Lotus Pond, Baptism Preparations, And A Weird Event...

Dear Everyone,

We've had another exciting week! We started out by going to a place called the Lotus Ponds. I had been there once before with Elder Dalmer, but I haven't gone in a while and my companion has never been there before so we decided to go visit there again. It was quite the adventure! I actually didn't remember how to get there at all and it turned out that we used a completely different route than the one that I used last time to get there. Luckily we were able to follow some road signs to finally make our way down there. It was a nice hot day and we were walking around on foot, so by the time we returned home, we were completely drenched with sweat haha. But that's usually how it is every day so I'm used to it now. I usually like to wear my black pants because they hide the sweat that drips down my whole body a lot better. Anyways...we went and visited the whole Lotus Pond area, which is actually pretty big and took a long time to walk around it. I'm pretty much used to it now, but my companion still isn't used to how literally everyone, especially the older people, will just stop and stare at us as we pass by.

 I also bought some cool stuff at the place, including a nice scroll-like painting that I have no idea how I'm going to send it home...the lady that was selling it to me was just really nice... It actually looks really legit though, so if I can get it home somehow that would be cool. 

 

  As we met with a lot of our friends this week, a lot of them expressed lots of concerns that they have. Which is super awesome, because now that they are letting us know what's wrong, we know what we can do to help them overcome their concerns. We are working with a man named M... He's a really polite guy, and we are trying to help him to overcome smoking! He has kind of lost hope for quitting because he hasn't had success before, but he is going to try again!

 

  Unfortunately, several people that we've met with before have told us that they just don't want to come anymore. Just straight up out of the blue they tell us that they just don't feel like it anymore. It's really sad for me because they don't even have a good reason for stopping. I guess I can only hope that in the future, when they are ready, they will come again.

 

  We also had interviews with President again this week. That was really fun. For our mission, we have a Vision, Plans, and Goals chart, which we use as a guide for our efforts as a missionary. And he encouraged us to make our own set of visions, goals, and plans for our personal growth as a missionary, and then for our life after the mission. So that is what I'm going to be working on!

 

  Btw, S... passed his baptismal interview this week, but his baptism will be pushed back until next month because he had to attend a funeral. He's still doing great though!  Stake Conference was a great experience, and all the missionaries in the stake sang several songs during the conference. It was really fun. We sang a bunch of Chinese primary hymns and it sounded really good. It's really fun memorizing all of the hymns in Chinese too!

 

  Just kind of a weird thing that happened this last week. We were in our apartment complex just turning the corner to the elevators, when we saw a random old guy in the middle of the hallway just moaning and acting kind of weird. Then when he saw us, he freaked out and started shaking and screaming and then fell straight on his back and his legs were folded behind his back. He started yelling and just rolling around on the ground. There were a couple people who saw it and they called some guys to help him out. There are a lot of people here that try to invite spirits to come into them and then act really crazy like that, so sometimes we see stuff like this.

 

  Anyways, that's all that happened this week. I'm having a great time and I'm glad that everyone is having a good time back home! Nice job with all the yard work! I'm sorry that I'm not there to help out haha. Just wait a little while and then I'll be able to help again!

Love you lots!

Andrew