May 16, 2016

We had a very fun time preparing and setting up our zone meetings this past week.  Lots of food, lots of fun.  We had a human board game to help everyone practice their contacting, complete with chance cards and everything.  

We cover the University now as well.  It's fun to be back on a college campus and get to meet and teach college students.  We went to free lunch at the institute last week, and no Chinese people showed up.  We decided to go out and bring some in so we went out on the sidewalk adjacent to the building and started contacting people.  We managed to meet this girl whose family is from Guangzhou and grew up in the Bay Area.  She was interested but had already had lunch!  We just showed her the Hallelujah video and let her get on her way to class.

Elder Merriman had his outgoing interview this past week as well.  Things are getting real!  We were in the same incoming...

We were able to go over to a recent convert's house and have a LOT of food.

Our dinner at Ryan and Selina's

With "Ya Ya", a recent convert's daughter who got a new dress!

Our zone meeting human board game

Set up for zone meetings - healthy snacks in the bottom right corner for a sister that's doing a special diet

May 9, 2016

Fun last week of the transfer.  It started last week on P-Day with us getting a knock on the door.  Some people were trying to sell some service to come clean our carpets.  They were going to do some free cleaning first!  We weren't interested, BUT we obviously had to take the opportunity to turn the tables on them and teach and testify about the Gospel.  I now more completely understand what it feels like to be on the other side of the door.  We ended up getting the information of one of the salesmen (actually a saleswoman) and sent it over to the missionaries that cover the area.  Always be persistent!  I wonder what they were thinking when two guys in shirts and ties answered the door.

Serving a mission (particularly in Eastvale) is having a weird effect on me.  Members are way too nice and always seem to feed us dessert.  It's like Pavlov's dogs where after dinner now, I NEED to have something sweet/dessert.  It's bad, but sometimes we'll go to Chinese members' houses and be thinking beforehand, what can we eat for dessert after - because luckily they do not feed us dessert!

We had this big two liter bottle of root beer a member had given us and did not know what to do with it.  Neither of us drink soda.  So, I had some baking soda and seemed to remember remotely that in elementary school, when you put baking soda in things like soda was it? or vinegar? they will explode!  I got some baking soda and put a bit inside.  Unfortunately we were unable to cap it fast enough, and my thumb in the opening of the bottle just made the pressure go up so it was spraying everywhere.  That particular experiment has been fun to clean up.  We keep finding random places with spilled root beer.

We had mission leadership council this past week and it was the last one Elder Westenskow is attending.  Transfers were also this past week and he's no longer in the office :(.  I'm going to miss his training.  We got a picture with some of the missionaries from our outgoing group at the meeting. There's a lot that go home with us!  Still have ample amount of time though!

We visited an investigator while he was having a barbecue one evening.  His backyard had the little barbecuing thing that Chinese meat stick salesmen have.  The long rectangular grill that makes it easy to make lamb meat sticks.  It reminded me a lot of home!

I did my last Skype call, got to talk to the family which was fun but weird.  Time is flying by faster than I can imagine.  Transfers this past week brought Elder Merriman to Eastvale for his last transfer with Elder Warren and me.  Getting that trio life again!

For our English class Friday night, the Stake was having a big "Fiesta Latina."  We decided to have a "Cultural Field trip" to the Stake Center to let them experience Latin culture, because there are so many Hispanic people in Southern California, so a group of 25-30 Chinese people descended on the party.  The major consensus was that the food was not good, but the atmosphere was awesome.  They all seemed to miss the crowds in China.  All of them were not however, used to having all the "weird" (their words - I thought the food was great) food.

We decided to walk around our Apartment complex to find all the "Birth Centers" where Chinese people come to deliver their children.  You can tell them apart because they all have a little table by the door where someone brings food every day.  It was fun and now we know where all the Chinese people live in our complex.  Also, we got a return appointment by a lady who was freaking out about us speaking Chinese.

