April 27, 2011 - Temple and stressful week

So the reason that you didn't hear from me on P-day is because this week we went to the temple today. And that means that we sacrifice our preparation day to go to the temple. It was really good.

Sooo this week was really stressful because I am the District Leader and some not so good stuff happened:

First, Elder Luck, the brand new trainee in my district had to go to the hospital for surgery because he had appendicitis. So he had to have surgery and that was last Thursday. He got out today while we were at the temple. Sooo yeah my little "grand kid" was in the hospital and we had to bring them all the stuff that they needed and the hospital didn't provide so many things. Like toilet paper and other things like that.
Then two of the sister's investigators who were supposed to be baptized last Saturday, dropped out because their husbands are jerks and won't let them get baptized.
THEN the assistants came and the plan was to go on exchanges with them. One assistant with us and one with the other elders. But as mentioned above, the other elders are in the hospital. So what ended up happening is that one assistant went with me and one with my companion. Which means that we had to make two plans and make sure that we didn't visit the same people or do anything the same. PLUS I had to prepare an hour and a half District Training meeting. So yeah. that's kinda it.

I did get the package, thank you. I wasn't able to eat any of the candy yet because I got it last night and we had to get up early (4:30) to get to the temple. I can get my own flash drive.

The picture is at the Taibei temple visitor center/ chapel.

The people here seem to think that all Christian churches are the same and if someone is already Christian, then they don't listen to you just as much as anybody else.

Sorry I'm not writing too much, I have a massive headache because I haven't eaten since last nights dinner and its dinner time right now. so Its been 24 hours. Should have done a fasting prayer... So yeah I can't think of anything more that really happened this week besides the normal.

Oh except there is this white guy in our ward who is our ward mission leader. He is like 55 and he lives in the English school that he teaches at. He has been here for seven years and doesn't speak any Chinese. So when his home teacher went over to his house, we had to go and kinda translate because his home teacher thinks that he knows English but he doesn't really. Anyway. It was really awkward because he was trying to set up the guy with a girl and he kept on telling him that he needs a girlfriend and that he should have been married a long time ago and things like that.

OK sorry that's it for today. Today is short because we need to go start English class.

See ya in a year,
桂長老
桂俊杰
Elder Graham

April 17, 2011 - Zone Conf and monkeys

Hello family,

How is everybody? Poor Kami is sick.

This week was pretty good. The sisters in my district are flying. Last Saturday they had two baptisms and two (more) baptismal interviews! So this Saturday they will have a 3 more people entering into the covenant of baptism. So Good.

Sorry I know that my pictures are huge but I want them that way so that when I get home I can make a sweet slide show. Sorry that is bu fangbian.

Yes sisi about boys. It changes in our minds. You can ask Sarah about when she found out...

This last week we had zone conference and it was really good. I got to see my MTC companion for the first time since Christmas. And after the main part of Zone Conference, there was a leadership training meeting and we talked for about an hour about how best to run DTM and things like number formats and such.

So today before we emailed, as a zone we went to see a ton of monkeys. It was sweet. There were a lot. And some of them were really mean. But that might be because we weren't supposed to feed them....

Right now we are teaching a thirteen year old kid whose mom is already a member. He has some problems and doesn't believe in God because his dad died a few years ago from cancer. We have only been able to meet with him once so far but zhang di di might be a really good young man after we get done teaching him. Right now he is making all the wrong choices and will probably end up being a taike if he doesn't change.

This week I did 3 baptismal interviews. One lady asked me "why do people hate Mormon's so much?". She had seen an American movie where the two main characters got lost and found themselves in a nasty, dirty, dark place. One of the characters asked the other "who would ever live in a place like this, it's so scary." and the other person replied "maybe the Mormons." Anyway. I didn't know how to answer her question. What I ended up telling her is that most people don't understand and that they just don't know. And then I gave her examples about how in the past, the true church of God has always been persecuted. Jesus Christ for one. And I just happened to have a picture of Moses and I asked her "why did moses have to part the red sea?". She didn't know. She only knew that he did it. Then I explained that he had to do that to run away from people who were trying to kill the people of God. I also gave a few more examples. But I don't think I really answered the question of "why?". What should I have said?

Ummm I don't really know about calling on Mother's Day. All I know is that it is on the last week of the move call.
Oh yeah. I had to buy another journal because I ran out of room on mine. I wrote it all up!

See ya in a year,
桂長老
桂俊杰
Elder Graham

April 10, 2011 - "Tomb Sweeping Day" & Jiang Pei Huan Baptism

Dear Family!

Hello. This is Elder Graham. Nice to hear that you guys had fun in Vegas. And its cool that Sisi got her patriarchal blessing.

My District is flying right now. Since I've been here we have had 4 baptisms and two more coming this week for the girls that I did baptismal interviews for. And many more to come. Conference was awesome. (duh) but we only got to watch Sundays sessions because they never burned the Saturday session for us. Anyway. we will probably get to watch those next preparation day. This is my third Conference as a missionary! Every night is really busy for me because I am on the phone talking to my district and then reporting about my district to the zone leaders. All night until 1030 when its lights off and time for bed. But that's OK.


