A Few Things-December 10th, 2012

dajia wan an! well i have about 36 minutes to write this email so let's see what we can do! we're a bit pressed for time today cause we went to beiqu (the north district) to get our hair done and my comp got her hair permed and who knew those things took 6 hours?? not us! hahaha she looks adorable though. i got tons of layers i will send a pic next week cause i don't have time to work with this slow computer. the good news is i wrote a lot of letters while we were at the salon. and then afterward treated myself to some fancy taro bread from the bakery (this week has been a pretty crummy one for the diet...crummy because i ate a lot of chocolate and bread and pretty much everything i knew i shouldn't. changing is hard. but i'm not giving up yet!!!!)

there are just a few little things i wanted to share with you sweet dearies.....

on friday our little 11-year-old friend sister chen [not her real name, you know i never use real names, right?] got baptized! it was a little bit zaogao (embarrassing, "oops", etc) because well we're just a couple of kids trying to put together a baptism. probably the worst thing that happened was we spelled her name wrong on the program which was actually hugely upsetting because it took us forever to put the thing together (we typed it in chinese characters and then had to go to a 7-11 and figure out the obnoxiously complex copy machine....it was quite the ordeal) but we spelled her name according to the way it was written on the ward list so it really wasn't our fault and her mom was super nice about it but we just felt like idiots.


THEN we did like a musical number which was us missionaries singing the "I like to look for rainbows" song in chinese and i played the ukulele (we found it in the coat room a few weeks ago) but right before the performance it got way out of tune and we messed up the fancy way we had arranged to sing....i felt bad. but then i think the beautiful parts of the baptism far outweighed my foolish errors. i introduced sister chen which i had not really planned on doing but then got all emotional and just told everyone what a special child she is and although she is so young she has such a strong testimony and understanding and a very special light about her. sister t. said that sister chen was bashfully smiling the whole way through and seemed to really like it so i'm grateful for that. and then her testimony was AMAZING. she talked about how she knew the gospel of christ was true and that it can change our lives....i loved it. most of the people who came to her baptism don't really know her that well and she didn't know them...and in fact there were probably more missionaries there than members ofthe ward but somehow it was just so special that they were there supporting her anyway. one of the ladies who spoke at the baptism is this darling sister from indonesia. she has the cutest accent when she speaks chinese. i just...i don't know. it was not very fluid at all and a lot of things did NOT go according to plan but sister chen got baptized and everyone really tried their best to make it a great experience and that is why it was so beautiful to me.

 here's your laugh for the week......a while ago the ward announced this potluck activity for this last saturday and so we got really excited and invited tons of people to come. i called to invite one of our recent converts and she was like "oh no my brother said they changed the time." except oh no we already invited like 4 investigators and a bunch of less active members and several of them confirmed! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! so we had like 2 hours to throw this activity together. we called some of the elders in our district in a total panic and begged them to get some investigators to come. then we grabbed almost all the food in our fridge and flew out the door to hurry and buy some things from a bakery and some rice. when we were at the rice place i asked sister t. "do you think we should bring chopsticks?" so she grabbed a massive handful and we were laughing uncontrollably and the people who sold us the rice thought we were insane (and really we kind of were) but i gave them some cookies (thankfully earlier that week one of our investigators gave us a box of cookies she got from a wedding she went to. like a HUGE box of cookies).


Sister T. and I sped over to the church to put everything together. she was chopping up fruit and bread and i was making soup and fried eggs when suddenly the fire alarm started going off and we were about to start tearing our hair out. NOW IS NOT A GOOD TIME FOR A FIRE!!!!!!! it wasn't because of us and actually it turned out to just be a drill for the third floor to make sure it was working. well, it works in case anyone is wondering. so after a series of very stressful and ghetto efforts, we ended up throwing a small and perfectly awkward dinner party! 2 of our investigators came, one whom we had never met but i sat with her after and she's totally amazing. i talked to her a little about why she is looking around different christian churches and then i gave her a book of mormon and she was totally overwhelmed. she was like "you want to give me this??" and seemed really excited to have something to read to help her on her search. i love moments like that. finding these honest seekers of truth...sometimes they actually progress really slowly (we aren't meeting with this girl again until december 23rd) but it's a beautiful thing to be in the right place at the right time and to help people on their spiritual journey.

 ok ONE MORE WONDERFUL THING: last week we were visiting with sister jiang who has heard the first and second lesson but hasn't really been reading or praying but she is so cool and really does want to find answers and find the right
church so we said, "what can we do to help you start reading and praying every day?" and she was kind of embarrassed but finally asked "could you come over and read with me?" ummmm....yes. YESSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so we have started going over 4 times a week to read the book of mormon with her. you should have heard her prayer after we read 1 nephi 1....she said "Heavenly Father we just read this story about Lehi and his son....I really like the way i felt when i read it, and i hope that i can know it is true." it was so INCREDIBLE my soul was on fire! she was a little less excited about chapter 2 because it kind of scared her.....i don't know what we'll do when nephi kills laban but i'm not really worried. i was ordained to "preach [the] gospel by the spirit, even the comforter, which was sent forth to teach the truth" (D&C 50:13-14) so if we stay worthy to wield that power i know the spirit can teach her and help her to understand.

i love you all so so so so so so much.
wo feichang, chao, yongyongyuanyuan,
 hen ai nimen.
sister coco