Today was Elder Fischer's last day in the mission.  I'm going to miss him, he's like a brother to me.  He came up to Jurupa to finish out his last P-Day.  We started with golf.  Got my baseball swing out again.  I'm slowly but surely looking more like Rory McIlroy (and playing like him too).  Then we moved to soccer and finally to basketball.  We matched for most of it.  Last stop was In-N-Out (I'm addicted).  I strayed from my normal "healthy" "protein style" burger (lettuce bun) and went crazy with a regular bun to complement my fries and lemonade.  Pretty cool.  I'm going to miss him, it will be weird not having him in the mission.

the jurupa zone!

It was an elder's birthday at district meeting

The Canadian stealing candy!

one footed district picture

 Kitchen cleaning

Golf - at it again

terrible form (baseball swing)

one more picture of the pod

 throwback to la sierra heights, with Bishop (matching pants and socks)

matching

elder foy making a guest appearance

la sierra heights ward - matching arm sleeves, matching socks

apparently I was supposed to be line drying a lot of my stuff... so here's my jump rope drying line

 last pic of the pod :( 

 

last MLC with Elder Westenskow :(

missionaries from our outgoing at MLC

nobody wants pineapple gummy bears

May 1, 2016

We went to help a recent convert family move to a new house and in the process met an awesome new investigator!  We walked in and started to speak to another recent convert who lives at the same house, in Chinese of course.  We heard a little scream and a lady ran over freaking out about how us "white guys" could speak Chinese!  She quickly handed her phone to her friend and had her friend take a picture of us three.  She then told us she has a lot of interest in Church and learning more about Jesus Christ!  Pretty fun experience.

Got fed a lot this week.  We showed up at one of our member and investigator's houses and it turns out they were celebrating a birthday party!  They quickly ushered us into their home to join in the festivities.  Lots and lots of food.  This was after our dinner that night, so we were already full!  When I told one of the women I couldn't eat anymore, she quickly put more in my bowl and said, "You have to!  You can't waste food!"  Very typical Chinese hospitality.

Had an interesting lesson at their house that night.  While we were there, another Chinese woman showed up.  My heart immediately fell because it was someone who really is not a fan of our church and tells everyone else about it.  We had taught her once before but she does not really like us - just very passive aggressive behind the very smiley face.  She came in and was obviously surprised to see us.  She didn't know that the owner of the house was one of our members.  I was expecting her to bring something up about the church during dinner and she did not fail to do that.  She started talking about how crazy we were.  I asked her why and she said she didn't want to say anything because it would "cause contention."  I told her to say it anyway because I wanted to clear up her misunderstandings.  She went on to say that our "Bishop has 40 wives."  I just started laughing and told her how ridiculous SHE was.  She didn't quite believe me when we said there is no polygamy in our church...  Not a fun experience, but the family all still came to church on Sunday anyway!

We volunteered at a Relay for Life in Eastvale on Saturday.  It was really windy, so we had to stop tents from flying!  It brought me back to high school days.  Our Relay for Life's back home were very well attended.  We had fun, especially with the free Chick-Fil-A!

We had our Stake conference during the weekend, so for one of the sessions, Elder Warren and I were in the translation booth looking at the little TV.  Translating is really tiring.

The Stake asked our Chinese group choir to sing during the conference.  Naturally as the missionaries, we got roped in with everyone else.  I managed to get Elder Mock to come up on short notice with us.  It was hilarious, but he sang well.  Hilarious because we sang in Chinese.  He still pronounced everything very well!  Proud of him.

I got to visit La Sierra Heights, my previous ward, on a short exchange last week.  It was awesome because we had dinner with the Solorios, one of the great families.

visited a member and investigators and got pulled in to eat dinner with them

I ate too much

back in the translation booth

 Translation is tiring!

visiting the Solorios on exchanges back to my old area!

visiting the Solorios on exchanges back to my old area!

April 25, 2016

It was a weird week that ended in a brother's baptism!  Always great to witness someone enter into covenants with Heavenly Father.

