December 27, 2014

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! It didn't really feel like Christmas here in Riverside, especially because of the 85 degree weather! But it was great because I got to Skype family!  To prep for Skyping, Elder Schoonmaker cut my hair.  It felt really weird getting my hair cut in a kitchen!  I don't think I've had that done since I was a kid and had an aversion to barbershops!

Skyping with the family on Christmas Day

It was a pretty slow week because of the holidays.  Most of our investigators and members were out of town.  A lot of them were in Vegas! Great place to spend Christmas thinking about Jesus! One of the funny parts was, the week before, at English class, we taught them how to play blackjack.  [One investigator] lost so many pennies that it scared him into not gambling.  His friend lost $300 though!

A lot of the people that come to English class have only been in America for a couple of weeks or so.  Some of them ask for names.  We write a number of them on the board and they decide.  One of them decided to choose “Nephi”!  I was laughing so hard, but that's his name now – Dr. Nephi! (Nephi is the name of a Book of Mormon prophet).

Love you,

Jake

Christmas morning breakfast

So cold we had to break out the coats

Very Zen

Even more Zen

December 22, 2014

Christmas on a mission is a little different.  It hasn't really hit me that Santa's coming in 3 more days.  That might have something to do with the lack of snow in Southern California though!

Elder Heaton had really really good Chinese.  Teaching without him was a larger challenge for me this past week.  It's funny, I've adopted a lot of his teaching styles though, and my Chinese is improving a lot.  

Two of our best investigators returned to China this past week, J. and E.  I told them to stay strong, keep reading the Book of Mormon and praying.  E. said she'll be baptized in two years after my mission and J. will too, I'm pretty sure.  He said we planted a really good seed!

On Sunday, there was a special program at church for Christmas.  One of our investigators started filming the program which apparently you're not allowed to do at church.  It's just interesting to see their reactions to many of the normal stuff we do at church, like singing.  It's fun how they join in and sing hymns with us!

Asides from that, [it has been a] pretty regular week.  My new companion is Elder Schoonmaker from Portland, Oregon.  He's been out for 18 months, so I'm still really “young” compared to him! 

Merry Christmas to everyone! Just remember the true meaning of Christmas, the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ!

New companion (who has already adopted the Asian way of posing for photos)

Transferring to University of California Riverside?

What a coincidence!

With investigator friends before they left to return to China

Yay California!

December 15, 2014

My second companion from the mission left today.  That's the second missionary I've "killed" in almost 5 months.  People say it's hard but I guess it’s good that I'm doing it, because I don't really get homesick that easily (sorry mommy).  Sad to see him go, but two years is a long time!

You teach and teach and teach, and hope people understand, then they don't get baptized.  Frustrating, but still a thing we have to deal with.  We can just hope they make decisions that are good for them.

It's interesting, one of these guys, after Heaton went really hard on him about baptism, said we planted a seed.  He said the seed hadn't yet blossomed and his belief in everything we were teaching was about 60%. I don't know about other people, but 60% to me, sounds like a lot. We still have a week left to work on him though! 

One of our investigators is a last year undergraduate.  He's really stressed right now with exams and everything.  During a lesson, he said he would think about a topic we were discussing for a minute.  He fell asleep for ten.  Some things about being a student, you don't miss.  In a later meeting, on the topic of prayer, he said he was going to try an experiment. Try praying to God in the name of Jesus Christ like we teach, then try again just closing his eyes and talking to himself.  He was going to see if he felt a difference.  That was a very interesting idea, and I encourage everyone to try that.  I know you'll feel a difference.

We try to contact all the Chinese/Chinese looking people on the street.  Inevitably we run into people who are not actually Chinese/from China.  Most are not phased by us, but one guy a couple days ago took offense to Elder Heaton asking if he was from China (he was an American born Chinese).  He got really angry and really sassy with us.  Sorry your parents are from China bro...

For a goodbye party for Heaton, we had a big hot pot party at the institute.  It was delicious!  A very good taste of home.  The Spanish elders that were with us were interested at the hua jiao, peppercorn pieces in the hot pot, how it numbs your tongue! 

Hot pot!

Handing off the Chinese children's teaching Book of Mormon

 

 Bye Elder Heaton!

December 8, 2014

When it rains in Riverside, it pours! Not really, but for Riverside, it's like we're in a typhoon. The roads get really slick and people can't drive properly.  It's pretty funny!  At least I got to break out my rain boots and rain jacket for the first time on my mission!  

