Monday, June 22, 2015

June 8 Week 96 - Back with Dyer, Ryan Baptism, Liang Baptism, Cool Miracles this week, Liang Baptism, Shelly is RS Secretary

This week has been pretty amazing, but also a little stressful.  I love being with Elder Dyer.  One of my favorite companions.    It has been a fun week with a lot of miracles.  

On Monday after emailing I went with Elder Dyer and Zeng to send Elder Schoonmaker off.  He was really excited, and all the students there were really bummed to see him go. 

The next day after we helped two investigators get fingerprinted for their green cards.  

It was fun to work with the UCR students.  They are all new to me.  They have a good group of new members there.  They are all fun, and are also good friends.  At night we saw Ryan and Selina.  Elder Merriman talked to them one of our day's on bike months ago.  Ryan finally decided to get baptized this Saturday!  Selina is still Buddhist, but I believe one day she'll come around.  

On Wednesday we went out to do finding, and the first person we talked to turned out to be a Chinese person.  She invited us to sit down.  Then she just started attacking the church.  I could see it wasn't really going anywhere, and tried to end it.    At night we had English class.  There is this girl there named Cola who was on date but then dropped us because of coffee and tea, and communist parents.

Thursday we had to take our car in to get fixed.  We taught a girl at the institute named Aggie and put her on date.  She isn't solid though.  We had a correlation meeting with Brother Miao.  I love their family.  I am going to miss them.  At night we say the Liang family.  I think I talked about them when I went on exchanges with Elder Zeng last week.  They were having a rough day.  "Luckily" that day I had put a Chinese Ensign in my bag for some reason, and it had an article that we shared, that I think really helped them.  They told us that they were planning on getting baptized that Sunday in Rolland Heights, since they were taught/had been attending there.  So Elder Dyer called President and he called their President and they said that the Liangs could get baptized there, but they needed to be confirmed here.  So that means the baptisms counted for our mission... President was pretty excited for us.  He even gave us permission to go see the baptism.

Friday we had ZDM.  It went off pretty well.  It is fun to have Sister Sterner in the Zone.  She is a great missionary!    We did our weekly planning that night.  We also ate at Sister Zhangs.  She made some really good Taiwanese food.  I was in heaven.  

Saturday we had Ryan's baptism.  It was really good.  Ryan bore testimony about how he wanted his kid to grow up in a church environment, and how he felt different in our church then he had in any other.  It was a well attended baptism too.  

Sunday at church we had a miracle.  This guy just showed up, he moved from  Maine and his friend told him to come to church.  He came and was asking how he could get baptized.  I have been overwhelmed with all the cool little miracles that have come this week.  

We went to the baptism with Bishop L and Brother X.  Bishop L told us about his wife.  He basically single-handedly started the coconut water craze.  He went on his mission to Brazil, and is a runner.  He later went to MBA school, and did a study abroad in Brazil.  He made a business plan, and started working with an already existing company is Brazil to get it started.  It took off.  He lives really normal though.  He drives a Toyota from 2002.  He said he doesn't need to work, but feels that his kids need to see Dad go to work everyday.  It was cool to hear his testimony about how the Lord has blessed him, as he is always trying to do his best.  He is a great bishop.  

The baptism was great.  They were happy to see us there.  They both gave great testimonies, and expressed gratitude for being led to the church in the US.  They were really impressed with the part in the Book of Mormon that said that all those that come to America are led by the had of God.  After we translated bishops welcome to the ward for them.  Then I saw Shelly from UCR.  She has moved to that ward, and has been active there ever since.  It was fun to see her.  She was really excited.  She is doing great as the Relief Society Secretary!  It was really cool to see the area.  All the signs were in Chinese everything.  The banks the hospital, even the church had one!  It was really fun to see!

Ok that is all this week.  I am really just enjoying this last part of the mission and trying to run hard to keep up with all the work the Lord is blessing us with!  I love you all!
-Elder Murray

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