We had multi-zone conferences this past week.  Elder Warren and I gave a training, Deja vu, except we only had to give it once, not like what I call "missionary groundhog day."  It was a big blessing because we were with the Corona zone for the conferences.  Elder Fischer gave his outgoing testimony there.  I'm going to miss him a lot.  He's been one of my huge examples in the mission.  Our mission is going to lose a powerful leader and incredible missionary, and I'm going to lose one of my best friends out here!

We all wore our matching "Families are forever" ties that I gave to some other missionaries.  Best part was, President Mullen wore his purple one as well!  We obviously had to take a matching tie picture, then sneak one picture of "the pod."

We had another training during the week about increasing the unity in our zones.  The Assistants related it to the film, "Remember the Titans" – how we want our missionaries to remember the days they spent not only in the mission, but our zones.  Good thing Jurupa zone is also known as paradise!

It was Elder Westenskow's birthday this past week, so we got his key and snuck into his apartment to make a scavenger hunt.  Maybe I'll go into that field when I get home because it was fun.  I'll be the person that maps out the Amazing race :).

We had fun with one of our eight year old investigators, acting out various stories in the Book of Mormon and the Bible, including the story of Ammon and David and Goliath.  His name is David, so he made a very good David across from Elder "Goliath" Dyer.

The funny 6 year old member came up with another comment this past week.  She asked if we still had to wear seat belts in the car, because our shoulder bags look like seat belts on us.  She never ceases to crack us up!

We had a Stake service project this past Saturday.  We had to make trails at a nature center.  It involved literally pushing all the plants out of the way.  Very good workout that brought a lot of sweat and a nice farmer's tan, complemented nicely by some stinging nettles!

Class registration coming up for college.  Not fun at ALL!  Time flies...

the pod is back! (with matching ties)

Baptism!

Jurupa zone (aka paradise)

Somehow President got in on the Chinese ties!

April 18, 2016

The daughter in one of the recent convert families here who asked about babies having jet lag from heaven made another fun comment this past week.  She was looking at this book full of pictures of Jesus and she said to herself (but we heard), "Wow, Jesus Christ was able to be resurrected, that's so great (很棒)."  She's only five years old!

We sat down and had hilarious conversation with some old ladies at a park.  They were going on and on about how we should go be on this really famous Chinese dating talk show and find ourselves Chinese wives.  I always tell people Elder Warren wants to find himself a nice Shanghainese wife who he can cook and clean for!  They all had very different opinions but they were all very good friends and hilarious.  I had to pull out a recorder and start recording the conversation because it was so funny.  One of them was very against China, another was very patriotic, and the one in the middle was exactly that, the one in the middle between the two.

We had exchanges and I got to bring our resident Canadian, Elder Gulbranson into "Chinese land."  It was cool because after this specific lesson with an investigator that was 100% in Chinese, he said, "I don't know what the heck you guys were saying, but it must have been good because I felt the spirit really strongly in there."  Cool how that works.

We had a dinner at one of our Shanghai investigators' houses.  Very authentic, very delicious.  It was fun to hear so much Shanghainese, almost like I was back in Shanghai.

We had another Chinese sacrament meeting this past Sunday.  We do it once a month - break away from the English group and do our own with about 30+ members.  The people who were supposed to give the short talks did not show up, so with about 20 minutes to go in the meeting, the time of course gets turned over to yours truly.  I spoke on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in Chinese of course.  It was kind of fun as I shared a lot of stories.  I managed to take up the time to the extent that they had to skip the closing Hymn for the sake of time.

On a "blitz" in Eastvale, we contacted these two guys who were [doing some not entirely legal things] in their garage.  One of them had some family that were members of the church on the East coast and had studied with missionaries before so he was very sympathetic.  The other was another nice guy who knew his Bible pretty well.  We managed to talk to them for half an hour.  Early in the conversation, the guy who had family who were members (Tom - changed the name) leaned over and said, John (changed the name) you chose to come here...to earth", to which "John" replied "What? That's crazy."  He let it sink in for a bit and you could see the cogs turning in his brain.  We showed them the Easter Hallelujah video to which he said, "so that's pretty much saying we'll see our grandparents again."  As if on cue, Tom freaks out and says, "I don't know how you got that from the video, but that's EXACTLY RIGHT!!! That's what they believe!!!" It was a fun time.

