November 22, 2010 Cigarette Experiment

Ok hello family. So today was move day. But our entire district is the same haha so woooohoooo I'm am still with elder Lai! He is so Asian it’s awesome. Apparently President Bishop was in one area when he was on his mission and so he doesn't like to do lots of moving around. Which I like. Oh but a lot of my friends from the MTC are senior companions now and my MTC companion is a district leader already. wow. He is so legit. He has already read the Book of Mormon in Chinese and is reading the doctrine and covenants in Chinese. so sweet. I just barely started on characters and right now I have about 200 down. But it’s cool because Elder Lai is trying to learn English and so we quiz each other on the same words. We learn it better that way.

An experience.... hmmm sometimes I feel like contacting a certain person for no specific reason. Sometimes they turn me down and I'm sometimes really confused about why the spirit told me to contact that person. Maybe it’s for a reason unknown. Or just to see if I would follow a prompting. Another time, when we were at monkey mountain, I ran ahead of the group and I thought my companion was right behind me. I stopped at one point and my companion wasn't there and neither was anybody else. A thought popped into my head to turn around. So I went back and it turns out I had taken a wrong turn at one of the many forks on the trails of monkey mountain.

This week I did a little experiment. Anytime anyone was smoking I would ask them to put out their cigarette and ask them to give me their pack and their lighter. I thought it was interesting how the younger they were the more willing they were to give it up. But as you get to the older generation, they freak out at you when you ask them to give you their smokes. One young kid (about 15) actually thanked me and said he would try and quit. so in the last week my toilet has swallowed lots of tar and tobacco. haha sweet.

Thanks for Josh's address. I'm not allowed to go on dearelder.com... Oh well.
This move call is going to be exciting! Thanksgiving and Christmas! all in the same move call! Oh yeah. Our American bishop is having us over for thanksgiving to eat turkey! yay.
Sorry there aren’t a lot of pictures today. We didn’t do anything fun.
Love Elder Graham

Nov 15,2010 Zone Conference

Hello family!
In answer to your e-mail... It is getting a little cooler here and it rains once in a while. Good job Sisi for making the basketball team and for getting first in your race. Way to go Kami for doing all those things in the play.
That's cool that you got to pick up Josh and take him to the MTC. What is his mtc address?
Sounds like stake conference was good. Yes I would still like some information about other religions. I think I would be able to print stuff off if it was in an attachment. I don't think that book you suggested would be approved for reading but it sounds super interesting.
My Chinese has improved since being with Elder Lai. Exchanges like last week don't happen very often. The thing that made it really different is that zhou zhang lao makes me laugh just because of how awkward and special he is. He is like my personal Sid the sloth.
Sorry I don't have many new pictures. We didn't do anything before email today.
This week we had zone conference and it was really good. We all learned a lot. So at all of the Zone conferences all of the missionaries going home get to give a 5 minute talk in front of half of the mission. It is interesting to me to hear what they have to say about their missions and all that they have accomplished. It makes me think about the future and goals and things like that.
My scripture of the week is Mosiah 2:41 I share this scripture
all the time with investigators.

Look - yummy cockroaches on a stick!

See ya in two years,
桂长老
桂俊杰
Elder Graham

November 8, 2010 - Baptism & exchanges w/ Zhou Zhang Lao

Dear family,

hello hello hello. That's cool you got to go with the Hoers to eat food!
And YES Mr. wei got baptized and confirmed and he might baptize his girlfriend in a few weeks. YAY!

You asked about what you could send me for Christmas. Hhhmmmmm stuff to send me...... They don't have very good deodorant here and even if you can find an American brand, its about seven USD, so i think a little expensive. And maybe some axe spray stuff or some smelly stuff or something. All we do is sweat all day. And maybe that super small book of mormon you can get at that place that you can get garments. That has an index and can be helpful. The copy I carry around doesn't have an index or anything. I don't think I really need anything else.

Mom, that's really cool that you are doing "Rhodelles going nuts!" When I get home, I'll make a website. hao ma? The last few nights I've accidentally fallen asleep early. ha!

No Kami, I didn't do any of those things. My companions camera is really cool. It does everything in HD and stuff. Anyway, he has this thing where he can take ten pictures in one second. So all I did was just jump up in the air at the pier and his camera got it all.

Mom and dad, you wanted details about Dan Jones night... hmm I just remember waiting and I think I was one of the last ones to go on the box and say stuff. Then the elder who is now my companion, led me around and we just talked to people about the Book of Mormon. Then I remember going back and we counted all of our numbers and President Hoer told us that according to the statistics, out of all of the people we talked to, about 5 of them would be baptized.

Sisi, about your friend, you might want to ask her about her religion to better understand what she is used to. That's what our mission president just told us today in an email. And just do your best to answer questions.


So this week I went on exchanges with one of the zone leaders and also went on exchanges with ...... MY FAVORITE........ ZHOU ZHANG LAOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I went crazy. He came over to my area and we went to visit the old guy and that was fun. Then after dinner we rode around trying to find an investigator's house, but I forgot where it was. So at 730 we started just going around a busy intersection and contacting everybody. We stayed there until it was time to go home at 9. I talked to 60 people in that time and exactly 50% of them gave me their name and number. That's 30 people. I ran out of contact cards. I've never done that much in one day let alone an hour and half. So that was fun. And then I just started handing our pamphlets to everybody. And if they were smoking I would take the cigarette from their hand or mouth and throw it on the ground. Then tell them it was bad for them and point to the picture of a smokers lung that I have taped to my box on my bike. So yup.

Oh yeah. Today as a zone we all went to monkey mountain. Again. So yes I have more monkey pictures. When we where hiking a monkey stole my drink and also my sucker.

--
See ya in two years,
桂长老
桂俊杰
Elder Graham

November 1, 2010 "I have felt your power and wish to join your church."

Dear family and anybody else who wants to read,

Thank you family for the package! Yay. Candy! Nobody here really does Halloween except for the American schools. I ate the bread this morning for breakfast. Anyway..

This week... My companion's bike broke four times. Oops. This letter might be short because we have to fix my companion's bike and we set up a time to visit Mr old guy. We went to his house yesterday, but he was asleep already. He is so funny. Old people fall asleep way early....

I also painted my bike so it looks legit. And while we had the tape out, I decided it would be funny to put it on my leg and rip half of the hairs off my white skin. It wasn't that funny though. It really hurt. But that part of my leg is really smooth now and my companion could not stop laughing about it. He has the piece of tape with all the hairs on it, pinned up onto his cork board. Asians are weird.

So yesterday after church we got a call from the assistants saying they had an investigator set up for us. He was amazing. He had been to church four times already and was a former investigator. He didn't pass the interview that he had a few months ago and he had some things he needed to work on. He has now taken care of all of those things and wants to be baptized. He had an interview with the zone leaders and his baptism is set up for this Friday. Oh, how lucky we are! In his prayer he said "Heavenly Father, I am here because I have felt your power and wish to join your church." So amazing. He and his girlfriend are going to get baptized together and are planning on going to the temple in a year. Cute. Anyway... sweeeett!

Right now I am copying over all my pictures to a flash drive so I can send it to you guys.

See ya in 1 1/2 years,
桂长老
桂俊杰
Elder Graham