A Month in the Field and... Oh Look, I've Been Transferred Again...

So this past week I hit my 3 month mark on my mission. I've only been in the field about 5ish weeks and I've already been transferred 3 times now. So that's fun. I guess I must just be a troubled missionary XD.

So this past week was super busy and insanely long, but it was still awesome!

Since we were going to be busy this week we planned on sacrificing our P-day and teaching 5 lessons on Monday. But we would show up to the lesson and they all texted us that they were cancelling so that was an effective P-day (not). But I met a kid named Will on the street and was able to get his number and set up a return appointment all in Chinese. It's nice to see that my Chinese has improved enough that I can do that! But Tuesday we went to call him his phone didn't work so we figured it was going to happen...

Tuesday Elder Hay had his Departure devotional. He was supposed to go home on Wednesday but he extended so he is still here for 4 more weeks, but still went to his Departure Devotional. Basically they just go to the temple and have a big dinner with President and Sister Burt and have a big testimony meeting and then they all go home the next day. So for Tuesday I was with a Spanish speaker Elder and I got the Car!! It was AMAZING to get to drive again. It's been 3 months since I've driven a car and I missed that a lot. We basically just went finding the whole day since my Chinese is only a little better than my Spanish so we weren't able to teach any lessons.

Wednesday was Transfers and so all of the other missionaries that were getting transferred had to be driven around by us, so not a lot happened that day. We did get to go eat lunch with a recent convert who is kind of struggling at a Chinese restaurant (because that's all we ever eat XD) so that was really nice. 

Also for all you movie nerds, Wednesday was the day that Marty McFly went into the future. No hover boards yet, but the Cubs are supposed to win the World Series so we'll see how that goes :D

So because Elder Claflin and I came into the mission a week after transfers (because the MTC schedule is funky) we went to the Transfer Meeting this Thursday with the brand new missionaries. It was nice to get to spend time with President and Sister Burt, and to see all of the new missionaries and "impart our wisdom to them".
Because of Transfers last week there are no Chinese missionaries over Vancouver YSA Ward any more; so President said this week Elder Hay and I will cover it and then this week he will transfer new missionaries there (and if you're smart you can probably guess who it was :/). So because of this we were able to teach a girl named Emrys (Prounced Em-Er-Us) who ended up getting baptised yesterday. It was a miracle for us because we were praying that we would get a baptism this month after all our hard work, and the transfers happened and we were able to teach Emrys one last time and baptise her! God really does answer prayers and it was a miracle that we got to baptise her. Then we also got to teach our most solid investigator Simon. He is so ready to be baptised on the 14th and we are so excited for that day. After our lesson we went and ate Hot Pot together. For people who don't know what that is, basically the Chinese people just take a ton of random meat, veggies and other junk and put it all in a big pot and cook it. It was actually pretty good. I had some parts of a pig you don't want to know about (for example the intestines) and it actually wasn't half bad. I kind of liked it. There's a picture below.

Friday we taught a new Investigator Max who also came to church. He is super solid and I really think he will get baptised. Grace (the girl I taught my first lesson too) got baptised on Friday so that was my first baptism which was really awesome. We didn't get to go because we had lessons planned but I heard it was a really good service, and her testimony was really strong.

Saturday my favourite recent convert and his Mom took us out for lunch at this crazy Chinese food place. The Chinese eat the weirdest things. Let's just say: "Women de duzi bu tai shufu he women you hen duo de la duzi" which basically means our stomachs were having issues that day and leave it at that! Anyway, my favourite recent convert is named Bill, and he is a 13 year old kid and has one of the strongest testimonies I have ever seen. He is amazing and super funny. His English is terrible and his Chinese has a really thick accent but I love him to death. Had some really good lessons with out investigators though.

Something that is really funny about the Chinese people is that when they come to Canada they all want an English name and sometimes they will just Google names, or sometimes they just make things up. So in a week I literally meet about 20 Kevin's, Vincent's, and John's. But we have meet some interesting ones like Santa, Ice-e, Reindeer, Rudolph (and yes Rudolph and Reindeer were friends, I kid you not) Dark, Banana and whole lot of others. Then you get people who just make up stuff like Emrys, Garmer (who is an amazing convert) and a girl we met the other day name Krilddy. Not even I could make this stuff up.

