Feb 13, 2011 - Outback Steak House & Baptism

Dear family/friends and anybody else,

The guy in the baptism picture is not my investigator but I took pictures for Elder Petters and that picture is funny.

Anyway, how is my family?
This week was pretty OK. Today is move day but nobody in my entire district moved so its kinda boring for us. But I'm kinda glad because we found an OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE in our area and on Mondays (preparation day) it is really cheap for a burger and unlimited soda and unlimited bread. Like less than 6 US dollars. And so we can go there every Monday for lunch and be full for the rest of the day. Anyway. It is kinda weird being with the same companion for over three months.

This week some stuff happened. Yesterday I passed off "phase 1" which is a requirement for going senior. But all it is, is being able to teach all the lessons using everything you would use in a real lesson. Plus a lot of vocab and "teaching phrases" that have to be recited. It was really long. But now its done and I can start learning Chinese any way I want to. I think I'm going to keep learning vocab and keep working on my speech rather than focusing on characters. Anyway during my "pass off" this guy came in and wanted to pay off his sins. He looked like someone who didn't have a lot of money. In fact he looked homeless. But he came in with 20,000 yuan. That's over $600 USD. Six hundred dollars!!! He kept on saying that his friend told him that if you donate money to our church all your sins are forgiven. Apparently he never read Mormon 8:32-33. Yeah, we don't do the whole money for sins thing.

Friday was the baptism of a girl who just turned 12. My companion and I started teaching her and her father but then his father said he wasn't interested. And it would probably be a little weird for the girl if we kept on teaching her. So we handed her over to the sisters in our ward. That little girl is so good! She was baptized as soon as possible and she already went to do baptisms for the dead. Anyway that's who the girl is in the picture that I sent. That picture is really cool I thought because I took the picture towards the baptismal font mirror. anyway.

As always it is time for Monday Miracle Madness!.............................
Monday: I went out to eat with Ben from Feng Jia. He told me that my recent convert, Chen Yu Jie still goes to church sometimes and is fairly active.
Tuesday: We added 31 new investigators.
Wednesday: I taught English class and enjoyed it.
Thursday: Shen Di Xiong came back and was happy and wants to feed us on Saturday.
Friday: The sisters baptized 林 yi chen. A little girl who just turned 12. She was baptized, confirmed, and passed a temple recommend interview all in one day. She is doing baptisms for the dead tomorrow in Taipei.
Saturday: We have 2 awesome people who are just begging for baptism. Sun and 陳弟兄 (Brother Chen). Sun has been wanting to get baptized for a while and has absolutely not problem with any of the commandments. 陳 (Chen) received an answer to his prayer. He wants to be baptized as soon as possible. Which is two weeks. I also bought a light up crystal thing of a very "catholic" Jesus.
Sunday: we had five investigators at church. Both of our recent converts came to church. And 陳弟兄 (Brother Chen) got a calling doing Family history work stuff. Sweet.
That's it for miracle madness.

Watch out for May 21st, I guess!!!
Ohhhhh I want to see Brinn. She is so cute. Sisi that is a weird dream. You should probably stop having weird dreams like that 吧 (!). Tommy is a member friend who I first met in Taizhong but he lives here in Gaoxiong. He has perfect English because his dad owns a bunch of English learning centers and he used to go to school at SNOW.
Yeah most everyone is back from their traveling for Chinese new year. Except for our investigators... Anyway.
NO I DID NOT GET THE FORWARD ABOUT GEOFFERY"S MISSION CALL!!!!! AAAHHHHHHHH!
Pops, Preach My Gospel is legit. Anyone can use is as a way to study the gospel. Its really cool. We learned about it at the last zone conference. In the lessons that we teach it mentions the different parts of Jesus Christ's gospel like a million times. For Chinese new year we had lots of appointments and we had to eat lots of stuff that we still don't really know what it was... I would like that talk. Thank you pops.
Well Elder Graham has to write the president now. Later..
Love,
Elder Graham