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Week #85 - General Conference

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This week was great. On Wednesday I went on an exchange with Elder Zhu. He is from FuJian, China. He moved to Manhattan in 2017 and joined the church a year and a half ago. He is already 24 years old and has a lot of life experiences. Before he was converted to the gospel he was heavy into smoking and drinking so his testimony of the word of wisdom is very powerful. During the exchange we were on bikes and we did some finding at the park. While we were there we saw some Chinese dudes shooting hoops so I asked if one of them wanted to play. This guy was like 5'6 but insane at basketball. He was lights out from three and super quick. It started pretty light but after he started making shots I kicked it into gear. It got a little too intense however, because playing streetball in church shoes resulted in me getting pretty bad blood blisters on both my feet. Once I stepped off the court I took my shoes off to find my socks covered in blood. Wasn't so fun biking home after that, but...
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Week #84 - The Crucifixion

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This week we had a zone conference, a mission leadership meeting and went to the temple visitors center, so it was pretty eventful. During the Zone conference our whole mission went to a cemetery in Glendale called Forest Lawn. There are some famous people buried there like Walt Disney, Michael Jackson, and Jimmy Stewart.  At Forest Lawn there is a massive beautiful painting of Jesus Christ on Golgotha before he is crucified. The painting is called the Crucifixion, and it is 195 feet wide and 45 feet tall. It is the biggest painting in the western United states. It is so big they built a massive theater just to showcase it. After our mission got to see the painting we walked up to another part of the cemetery and had a devotional in front of a statue of Christ. It was quite a spiritual experience.  Yesterday we also went to the LA temple with our friend David. He is planning on getting baptized may 12! Scripture of the Week: 1 Nephi 1:12 And it came to pass that as he read, he...
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Week #83 - The Wrong Li but the right Li

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This week was great. On Wednesday we had to take our car into the shop because someone broke the mirror while we were at a members house. This put us back on bikes. The only problem is that we had a lesson planned across the other side of some hills. The fastest way to the lesson was to cut through canyon up through the mountain bike trails, so that is exactly what we did. Keep in mind we are riding street bikes with no shocks. I am not going to lie, it was a fun time. What made it even more entertaining was all the mountain bikers flying past us on their 3,000 dollar electric mountain bike hybrids. They were all so confused why there were two missionaries up in the mountains on bikes. By the time we got to the lesson we were sweaty, exhausted and covered in dirt and 45 minutes late, but we taught the lesson and it went well. On Saturday while on an exchange with Elder Thompson, we found a cool young couple who j...
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Week #82 - Well, well, well

This week has been fun. I was able to go on 2 exchanges with some English Elders. I assumed because I was in English work I would have the opportunity to eat some good old fashioned American food, but I ended up eating something called balut, from a member in their ward. Balut is a duck fetus still in the egg shell. It wasn't too bad but definitely was not the steak and potatoes I was expecting from the English ward.  Right now we are teaching a nine year old named Daniel. His parents are members but he has been living in China with his mom and wasn't able to get baptized over there. He will be getting baptized this Sunday. This week for our zone council meeting we planned on having the theme to be finding the living water. We shared the story from the New Testament about the woman at the well. To hit the point we borrowed a well prop from the mission office. They had made it for a zone conference a couple transfers back. This well was pretty big so we had the E...
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Week #81 - Holy Hacienda

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This week was the first week of the new transfer. I am still in Hacienda Heights with Elder Griffin. This is my 8th transfer in Hacienda Heights. I know the area really well but still look forward to learning and meeting new people. Scripture of the Week: D&C 121: 34-36 Behold, there are many  a called , but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen? Because their  a hearts  are set so much upon the things of this  b world , and  c aspire  to the  d honors  of men, that they do not learn this one lesson— That the  a rights  of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be  b controlled  nor handled only upon the  c principles  of righteousness
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Week #79 - Heat Wave

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This week it started to warm up again. It is nice when it is warmer out because people and California don't go outside in the cold, and by cold I mean 65 degrees.  We have started advertising our English class by putting up flyers on one of the main roads in our area and it is getting some traction. Right now we have one person on date to be baptized on March 24. He still doesn't understand a lot of the gospel but has high faith and desires. Recently I have been studying the balance between having confidence without having pride. A great example to me of someone who has confidence but is not prideful is Ammon. He was a very confident missionary and leader but never let it get to his head. He always glorified God and was very humble. As I have studied Ammons character it has encouraged me to be more like him. Scripture of the Week: Alma 26:12 Yea, I know that I am  a nothing ; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will  b not  boast of myself, but I ...
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Week #77 - Chinese New Year

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This past week flew by. We went on three exchanges so I was not in my area for a lot of the week. We were able to find some cool prepared people. I find it crazy that there are always people prepared to hear the gospel put into our path. On Tuesday I tracted into a rich Chinese guy who sells sports memorabilia for a living. He shut us down at our initial approach to share the gospel with him but I could see through the front door he had a signed Kobe jersey in his front entrance so I asked if it was authentic. That's when he invited us in and we got a little tour of all his cool collections. I think the coolest was the signed Kobe, Ronaldo, and Messi uniforms. We were able to share a short message with him and invite him to church but he didn't confirm anything.  On Saturday was Chinese New Year. This year is the year of the Dragon. All the missionaries in the Dawnhaven Chinese Ward have been practicing 2 performances for the new years party. We did Tai Chi (which is basically ...
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