1 opening presents
2: the tree.
3 Miniature toilet in the hospital late one night
4 Me Sister Holm and my favorite little old special ward member in Xinzhu. I loved this guy and his dog. They were so nice.
5 Sister Holm and I and an investigator Jane
5 Sister Holm and I christmasin out
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
This week was very interesting. I'm pretty sure my entire mission I've never had a schedule with quite so much of nothing in it. We had a total of 3 lessons this week. The sister I replaced mid transfer was going home so the past few weeks have been much preparation for her and as such there were no lessons scheduled with our investigators, of which there are like 5...so...I haven't really met any of them yet...and what does a missionary do when there are no people to teach? We go find people to teach! We were outside all week finding. We did a lot of bike riding and walking and a ton of talking. I've never gotten so many phone numbers in a day before.
We had sister Oler's first lesson on a doorstep with two college jocks. We knocked on their door and when it opened much to our surprisings there were no pants. The door quickly closed on us only after they found out that we were missionaries and we heard frantic scrambling and then almost as equally surprising they really did open the door again. They were almost uncertainly engaging in some very questionable activity...but we taught them about the power of prayer and about who heavenly father is and they gave us their number and said that they would try meeting with the elders. The next day we interrupted a funeral and then went caroling. The next day I let sister Oler lead in contacting and starting the conversations with people. She did pretty well. I assured her that I would be right behind her if she didn't understand something or needed me to jump in, but we were in a park and so every time she initiated conversation somehow a crazy/homeless person would start talking to me...but she did just fine on her own really.
Its a strange thing to suddenly be the one so adept with the language here. I lucked out with getting a 'step-trainee' that is already pretty advanced for a trainee. She ting-de-dongs (understands) most of what she hears already so its like I don't even have to translate most of the time. Its pretty sweet. She will doubtless advance quickly. We get along wonderfully, and I don't fore see much problem wise this transfer. But I do fore see a lot of long hours on the streets. We are going to put our all in resurrecting the area here. Its really tough because its also a high income area and the people are proud and well off most of the time. I came from the area that Sister Holm and I had worked into a boom with 20 something investigators working towards baptism and constant lessons now to a slow creep of the work here. God does not want me to get lazy at the end. This might be my hardest working area. Good on the end.
Christmas day we only had 2 hours of church since this area only has 2 wards. We got up, made french toast, went to church and I gave my by now routine introductory talks. Most of the wards for some reason or another thought I was a new missionary or something and unable to speak Chinese so I had a lot of people afterward come up to me and tell me that my Chinese was really good in surprised tones. that was mildly amusing. We went home and had our little Christmas party around our tiny tree and then Sister Oler called her family. We finished the night at the house of an American family living a few streets down from us we were lucky to be chosen out of the missionaries in the area to share Christmas with them because they invite the missionaries over every year. It topped off the night in a lovely way.
That is all I've got to report on this week, I hope you are all wonderful. And have kaixin de xinnian! Happy New Year! I love you all! Don't forget those resolutions and drink some bubbled cider for me too.
Love you all,
Sister Thiessen 
No comments:
Post a Comment