Jacob Dyer Missionary Blog: May 4, 2015

So my companion is from Sichuan China, where they eat really spicy food. Obviously that gave me the inherent challenge of finding some hot sauce that's TOO spicy. So I found this sauce "en fuego." I went to our room one day last week, as he was making his noodles, and came back to a red faced, crying Elder Zeng. He was saying how much he liked the taste of the hot sauce! I could not stop laughing. His lips were all swollen too.

It's interesting seeing his reactions to Chinese people "running away" from us. Chinese missionaries have been in this area for so long that some Chinese people recognize us from a long ways away and deliberately try to hide or run away. After this happening multiple times, Elder Zeng said "WE ARE NOT MONSTERS, why are they hiding from us!" He'll get used to it!

One of our investigators ran into some problems with the people renovating their house. They needed us to help them out and translate. The wife made a funny comment. The night before we had asked by text if we could visit the next day. She said maybe in 3 weeks after her renovations are done. Then they ran into this problem the next morning. She said every time you guys don't come around, we run into a lot of problems, so you need to come often!

I had to translate for a big Stake Conference this past Saturday and Sunday, it was a lot more "legit" because they had us in a booth with a small TV. It's really hard, especially when your Mission President talks about technical mountain climbing vocabulary in a talk. At least he gave us the talk beforehand. It helps a lot to have something to look at when you're translating!

Dad - I love that quote about this church being founded on a 14 year old farm boy asking a question. President Mullen said back in the day when he went on a mission, the Prophet (I don't know who it was at the time) took all the missionaries from the "mission home" in Salt Lake (no MTC back then) and took them to an upper room in the Salt Lake City Temple, took his scriptures out, and said “Ask me anything.” Oh, what I would do for that opportunity!

[Our recently baptized convert] is good, we're trying to help him get to the temple. I'm working hard, salvation isn't a cheap experience. It's interesting because my scriptural knowledge has just exploded out here. Not that I like to argue, but they can't really stump me like they used to be able to do.

I loved this past stake conference we had this Sunday. Elder Murray and I were in a "translation booth" translating but we had some amazing talks. One of the counselors in the stake presidency who's getting a PhD in the Old Testament talked about the meaning of Adam and Eve's names. They focused a lot on the family this conference. “Adam” literally means “dirt” in Hebrew, red soil. “Eve”, though, means “life”. She is the key to his eternal life and salvation. In Moses 5, it talks about "they" Adam AND Eve hearing the voice of the Lord. He is talking to both of them as equals. Family is so important.

I probably felt the spirit more than another other training meeting in a training I gave last week. It was based off part of “The Power of Everyday Missionaries” [book by Clayton Christensen] – getting our investigators to have conversion experiences outside of our meetings (missionary meetings); how to get them to continue to feel the spirit throughout the week. It was really good (I thought)!