Are There Even Groundhogs in Taiwan?

Hello all!

 

Still here in Taiwan! And still here in Gangshan. If everything had gone according to plan today would be our transfer/move call day, but unfortunately things don't always go according to plan. We still don't have any new missionaries! Seriously. The group who was in the MTC after me has now waited for their visas in America for three months, and now this week another group of our Taiwan Taizhong missionaries will be going home with no one to replace them. We hear all sorts of things like they are 90% coming this week or we'll be stuck here forever, but until we know for sure we just have to wait. So Sister Grigg and I are just hanging out here until we know more, and in the meantime they will probably have to close a few areas because they don't have enough missionaries to replace them. At this point maybe when we finally get new missionaries they will have so few people left that I will have to train someone. (that would be really awful I don't want to train anyone right now we would have so much trouble teaching lessons it would be like the MTC all over again)

 

Things that happened this week:

Last P-day we went to Costco! It wasn't very fun. It felt like we were in America except things were way more expensive and there's no point in buying Brussels Sprouts if you don't have an oven to roast them in. And I ate six muffins in six days. But it was still nice to get out and go somewhere interesting!

 

People took us out to eat/fed us a feast so many times I was excited to fast on Sunday so that I didn't have to politely eat until I was stuffed past the rafters. Seriously, the members here are so generous. And everybody loves to give us fruit. Once we got seven zaozis (the little appley things) in one day. 

 

We helped someone paint their house on Saturday! It was fun. But kind of hard; we painted three floors of their stairwell but we couldn't really reach a lot of places and it was hard to tell the difference between the original white and the slightly off-white color we put on. Turns out here most people try to paint their house before Chinese New Year, and they do it every year. That sounds exhausting to me.

 

Miracle Sunday! Every week we set goals for the number of lessons we will have, the number of new investigators we will find, etc. On Sunday we were so close to reaching our goals, but it was going to be hard to get all of them. We still had to get one other lesson, a lesson with a Less Active member, a lesson with a Recent Convert, and find 2 new investigators. Well we had a miracle day! We went tracting and ran into two cute girls who were willing to let us teach them about prayer and let us come back, we went over to a LA's house with a member and were about to leave when the LA came outside, and we went to a fireside with a Recent Convert! It was really great to have that sense of accomplishment (hey I know how to say that in Chinese) and to know that because we worked hard during the week the Lord helped us accomplish our goals. There can be miracles when you believe!

 

One of the dinners we went to was with a member and Claire, our investigator with a baptismal date. She is so great! We taught her the Word of Wisdom over dinner right after she ordered some little rice flour things with green tea in them and after we explained that we don't drink tea she was disappointed that she couldn't eat her tea things, but she was willing to start living the Word of Wisdom right then and there! Coffee will be something hard for her to overcome but she is so willing and ready. Now she just needs to come to church! That's kind of an important thing.

 

In conclusion, miracles happen and people change. The Gospel is good and if we have faith we can overcome anything. Yesterday I ran into this scripture in the Book of Mormon, Mormon 9:21 (and proceeded to gasp aloud when I found it because I thought it was so great, which made my companion think I had had some sort of great realization or epiphany when really it was just a good scripture).

 

Here it is: "Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth."

 

Isn't that great? Ask God with faith, and he will give it to you.True facts.

 

Love you all!

Sister Cardon of Gangshan

 

PS If anyone was wondering if we would still have 6 weeks of winter or not the answer is no, what are you talking about, winter never even happened.

PPS I've been a missionary for more than six months now yay

 

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Contacting with Charity

This week the main theme seems to have been contacting and strange experiences from talking to people. We are really focusing on finding new investigators and are practicing the missionary lifestyle of talking to everyone. It's hard! You really have to get out of your comfort zone. And we have had some interesting moments, like the lady who couldn't remember her last name and gave us a phone number for someone living in Taipei, or the guy waved at us like he knew us and then asked "Do you know who I am?" like twenty times (we didn't). But most of the time we have had some cool miracles where we have been in just the right place to talk to someone who is willing to listen and give us their phone number and set up to have a lesson. A lot of those lessons are next week, which is sad because we would like to teach people now. But you have to sow a little before the reaper comes! Or something like that.

