Elder Winters - February 18, 2013 Year of the Worm

Hey everyone, and Happy Chinese New Year still and Valentine's Day not anymore and Presidents' Day today.  I'm not sure that sentence made sense, but I'm still going with it.  The fact of the matter is Chinese New Year is still going on (it's traditionally 15 days long), but without the major partying.  

I'll share with you a bit of the week and then I'll let you enjoy the rest of your holiday.  It was a pretty major bummer as far as bummers go this week, as I was sick again (bronchitis) and it seemed that investigators had more important things going on than hearing a very hoarse missionary.  But I learned something. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself at one point and then I remembered the story of Ammon.  I have always thought it impressive how Ammon chopped off the Lamanites' arms, but this time something else from the story grabbed my attention.  When Ammon sees the Lamanites coming and the servants around him are all crying, he's over there rejoicing for an opportunity to see a miracle.  That's awesome faith, if you ask me.  So then I thought of things that I could do within my power instead of wallowing in self-pity.  I remembered Whose work it is, and I thought that I could please Him as long as I was doing the best I could.  I know that's the main point of pretty much every movie or book that has to do with missionary work, but I think I learned it, or at least got a better understanding of it for reals this time.  So that was cool.

One quick funny thing.  Near the end of the week members took us out to eat to a Chinese restaurant.  When I was eating my Chinese salad, I discovered a very petite worm on one of the leaves.  My natural reaction was, of course, "what the heck is this doing here."  i told the members, who said to tell the waiter, whom I did.  I was expecting him to at least be like, "I'm so terribly sorry, have all of these dishes for free."  But what he really did was inspect my salad, picked up the worm with my chopsticks, and then popped it in his mouth and ATE IT!  Okay, just kidding.  What he really did was say, "Oh.  We'll get you a clean one."  So they took away my plate and chopsticks and the rest of the salad, and then I got a fresh plate and chopsticks.  The moral of the story is, if you ever find a bug in your dish in an Asian restaurant, don't show it to the  waiter because he'll take away your food.  

Well, that's about it.  It's been a good week.  I know that this is the Lord's work, and He's directing it, even without us knowing sometimes.  It's so great being out here.

Have a sweet week everyone.

-E DBW

.

[He was digging in with gusto before he saw the worm!]

Elder Winters - February 11, 2013 As Becca put it, the Wei Dynasty continues

Hey everybody, and Happy Chinese New Year.  We ended this week with a bang plus a couple of feasts.  Actually, no literal bangs because I guess fireworks are illegal in California.  I did eat my fill of dumplings, duck, chicken, beef, pork, bean sprouts, and goodness knows what else.  All very delicious, though I hope I will still be recognizable when I get back despite the significant weight gain.  

As for the rest of the week, most of it was uneventful due to the fact that I got nailed by the flu.  Bedridden.  It was okay, though, because I got a lot done while I was in bed.  For example, I did quite a bit of science.  One thing I did was prove Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity - I proved that one hour in the middle of the night with the flu is roughly equivalent to one day in real time.  In addition to that, I proved the existence of molecules, mostly because I could feel millions and millions and millions of them smashing into my body whenever I moved or exposed myself from under the covers.  There's just no escaping those molecules.  

The miraculous thing was that I healed up pretty quick, because God still had some work for us to do this week.  Things having been rolling, and I think that this week is the start of the snowball effect.  It was awesome.  Appointments got set up, people got to church, and we were guided every step of the way - we could literally feel it.  It is always an amazing thing to feel that Heavenly Father is using you for His purposes.  I know this is His work, and it's a privilege to participate in it.

Last thing is that my brother got his mission call to Richmond, Virginia, speaking Mandarin as well.  This call makes me happier than I can say.  It turns out the 魏 dynasty must continue.  Best wishes for him.

Have a great week, everyone. 

- Elder Winters

Elder Winters - February 4, 2013 新年快樂！！！

Hello everyone, I hope you all had an enjoyable Groundhog Day.  It was cloudy here, so I think that means winter will start again in December, or something.  I'm not sure what the exact rules are, and frankly, I'm even less sure about how a groundhog's appearance in Pennsylvania affects Mother Nature, but you know, whatever.  I digress.

It's been a pretty good week over here in Irvine, So Cal.  We're welcoming a new elder from Hong Kong tomorrow, plus we have our Chinese new Year Festival coming up this Saturday.  Should be fun.  I hear the missionaries will be performing a fan dance, but I'm sure that's just a rumor.  Anyway, I'll tell you next week whether or not it came true.  

Contacting this week has been more on the challenging side.  I think the most memorable experience for me was when we knocked on a door, a woman looked through the peephole on the door, and yelled, "Nobody's home!" in Chinese.  I admit, I was pretty obnoxious, because I was like, "Sorry for bothering Nobody, then."  Alright, I have repented, but the funniest thing was that she was serious.  

One more story that reminds me what a different culture I'm in.  We were meeting some members and I picked up some donuts on the way, as is my custom from time to time (only Asians seem to work in the donut stores, it's weird).  When we met the members, I offered a donut to their seven-year-old kid, Gabriel.  He then made a face and was like, "Ugghh....too sweet...."  I laughed inside, knowing that if anyone offered me a donut when I was seven, it would've been gone before you could say "Thomas Jefferson."  That's why I can't live in China for too long - no sweets.

Well, this week has been good.  I've felt Heavenly Father answer my prayers.  I know He's there.  He is involved in this work, it is His work.  We just have to remember that.  

Have a good one, everyone.

- Elder Winters

[Don't know why he is holding milk but all I can say is that our milk consumption is drastically reduced now that he is not here!]

Elder Winters - January 29, 2013 大家好 [Hello, everybody]

[Daniel started his email to the family with this: 家庭好，很高興可以發郵件給你們。我特別很開心雅各快要受到他的傳教召喚信封.  We got a good laugh from Google Translate: Good family, very pleased to be able to send e-mail to you. I am particularly glad Jacob is about to suffer his missionary call of the envelope.]

Hey everyone, and a big 你好 to all of my Chinese readers (do I have any of those?).  Chinese New Year is coming up, so that's kind of the big event that we're all looking forward to over here.  Before that, though, is the mad handing out invitations to everyone to actually come.  Whatever the outcome is, there will dumplings, therefore I will be happy.  

As far as news goes, things are picking up quite a bit as far as the work goes - we received two referrals from one of our recent converts.  If you want to make the missionaries of your respective wards happy, give them someone to teach.  And the thing is, all this member did was invite her friends to church.  Pretty simple, and yet the outcome could be incredible.  As Church members, we come to grow to love the gospel and the happiness it brings us, it's just a matter of learning how to share it with others.  I definitely encourage everyone who's out there to think and pray about someone they could share the gospel with, and then plan how to invite him or her to do something, whether it be inviting them to a church meeting or activity, inviting them to dinner, or even meeting with missionaries.  It is so wonderful to have members' cooperation in every aspect of this great work.

Okay, putting the soapbox aside, I had a cool experience with a guy the other day.  We were out contacting and we met a guy that wasn't exactly the most clean-cut person in the world.  He was smoking and coughing pretty severely.  And then I thought of the missionary that President Monson mentioned in his last General Conference address, who saw people as they could become. Then I pictured the guy in front of me dressed in white, neat, clean-shaven, cigarette gone, addiction gone, completely clean.  I felt compassion for him and felt a desire to help him change, and felt confidence in the gospel message that we share and the ability that message has to change people.  I thought about how Heavenly Father felt about him and how He wanted him back with Him.  And then we bore testimony to him and set up a time to share more.  

This work is true, it is powerful, and it is His work.  It's a joyful service and there is no place I'd rather be.

Have a good week, everyone.

- Elder Daniel Winters

Last week's baptism & Christmas

Elder Winters - January 22, 2013

Hey everyone, I hope all is well wherever you are.  Things are rolling over here, and I am loving it.  It's a little harder to love it when things aren't quite rolling, but it always feels good after a nice, long day of working.

So jumping right to the spiritual news, yes, there was a good ol' baptism this past week.  Sister Hong was baptized and confirmed on the nineteenth and twentieth, I think a month after we met her on the street.  She was definitely prepared by the Lord to meet us and receive the gospel.  I think my favorite part was seeing her come up out of the water with the biggest smile ever.  Missionary work is the best.

In other news, I had another exchange in the Korean program.  At the start of the exchange, I mixed up my words and prayed that our appointments would fall through.  I was trying to ask that they wouldn't fall through, but I guess I was prompted otherwise, because four of them actually did fall through the next day...whoops.  My temporary companion joked that I was so spiritual that even the prayers that we didn't want got answered.  

In exercise news, my companion and I have been playing tennis in the mornings at the court near our apartment.  Actually it usually turns out to be a game of me-trying-to-serve-eight-times while my companion stands there yawning....I'll let you all know if I can ever get the ball over the net.  Tips are welcomed.