We really have great solid investigators.  It's lovely hearing their prayers.  When they say things like, "Dear God, how are you?" it just amazes you how genuine people can be. They're so nice. I have invites to places all over China, Chongqing, Harbin, and Changchun, to stay with families.  We get invited to eat with them all the time too! So I'm not in any shortage of Chinese food.

One thing that is somewhat annoying is when people shout things back at you.  We were at an intersection and we offered some guy a card about the Christmas video.  He said no but in the middle of the crosswalk just shouted not very nice stuff back at us. It's like, just say it to our face... His friend apologized for him though.

When we were on the way to a Christmas party with one of our investigators she suddenly got super sad that she didn't bring any gifts for the party.  We told her she had to bring gifts for baby Jesus! She was very worried until we laughed and told her we were joking!

A huge downside to being a missionary is not having Google to answer questions or to resolve arguments.  If only!

Every lesson is a very spiritual experience.  The Holy Ghost comes to confirm truth! We are having lots of success explaining Christmas with the “He is the Gift” video - have you seen it yet? 

It's just amazing to hear genuine prayers from investigators - something I think we can learn a lot from - one said, "Dear God, how are you? I am doing okay. In fact, I'm pretty stressed. I have my Graduate school applications to worry about."

Some of the kids of the investigators are hilarious.  We took a bunch of investigators to a church Christmas party.  And this one "Di di" [little brother] (he calls me "shu shu" [uncle]), answered my offer to find him a friend with, "zhi yao zhong guo ren" [only if it’s Chinese people].

I'm like what?... and so I introduced him to a little Chinese girl, and he's like "bu yao nu peng you, zhi yao nan peng you" [I don’t want girl friends, only guy friends];

And I'm like why??? he's like "yin wei wo zhi yao zui piao lang de nu peng you, bu xi huan bu piao liang de nu peng you"[Because I only want really pretty girl friends, not girl friends who aren’t pretty].

And I'm like she's pretty though! and he said "ta zhi shi yi ban piao liang" [she’s only average pretty]. I was laughing so hard!

Love you guys!

Jake

Terrible rain!

Elder Dyer, investigator friends, and Elder Heaton

December 1, 2014

Thanksgiving on a mission is pretty trunky.  It's just P-Day without emailing.  I really missed being in New York.  We ate a ton of food at a Samoan family's party, naturally...

This past week was incredibly slow as a missionary.  We underestimated how affected we would be, because we're the Chinese Elders.  There must have been a huge Thanksgiving party in San Diego with a bunch of Chinese people, because that's where all our investigators went! The UCR campus was pretty empty too.

The great thing about being with a lot of Chinese people is eating their food! We went to two Chinese dinners this past week.  Great time!  We obviously brought Martinelli's sparkling cider, because that's Mormon champagne!  

I gave a small talk in church and it was funny because I gave half in English and the second half in Chinese.  So for about 5 minutes, no one could understand me except maybe 6 or 7 people in the room! I told them in Chinese how I could be saying anything and no one would understand but them (in Chinese of course).

We were contacting someone about Jesus Christ, and asked him if he believed in God.  He said no and we asked why.  His reply was, "because I'm a physicist."  I thought there were a lot of Mormon physicists! 

Riverside this time of year is famous for the Christmas lights at Mission Inn.  We went there in a group of missionaries to contact people about the church's new Christmas Initiative called "He is the Gift."  It is a three minute video about the real meaning of Jesus Christ.  EVERYONE needs to watch it: christmas.mormon.org.  The church is really serious about it.  They're buying all of YouTube's advertising on December 7th, and are advertising heavily around the world, including in Time's Square.  So check it out and keep the Christ in Christmas!

One of our Thanksgiving dinners

Festival of Lights with Elder Heaton

November 23, 2014

"Dear God, I'm Victor"  It's interesting listening to a prayer of someone who has never prayed before - very basic and simple, but so genuine.  Very spiritual experiences.  Times like these are when I realize how much of a "fit" I have with Riverside.  My experiences are great for these Chinese people who have never experienced religion before.  It's like I was meant to be here.

One of those difficult experiences was working with an investigator whose parents would have nothing to do with religion.  She started crying during one of our meetings at the thought of her parents' reactions to her being baptized.  How do you ask someone to do something their family would disown them for.  You can't... you can just invite people and hope they commit to something that can bless their life.  