 

Other things that happened this week:

we ate lamb soup for the second time and I didn't like it any better. I wish people would recognize that there is such a thing as too much ginger.

 

Exchanges! I got to stay in Gangshan and Sister Fernley, our Sister Training Leader, came with me. It was fun! I got to be leading the area for the day, which was fun. Turns out I really do know where I'm going! And I'm pretty good at Chinese. But don't tell anyone that because I actually just mostly figure out what people are saying from context and if they think I can speak Chinese they will start talking faster and then it will come out that I actually don't speak Chinese. But in the meantime I mostly get what's going on. I still am not sure what the difference between mother-in-law and wife is.

 

I had a bike accident for the first time! Here's what happened: For the past couple of days the brake on my front tire has been struggling and on Saturday morning I realized it was missing a bolt. We didn't really do anything to fix it and the on the way to Luzhu I was noticing the different things that get left on the side of the highway (the greatest common denominator is gloves. I saw like at least 8.) when suddenly I noticed a bolt on the ground. That sparked the brilliant idea that I could pick up a bolt from the ground and fix it myself, saving both time and money! It was too late for that particular bolt but I kept a keen eye out for the future road. Finally I saw one! I stopped and got off my bike, then due to the restrictions of the narrow shoulder determined that the best course of action would be to run backwards holding my bike in order to get the bolt. My companion kept going. I trotted backward. My bike fell over. I fell over. A knee was skinned, a bolt retrieved, and we decided it was probably best to stop by a bike shop where some nice guys drinking tea put in a bolt for free in like 2 minutes.

 

This week I have been trying to focus on charity, and I have awesome quote that has been hanging in a cupboard in my mom's kitchen for years, from Marvin J Ashton: "Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don't judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone's differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn't handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another's weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other."

 

I love that! Charity is expecting the best of each other. I am trying to expect and hope the best for everyone I meet instead of thinking they won't be interested or will never change. If you think like that you won't be willing to try, and that's just dumb. So give people the benefit of the doubt and have more charity for everyone.

 

Love you all!

Sister Cardon

Baptisms and a Bicycle

Another week gone by! Still here in Taiwan. Still love it. Still have new interesting things happen every day.

 

Last week after we emailed we experienced one of those new and interesting things. We went to have our hair washed. Yes, that is a thing. No, it is not a simple shampoo and conditioner thing. For us it was a two hour process where the lady generously soaped and massaged my head for much much longer than she needed to, then rinsed and massaged for an additionally long duration of time, then blow dried it very thoroughly. Then she ran into a problem; she herself had grown up in Vietnam and lived in Taiwan for a number years, and this was the first time she had ever worked with my American hair which does not like to be blow dried in humidity. ("Your hair is so frizzy!") When she didn't know what to do with it I suggested a straightener, mostly meaning that I could straighten the front part myself and then go because what's the point it's just going to be wavy again tomorrow. But no, she insisted on giving my hair the most thorough straightening it has ever received, including separating it into at least 8 layers. And guess what? It was wavy again on Tuesday. But at least my head felt clean!

 

On Wednesday we had a pretty exciting day where we had 4 lessons with a member present! It was really wonderful. In the morning we met with Chen Li Zhu, who has already learned so much and the gospel is helping her so much. She is struggling with a few things in her family right now so most of the lesson was spent listening to and comforting her. Sometimes when that happens as a missionary it is hard to know what to do. I have limited life experience and don't know how to help her on one hand, and on the other hand we're not here to be counselors. But we are here to help people feel the love of Christ, and that's why I still felt like it was a good lesson; we were showing her that we love her and care about her, and we were able to share with her a Family Proclamation to help teach her some of the gospel principles that will help her family improve. I often think about how we are called to comfort the afflicted. It's a really wonderful role for me right now.

