

Guo Nian is coming!! (Chinese new year). It is crazy! We have a qin ke ( dinner/ or lunch invite) for every day whole guo nian. Sadly we have to reject some. Our elders are like nin ku ni (hard working you). The members are so great here. They were like if you don't have any meal come over to my house any meal I will feed you.

 

I am known as the adventurous sister here! I will try anything. Last Thursday we went to a hot pot place with our new bishop. It was his family us and the elders. The elders kept on giving me food to try. I had shark skin. It was interesting. Not great but not terrible. I then ate this flower which was delicious. I need to get the name of it from Elder Montalto. Elder Zhang tried to get me to eat pig blood that was a no. He even sneaked it into my hot pot. I was like what is this. He got a good laugh. I have had dong gua cha with zheng zhu. That is my all time favorite drink here. So good on a hot day.

My district is awesome! There are 3 companionships and each has a Chinese person.

My district leader is Elder Montalto. He is from Vegas. He is super great and funny. We work with him a lot and he always makes us laugh. (Dad which HS did you go to in Vegas?) He is leaving in 2 more transfers. He is a dive but we love him.  He keeps us on our toes.

Elder Zhang! Oh my gosh funniest kid ever. He is full Chinese. his mom is Taiwanese and his dad is Hong Kongese. He lived in Hong Kong for three years. He is like the energizer bunny! He is fluent in Chinese. He loves to laugh and always makes us laugh. There is never a dull moment with him around.

Elder Chen is from Taichung. He is blunt honest. Such a Taiwan person that way. He is ABC we joke because he will only write pinyin and not characters. He is like it is too much work. He is more than half way through his mission.  He is super helpful.

Elder Kattlemen from Utah. Been here 4 months. Nice

Surprisingly we do a lot with our district. We do district contacting every week and English boarding!

Oh my gosh English class! It is my favorite day of the week! I got the little kids class!!! I love it! I just sing songs with them. Then share a little spiritual thought at the end! I am loving it!

Love you all!

The gospel is true! The Lord loves you all!

Love

Sister Latimer