Sunday we had about 6 hours of church because we had to cover YSA too. It was good though. It was weird going to YSA because:

One: They are all about my age

Two: Only about a 1/3 of them are Chinese which leads us to

Three: I got to go to my first Sacrament meeting in 3 months that I actually understood!

To be honest, it was weird to go to church in English, it just isn't the same! Our Gospel Principles class is still in Chinese which is nice though.

Emyrs' baptism was awesome. I got to be one of the witnesses which was nice. She is a super solid girl.

Sunday we saw a miracle. I was praying we would see Will again (the kid from Monday) and we DID! He is meeting with us tonight. His phone doesn't work right now so that's why we couldn't call him, but God put him back in our path which was amazing!

So if you are playing along at home, yes we got transferred again! We are being moved into the Vancouver YSA ward permanently! So we are leaving Richmond and most of our solid investigators, (we have 6 baptism dates as of right now) but I have faith that this is where the Lord wants us to go. Plus Elder Hay is super stoked to get to go finding at UBC (University of British Colombia) and I am too because it is really cool there and all the people are our age so it's easy to talk to them. So hopefully I'll actually get to stay there for a whole transfer. We'll see how it goes! I'm so excited.

Well, I guess that's about it today. I don't have a ton of pictures, just because we are so busy all the time. Hopefully I'll be able to keep at least one picture every week, but we will see how long that lasts.

Love you all, hope you have a blessed week! Happy Halloween this Saturday! 

Wo ai nimen!

王長老

Elder Wallace

"And now behold, I say unto you my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?" This is a good thing to always be asking ourselves. Do we, right now, feel the Holy Ghost in our lives, and do we feel the joy of the gospel in this second. and if we don't, why?

 

The Hot Pot, full of meat, intestines, corn, random other vegetables and other assorted things I don't even know about. YUM!

Dead People and Lots of Food

So this week I got to dress a naked dead guy so that was fun

Tuesday was our P-day last week and it was super awesome. Elder Hay gave me a haircut which was fun! I got to skype a Chinese investigator living in Nanimo which was really cool. The really cool thing is that it was Sister Hemenway's investigator, somebody I knew from high school, so that was a fun connection. Then Tuesday night I went on exchanges with Elder Yue, who is Elder Claflin's Trainer.

Wednesday Elder Yue and I went to go dress that dead naked guy I mentioned. He was a member in our branch who died last week. He was a pretty old guy. I had never met him but his son, Ning DiXiong (Brother Ning), is probably the greatest member of the Church I have met in my entire life. He is a convert of about 6 years and has just taken a hold of the gospel and even though he only speaks Chinese so I don't understand a lot, when he teaches he has SO much power. He is an amazing man. Dressing his Dad was a little weird, and definitely not something I thought I would be doing as a missionary, but it was kind of a cool experience. Just very different. Dead people just feel like really cold, heavy clay, in case you were wondering.

While we were out finding on Wednesday night we were going to stop for dinner, but decided to just keep going and hope we would find time to eat. Then just before we had to leave we walked into a pizza place planning to just buy 2 slices for like 4 bucks. But (A blessing from God for staying out late to find people) The guy behind the counter said that he would sell us a whole extra large pizza for 8 bucks because nobody picked it up or something. Blessings for serving a mission are evident everyday.

I Especially love the ones for food. Those are nice.

Something I forgot to mention last week is that we were going back to the apartment on Monday night to go do my missionary training and we felt prompted to go finding again for 15 mins and the first person we met was Joanne. She is Golden. We have taught her twice already and she really wants to be baptized. Her story is that her Mom died and saw God who brought her back to life, and Joanne has had some very spiritual dreams where she has seen angels and she says she knows that God sent us to find her. Very awesome. Honestly I see miracles like this everyday, It's amazing how much God's hand is in our life if we just look for it.