 

Then later on Wednesday we taught English class, where we are teaching the xiaopengyou class (literally "little friends", it's what they call kids). It's a little exhausting. And embarassing; it would be one thing to do the hokey pokey with just seven year olds, but it's another thing to do it with seven year olds and their parents. But I'll get over it. Then after English class we had 4 different investigators, two sets of friends, meet with us for lessons, so we split up and had two members be our companions for a lesson. It was cool for a little while to be the only missionary in the room where I knew that I was there to bear my testimony and help the investigator progress towards baptism. And I was grateful for the member who bore her testimony really well (and helped me understand what the investigator was said because I wasn't entirely sure if she said she thought she could get baptized when she was 18 or if her mom was opposed to it right now or what)(details like that are important). So overall it was a crazy day but was really wonderful.

 

AND the best part is that yesterday we had a lesson with one of the investigators Sister Grigg taught on Wednesday, Claire, and set a baptismal goal with her! It's been about a month since we've had anyone make a baptismal goal and I feel really good about Claire. All day Sunday I kept thinking about how we needed to set a goal with her in the evening, and even though our lesson was going late and we kept getting off subject we finally were able to talk to her about it and she is very willing to keep learning and pray about it. I know that God will answer her prayer and she will be baptized in February! And cool thing; she told us that she hadn't been sure if she wanted to come to dinner with us (we invited her to a dinner with a member that she hadn't met before) and she called us to tell us that she didn't feel comfortable coming. When she called us we were on our way out the door and the phone only rang once before it didn't pick up so we just decided to call her back in a little bit. When we didn't answer the phone she decided to pray to see if she should go to this stranger's house and had a really peaceful feeling that she should go. So she went and met us there and we didn't hear about this until later. What a miracle! God answered her prayer, we had a nice time with the member, and she now has a goal to be baptized. This is the kind of thing that makes being a missionary really worth it.

 

I did have a little bit of trouble eating the mini shrimp with their eyes still attached that the member gave us. And I'm not entirely sure what that fruity squishy plum-looking thing in the soup was that I ate, but I don't really intend on eating it again. The dumplings were good though!

 

And by the way, the answer to the question "Can both companions ride on the same bike at the same time?" is yes.

 

Love you all!

Sister Cardon

Christmas Can Still Live in Your Heart

What a week! I've got to tell you, I have had like the best Christmas ever.

 

Wednesday evening we had our English party/Ward Christmas party and it was CRAZY. It was like the biggest party I've ever helped put on. We expected like 50 people to come, maybe, and we ended up with 120 PEOPLE. The room was so packed. But it was so fabulous! We had the greatest decorations, including a cardboard fireplace with red rectangles glued on it in a brick pattern, and we made gingerbread houses (so funny. these Asians have never made gingerbread houses before so they didn't realize that the icing has to be made so that it hardens and the candy was not your regular gumdrops and candy canes, but everyone loved it.) and the best part, we put on a live Nativity. In December's Liahona magazine they had a script of how to help your children put on a Nativity so we did that, and since it was English class we aske the ward member to memorize their parts in English. So we had the missionaries do the narration and the ward members (with homemade costumes) act it out, while I played little musical interludes on the piano. My absolute favorite was Joseph, who got so into his part: "Please! There must be some way you can help us! My wife is about to have baby!" n his cute Chinese accent. Love it. Best Christmas party ever.

 

Christmas day was awesome as well. In the morning I woke up a few minutes early and played some Christmas music to wake up my companion, then we opened our presents and made a wonderful Christmas breakfast, including French Toast with maple syrup, fruit, sausage, and orange juice. Then we headed out to a member's house, Sister Zhuang, and used her Ipad to Skype with our families. That was so great, I loved getting to talk to my family. They are awesome. Then we went out to lunch with Zhuang Jie Mei (members are so generous! But I don't understand the thing where people eat meat that is like all bone and hardly any meat). Then we went tracting in the rain and wished everyone a Merry Christmas. In the evening the Bishop treated all of us missionaries to a restaurant where you order a steak and then there's an all-you-can-eat buffet with it. It was delicious. In the evening we had a gift exchange thing with some members then an awesome lesson with Taco. Then we had a crazy miracle; a girl named Claire who had come to the Christmas party called us and asked if we could meet with her, and I was going to set it up for a couple days later but she was like, "Can we meet tonight?" so we had a miracle lesson at like 8:30 at night. Seriously, the paragraph I just wrote includes like all of the things that could possibly make a missionary happy save someone walking up to you holding a white jumpsuit and asking where the font is.