Unfortunately some of our investigators have a very unstable arrangement in America.  We were going into a restaurant the other day and ran into an investigator.  He told us he was returning to China that night at 10 pm.  He said they gave him a day or two notice - there was something about his visa.  Luckily he lives in Guangdong, so if he wants to get baptized, Hong Kong is only a stone's throw away.  It was sad to see him leave! 

It's great working with Chinese people, but I'm still in America!  The other day some guy just walked up to us and started a little story about how his car broke down and he needs a couple dollars to go to the "liquor sto-gas station" I couldn't stop laughing.  He was so forthright I almost wanted to give it to him! I didn't though...  At least he was nice.  Nicer than some of the people shouting stuff at us.  But I'm still trying to figure out if "F*** YEAH MORMON MAFIA!" is a good thing or a bad thing. 

I'm still loving how many young people are around here.  It's invigorating to see all these students learning.  Our dinner appointments are often with young married couples.  I didn't really see a lot of that in Shanghai, so that new perspective is pretty enjoyable.

One of our finding techniques is the free lunch our Institute has every Thursday.  This past Thursday, they had us missionaries on the grills, grilling some incredibly healthy hot dogs and hamburgers.  It's amazing how hot a grill can get... I didn't realize that before.  We must have smelled like smokers for the rest of the day too! 

One of the interesting phenomenon on the mission is how approachable we become when we're wearing sweaters on the outside - when our typical white shirt and tie is covered.  People suddenly want to talk to us when we say hi! It's great for missionary work! Plus it's getting so cold here, it's necessary [to wear a sweater]! I don't care what Brown is like this kind of year, I'm freezing outside at night.

This week will be my first Thanksgiving on the mission! I’m excited for that! 

When I was teaching the lesson, I was trying to talk about temple ORDINANCES so I said jiao yi, but apparently I said the wrong tone and it meant drug deals or some sort of drug transactions.  Everyone was laughing and I didn't know why.

It's crazy how expensive California is, or maybe that's just me coming from China.  My contact lens solution was 20 dollars the other day.  

Being on a mission is hard sometimes but it's fun! I get to talk to so many Chinese people! This area has been blessed by the Lord, there have got to be 30 to 40% of the people walking to UCR every day who are Chinese, it's crazy.  

It's funny, every time I talk to investigators I show them the pictures I have in my planner.  It's Ash me and Kari behind the front cover and our family (minus Ash) on the Bund [in Shanghai] last Christmas on the back cover.  People love seeing pictures of family, especially my cute Chinese mom!

In the kitchen

At the grill

Elder Dyer's planner covers (with family photos)

With investigator

November 17, 2014

The perks of working with Chinese people are the potential for some good Chinese food.  One of our investigators, David, invited us and he made Zha Jiang Mian [noodles with ground pork and soybean paste sauce].  It reminded me of Taiwan – SO delicious.  He gave us the sauce so we could make our own for lunches in the week.  

One of our investigators is pretty much ready for baptism he just doesn't want to live the commandments.  He lives them now but doesn't want to be "restricted" in the future.  He asked us why we had to tell him about the commandments because then he could just live in ignorance - happy.  We told him he gets blessings for obeying each commandment! 

English class is really fun.  The people love talking to us.  On Friday, one guy walked 2 hours to get here because he didn't have a ride.  A part of that is I'm editing a LOT of graduate school application essays.  It’s fun. I will edit while Elder Heaton reads scriptures with them.  Mutually beneficial!

Whenever we walk on the streets and try to hand out English class cards, everyone says they already have one or have seen our flyers.  We need to find a new way to access the people! We've saturated this method of advertising.  It's like we're selling stuff... for free... So if anyone has ideas, let me know!

Sometimes it's nice to not have to do midterms this time of year.  Everyone we're working with is stressing like crazy about them - one of the perks of being a missionary is NO MIDTERMS.  But we have to work with that when everyone cancels because they have midterms.  

Everything's pretty good.  I'm freezing at night sometimes because it drops below 60 degrees! The other day some guy showed a sign of a C and I thought hey California. Apparently “C” means “Crips” down here! Fun stuff! Not very many "Hail Satans” this week! More "HEY IT'S THE MISSIONARIES!!!" which is a lot nicer!

Noodles

Chef Dyer 

So gourmet

Zone conference