April 13, 2015

This past week we had an interesting conversation with one of our members from Shanghai.  When we were talking about his friend who's Buddhist, he started going on about how it should be impossible to be Buddhist in America.  He said, "If you're in America, you should be Christian, in China you can be Buddhist."  Interesting take on religion...

We went to the social security office to translate for an investigator getting her social security hard from political asylum.  When the employee got the letter from homeland security, she was all like "oooo I've never done one of these before."  A lot of our investigators have some really interesting ways to obtain American citizenship!  

We were in the park this past week talking to this woman about the Church.  She said our Church is false because we have extra scripture.  It's interesting to talk to Christians that aren't that familiar with the Bible.  Apparently I "don't even read the Bible" which was kind of awkward when I start quoting scripture to her.  Not that "Bible bashing" is good or that you should do it, but 'cmon I'm a 19 year old kid who knows the Bible better than you...

She said the Book of Mormon can't be of God because he wouldn't give us more scripture.  It just really made me appreciate the continued revelation we receive in this church, to us, "His words never cease."  I would be a bit more understanding if after reading and praying about it someone didn't want to hear more, but she was just going "la la la la la, I'm not listening."  It reminded me of this guy in Riverside who said if God came down and told him the Book of Mormon was true, he'd said to God, "Show it to me in the Bible."  Anyways, just something that made me laugh this week.

This week is Elder Dalmer's last week in America!  Next week we have to drive him and the other two visa waiters that are going to Taiwan to the Ontario airport.  It's going to be weird being in an airport without getting on a plane! This is the longest time I will have gone without flying in my life!

Chef Dyer in action

So gourmet - zoomed in

I promised a picture in front of the temple

With church members

April 6, 2015

So yesterday was Easter Sunday, hope everyone had fun.  Everyone's got to check out http://helives.mormon.org/ and watch the video about Jesus, it's only two and a half minutes long, don't be lazy.  Also, General Conference was this past weekend so go see that on lds.org too!

Slow week because of conference weekend, lots of our time was taken up with meetings.  We did meet a woman in the park who was filing for political asylum because the Chinese government would apparently not be cool with her having her second child.  It got really awkward because she started breast-feeding her 2 year old while talking to us in the middle of the park...  It was weird...

One of our investigators seems to be having everything bad happening to him.  He got his debit card information stolen and apparently $60,000 taken off the card, used at a casino.  First of all, that's a lot of cash.  Chinese people just come here and seem to run into so many problems.  You wonder why they stay.  I guess clean air and clean food is that much of a benefit!

One of our other investigators who is actually doing really well here and said he's never going back to China told us why he quit smoking years ago.  He said he found out the Chinese government taxes cigarettes a ton.  For a 10 RMB pack of cigarettes for example, 6 would go to the government in taxes.  He said he hates the government so he just stopped smoking because he didn't want to help. I thought that was funny.  I guess any reason is a good reason to quit smoking. 

Happy Easter, remember Jesus died for you, sorry I didn't take pictures this week, so you can have some throwbacks. 

Our Chinese ukelele duo - we'll be famous!

We got up early so I don't look too good

March 31, 2015

Had a miracle baptism with Lawrence.  He was supposed to leave to Australia a couple weeks ago and was on date for baptism last month.  We visited him the night before his plane was supposed to leave to tell him about the missionaries in Australia.  Then the next morning when we stopped by at his house to talk to the other people that lived there about church, he answered the door! He said he wanted to stay longer in the U.S. and the things we had taught about families really got him (he was originally going to leave his pregnant wife for a couple months).  Anyways, long story short, he is now baptized, it was awesome.

When we were coming home from a meeting at the mission office, we got rear ended coming off I-15.  Very minor - Mulan didn't have too much damage, but it was annoying because he didn't want to give me his insurance information.  He just wanted to pay cash...

We got to go to the Temple this week, which was really fun. Pictures for that next week.

My testimony has obviously grown throughout this time.  The atonement is real, it's not only redeeming, it's empowering - through it we can do great things.  It all comes back to sacrament meeting though - it's different when you think about the suffering - not just physical pain, but the burden of sin that He had to experience because of justice.  Quite overwhelming.  I don't have those same black and white experiences as Ashley does though - so I can't tell you I've seen a drunk drug addict come clean.  

