What the Heck Are You Doing?

Date: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 10:42:09 PM
Subject: What the heck are you doing?

We have a new golden investigator this week. She has only been investigating for about a week and is already stumbling through Second Nephi with questions that I can't even begin to answer in English, let alone Chinese. We can't call her because she has a mainland cell phone, but she calls us most days. She, of course, isn't perfect. She works every Sunday and says she can't get it off. But she already has a baptismal date. My first successfully extended. It's pretty cool. The other day as Elder Gunderson started the opening prayer, I rested on my Book of Mormon which was on the table only inches away from my bowed head. She said, "Ganma?" which loosely translated means, "What the heck are you doing?" I thought it was pretty funny. Maybe it's not.

Well I get to stay in "The Castle" another transfer. But Elder Gunderson is gone. My new companion is Elder Ngai. He is a CBC, or Canadian Born Chinese. His parents are from Hong Kong. He likes hockey and playing piano. He wanted to come be my junior companion so he could "die"(go home from his mission) without any stress. Instead he is my senior and a district leader. Poor tired Elder Ngai.

Elder Fulmizi goes home tomorrow. You can tell it's a strange thing for "dying" Elders. There is quite a mixture of happy and sad. The dominant emotion depends on the missionary I think. Two months after Sam Fulmizi gets home, his girlfriend will go off to serve a mission at Temple Square. Kinda rough.

General conference was wonderful. It really is great to watch it as an Elder. I've already seen two of the four sessions I will watch as a missionary. That's crazy. Time is going fast. It's already been four months since Christmas. Four more and I'll be a year old missionary. That's pretty scary man. The last thing Elder Fulmizi said to me on the phone was, "See you soon". I think it was a slip, but it's actually probably true in a way.

This email place has started to smell like smoke. How sad.

Well, still just teaching people, looking for new people, trying to be obedient and hard working, eating good food, making good friends, having a great time. All those kinds of things. Elder Ngai is pretty unhappy about the music rules we have. But it's not that bad. We just have to make our own music with two guitars and a piano. It's pretty good actually.

Love you all! Miss you all!

-Noah