 

So that's pretty much all I have to talk about this week! We have been working hard and biking a lot and trying to help people feel the Christmas spirit. We have hope for Claire and Taco (who says that baptism sounds like a big responsibility but she'll come around) and Sister Chen, which is awesome. We have figured out how to have hot water to shower with in the mornings (this has been an experiment over the week; turns out if you have two faucets going it will be hot, which means you have to turn off the washer and have both of us shower at once, or the washer and one shower, or one shower and one sink. Or you could put the stove on.) On Friday someone told me that the way I hold chopsticks is very good, like the standard way that chopsticks should be held. I knew I was Asian at heart.

 

I'm so glad that I was able to be here for Christmas, in the situation where I can realy focus on the Savior. I know that besides all of the fun activities and Christmas cheer, the most important reason we have Christmas is to remember the Savior and all he gave to us. All week I've been wanting to share this quote from a talk by Robert D Hales in the December 2013 Ensign, and hey now I have a chance to share it!

 

"Christmas is a time to share our gifts, strengthen others, and do our part in the kingdom of God. Christmas is also a time to express our love to others and to bear our testimony of the Savior."

 

I hope this Christmas (okay it's already past but Christmas can still live in your heart) you have a chance to share with someone your testimony of the Savior.

 

Love you all!

Sister Cardon

Don't Think About it Too Hard

Xiongdi jiemei, zao an! (that's where you respond, "zao!" That is how people start their talks in church. Yes, it is like the "aloha" thing in Hawaii. I love it.)

 

As I write this I am sitting in a computer cafe place about a two-minute bike ride from our apartment. It smells like smoke and is full of the noise of other people's computer games. For some reason they include passion-fruit juice in the price of the time on the computer. My juice is almost gone and I wish I didn't have so many mosquito bites. Weather-wise it is a lovely morning for about July 13th in Sammamish. It is December 1st. I can't read any of the signs posted in the building but they are playing American music. All in all, a regular p-day morning. (Is that enough detail for you, mom? :D)

 

Yes, another week in Taiwan has passed! It was pretty great. We had some good lessons and I didn't fall asleep in church quite as much as last week (which achievement a member felt the need to comment on yesterday. She said I looked a lot better than I did last week. A compliment? I think so.) We had some looong bike rides, which is actually pretty nice, gives you some time to relax. Our area covers the districts of Gangshan, Ciaotou, and Luzhu, and maybe a little bit more than that if you want to look it up on Google maps. So it's a really big area. And here's an interesting thing: in this mission sisters only teach female investigators and elders only teach males, unless they are part of a family for both ways. So our district has two sets of elders and us sisters all covering the same ward, we just split it up so we teach the girls and they teach the boys (I guess since there are two sets of elders they split up the area). So we see the other missionaries a lot more often than I did in Salt Lake. Also it means if the members want to invite the missionaries over they feel like they have to invie all six of us! But it's really nice of them. On Thursday a wonderful family gave us Thanksgiving dinner including a real turkey and a whole bunch of salad. Also, I discovered it is possible to eat ice cream with chopsticks. Frustrating, but possible.

 

Other things about food: My new favorite drink is dongguo cha, which is wintermelon tea. When it's plain it is essentially a liquid version of a buttered popcorn Jelly Belly. Add lemon and it is one of the most delicious things ever. Another thing I tried is rou song, which some missionaries call "fuzzy meat." It is powdered pork. I have no idea how they do that, but it is pretty good on rice. (Yes, I eat rice all the time.) For lunch we usually go out to a biandang place, which is like a buffet where you choose what you want to put in your box and they give you rice and it is tasty. I've decided not to think about how long the food has been sitting out under the lights. I made a goal that every time I get a biandang I have to try something that I am not particularly comfortable with eating. I haven't died from eaing seaweed tied into a bow, so that's something! Weirdest thing I've eaten at someone's house was fruit pizza. No, not the fruit pizza you decorate to look like an American flag on July 4th. Like, you get some circular dough and put tomato sauce, then decorate it with kiwis and apples and mozzarella cheese, then heat it up in a wok because ovens aren't really a thing here. Also, did I mention that guavas taste like Christmas?

