Bowman's Donuts and Bible Study3/19/18

243 Days. 8 Months. That's how long it's been, but it feels like round about 12 minutes or so. And it's still shocking to me that I'm training. I was talking to DD from Massena on the phone the other night, and I told him I was surprised that I was training already, and he said "Elder I think the Lord is surprised you're training!" This is exactly what Elder Chan needs to hear in order to increase his confidence in me. But, despite all that, training is going great. 12 Week is a drag, as it always is, but I think we're both learning things. The only struggle is Language Study... I'm not entirely sure, but I'm afraid my attempts to help him learn English are actually only making him worse, while I learn random Cantonese words. I'm just hoping that the Spirit jumps in and is helping me out while I have Elder Chan write random words in English such as "calendar" and "water bottle." 

     This week has been rather slow, lots of tracting and bad weather. On Tuesday we were tracting on our own street, and ran into some lovely people. One guy was out working on his car, and we asked if we could share a message about Christ, he said sure, as long as he could add input. This always leads to a great discussion. So we start going through the 5 points of the Doctrine of Christ, and he keeps trying to jump in and argue, but then has nothing to say when he realizes that we're saying exactly what he believes, so he just decided to make the whole thing confrontational and then go on about how Mormons have "added to the Bible" and that's why he doesn't associate. Poor Elder Chan wasn't entirely sure what was going on so he was trying to write down the guys info in our list of investigators, but I told him it was probably alright if we just left him off... However, same street, about 20 minutes later, we knocked on a door, and a woman answered and said "I only have 3 minutes, I'm talking to my friend on the phone to learn more about God and Christianity." This was one of those experiences you always hear about, but in my 8 months, I'd never had happen. We told this woman, Phet, that we actually go around, 7 days a week, to teach people about God and Jesus. She was very surprised and said "this has to be God doing this!" and was excited to hear what we had to say. We gave a quick lesson about God, and then she had to go. She said she's always very busy and that we have to call her to reserve a time, but hey, I think this kind Laotian woman may soon be diagnosed with a Testimony. 

     Thursday we had Zone Conference. It is conveniently located in Ithaca, which is at the very north end of our Zone, and there are only back roads that lead to it. Thankfully, it snowed the night before. This ensured that our 2 hour journey over 40 miles would be full of sick drifts in our Subie. After receiving only 1 "aggressive driving", we made it. Zone Conference was full of training on technology, after we finally received official word that we will be getting smartphones. After receiving word back in November, we now are anxiously awaiting April 12th, when the dream will become a reality. However, the addition of smartphones does mean that we will have about 8 million additional trainings and meetings concerning them... But hey, we'll be saving miles as we will no longer have to drive 4 miles every time we want to see if an investigator messaged us back. Being a Facebook mission without tablets or smartphones is like having the keys to a car that doesn't exist. 

     Thursday night we went and played ball with the men of the ward and a bunch of non-members. This is a great tradition, and infinitely better than doing a workout in your 10'x10' apartment. I, having retired my basketball shoes, played in those $5 pink polkadot things from Burlington. Bad idea. But we're slowly becoming friends with all these non members playing and we're gonna be teaching them soon. For now, we're just finishing clearing up the "So your first names are all Elder?" part. The other exciting thing that happened Thursday night was even cooler than basketball. Justin flew out to Utah for some job interviews, and stayed at the Hotel Lindberg. Apparently he had some good interviews, bc in less than 3 weeks he's shippin out of here with his fam, and we ain't gonna see him for 16 months. But his excursion to Utah resulted in me receiving some blueberry donuts straight from Bowman's Bakery. Annnnnd Justin was able to check on my girl, Ms Felt, and she's doin alright. It was so weird to be texting Justin as he sat at dinner with MY family... But those blueberry donuts made it all worth it. 

     Sunday was Stake Conference, and Elder Chan and I had the privilege of sitting in the midst of about 1.8 million children. Luckily, I filled my bag with about 40 chocolate coins from our St Patricks's Day themed lunch at Zone Conference. I gave each kid who was near me one to start, and told them halfway through they could have another. The stinkin kid right in front of me, who was probably about 8, asked me every 14 seconds if he could have another, I pointed at my watch and told him to wait until the big hand pointed straight up. He clearly doesn't know much about clocks bc it took about 12 seconds and he asked for more. I took out a stack of like 5 and pointed him to all the kids he had to pass them out to, and sent him on his way. The selfish son of a gun ate them all and I had to give all the other kids more. However, I wasn't even upset, because my homie Hannah Leiter, Bro Leiter's daughter, was sittin next to me and she stood up, rested her head on my shoulder and just chilled there for about 10 minutes. I had to remind the Elders around me not to tell President (who happened to be sitting on the stand.) Hannah Leiter loves me, because one day at Church I saw she was only wearing one earring, and her mom told me it was because she loses all the backs. So for Christmas I got her a little set of unicorn earrings and she's worn them like every day for almost 4 months. I told her on Sunday I liked her earrings and she said "I knowwwww you got them for me Missnary!" She's one legit 2 year old, hopefully​​ President Rogers doesn't ET me for this little "frog problem."

     Well, here's to another week. I get to give my first of like 5 District Meetings on "Safeguards for Using Technology" this week, gotta coordinate exchanges, and gotta pray I don't make Elder Chan worse at English, bc I worry that's what's happening. Oh well 

LOVE YOU ALL. THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT THUS FAR, ONLY 2/3 LEFT OF THIS ADVENTURE.