Friday was Ning Bobo's Funeral (the guy I dressed on Wednesday) and it was a sweet service. I got to be a pallbearer which was also not something I expected to be doing on my mission. Ning DiXiong is amazing, because after the service, a lot of people were just standing around crying and he just shouts with the biggest smile on his face: "Why are you all crying? My Dad is in heaven and he is happy and resting. Stop crying, and go Eat!" The Luncheon was cool too, because it's all Chinese food. I eat so much Asian food it's ridiculous. I thought I was in Canada! XD The members here are awesome and they also gave us tons of food to take home.

We went to dinner with one of Elder Hay's recent converts who bought us some amazing sushi. Sushi is my favourite food so anyone who knows me knows I was stoked for it.

I kid you not, I have gained 14 pounds on my mission so far, and I've only been gone for 3 months! I'm gonna get fat!

Saturday we had to go take our car in for the month service (just changing oil and rotating tires) and it took 4 FLIPPING HOURS!!! It was the biggest waste of time, and we couldn't really find any Chinese people to talk to. But we did meet this really cool man from Nigeria who said he would come to church so that made it all worth it. My first transfer calls came. I'm still staying in Richmond with Elder Hay, but we used to have a Chinese Zone but that is gone now. I'm apart of the Vancouver Zone as of Wednesday.

Sunday we taught Gospel Principles and I think it went pretty well. Chinese is still hard, but I'm able teach a little more that I could a week ago, or a month ago, so that's all that matters. I got to see how God puts us in the right place at the right time even more Sunday night. I gave a pass-along card with a picture of Jesus to a lady and she just started bawling. She said 15 years ago she found the same kind of card on the ground and she took it home and cleaned it and then kept it. She was actually just coming from a funeral of someone she really cared about when I stopped her and she said it was evidence that God really does know who she is. It feels great to be that instrument in God's hand to bless others. Also, I met a kid and talked to him all in Chinese and was able to set up a return appointment for Wednesday. It was the best because I'm finally improving my language skills enough that I can be a useful missionary.

I love being here so much, and I love seeing just how much God cares and how he blesses me and the people around me everyday. Love you all, and I challenge you to really look around you this week and see how God has blessed you, because I promise you will find it!

Wo Ai Nimen,

王長老

Elder Wallace

"...He doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you..." (Mosiah 2:24) God will bless us as we do what he commands us, and like it says in the scriptures, he will IMMEDIATELY bless us as long as we follow what he says.

Sorry, not a ton of pictures this week.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

No, I'm not crazy. I'm Canadian.

So Canadian Thanksgiving was yesterday, which is why P-day is today. It was really fun. Especially spending Thanksgiving with Asians who don't really care or know how to make Turkey! It's so much fun here

Last Monday we went to Stanley Park which is a big Island right next to down town Vancouver. I have pictures down below. Monday night we were finding and saw a kid named Fei. Fei used to be an investigator but his Aunt made him stop meeting with the missionaries about a month ago. Then we saw him Monday night and he said he doesn't care what she says, he wants to get baptised. So that was sweet!

Tuesday was kind of a waste from a missionaries stand-point. The are some English Sister Missionaries in Langley who are teaching some Chinese investigators, and we were going to drive all the way out to the BC Temple (about 45 mins) to go teach them and see if they understand the English Sisters or need us to teach them. But they all cancelled so that was 2 hours of our day wasted. Then, since my companion is a Zone Leader, we had to take another companionship to the doctor and so it was just more time we could have spent talking to people. But we had an awesome lesson with an investigator named Simon who really wants to be baptised. He is an awesome kid.

Wednesday we had District Meeting and I felt like I could understand a lot.

This past week I've actually realized that I can understand about 80% of what the Chinese people are saying. I just still have a hard time talking back. But I can hear and understand a ton. We taught Fei Wednesday night and I asked him to be baptised at the end of this month and he said yes! The other missionaries asked him to quit smoking last month and he has been doing it which is super awesome! We ate dinner at this amazing place in Richmond. It's called the Richmond Public Market and it's just this huge ghetto parking garage and you go through these doors and in the middle is this GIGANTIC Chinese market. With tons of food stands and shops. It's super cool. No English anywhere, and ordering food in Chinese is the best!