 

Things about traveling: if I think about it too hard it is really scary to ride my bike in the crazy traffic. I decide not to think about it too hard. We went on exchanges with the sister training leaders on Saturday which means that we switch companions for a day, so I went up to Tainan and stayed overnight there. Tainan is MUCH bigger than Gangshan and I think I almost died inside while I was avoiding cars and scooters. Whenever we are at a stoplight we try to talk to someone and give them a handout thing with the addresses of all the churches in the area and a little message about the Gospel. Sometimes you have to be really quick to give it to people before the light turns green. In Tainan I had a conversation with a lady where she asked me if the church was nearby (umm I don't know I don't actually live here) and then I pulled out a tract to give her the light turned green so I was going to let her go but then she was like "Hey can I have that?" and I was like Oh yes of course! I wish everyone would ask if they could take our handouts. Most people take the light turning green as a chance to end the conversation. (We'll get you next time, never fear! Actually that happened, On Saturday evening we contacted a guy that Sister Grigg had talked to that morning. "Have you ever talked to missionaries before?" "Yes, this morning.")

 

Other random things: Apparently elections happened this week so everywhere we see these signs with a number on them and sometimes a picture of the candidate, like Number 3 is a nice looking lady with short hair and Number 5 is a dramatic picture of a guy in a suit. Well all week they have had these little trucks (and sometimes whole caravans of trucks and scooters) driving around and playing music to campaign. It's kind of fun! The other day on one of our long rides to Luzhu we were riding right along a Number 7 caravan and they kept waving at us. It was kind of fun. But I think Number 4 had better music. I would probably vote for them. I actually have no idea who won. But there were fireworks on Saturday, so I guess that means something? Actually that could mean nothing, people here just like fireworks.

 

My companion gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting yesterday, and from what I could understand (which actually was quite a good portion, despite my lack of vocabulary and my tendency to fall asleep after someone speaks Chinese for longer than 5 minutes) she talked about attitude and how it determines how well you succeeed. She told a story about when her mom was little she didn't want to eat peas and would sit at the table for hours because her grandpa wouldn't let her leave until she ate the peas (I had to get a translation from my companion later because I had no idea if her mom didn't want to eat beans or squash or maybe even watermelon, all I knew was she didn't want to eat something. See, I'm learning!). The point was, if she had gotten over her attitude and just ate the peas really quick then she could have gone and done other fun things instead of fall asleep at the table. Life is like that. Sometimes we get in the way of ourselves accomplishing all that we could. I have lots of times where I don't feel like talking to someone at a stoplight because it might be awkward or they might say something I don't understand or it's hot and I'm gross and I have no idea where I am BUT if I just get through that then I have invited one more person to learn about Jesus Christ. And if I learn to get through those moments then I will learn more Chinese and feel less awkward and get used to the heat (ha.) and most importantly, plant another seed of the gospel. So keep going! Don't give up! Eat those peas! (Do you feel inspired?)

 

Love you all, and love Taiwan.

The Sister Cardon in Asia

Tabula Rasa

Friday morning at about 7:30 I had a thought.

I thought, "You know, I really love this area. I don't think I want to leave. I would be pretty happy to stay here for the rest of this transfer. Maybe even a transfer after that."

At about 12:30 I got a phone call. "Sister Cardon," the office missionary lady said. "We have some news! You have received your visa. You'll be leaving at 8:30 on Tuesday morning!"

Thus is the hypocrisy of life.

Yes, it's true! I am finally leaving to go to Taiwan, in the middle of a transfer and at much inconvenience to pretty much everyone. Don't get me wrong, I am so excited to go. If this had been the situation six weeks ago I would have been ecstatic. Overjoyed. Ebullient. But now that I have been working seriously hard these past 8 weeks and so much work is finally coming to fruition (Ray's baptism. Lessons with Taylor. New investigators. Lists of names to find. Ward missionaries stepping it up. Lots of member trust.) it is really hard to leave! And there is so much going on in the next few weeks! Christmas parties and baptisms and pie nights and lessons and dinners and all sorts of awesome missionary things! Besides all that, the situation in the mission now is that there are no trios of sisters, which means that there's nobody extra to put in the spot I was in for the next four weeks of the transfer, which means that Sister Payne essentially companionless; she'll be living with the other sisters who serve in our stake and getting splits with members to come teach in our area. So that means so much coordination and stress for her, it will be hard to get the work done, people might not step up to help her, it will be difficult to be in a trio covering all 10 wards. She really has so many possibilities of what could happen and what might go well or wrong that it is a little overwhelming.

