February 2014 Excerpts

2/03

I like this new area. A member gave me an accordion. A freaking accordion. I can't even. I'm so excited. Now to learn it.

2/10

So yesterday I was asked to sing in sacrament. I sang where can I turn for peace. It turned out well and I'm happy about it. On Saturday we did something really amazing and fun. We got to be in a Chinese New Year’s parade. We danced and played the drums and were in lion costumes. So much fun. I’ve attached some pics from the parade. That's me in the mask.

As for the things we do here, I've never had this many progressing investigators. We aren't doing that many less active visits, and it kinda makes me sad. But whatever, we're picking up on those so that should get better. 

2/17

Well it's been a pretty good week. We had a baptism this last Sunday of a really cool kid. Amazing. He's so smart and humble! It's crazy. I got asked to sing last minute at the baptism haha. Good thing primary songs are easy. Also got asked to sing a song at a zone meeting. No big deal but it was funny because they wanted Time to say Goodbye... Haha it was interesting. My comp played the ukulele and I sang. It wasn't too good cuz of ya know, not having music haha but it was fun.

This week I go to the temple for my year and a half mark. I also have that concert on Sunday. I'm
singing Where Can I Turn for Peace? I'm excited.

Went to a Vietnamese place and had ShabuShabu. I don't know if you know what that is but it's pretty good. An investigator took us there and it was interesting haha. So they give you a pot of broth and in the table there are stove tops for each person. The broth boils and then you add veggies and other things and then meat and it boils it... Or so we think. The problem is that we didn't know how to do it. They took the menu that explained it before I could read it all haha. The investigator, who goes there once a week, didn't know how to do it either--so we trail-blazed our way through it haha. Everything tasted good and it was fun, but still hilarious. At the end I watched how others did it and figured out that we more or less did it right.

2/24/14 

It's weird to think that if I was a girl, I'd be coming home next week. It weird to think I only have six months left. It weird to think about school, granted I've been thinking about it since the beginning, but still. It's weird to be one of the oldest missionaries here. I still feel young. I feel like all these people are older than me, but they aren't. 5/6ths of the missionaries are younger than me. That means only a sixth of us were here for Sandy. No one knows the legends I knew. Now we are the legends. Well, not me, but others haha. It's also weird because I know very few people anymore. If they came in after Waidmann then I probably don't know them. Weird.

The concert went well. There was a whole lot of frustration getting us to there because of miscommunication and lack of thinking, but we got there and sang. It was good. Not as good as I feel I could've done, so you know that bothers me, but it's ok; it was fine. The rest of it was good. Not too many people showed up, but it was fun and the spirit was strong and calming. Overall it was great, I'm just frustrated with my part haha.

Another frustrating incident happened this week. A kid we’ve been teaching was sent here to his dad by his mom, who lives in another state, to focus on school this year, and he's been coming to church with his dad. Eventually he told us he wanted to be baptized. What we didn't know is that supposedly the mom didn't know and so she came up and took him back, right in the middle of the school year. That's the last they know of what's happened. She won't answer the dad or respond to anything. No one knows if they made it back or not. They are blocking the dad from knowing anything. So we didn't get to say goodbye or anything, but it's frustrating to us that we couldn't say goodbye and that he couldn't do what he wanted and that she took him in the middle of the school year. I mean what the heck? Some people do not realize how important school is! They just take their kids out on whims and don't care if it messes things up. I knew a girl in [another place] who was living with her aunt and because the girl disobeyed on one thing, she sent
her to [another country] in the middle of the year. So when she came back (after aunt realized that the girl didn't actually do what the aunt thought she had) the girl couldn't go to the next grade with everyone else, but had to go and repeat the entire grade again. My point is, this isn't the first time I've seen something like this and it pisses me off. I mean, it wasn't even the dad's idea for him to come here in the first place, so stop acting like that he had the mastermind plan. So we're trying to figure out what happened, but who knows.

I also got into a bash with a Muslim dude. I want to point out that I do not bash and I do not think bad of people with different beliefs, but if you come in and turn what could be a good informative discussion for both parties into refusing to listen to simply what I believe and instead telling me that I'm wrong, stupid, ignorant and blind, then I refuse to give you any respect and I will point out your nonsense. So I did. He didn't listen and misquoted the Quran, which I've read. He told me things and was just dumb. I kept calling him out and was like, if you want us to respect what you believe and accept the possibility of being wrong, you too have to do both those things. He didn't listen and it was dumb so eventually I said, "you refuse to listen to me and show me respect so I'm leaving," and walked away.

An amazing dude in English ward was baptized yesterday. He's been all our friend and we were so happy for him. He was practically a member to begin with. He always went and taught other people with the missionaries and helped with the ward and was just a part of everything. So it was a wonderful day for him and for everyone else.