Wonderful week that ended in me being able to attend an
investigator’s baptism from my last ward! He is amazing. One day a couple
months ago, he randomly showed up at church and said he had met missionaries
the week before in some other part of California and was interested. He
grew up 7th Day Adventist but was searching for something more. We were
obviously incredibly excited at the time, but unfortunately he kind of fell off
the face of the earth and we lost contact.
He showed up to church again my last week in the area (La
Sierra Heights) and said he wanted to be baptized. We set a date for the
21st of February, and, long story short, he was baptized on Sunday! He
had been Skyping with online missionaries who had taught a few of the lessons.
Miracles. He requested his water be freezing cold so he wouldn't feel
comfortable as he left his old life behind and was "born again."
I can testify, the water was frigid. I was standing on the side as
he was in the water and usually you feel the heat emanating out of the
font. This time, the COLD was emanating out of the font. Elder
Westenskow was pretty cold.
We had a Chinese New Year party for the Chinese members in
the ward. There were various fun games that we played, but my favorite
involved a couple that are recent converts that got baptized when I was here
last year. The husband had to put a paper bag over his face and feel
various women's hand's and guess which one was his wife's hand. Elder
Warren had one of the hands in. He had a couple close calls - saying one
of them was the right one (when it wasn't) and saying a woman's hand was
clearly a man! It was all good fun though. It's nice to come back
and see these people still strong in the gospel.
One of the lessons we taught, we were sharing about the
Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the investigator that referred
her friend to listen to our message stopped us when we started to talk about
Joseph Smith. She said she just wanted to talk about Jesus Christ, not
which church is His. I politely told her that our message is incomplete
without the Restoration and knowing which church Jesus Christ actually
created. She wasn't too happy about that but we ended on a good note.
Our mission president came out with us to see some
investigators. It was a wonderful experience. Our lessons were very
"Chinglish." I don't know if one of our investigators were putting on
a show or what, but he literally said everything and answered every question
perfectly.
Another testimony of talking with everyone: We went with
some recent converts to the DMV to help translate and, after observing the
large waiting room, we navigated over to a couple with their baby.
Obviously picked them because they were Chinese, but they were incredibly
surprised when I asked them where in China they were from. She almost
dropped her baby! She said she would be interested in church though, so
we'll be going back!
We had our mission wide crossfit activity today.
President Mullen gets up there and burns everyone even though he's 65 years
old. My highlight was seeing Allan from Corona there! He came with
the Corona missionaries. He's excited to be serving a mission soon too!
At our investigator's baptism
Our investigator with his family at his baptism
Companion study with Elder Warren. You can't hide from
the mirror!
I found a pair of
crocs for $4 so I had to nab them
Costco beef strips are addicting too!
