Also I have to go get my hair cut by someone I don't know for the first time. (I have always had mom, myself, or other missionaries do it.) So we will see how that goes.
This week was pretty wet. Tuesday we met with Xiu Huang again. She is not progressing. She won't pray to know if this Church is Jesus Christ's true church. She went on to tell us how the Catholic's were much more "serious and strict" than us "Christians" (we haven't taught her any commandments yet.) At first I was just frustrated. I had to take a deep breath and realize all I can do it bear my testimony and invite. If they won't I have to accept that.
Tuesday I did have a really cool thought while pondering as I rode my bike.
Preach My Gospel has a quote on how to recognize the promptings from the Spirit. You'll have to look up the exact quote, but it says something about how anything that invites us to do good, to stand tall, and help others is of God. So I was wondering if every thought I had to do something good was a spiritual prompting. For example what if I have a thought to go talk to a guy across the street, but we are hurrying to an appointment and they street is full of heavy traffic. There is another quote in PMG from Dallin H Oaks that says that while we should desire to be led by the spirit we need to recognize we will not be led in all things. Sometimes when we pray for guidance we don't receive an answer because both choices are good, or the Lord trusts us to make the right choice and wants us to use our own reasoning power to make choices and grow.
So he is my conclusion. We definitely need to pay attention to thoughts and feelings we have that invite us to do good things. They could be Heavenly Father telling us to do something. However, if we aren't sure about it. We should study out the pros and cons. Then pray about it. One of 3 things will happen. Heavenly Father answers and you will feel that it is right, or He answers you and tells you not to. The third option is you don't get an answer you still feel unsure. This means that Heavenly Father trusts you to use you best judgement to make the decision.
I had a cool experience with this this week. We were on our way to go look of Chinese people to talk to. I had a thought to try to visit with Emma and Dong Fang. Usually we meet with them on weekends because he is super busy. I wondered if calling and asking to meet would annoy Dong Fang. So I prayed and asked if the thought I had was what we should do. After I prayed I felt the answer, yes you should. So I did. They answered and were really happy to meet and we had a great lesson.
Sorry that took up the bulk of the letter. Ok well I will just write a few things really quick about the investigators.
Frank didn't come to church. Worried that he hasn't felt the spirit. He want's to push his date back. It is a bummer, but if he isn't ready there is no point in pushing him.
Dong Fang. SUPER BUSY. He still reads and prays though. The only thing is Church. We can't get him to come. He has a lot to do to graduate. We tried promising him blessings of help, strength, peace to deal with the stress he is having, but he still didn't come on Sunday :(
Louis. Accepted a baptismal date despite Li Rui trying to dissuade him. It was so funny. We got him on date. And right after Li Rui said. Are you sure? Have you taught him the Word of Wisdom yet? :) So we taught him the word of Wisdom and he said no problem! He didn't come to church either though.
On Sunday we taught two new guys Bruce and Daniel. They are cool, but not too sure how solid they are. We have a return appointment for Saturday. Oh and Andrew dropped us this week too. He is moving to San Jose. We have a final meeting with him next Monday.
On Wednesday we had multi-zones. On Wednesday President told the whole mission that 4 missionaries went really bad. Watched a ton of movies, took naps, slacked off, and to top it off drove to Newport beach. President said he almost sent them home, but after praying felt he should try to work with them. He did send in some disciplinary stuff to Salt Lake. They still might get sent home. Pretty crazy
Saturday we had a meeting with all the Chinese. Elder Heaton and Elder Huggie, us and Elder Dyer and his English trainer. Elder Heaton is struggling with a non-Mandarin speaking comp. He asked president to switch us. President asked my thoughts. I said it would give us both a chance to speak more Chinese. So we might get sent to Eastvale. nothing for sure though. We will see in 2 weeks!
Alright that is the week.
Some funny stuff. This missionary spoke up in our meeting and told his experience of how parting his hair every Sunday to set himself apart from the world had helped him have the Spirit.
-Elder Murray
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