Riverside/Dows Lake Week 9

Gingerbread looks awesome! I might be doing that later today at a member's house. 

Missionaries here apparently watched disney movies last Christmas so my companion was really hopeful we would be allowed to watch one. I personally did not care and actually would rather not. He texted the mission president and he said no, which I was happy about, but my companion was disappointed. 

I ate a lot of chocolate you sent but gave the rest to a homeless man along with a Book of Mormon. He was not going to accept a Book of Mormon at first but after I explained what it was he got interested and took it! There are definitely different types of homeless people, people who are just crazy like really just losing their minds and then people who are not crazy, we try to be nice to everyone but we got to stay safe and if our interaction with them is not going to invite them to come closer to Christ than there is not much reason to talk to them which can be hard to feel like you are just walking right by someone who is asking for help but we are not allowed to give out money to them. 

We also talked to many mandarin speakers which made me feel like I was doing my job better, we were so close to getting a return appointment but then the guy said his education conflicted with the Book of Mormon and that he did not want to hear any more. At least he read the introduction and witnesses I guess and has a copy for the future, but still a bummer. Lots of Chinese people also leave for the winter. It is fairly easy to get people to listen because many people are just so curious when they hear an American speaking mandarin. 

The Jewish guy texts me questions all the time, not our SIM card number but like just me over messenger. My companion still reads everything I send, so that is not the point, the point is that it is just strange. He will start in the morning and then he will just keep going like every hour or so until the end of the day. He has texted at weird times too like 1am and 4am like just to say he has been pondering the Book of Mormon. He has been asking missionaries questions for over a year. I already told you, but we went and saw him sing last week and it was really cool!

I returned the violin this week. 

We do bishops storehouse here every few Saturdays which is fun! 

We had no friends at church on Sunday which I think was the first time that had ever happened on my mission. We reported 0000 to our district leader that night. It was strange because it was the Christmas service, so we invited lots of people. 

The members are so nice. They gave us lots of goodies and I took a picture.