I was talking to a recent convert I baptized in Riverside the other day (I had to do a baptismal interview for someone who was getting cold feet and unfortunately it didn't work out). But he was telling me how different it is for Chinese people to accept something so usual to me.  It's hard for them to believe in God, to believe that they have a purpose here in life.  

Our investigators always say that us missionaries are so "pure" because we do not have any other motives than helping people.  Now we want to help them be baptized but it's interesting. Now is a time where 100% of my time and effort is put towards the people I serve, so it's really not a burden to me to wait 3 hours with someone while helping them register their child in school.  I don't have to answer emails, texts, or calls.  I can just be there and help.  Unique perspective on life.

Lawrence and Elder Dyer at Lawrence's baptism

Lawrence and his family at his baptism - he has a really cute daughter

Lawrence baptism group photo

Basketball clothes with breast cancer awareness socks - aren't you proud of me mom?!

Cheese plate - kind of

Fried green tomatoes

I made some parfaits

Planning pants!

Planning

March 23, 2015

So I'm losing my boy in two weeks!  Elder Dalmer got his visa to go to Taiwan today and he will leave on April 6th.  It's been a fun time though.  Awesome seeing his Chinese improve so much.

One of our investigator's husband and son returned to China to go back to school and work so she is alone here.  She was really scared about being along so we recommended she get a "beware of dog" sign to scare away any potential intruders.  Yesterday when we dropped by there was this nice big "beware of dog" sign on her fence gate.  It's pretty funny.  We had to go into a bank to translate for her too.  We double as missionaries and translators.  A Chinese family walked in while we were helping and must have thought I worked there.  They walked up to me and asked if there are any employees who speak Chinese in some broken English.  I think they had a heart attack when I told them there's one in the back (that I had seen earlier) who speaks Chinese... in Chinese of course.

At the park, we ran into these three guys playing basketball.  We were talking to them for a bit, and obviously brought up religion.  I told them if I make this shot, they have to come to church with us.  I made the shot, so we'll have some more people at church this Sunday!

One of our investigators is struggling with believing there is a God.  I picked a flower before we drove out there to Chino Hills to talk about nature and how beautiful it is to connect it to God.  Elder Dalmer held it for the 30 minute ride. When we got there, this spider started crawling out.  Looked like he had a nice car ride in Mulan!

Elder Dyer - number one barber in Riverside California

Got my Jesus socks on for St. Patrick's day

March 16, 2015

Lots of meetings this week.  Picked up my greenie on Tuesday – Elder Dalmer from Oregon.  Great guy! He's supposed to go to Taiwan, Taichung, but his visa didn't come through so he got the next best thing, Riverside California!!!  There were four visa waiters for Taiwan that came in, so all four of us Chinese Elders are training.  We have eight Chinese missionaries in the mission now! That's a first! Their first morning, Elder Murray and I welcomed them with some Dan Bing, because they're not getting it in Taiwan, they can get it here!  His Chinese last name is the same "Dai" that I have, so we're Elder Dai and Elder Dai, President must have thought it would be funny!

They got their second introduction to Chinese culture when one of our Chinese members made chicken feet for them.  The members are from Sichuan so they made some really spicy food.  Elder Dalmer was asking what the least spicy thing on the table was, and Elder Carling (Elder Murray's trainee) said, "the apple juice" it was too funny.  I don't think they liked it very much but at least they tried it!  Next up, stinky tofu! We're not going to let them miss out on the Taiwanese experience!

We've been going over to Chino Hills a lot in the past weeks so Mulan's been going a lot of miles (our car is Mulan!).  We had a miracle and found one of the investigators that was supposed to be baptized last month, but got a new phone that for some reason can't call our phone.  On Saturday we were supposed to have two people getting baptized in Chino Hills a mom and an eight year old, but on Friday she called it off which was a bummer.  So close!

With my new missionary - Elder Dalmer

A family we are teaching

At the field - all decked out and ready to play

Gotta have our headbands!

So serious!