We had a zone meeting this past week, and we decided to ramp it up and make it really professional.  We enjoyed it!

Elder Warren and I teaching three hilarious old women at a park.  The Sister missionaries in our area snapped some pictures from a distance.

Chick-Fil-A with the zone at our Zone Meeting!

Our Zone meetings are legit - complete with name cards, capri suns, and fruit snacks

One of the sisters drew our entire zone.  Which one is me?

I've developed a system to eat my snacks without getting my hands greasy

April 11, 2016

Hilarious moment with one of the recent convert families in the ward: They have a new baby that's about a month old.  Thomas Spencer Li (the baby - named after Thomas S. Monson) sleeps a LOT, as babies tend to do.  The five year old in the family asked a hilarious question.  She said "Mom, Tommy sleeps a lot, is it because he hasn't gotten through the jet lag from coming all the way from heaven?"  We couldn't help but laugh.  I suppose he does have some jet lag to overcome!  I wonder what time zone heaven is in?

Had a nice trip to the good ol' California DMV this past week to translate for a recent convert.  Advice for everyone, go in the afternoon - you don't have to wait five hours!  We ran into another member there, the one who asked us about year ago (as we were waiting in line) if he could help us with anything.  Memories!

During a zone "blitz," where the whole zone goes into someone's area and walks/talks to people for an hour and a half, the Elder I was with and I ran into a very interesting guy.  When we contacted him, he said "I would never talk to you guys, do you know all the terrible things you do?" Somewhat surprised I asked what he was talking about, he then told us "GET OUT" repeatedly many times.  It's nice to have the random mean contact mixed in with everyone else.  Brings us back down the earth!  It got me thinking about how mean people are to us sometimes.  Shouting/throwing stuff from cars as they pass by.  I thought about it and who on earth else would they do that to?  I figure, if Jesus went through worse, I can get through random old Joes who think they know their Bible so well.  Highlight was our Capri-suns after the blitz.  It brought me back to soccer games as a six year old!

We had to translate for an investigator at this Christian pre-school.  Their son was biting other kids.  At first I was a bit apprehensive to go to this Baptist pre-school, because they don't seem to like our church that much, but the lady was SO nice to us.  She said missionaries even come by her house sometimes and help her around the house.  Nice breathe of fresh air.

Every morning we'll pray to find the person that Heavenly Father would have us find that day.  It seems like, without fail, we always run into THAT person that has been prepared for us to make contact with.  We might run into this really mean guy, then talk to that one person.  It helps us to keep moving forward knowing that we have to talk to EVERYONE to find that one person.  Very rewarding work.

Capri sun selfies with the zone

The zone got headbands

Selifes with a really big pug!

We had dinner with a great member family who have a really fat Puggle.  He just had his hair cut, so we had to get pictures.

He's eating my ear!

The missionaries in the stake, in between Conference

April 4, 2016

I misplaced my planner this week, so that was a huge bummer because now I don't remember what to include in this email!  Woe is me :). 

We got to watch General Conference this past weekend which was great.  Everyone should go watch it too, or else they're missing out on a TON of fun stuff.  I was readily equipped with all my snacks to watch at the Church building.  It's all online now, so General Conference at the Church building in the area is just a party for all the missionaries.

In between conference sessions on Sunday, a member from our ward called and invited us over for lunch.  We made dumplings with them.  I need to get my dumpling making skills back on point because those were some lousy looking dumplings.  They still tasted good though.

I've run into a bunch of people from Shanghai recently which is awesome because I can talk to them about home, but I wish my Shanghainese vocabulary was more extensive to get "in" with all of them.

We taught one of our investigator families how to hold a family home evening, complete with the cookies and ending with a game.  They now know how to play Uno!

We seem to be lucking out with all the meals our Chinese friends are feeding us, not just members of the church.  Good old Chinese hospitality, welcoming us into their home to share food!

we had a family home evening with one of our investigator families

No pictures this week, so throwback to my first MLC out of the office

Let's play spot the Elder Dyer!: