Elder Winters - August 27, 2012

Hey everybody, and welcome to P-day.  We've got a new elder in town, Elder Hui from Toronto, Canada.  You all know what this means - more discrimination against the white American elder.  No, seriously, he's a stud, his Mandarin is through the roof, and he can actually play basketball.  His parents both hail from Hong Kong, so he can speak Cantonese to boot.  I'll be with him and Elder Wang for 6 weeks, and then the real craziness begins when Elder Li from China/Japan comes.  

So, I've learned this week that at dinner when someone asks, "Would you like some of this?" the most expedient response should be a prompt, "What is that?" instead of "Sure!  Why not?"  This may come from the occasion when there was a big bowl of tripe in the middle of the table.  I unfortunately employed the latter response when asked the above question, so, yes, I got a big plateful of stomach for my stomach this past week.  And also, out of curiosity, does anyone know if the inside of cow stomachs have cilia?  I just want to make sure exactly what those things are and I'm afraid my limited knowledge of biology is going down the tubes.

Outside of culinary craziness, we have experienced some fun service activities this past week.  One of them included moving several large objects into someone's new house.  As many of you know, it is a custom among the Chinese to take one's shoes off every time you enter a house. This proved to be somewhat inconvenient, especially when Elder Wang and self were carrying the what seemed like 3,000 pound TV into the house.  Needles to say, we became pretty good at taking off our shoes while walking while carrying large, heavy objects.  

In awesome exciting spiritual news, Guo Jiemei got baptized and confirmed this week.  We didn't think she would make it this week because she's been quite busy lately, but on Wednesday she expressed that she wanted to make her goal for Staurday, so we were scrambling a little bit this week.  But, everything went well and decently smoothly.  Also, I have an experience uncannily similar to my sister Rebecca's.  Guo Jiemei was very nervous before her baptism, but when I talked to her afterward she said the feeling was completely gone.  She was so incredibly happy, and we were so incredibly happy for her.  I know she made a correct choice.  I also know she has full access to the blessings of the Atonement of Jesus Christ as she continues to live the gospel.  The work is true, it's amazing, it's the best ever, have a great week everyone.

-EDW