As for myself, however, my immediate future is a blank slate. I pretty much have no idea what is going to happen once I go to Taiwan. The only things I know for sure are that it will be Asian, there will be biking, and there will be food. I AM SO STOKED.

Seriously, I'm going to Asia tomorrow. I'll be flying through Seattle to Tokyo, then from there to Taipei. Total about 22 hours of travel. So excited! 

I'm not even sure what else I should talk about. This news has pretty much consumed the last three days.

We started the Stop Smoking program with Ray on Friday, and he is doing really great so far. We're settling his doubts about tithing and the Word of Wisdom and everything so hopefully he is still on track for baptism. Hooray! We had a couple of really good lessons with new investigators: one is 19 yo whose brother and sister joined the church last year, and one is a 10 yo from a less active family. I think they will both be baptized as soon as possible, I'm really happy for them. We also had an interesting lesson with a guy named Mel who was Very Baptist. We essentially sat there for an hour and listened to him tell us that our church follows a false prophet, the Book of Mormon came from man and not God, and that the King James Bible is the only true book. "But I really respect you girls and all you do." Um, thanks? Best part was when Sister Fletcher said, "Mel, I know that you have an open heart and are willing to listen--" before he interrupted her. "You don't know that! You are judging me, and I don't ever want to hear you say that again! Only God can judge us!" "...do you have an open heart?" "Yes I do." We decided to leave soon after that. In closing he prayed that we would read the Bible and not the Book of Mormon.

We've been doing these fun lessons with the YSA ward missionaries; we are teaching them the missionary lessons to help give them a good foundation so they can go and do their ward missionary work. Most of them are returned missionaries, so sometimes it's a little awkward to be teaching them things they've taught hundreds of more times than I have, but whatever. It was really good practice for me; I am glad I have gotten all this practice teaching in English, all I will need to do when I get to Taiwan is put the language in and I'll be like a pro missionary! Or something like that. 

We sometimes go over to this family's house to read scriptures with them. On Saturday we told them I was leaving and said goodbye, and took a picture with them. As we were posing for the picture the grandmother Joy leaned over to me, kissed my hair, and said, "This will be one of the last pictures before I die." How are you supposed to react to that?

So that's been our week. We've had some really good times and the work is going so well. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve out here. When I first knew I would be getting reassigned to America I was hoping for somewhere exciting wherfe I had never been or something, but I think Utah was exactly the place I needed to be. I met people that I needed to meet and had the opportunity to learn how to be a missionary. One of the biggest things I've learned since I've been here, I think, is how important it is to stay strong in the gospel. So many people I meet were born in the church and have decided that they don't need to go anymore or that the people that have hurt them are more important than the truth of the Atonement. It's not true! God loves you and wants you to receive all the blessings he has to give. As it says somewhere in the Book of Mormon that I can't quite remember, All He requires of you is to keep His commandments. Just do that and life will be great! So that's one of the biggest things I have learned serving out here.

Next week I will be emailing from Taiwan! Remember that because of the time difference, you now have to email me on Sunday morning in order for me to get it that week. Oh, and don't send Christmas presents. 1) it probably won't get there before Christmas 2) it is way too expensive to send things from America and 3) I would much rather you invite a nonmember/less active to a Christmas event than send things to a missionary who already has the sun in the morning and the moon at night.

Love you all!

Pics: Goodbye to the Trailer Park! And shopping at Downeast. And my last good Mexican food for another 14 months. Gotta love Costa Vida.

Baptisms and Italians

So this week was pretty meh, not much exciting happened.

