"Money talks bruh, you can't even whisper"-G Eazy, referring to the week right before we are reimbursed on MSF 4/30/2018

 Alright here's the low down. My patience has been stretched thinner than the worn out lycra bibs I wore in my last Lotoja... Some days are just fine, but then there's the other days. These "other days" are becoming more and more regular, and I don't quite understand why. I'm constantly being asked questions that can very easily be answered by some quick detective work. When you've got a watch and a smartphone, you should be able to reasonably determine what time it is, at least that's my opinion... And every morning, when he wakes up, he walks to the front window, opens it, looks out, then asks me what the weather is... It's a struggle. But it's goin. 

     I guess I should provide you guys with a little detail on the language barrier, and language status. Elder Chan does not need help with English vocabulary. When I first found out I would be training him and teaching English, I was worried that was the case. Luckily, it is not. The problem is the whole putting sentences together thing. Whenever he asks a question, no matter the context, he begins with "is it", so he asks "is it we go to Church tomorrow?", or "is it we eat the dinner now?" This is rough, because while I try to correct him, he seems to have gotten into the habit in the MTC, and it's a real struggle changing it. Here's an analogy, imagine you were asked to teach someone to ride a bike. In your head you imagine they have never sat on a bike, but probably have seen pictures and videos of them being ridden. So your job is simply to get them to get on the bike and pedal. But when you meet the person, they see a bike, and they go get on it backwards and upside down, and are pedaling with their hands and steering with their feet, while asking you questions in Cantonese. That's kind of what these last 8 weeks have been like. I'm learning lots about how I can better "ride a bike", but I'm also learning that I ain't the best at teaching the skill... I do however, find it hilarious that Elder Chan says "ah flip" and "shoot dangit", and various other Missionary profanities. I remember getting an email from my lovely mother that said something about NOT teaching him slang or anything like that, but flippin dangit, I did.

     This week was a classic week in the life of a DL/Trainer. We had a District Meeting on the new Area Book Planner app. This was fun, as I have had the Area Book Planner for the same amount of time as my whole district, but had to piece together an hour and a half of teaching about it. It reminded me of my time selling bikes. If someone was interested in a bike I wasn't familiar with, I'd pull it down, and as we say in the Mission Field, "full faith it." I'd just start reading what the bike says on it, and try to make sense of it as I talked, all while doing my best to convey a comprehensive understanding of the bike. This is more commonly known as "bluffing." (Hopefully those of you reading understand that this is heavily laced with sarcasm, and I actually studied and prepared to teach on the topic.) Anyways, the District Meeting went great, and it ended magnificently. At the beginning of all my District Meetings, we all answer 3 get to know you questions, because they're fun, and every 6 weeks there's a new face or two in the District. One of the questions this week, provided by the Morrey's, our awesome senior couple, was "why Taco Bell?" Sister Morrey has never tried TBell, and has always wondered why we like it so much. So we all took turns sharing our favorite item, bearing testimony of it, and promising blessings. Apparently we had such a profound effect upon her and Elder Morrey, that they took our whole District to TBell after the meeting, and Sister Morrey experienced her first Chalupa box. Sadly, she was less than impressed. But hey, it takes time. 

     We spend mucho tiempo tracting this week, much to Elder Chan's dismay. He is not a fan of walking. But we endured, and picked up 2 new investigators. We originally picked up a bunch of potentials that seemed interested, but when we returned, they were suddenly "not religious", or "Catholic." One key bit of info, in NY, "Catholic" actually means "I go to Church on Easter and Christmas." People who actually attend a Catholic church will tell you "I go to St. John's, on Grand Ave", or something like that. So we were pumped that we had so many new potentials, then less pumped when we clicked the "drop" button on almost all of them in the Area Book app. However, I say almost all of them, because we did get 2 new gators who appear to be sincere and interested. So that's all we can ask for. 

     On Thursday, after having appointments fall through, I did a deep clean of our apartment in preparation for apartment inspections. I realized that I had about 20 boxes, and there was a member family who is finishing their medical residency and moving to Mississippi in June. I texted Sister Isreal and asked if they could use them. She said yes, so we drove them over to drop them off, because of this, we were invited back for dinner, and we had an awesome chat about life, school, missions, New York, and various other things. It was great, and it also meant that for the first time in this area, we had 5 meal appointments in one week. 

     On Sunday, Elder Saylor and I got to go into Primary, and pose as Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith. This was a lot of fun, partially because we got to take our ties off, pop our collars, and wear bows, and partially because kids say the darndest things. When Sister Schow, the Primary President introduced the special guests, "Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery", the Junior Primary immediately yelled "NOOOOO that's the missionaries. That one gives us candy" (referring to me and my bag that literally had 4.5 pounds of smarties in it. So our cover was blown, and through an interesting series of questions, we were caught explaining things such as Temple Blessings and how the BoM was not written necessarily by Jesus. Luckily, Senior Primary went infinitely better. It helped that there were about 5 kids, instead of 35 kids. But I think they might have actually learned something in there. So that was fun. 

     The other great, new, and exciting thing on Sunday was our Ward Council meeting. In the past, the meeting has been... Less than productive, hardly fulfilling, and seemed to be more of a waste of time than a useful thing. But with the new Bishopric, we were makin changes and clearing up issues right and left. It was like a small scale general conference. Full of exciting new changes that will lead to a higher level of productivity. So that was great. One of the best parts was when the Endicott Elders shared the story of the "golden" family they found. They were "LA", but incredibly open to meeting, and having the missionaries over. The Endicott Elders were so excited to get these "kingdom builders" back to church. The awkward part about this story is the fact that this "golden LA family" is in fact, very active. The father simply is on the High Council, and they attend the Owego Ward. It's funny because we almost shared a story of the awesome family who had just fed us on Monday, and we had a great lesson with, and how we felt they would make awesome members, but we then realized that it was the Bishops's family. Darn it. 

     Well folks, another week. Another month has gone by. 2 weeks from now I'll be Skype calling. Time's a flyin, but some days are a draggggggggggggggggggg. Some days I about go crazy, and other days I feel like laying down and sleeping for 15 months. But hey, that's life behind the nametag. LOVE YOU ALL. PEACE.

Here's Joseph and Oliver. Disappointed in the kids for blowing our cover so soon.