Finally, we've been trying to find quite a bit now as our teaching pool has been rapidly diminishing, but we've seen a lot of miracles.  Just yesterday we were knocking in a neighborhood that I don't particularly like knocking in, mostly because the people there either already have a church or they've heard the Christianity story so often that they're fine with keeping Buddhism or Atheism.  But, we got into one of the first houses!  This cool guy from Beijing that was super welcoming.  Yeah.  It was legit, we'll be following up more with him.  Updates to come.  We've got a record number of lessons set up for this week, so it should be a good one.  This work is true, it's amazing to be able to invite others to come unto Jesus Christ.  The gospel's true, so have a great week.

- Elder Winters

Elder Winters - January 14, 2013 Dajia hao! Wo shi Tom!

That title is from this Chinese-learning program from my companion's dictionary.  It's this Chinese guy pretending like his Chinese is that of an English person's, which is why it's funny...if you've heard it.

Hello everyone, welcome to another week in the life.  Quite a few things went down this past week, one of which was going into the Korean program on exchange.  The highlight might've been when my temporary companion told me right before a dinner appointment, "Each as much as you can, even if you feel like throwing up.  It's rude not to."  No problem there.  I think I may have swallowed a few bones in my gusto, though.

Another exciting thing might have been in our English class.  We have Mainland China students and Taiwan students, and because those wo nations aren't exactly the best of friends right now, things can get a little heated.  I think the argument was whether English or Chinese was harder to learn.  As the teacher I was just looking at them in amusement, but it soon became time for me to break them up.  It was all right, though, don't worry - they're all about 80 years old, so they couldn't hurt each other even if they wanted to.  

In big news, our investigator passed her baptismal interview this past week.  I translated for our zone leader who did the actual interview.  I was pretty nervous when she said that the Word of Wisdom entails not eating birds, but I think she must have been just trying to quote from D&C 89.  Anyway, she's been awesome, and I mean giving up green tea in one second and praying about the Plan of Salvation right in the middle of the lesson, so we're super excited for her baptism this Saturday.  

On last thing.  Our recent convert gave a talk yesterday about her relationship with God.  I think that the things we teach our people can have such a great effect that is immeasurable by us missionaries.  But the things we teach are true principles, and they have the potential to change lives.

This work is true.  It's an amazing feeling to have the Holy Ghost with you, bearing you up, letting you know what to say when you have no idea.  The gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored in its fullness through a modern prophet.  God loves us and watches over us.

Have an incredible week, everyone.

- Elder Daniel Winters

Elder Winters - January 7, 2012

Hello everyone.  Really short email coming.  Let me sum up the week:

1) Exchange with the zone leaders.  In the English program.  I think this was my third time being in English.  My temporary companion was Elder Wadsworth, the missionary that came into the field with me and who was until three weeks ago in the Vietnamese program.  That got me thinking if I was ever switched out of the Chinese program for more than a transfer (6 weeks), I would cry.  Plus, the English speaking world has much more crazy people than the Chinese world.  Like we met a guy that has played chess for over 40 years and looks like that Pixar short guy...Gerry?  I don't know, but it was kind of intimidating when he asked me how many years I had been playing chess.  If he was at all interested in our message, I might have let him destroy me, but he wasn't.  Or maybe I should have let him destroy me and then he would have been interested in what we had to say.  And!  Second crazy person.  I saw this woman and I felt, "Yeah, go talk to her.  She's solid.  Trust your feelings, Luke.  I mean, Elder Winters."  So I was all like, let's do this.  So we start out and go talk to her and it turns out she was a witch!  She's like, "It's okay, I'm a practicing Wiccan.  Or, as you might know us, I'm a witch."  Several minutes and three heart attacks later, we came to ourselves and then the jokes started.  It turns out Elder Wadsworth also loves quoting movies, so the resulting dialogue was all out of Harry Potter and Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

"Good thing she didn't cast a spell on us! 'Wingardium Leviosa!'" "It's 'Levioooosa', not 'Leviosaaa', honestly." "She's a witch!  She turned me into a newt!" et cetera, et cetera.  

Sorry, long tangent.  That was fun.

'nother thing - 

2)Tracting into a legit family.  There is still more follow up to be done, but these people are legit.  I will definitely keep you all updated.  The funny thing was that our companionship was discussing earlier that day with another companionship about how caffeine can be against the Word of Wisdom because it prohibits any addicting substances, and then when the family invited us in they gave us a Coke each.  Not wanting to be rude I drained it in front of them.  Instantly my spiritual power reading dropped a notch.  Not really, but I thought it was funny.

So, that's it for this week, I really have to go, but all of you, wherever you are, keep it classy.  I have a number of friends preparing for missions right now, and I would love to say to you get ready for the most life-changing experience ever.  The work is true, I'm loving it, and anyone that has desires to serve will love it just the same.

Have a great week, everyone.

- Elder Winters