So last week on Tuesday was 4 yue(month) 4 hao(day). and when you say the number four in Chinese it sounds like you are saying "death" but with a different tone. So here that is a holiday called "tomb sweeping day" And every year the missionaries go and help out with the tomb sweeping. (pictures will come in the next email i send today). It was interesting. All the yellow paper that you see is fake money for the ancestors to use in the afterlife. They normally burn the money after they "bai bai" an ancestor. One thing that is super weird is that after seven years of being buried the oldest grandson of that person has to go to the grave and dig up the bones (sometimes they just bury the bones in a pot, not the whole body in a coffin). Then after the oldest grandson digs up the body, he destroys the tombstone and all the "gods" that were built around the grave to protect it. Its really weird.

Then not much happened until Saturday when we had the two baptisms, and three sessions of conference! we didn't have time to do any proselyting. But we managed to get two lessons in that day. Anyway. At the baptism, I was the one who conducted it. In Chinese. sweet. So it went pretty well. The sisters here really helped us out by helping the little nine year old girl in the bathroom. Her name is Jiang Pei Huan and she was really scared to bear her testimony. But while she was changing into her normal clothes, the sisters practiced with her and she did great. They also took my camera and took a few pictures of jiang pei huan as she came into the bathroom all wet from baptismal font water. It was really good. Then right after they left I had to do a Phase 1 evaluation. And that just means I make sure that the younger missionaries have good Chinese. Then RIGHT after that conference started. It was really good. I got a lot of revelation for my self, for my district, and for my investigators.

One thing that I learned this morning in personal study is how important the book of mormon is to missionary work. If you would turn with me to Alma 37:9, you will find out how I found out.

We are teaching this kinda crazy guy named li3. His job is fixing and painting and just all around maintaining Daoist gods. But the reason he is meeting with us is... well he has 2.
1. There are way too many Daoist gods and he is sick of trying to memorize them all.
2. If they really were real gods then they wouldn't break down and need repainting and stuff like that and his job would be really easy.
haha isn't that funny?

I forgot to tell you that my last day in Gaoxiong I drank this soup that is made by crushing turtle shells to dust and then adding hot water. Its really good for your bones apparently.
Also we have a ton of lizards that are in our house. Its so annoying. All they do is poo everywhere.

Love elder graham.

--
See ya in a year,
桂長老
桂俊杰
Elder Graham

April 3, 2011 - New area - Yuan Lin

OK this week was pretty good. I got the "hump day" package! And It's a good thing I did too because for us, yesterday was fast Sunday and we forgot to buy food for dinner. So I had candy! Which was yummy but the problem is that right after dinner we went to 北斗. Which is over 5 miles away. And we obviously took our bikes. Which means that if we go as fast as we can and don't stop to talk to people and if we "get around" the red lights, it takes about 45 minutes to get there. We then taught a quick 15 minute lesson and had to bike 45 minutes back as fast as we could because the Sisters had two baptismal interviews that I had to do. So yes last night I biked 10 miles really fast and did my first baptismal interviews as a district leader (they passed). The sisters are really good and very focused on their purpose. They had 16 investigators at church yesterday. So I am very grateful to be in this position to learn from the best. I also get to check up on the new trainees' Chinese in a few days.



I'm super sorry that I don't have Monday madness still. I haven't unpacked yet! I don't have any time at all anymore! I haven't even unpacked my sheets yet or anything! So yeah I'm sorry.

I'm also sorry I don't have any really good pictures or anything with me in them. This letter might be short. I had a lot to talk to president bishop about because I am in charge of a district now. Hopefully next week will be better.

Can you guys do something for me? Every few weeks we get emails that have word documents attached to them but the computers here at this specific place that we email doesn't have even a basic word processor. Sooooo can you guys go to portableapps.com and download openofficeportable for me? and then email it to me so I can just save that to my memory stick and run it off of that and open those documents instead of having to got to a print shop and pay to print off one little thing? thanks. Also have you guys seen those "universal remote"'s that only turn off TV's? that would be useful. Not like the expensive kind that works with all of your gadgets. The kind that I want works with almost any TV but all it can do is turn a TV off. That is its sole purpose. On the internet they should be about $5. Not very much.

My companion is Elder Gillespie. He is really good and he is from.... Well I don't know where. And neither does he. His dad is in the air force so he's lived everywhere. Right now his parents live in Germany. We get to watch conference next week on Saturday and on Sunday. I can't wait! Last time was soooo good! I can't believe its already here again. That was fast. Anyway. Elder Graham has to go now and prepare some stuff for District Training Meeting that is tomorrow. And tomorrow we are doing a giant service project. Sweeping tombs!!

See ya in a year,
桂長老
桂俊杰
Love Elder Graham