WEEK 11 - Peter Chen

Gosh I am thankful for so much. I'm thankful for this catering size chicken fried rice that was given to me yesterday, that I am eating as I write this. I am so thankful for everyone everyday who is willing to talk to me and become my friend. I am soooo thankful for my family and friends. Missions are tough and probably impossible for subpar people like me without being thankful. For everyone on a mission, or if your just at home or whatever your doing I challenge you to be more thankful in your life this week, it genuinely changes your mindset and makes you a happier person. I know I have seen it in my own life. Please nobody leak that spiritual thought to church leadership or I may have just landed myself a calling in the Quorum of the 70 lol. This week was wonderous let me tell you some of the wonderous things that happened: - So we had this new friend that we had a lesson with over zoom at the beginning of the week. I was so excited because this new friend is like super ready to hear about the gospel. I had confirmed with Peter Wang (our branch president) about him helping us with the lesson at about 3 PM that day and he was like "yes I can do it, I am excited." The lesson was at 8 PM. At like 7:30 I sent a text to him reminding him about the lesson, he replied with "oh wait sorry I went to Cancun." Idk what happened in the last 4.5 hours that placed him in Cancun but I was stressed now because we had no one to help us with the lesson (lessons always go 100x better with a member there) I asked like 8 other members if they could help and none could. I then attempted to pick my valiant trainer Elder Campbell's brain for suggestions on members who have helped a lot in the past and could help us with this lesson. Elder Campbell must've been wiped from a day of missionary labors, because I asked him and I guess he was not vibing with the stress of finding an available member for this lesson, so he went into the other room and did a deep dive into his favorite piece of literature: the general handbook. I was on my own now, except for the occasional interesting fact from the general handbook that Elder Campbell found in the other room and felt inspired to tell me. Like 2 minutes before the lesson I had the bright idea to ask my newly baptized friend Chu Yang if he could help us. Chu Yang came in clutch (as usual) and helped with the lesson. He is still so new, but it was so cool to see his love for the gospel and his desire to help us. The lesson went well with a banger testimony from Chu Yang at the end. Chu Yang got the priesthood today and was sustained in sacrament meeting. I love you Chu Yang. - We had lunch with our friends Will and Lauryn again this week and it was awesome. I guess Will prefers to hear the message of the restored gospel drunk, because when it came time to order drinks we all got water and he got a nice cold beer. Every beer Will had the conversation got weirder. About 3 beers in Will talked about how he likes to study nutrition he said "Man I love learning about nutrition. Sometimes I just get home from work and I'll look at different studies till 4 in the morning. Trust me you do not want to open this can of worms haha." So I didn't. Will took this as an invitation to open that can of worms though. He gave us the most scientific medically advanced description on why us humans are not eating enough sodium. I knew how to handle this because, I myself have been through stuff like this before with my brother Mckay. Everytime Will would say some random fact that was probably true about what sodium does to your kidneys, I would have small flashbacks to Mckay at the dinner table giving me every fact ever about caffeine. Gosh darn it, I miss you Mckay. The way to handle this type of thing (in my experience) is to just let them say their thing. Will just kept going and going and going. No amounts of bottomless sushi was going to stop this man (he ordered bottomless sushi). I believe that if you want to become a nutritionalist, there is no need to go to school. Just schedule yourself a hour of lunch with Will and he will tell you literally everything ever about nutrition. I would pay to watch a sped up version of him and Mckay talking about nutrition lol. It felt like years, but Will did eventually finish and they asked us the question that they met with us to ask. They are having a baby and had some family issues and asked for some Spirit led advice. I did my best to answer it and it was really cool because they really appreciated it. I love them and am so excited to meet with them again. - Our friend Crystal was baptized! Before the baptism Crystal had made it clear to me that this water better be warm, I was like "of course Crystal you can count on me." We got to the church and I started filling the font and there was probably something wrong with the water heater because the water was only like 85. I personally thought that this was a fine temperature. But then I thought back to my Mom and everytime she has gotten in water that is less then 95 degrees. Ladies and Gentlemen, this thought concerned me. I did not want to feel the wrath of Crystal inside that font (because I was the one baptizing her). I said a prayer that the baptism would go smoothly, despite this water being blistering cold. Crystal showed up and the first question she asked me was if the water was warm. I was like "uhhhh yes." I went over what she was supposed to do in the font with her like 100 times, explaining to her how she would be fully submerged and where she was supposed to put her hands and stuff and that she needed to plug her nose. The baptism part started and I was waiting in the font for her. She started walking in and the moment her foot touched the water, I saw fear enter this woman. She got in (slowly) though and we started. I said the prayer and she went under. I guess the 85 degree freezing water had caused Crystal to forget her training, because she just completely let go of her nose when she was underwater. She came up and began coughing up a storm. As I was changing I could hear her still coughing in the bathroom as Judy Wang was helping her get changed again. I was praying that this was not a traumatizing experience for Crystal. I felt kinda bad as I was waiting back at the seats for her, but she walked out of the bathroom looking happy and excited. I forgot that baptism is dope and heals like every wound ever. I shoulda remembered. She then got confirmed by Elder Campbell (who gave a wonderful confirming prayer) and then she gave her testimony and it was really good. We then had a huge potluck where I added this catering sized fried rice and like 8 other things to my inventory. It was super cool, baptisms are my favorite. - Peter Chen taught Elders Quorum today. Now I could easily write an entire email about the things Peter Chen does to me every week, but I will just include a portion of it this email. Peter Chen is literally my best friend. He is an 82 year old chinese man, and probably the person who says the most out of pocket things a day on this entire earth. For his Elders Quorum lesson he decided to do it based on one of Elder Gong's talks (which is an extremely common thing for lessons in this branch). He started by excusing all of the white people in the room from listening to his lesson. He said that chinese people don't love each other and that needs to change. Now nothing sets the mood right quite like a nice racist regard from Peter Chen. He was explaining how telling people we love them is important and that he is the only Chinese person in the entire world who does it. Peter refuses to speak in Chinese most of the time because he just likes broken English more, this is a problem because 1/3 of the room knows literally 0 english. Luckily, nobody in this entire branch ever gets offended at anything. He was telling us a story about how his parents when he was little would spank him, so 30 years later he sent money back to Taiwan. I think he forgot to include a critical part of the story because it was very confusing, I am not sure why he sent this sum of money to Taiwan and who received it, but I do know he was spanked as a child and sent a large sum of money to Taiwan. We ran out of time so he called on himself to give the closing prayer. He started off by thanking Heavenly Father for the lesson he gave, and then dedicated the next 5 minutes of his prayer to Israel and asking God to help them. I love Peter Chen, and I am taking him home with me when this mission thing is done. - Thank you to everyone who reads these emails, I love writing them. Double thank you to those who respond and talk to me on P Day, I just love you all so much. I hope everyone who reads this has the best week of their life! I think about you guys so much and hope everything in your life is amazing, give me an update, I would love to hear! Love you all! Join the Google Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qwGY1QhS99ne5wGy8 Pictures: 1. Me and Elder Lane on exchanges 2. Elder Lane trying a authentic spring roll 3. I was riding a pony 4. Crystal was baptized hooray 5. Elder Campbell mid feast