So Nice

It is so nice right now. I sit and drink my Zesty Mango Chillino at an
outdoor computer with absolutely wonderful weather. What a pleasant
mission. In a few hours we will go to Kowloon Tong to meet, teach, and
baptize someone. Why on earth did I get to come here?

I have been trying to find the records and get the information of all
the people I have helped to be baptized, especially the ones from
Mainland China. The records that the missionaries keep are, some of
them, old and not very well organized. Maybe lost. Here's a hard
learned lesson for me, it's much much easier to keep track of things
as they happen than when it's almost too late. So be a record keeping
people and keep a journal! They taght us that. Some church historians
came and told is about how we need to do it. It's nice to do.

Sister Liu was baptised on Sunday. It was a great service, with three
people entering the waters of baptism, one after a few months, one a
year and a half, and one five years. But next week is the topper.

Brother Tang (last week I used a character, but this might be nicer,
and I don't know how to write chinese on this computer) is good for
baptism on Sunday. He told us that his first contact with the church
was over twenty years ago. I can't beleive it has taken him so long.
He is such a good man. So humble and awesome. His name means soup.
Brother Soup.

Last saturday we taught and baptized a mom and daughter from china.
The dad came too, though he was not getting baptized. But he was
awesome. For some reason he just wasn't sure before he came, so he did
not prepare for baptism, but as soon as he heard the missionary
lessons taught by missionaries, he knew it was true and commited to
prepare and be baptized as soon a possible. It was maybe the first
time I've been able to teach a full family of investigators, father,
mother and child together at the same time. Unfortunately there are
many incomplete families here, especially amoung Mandarin speakers.
Divorce, seperation, or just temporarily living apart because of work
or school makes it very hard to find full families, and the families
that are full are often mandarin mothers with Hong Kong dads, usually
taught by Cantonese missionaries. So this experience was especially
awesome. And I talked about it in my talk the next day, which they
were able to attend. I spoke about family and love at home. I think it
went well, purely because of the help of the Lord. Some people
commented on my perfect grammer, some going as far as to tell me it
was much better than I normally speak and asking if I had practiced a
lot. No, I just wrote some notes and prayed. It works.

Well, mixed emotions are here, but I will take sister Tans advice and
endeaver to just be happy. Just serve where I am and be happy. If
we're always happy right now then we'll never be sad.

I love you. The church is still true.
-Noah