WEEK 50 - I'm Eligible Apparently

Howdy everyone! I love my mission and I love you! I hope that everything in your life is just going swimmingly and I hope that you know that you mean a lot to me! I have just loved being a missionary these last 50 weeks. I have found such a great love for the people that I get to go out and serve every single day. Some people say to me "man it must be so hard to be a missionary, I'm so sorry" but in my mind I feel like a Chick fil a employee because everything I get to do all day truly is my pleasure. A mission is definitely a hard thing and think sometimes too many of us missionaries just get way too lost in that. I read too many missionary emails every week that just talk about the negatives of the mission and it makes me so sad. Jesus Christ could've fully gotten lost in how impossible and difficult it was to atone for the sins of the world, but He didn't, He turned completely outward and focused only on the love He had for us. The atonement seems to always be depicted as this sad and depressing thing that Jesus Christ had to go through for us, but I don't think that is accurate. I imagine a happy Savior grateful to help us when we can't help ourselves. I think we find true happiness in life by turning outward and think that is exactly what our Savior did. The thing that has made me happiest out here has been being able to turn outward for these people, for I do love them. If life is so hard and just everything seems to be against you I challenge you to turn outward and love others with all you have, that's what the happiest people do. Speaking of turning outward I was going through the baptismal interview questions with one of my friends Billy this week. One of the questions talks about service and Billy enlightened me that back in the day in China he would regularly do some service by destroying idols and they didn't know who was doing it. Billy is great and I love him. Let me tell you about my wonderful week: - English class was elite this week. We had an epic crew pull up to class. We were on exchanges so I was the only bilingual man in that room so it was decently intense, but nothing me and the Lord can't handle. The best part of class was when we played 20 questions. I already knew that this game was gonna be a challenge for this group so I made sure to explain it really in depth in Chinese so everyone understood the game. Then our friend JJ who knows super good English pulled up and I was relieved that we would have a solid 20 questions player present. I turned the whiteboard around and drew a house and I went "alright who's got our first question?" and no one did so I was like "alright JJ get the first question" and he was like "Lord Of the Rings." I was having none of this JJ nonsense so I was like "alright moving on, next question." The pattern was like 2 mediocre questions, then 4 questions that have already been asked, and then 1 solid question. For example, Zhang Fan raises his hand and says "is it alive?" and I get so hyped that we have a good question being asked so I'm like "Yes! It is alive! Great question Zhang Fan!" after the question is asked you can tell gears are just moving in their heads, then Billy stands up and yells "COMPUTER!" and I'm like "ah almost, any other guesses?" and then we repeat the cycle. We were probably hitting about 60-70 questions per game, but it was a wholesome time and I just love our English class crew. - So earlier this week we went pretty far away to go visit our recent convert at work. We pulled up and the restaurant was just in the middle of an apartment complex which was weird but kinda cool. We walk in and this Chinese lady's jaw just drops and she points at me and says "I KNOW YOU!" I was like "haha maybe, there are a lot of guys like us" then she said she had a video of me on her phone playing the piano. She told me that her friend Jeff sent it to her and said that I was a single man who would fs be down to date and she was hyped about it cause apparently her fortune said that someone special would come into her life that day. Idk what game Jeff is playing here, cause Jeff is like one of our strongest members and I think this lady was 10-15 years older than me. I kept trying to explain what we do as missionaries and that I can't like go on dates, but she disregarded my comments and was like "come come we have to take a picture." So we go to take a pic and Elder Schneider hops in and you can tell she was butthurt about that so she was like "ugh alright" and threw on like a dog filter and took the pic (will attach below). Then she excused him from the next picture and threw on an even more sus wolf filter and snapped a pic (also will attach). She then gave me free dumplings in an attempt to seduce me, and it just about worked, I love dumplings. She was so hyped that I came and I kept trying to tell her our purpose as missionaries, but she just frankly wasn't interested. She was like "ooh let me read your hands!" I was like "pardon" and she grabbed my hand and told me that I would be richer and live a longer life than Elder Schneider but his marriage would be better. Then she asked how old we were and I told her I was 19. Oh man it was like day and night. She immediately lost interest and quickly wrapped up this conversation. Hopefully she comes to church haha. - We just got transfer news and I am training again so that'll be legendary. I love you all and miss you dearly and I hope wherever you are, that you are having a great day! Have an amazing week! - Also shoutout to my little sister Jane for writing literally the best email I've ever received, thank u Jane - Pics: 1. Running is brutal 2. Group dog filter pic 3. Sus duo wolf pic 4. New fb profile pic 5. Elder Stroud and Confucius 6. Henry had a tough week with his responsibility chart 7. Legos (shoutout Elder Molen) 8. Hyped to go take the sacrament