Thursday while we were at the church doing weekly planning a Chinese family just walked into the church and said they want to learn more. My companion and I just looked at each other and said: "Yeah, we can help with that". It was a nice miracle and it was great that we were there because none of the people who work in the mission home speak Chinese. We are teaching the son and the Dad right now (Zhong Zhu and Ma Xian Sheng) and it seems to be going well. On Friday I asked Zhong Zhu to be baptised and he said yes. We taught a lesson with a girl named Vicky that we met on Wednesday. It went pretty well, but I'll talk more about her later. It doesn't have a happy ending. Also I forgot to mention that last Saturday I asked a new investigator name Yang to be baptised and he said he really wants to. We taught him again Thursday and when I was teaching him the Joseph Smith story he kept saying: "and then what happened? And then what?" He seems really solid.

Friday we taught a kid named Sammy his first lesson and he also said he would be baptised when I asked him. Then we went to this semi-active members house and watched the Joseph Smith video. Their kids are the most adorable things I have ever seen in my entire life. Asian little kids are 100x cuter than White kids, no question.

Saturday we taught Simon again. He is one hundred percent willing to give up coffee and tea and try and live the Word of Wisdom. He is probably my favourite investigator I am teaching right now. Saturday night we had Leo's baptism. He was taught by Elder Hay for like 3 months and then he passed him off to the other Elders when they opened their area so they had people to teach. We see Leo a lot and he is an awesome member. When he was baptised he just said "wow, I'm clean. This is the best" It was a good baptism service and Vicky and Fei both came. Fei said he really felt the Spirit and knows he needs to get baptised.

Sunday was hard. Vicky came to us with all of these false things she read on the internet about our church and was accusing us of all these things she "knows" is true, just because she read them on the internet. It was sad, especially because she wouldn't listen to us when we said those things were just downright lies but she said she is done meeting with us. It was sad to see her go because she really liked us and she really had potential. Simon and Fei came to church and both really loved it. Simon even was participating and making comments in the classes. Sunday night we went to a members house for Thanksgiving dinner. They had a ton of Chinese food, not really a normal Thanksgiving meal. They did have a Turkey, but it wasn't really that great. The other Chinese stuff was awesome though!

Monday was Thanksgiving. It was cold and pouring all day, and being from Arizona, it was the best Thanksgiving weather I could have asked for! There is a member who we call Chen Popo which means Grandma Chen in Chinese. She LOVES the missionaries, especially Elder Hay. She had her 85th Birthday yesterday and so she took Elder Hay and I and Simon out to lunch at a cool Chinese restaurant called Dim Sum. LOTS of strange Chinese food, and all of it was awesome! It was especially cool because she was able to help us teach Simon more. He is really progressing and it makes me so happy. We went to teach a couple who wanted to meet with us but they were really weird. They were trying to convince us that Christ has already come back and he is living in China, but not teaching or performing miracles, just moving around and serving. It was really weird. They said tons of other stuff that made no sense. It was basically a waste of time because they were not willing to listen to reason. Thursday night we went to a members house for another Thanksgiving dinner. She made Turkey, and it was actually pretty good, but it was definitely made by a Chinese person so it was not what Americans would think of when they think of Turkey. And we got to teach a good lesson with her non-member son. Monday night we taught Zhong Zhu and Ma Xian Shen again which was good.

All in all, it was a really awesome week. Our investigators are really solid and my Chinese is slowing improving. I'm loving my area and loving being a missionary so much. I've been really bad about including a spiritual thought, but now is better than never to start!

I really like what Elder Durrant said about "ponderizing" in General Conference so I'll include the scripture I'm "Ponderizing" this week:

"Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind; and the willing and the obedient shall eat the good of the land of Zion in these last days." D&C 64:34

It's important to remember that God requires us to be willing and to give our heart and mind to him or else he can't bless or guide us

Love you all, have an awesome week!