NOT. It was like the best week ever. RAY IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I don't usually use multiple exclamation points. You should take that for a testament to how excited I really am.)

It started on Tuesday. We had a lesson that did not start out very well; Ray had been talking to a former preacher at another church who had been telling him stories about Joseph Smith. Luckily Ray wasn't very inclined to listen to him, but we were still not sure where the rest of the lesson was going to go. We ended up just reading 1 Nephi Chapter 1 with him to hopefully get him to be more excited about the Book of Mormon. Then we kept chatting and he told us that his boss at work, who is a recent convert, asked him when he is getting baptized and who is baptizing him. Ray was a little leery of that, but it has really got him thinking. He thought it was really nice that his boss would want to be there when he got baptized then asked us, "Are you two going to be there?" Sister Payne and I looked at each other. "Well, if you get baptized before the transfer ends, then definitely. The transfer ends on December 16. That means December 13th is a Saturday. ...do you want to be baptized on December 13th?" He thought for a minute. "Yes." We couldn't believe it, we had to double check. "You're going to gt baptized on December 13th?" "Yes, I am." "How do you feel about that?" "Kinda tingly." That's totally the Spirit!

We had to hold it until we got to the car to really let out how excited we were that he said that. The rest of the week was great on his part; we went to Temple Square with him and a member on Saturday and watched the Joseph Smith movie, which he really loved, and then on Sunday morning we got a text from the Ward Mission Leader saying that Ray has asked Bob, a recent convert and one of Ray's best friends in the Trailer Park, to baptize him. This is going to get Bob on track, Ray and Bob are going to stop smoking together, then Sharon in the trailer park will want to get baptized too, then Ed Ray's best friend will come along as well, and we'll all end up going to the Celestial Kingdom together like one big happy Trailer Park family.

Or something like that. Miracles happen! (as evidenced by Ray's baptismal date.)

So in conclusion, that made it a really great week. Other good things include an entire Less Active family being at church all together, the YSA ward getting really pumped up about all of their new ward missionaries (including putting them into companionships and telling them they need to live the mission rules as best they can. The companionships all include a boy and a girl so I'm not sure how well that's going to work out and whether this might just be a ploy to get them all married but whatevs), and getting to go through the Salt Lake Temple for my very first time this morning! It was really wonderful. All temples are beautiful, but the workmanship inside the Salt Lake Temple is just stunning. Do you think someday they'll let me explore the whole thing? Maybe if my husband ends up a General Authority. I'm going to start working on that.

Hmmm what else. Oh, funny moment. We saw a lady walking alone along the street and I felt like we should stop and talk to her. I'm a missionary and am trying to learn to follow those promptings so we pulled up alongside her (probably should have gotten out of the car, we may have looked a little creepy), rolled down the window, and said hi. *thoughts are in asterisks*

Me: Hello! How are you?

Her: Comesta? 

Me: *Oh, she's Spanish. I'm going to pull out the ten words of Spanish I know and try not to speak Chinese.* Bien! E tu?

Her: Bene! Balahbldfrhssdgnsjkdghioh amore anjsfgjbloaerbpsdinrhug.

Me: ....oh. *why did I do that. I don't speak Spanish. She obviously doesn't speak English. She said "amor" is she trying to tell me I'm lovely? Probably not. uhh... ni hao ma? no.* Como esta? *really? That's all you can come up with?* uhh... no hablo Espanol.

Her: No habla? Blaifoghsmksdgpaemrhle amore bnsdoroagollea.

Me: *She said amore again. Wait a second, I don't think she's speaking Spanish. It sounds like Italian. Wait! I know some Italian! I know how to say "I understand a little Italian"! ...That's all I can say. That would not be helpful. Just deceptive.* Uhh... espanol or Italiano?

Her: Italiano! bosdghmk ciao rmppolella. 

Me: ....molto bene!

Her: Ciao!

Me: Ciao! (she walks away and we drive off)

Both me and Sister Payne: What just happened?

In conclusion, I don't speak Spanish or Italian and should probably stick to Chinese.

In actual conclusion to this letter, missions are great. The work is wonderful. People should go to church. People should pray every day. God loves you.

Love, 

Sister Cardon