生日快樂

One exciting thing this week is that I am no longer a teenager! I finally get to tell people I am 20. This past week a few people have asked me how old I am and I've had to do the internal debate of, Do I say 10? Do I say 20? Is that a lie? Do I say my birthday is next week? Fine I'll just say 19. No more! I'm 20. Yay.

This week I wanted to just explain a whole day to give you a picture of a day in the life. Thursday was pretty awesome. We packed a lunch in the morning then headed out. On the way we ran into one of our members, went to a Family Mart convenience store, and she bought us ice cream. We were planning to head up to a farther area to find some people and teach a lesson. But, we try to have a member come with us to every lesson so we needed to call someone to come with us. We probably called 25 different numbers and FINALLY someone could come, but not until later in the afternoon, so we had to call the investigator back and tell her we were coming later. It was hot. But we decided to head out. On the way out we were stopped at a light and tried to talk to a girl that was walking across the street, but she walked away. Well! Try the next person. So we started to bike, then turned around and talked to a girl at the other light. She was willing to pull over to the side and seemed interested in the gospel. Well, might as well go for it! "Would you like to sit down with us for a few minutes and we can share a message with you?"

So we went back to the Family Mart and had a lesson right there! it was really cool. She totally needs the gospel. She didn't really wnat to get baptized though. After the lesson we headed back up, but it was super stinking hot and we have to bike like 20 minutes straight uphill so we took another break and got some juice. Actually, I got a taro milkshake. It was delicious. Then we kept riding and stopped by a cute little house that had cats painted on their porch. So fun! So we knocked on the door and it turned out to be a lady we had met at a Buddhist temple like three weeks ago! Coincidence? I think not! She was nice and we took pictures and went on our merry way.

Finally we made it to the lesson, our member was there on time, and we were able to start teaching the Plan of Salvation to a nice Christian lady. Halfway through the lesson her neighbor walked in, and when we asked her if she believes in God she said, "I'm in my 40s and not married yet, how can I believe in God?" Well, sister! We can tell you how. And the Gospel can help you find happiness in your life whatever your situation is. So we set up a time to come back and teach just her! So awesome. 

Umm I don't really remember what we did after that. Probably something involving eating and talking to people on the road. Then we went and did some Facebook missionary work, and in talking to our investigator we found out that the other day she had a dream that involved both Jesus Christ and baptism. What??!! We haven't talked to her in person yet but she is so going to be baptized.

In the last half hour of the day we decided to go out and find someone wearing a purple coat. So we started biking and talking to everyone wearing purple. Of course, suddenly it seemed like EVERYONE was wearing purple. But, they were on scootersn and we were still on our trusty bicycles. So we literally started chasing people down the street to try and talk to them. The last person we talked to involved some heroic effort on my part; I biked SO HARD to catch up with them, prayed that there would be a red light at the end of the road, awkward followed them to the front of the light and, gasping, offered them a little card with the Because He Lives video on it. The purple-coat wearing lady looked at me, raised her eyebrows, and said, "No thanks." But can I just *gasp* give you this card? "No, I really don't need it." 

BUT then my companion pulled up to the girl behind me. In my rush to get the the purple coat lady I had biked past a girl who was very interested in my concerted effort to talk to the lady and when my companion talked to her was super willing to take a card and learn more! In conclusion, all effort is worth something. 

Well, I have to get going with other stuff. I hope you all have a wonderful week and see some miracles in your lives!

Sister Cardon

Pictures the wonderful invention of a selfie stick. Asia is so cool.

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Grandma's Perfect Dumplings

This has been a pretty happy week! We were able to watch all of General Conference, so that was pretty fabulous. I love conference so much. We watched it in English with all of the missionaries and it was super fun. Except for how like half of the talks were about marriage. Super important and I learned a lot--but I think I'm going to hold off thinking too deeply about it for another year. Basically, I loved how one of the themes of conference was the importance of families and how the gospel and families work together; one of the essential elements of the plan of redemption is the setting we were born into, with families to help us learn and grow. (See Elder Christofferson's awesome talk.) So true! Loved it. I super loved Elder Kevin W Pearson's talk about what we can learn from Lehi's dream, and Elder Uchtdorf's talk about grace, and Elder Bednar's talk about Godly vs worldly fear. Seriously, conference. Love it. If you don't know what I'm talking about you should go to https://www.lds.org/?lang=eng and do some spiritual feasting. Meanwhile, I'll be eating some potsticker things I got for like $1.50.

Lots of miracles this week. We met the epitome of the traditional American grandma making apple pie while we were contacting, except she was the Chinese version and she taught us how to perfectly fold dumplings. Although it turns out we have the handicap of genetically long thumbs that can't quite fold it just right, so our dumplings weren't super pretty. Or we just need to do it for another 50 years. Probably that too. But she was so sweet and actually super interested in the gospel; she is good friends with another lady from China in our ward (who, according to the first dumpling lady, "really does fold dumplings.") (that sentence sounds more impressive in Chinese.) and wanted to know about how to pray. So we are going back this week and she is totally going to get baptized.

I feel like something I have been focusing on this week is talking to everyone, and I've discovered that when I do I feel a lot more successful. The days when I'm kind of tired and it's super hot or mildly chilly and I'm hungry and don't feel like I can speak Chinese very well, as soon as I decide to perk up and talk to the next young 20-something girl getting off of her scooter at a store, everything just goes better. Except for when she walks away or gives you the silent treatment. But! Then you move on and go and talk to the next lady getting off of her scooter, and it turns out that she went to church when she was little and feels like it's time for her to try it again and you get her phone number and it's all really happy. Then you figure out that she doesn't live in your area. But! It is still a good day. Basically, when we are willing to work and keep going, the Lord blesses us with a happy countenance. Hey that's actually pretty good advice. I should figure out how to say that in Chinese.

Interesting things I've eaten recently:

loquats. They are little orange fruit things that are only in season for like 1 month of the year. Super delicious. 

I forget that this is something different because we eat it all the time; a staple vegetable here is sweet potato leaves. Like, why stop at eating the thing that grew in the ground? Let's eat the leaves too.

One of my favorite fruits here is called a lianwu in Chinese, wax apple in English. It's way good; it kind of looks like a wax apple my mom would use to decorate, but you can actually eat this one. And it's way juicier than regular apples and super delicious.

There's a shop next to the church that makes these little meat roll things, and how they cook them is they have this big stone/metal pot thing that they heat with coals, then stick the rools on the sides of the oven thing so they are like hanging upside down. Oh! Kind of like how they make traditional naan in a tandoor oven in India. You can look it up. I don't know what the roll thing is called. But it's tasty!

Well, I need to get going on other computer things. I hope all of you have a great week!

Sister Cardon

Picture: You thought sister missionaries already looked fabulous... but you hadn't seen our awesome rain ponchos yet. Yes, we have matching ones.

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