March 9, 2015

IT'S A BOY! So turns out I'm training one of the "visa waiters" that's waiting on a visa to Taiwan – should be a pretty fun experience.  

We do a lot of service as missionaries, including weeding yards - which is especially fun when the whole back yard is weeds.  One of our recent convert’s wife had us help her weed this back yard that was literally all weeds.  We showed up and I just said we're getting some weed killer. So we get the weed killer and come back and spray it, then she says she needs it out by TOMORROW, to show people who are renting the house... So we had to clear weeds for someone who wanted to rent out a house.  It took a really long time and Round Up apparently isn't made for killing weeds in one night... Luckily one of the missionaries that helped us is a farmer from Iowa so that sped up the process.

It's really interesting seeing the Chinese people that live here.  The older people still have old habits that die hard.  Their kids come and buy a half million dollar home in cash and they go around the parks looking through the garbage cans for plastic bottles they can recycle.  I guess it does help the environment, but funny nonetheless.

We're teaching this eight year old who is getting baptized with his mom this week in Chino Hills.  On the subject of faith, I asked him how does he know the sun will come out tomorrow.  He replied in a very matter of fact way, "because the weatherman said so."  I guess that's faith.  

We spent a lot of this week helping prepare for the Stake Chinese New Year Party that the Chinese members threw.  It was huge! 700 people at least.  Elder Murray and I were in the dragon.  I was the tail so I had to shake it a lot.  It was really fun though, especially for the kids who all kept trying to reach out and touch it.

I get really excited every time we go to a Chinese member's house for food.  The food is good, and hearing the Taiwanese (at the Taiwanese member's homes) really reminds me of home and listening to all the Aunties and Uncles talk!

Jurupa Zone! 

With the dragon

Murray and I before the party!

With some members and investigators

After basketball, Elder Williams on my right is going home tomorrow!!!

March 2, 2015

Two baptisms this week! Great time with them.  But we lost one of the recent converts already! She moved to Irvine, so we won't have her here for Church.  We handed her off to the missionaries in Irvine though. They came to the baptism, which was nice of them.

Baptism group photo

Baptism photo 1

Baptism photo 2

We were at one of the Chinese recent convert's houses this past week, and their daughter had a project on Hellen Keller.  She practiced in front of us, and in her small speech she said, "Since she was blind and deaf, she was better than all of us."  I laughed a little too hard.

We had to deal with lots of immigration issues involving our investigators this past week.  One of our investigator's family was coming to visit, the mother and father of the wife, who are in their 60's.  But they never showed up.  Turns out they got sent back home to China - never made it past immigration.  Apparently the immigration lady had fluent Chinese and did not need translation (something that all the Chinese people were very VERY surprised about).  Apparently the grandfather is sick or something and the immigration lady said I don't care if you die here, you're not entering America.  Very rude!

I've learned a ton about Chinese people's immigration techniques to get US citizenship.  One of the family's we're working with is filing for political asylum right now.  I had to translate a letter from the FBI about their fingerprint processing.  He said in China he had a really great life, better than “white people in China” (his words), and here he's the lowest.  He asked me why he though he did it.  He said it's because his son, education, the environment (clean air), and opportunity. 

We helped them do the Kindergarten application for their five year old son today.  We waited for a couple hours with them at the school to translate.  He was the happiest guy on earth when it was done, jumping up and down because his five year old got into school (he's the really really huge one, I'm going to have to get a picture!).  He was so grateful, he said he loves us because we're very "pure" (Elder Murray and I).  We don't have ulterior motives or anything.  

One of our recent converts got a cross necklace for her baptism from her Aunt.  It was funny seeing her wear it at church where there are no crosses anywhere.  

Orange juice and baozi (pork stuffed steamed buns) in the park

So cold (60 degrees)

So full!

Preparing for dan bings for breakfast (Chinese omelettes with  tortillas) at church member's home

Breakfast of dan bings (Chinese omelettes with tortillas) and you tiao (fried bread sticks) at church member's home

Snow in Southern California?

Strumming the ukulele part 1

Strumming the ukulele part 2

Taiwanese chef in the kitchen

Taiwanese chef results