王長老

Elder Wallace

The view from Stanley Park:

Leo's Baptism:

Leo's Baptism Program

E.T. (Emergency Transfers)

So I got transferred this week so that was fun.

I'm ok, but my trainer Elder Lau has been having some issues so they transferred me to Richmond for the rest of the transfer and possibly the rest of my training (10 more weeks)

I got Transferred on Friday night so I am no longer in the Vancouver Area. It kind of stinks because I really liked that place, and our investigators were doing awesome.

Monday night me and Elder Lau meet with John. He was teaching John back in August but he disappeared for like a month. He called us out of the blue and said he wanted to meet again. Apparently his friends just decided to go to America for 3 weeks out of nowhere so he just got in and went with them and we couldn't get in contact with them. But he said since he stopped meeting with the missionaries he noticed a real difference in his life and realized that he wants to get baptized. So I invited him to get baptized on the 23rd and he said that he would! The only problem is that he still smokes and is trying to quit so we were working with him on that.

Tuesday was awful at first, but then became super awesome. Elder Lau and I went out finding in the morning and I just wasn't getting it. I didn't know what to do, and I still can't speak the language and it was just really hard for me. I had one of those days that every missionary has where they wonder if they really can do this for 2 years. Luckily a miracle happened. Every week we do 24 hour companionship exchanges and I exchanged with Elder Hay (who happens to be my new permanent companion, but more on that later) He is the Chinese Zone Leader and is the coolest. He is just an amazing missionary and he taught me so much in those 24 hours and help me realize though Christ I can do anything, even talk to Chinese people on the street. We taught John and Grace again Tuesday and it seems like they still both want to be baptized. Also Tuesday night, we went to a baptism that the Burnaby Chinese Sisters had. It was a sweet service.

Wednesday we went and helped Zhu Jie Mei (Sister Zhu, a lady in our ward) move. It took forever and we she had a lot of stuff, but it was still fun. Service is always fun, and it was super fun to just speak Chinese as you do it.

Thursday was pretty uneventful. We went and finished helping Zhu Jie Mei move, and taught another lesson to John.

Friday we had Zone Meeting. It was all in Chinese so it was kind of hard to understand, but I could get the basics. Elder Lau and I went down town to teach a lesson to a kid from Brazil we found last week, so we actually taught in English. It was really weird to teach in English, and I've heard that I'll maybe only do that like once or twice my whole mission. But he seems pretty solid. We referred him over to the English Elders to keep teaching him. When I was down town I saw a dude on stilts, wearing a kilt, beat-boxing, and playing the bagpipes at the same time. It was so weird, I love the big city! So then later that night we taught John again, and I felt like I was able to teach and contribute more which was a great feeling. Then the Zone Leaders showed up and said we are going on an exchange for now.

Apparently Elder Lau was having a hard time being a trainer and it sounds like he is struggling with some other things, so that's kind of sad. But I love Elder Hay and he is an amazing trainer so far. The sad thing is I've been transferred to Richmond and don't get to teach John or Grace any more.

Saturday was General Conference and it was amazing. I watched it in English because I still don't know enough Chinese, but they did have a Chinese one. It was so cool to get to see our living Prophets and Apostles speak. I loved Elder Larry R. Lawrence of the 70's talk. We should always be asking God how we need to improve. I also loved Elder Holland's talk about mothers which made me realize that I got the best one! (Love you Mom!) Other good ones were Elder Hales', Elder Durrant's and Elder Bednar's.

Sunday we taught a super powerful lesson to a recent convert named Bill. He's a 13 year old kid from China who speaks like no English. But he is super solid and such a funny spiritual kid. I love him to death.

That's about it for now. Since I got transferred the best place to send mail and stuff is:

Elder Wallace
Canada Vancouver Mission

8440 Williams Rd
Richmond BC V7A 1G6
Canada

I also found out it takes 2 stamps to mail internationally. Didn't realize that until one of my letters got sent back XD. Love you all! Keep the faith, remember who you are, and remember what the prophets said to us this week!

Love,

王長老

Elder Wallace

Brandon and Elder Hay

Another cool car

Sign outside a church