January 16th, 2017:
Yesterday we sang America the Beautiful in church. It was odd to sing it on a random weekend, especially in the Chinese ward. [Although it is MLK day today.]
I'm actually writing this Tuesday the 17th. I
would have last night, had it not been for a spider trying to make a
web in the bathroom and catching some web on my hair… not fun.
This p-day, we cleaned & emailed before heading out to the stores for another round of shopping. I got a very cheap shirt for exercise and a pretty floral tie that I can't decide if I should keep. I'm going to try to keep my eyes open for some cultural activities we could do in the future.
Someone paid for our groceries today, which was really nice of her! There are so many people willing to help us in Utah.
My cough is going away, thankfully.
I got a care package for my birthday today! It was a great gift. I
especially enjoyed "the greatest gift of all"–by the shape of it, I
thought it was a tie tack; instead, it was a USB cap for my flash drive.
January 17th, 2017:
Today was Elder Leterneau's first day at the office. We dropped him off at the office at ~10:00. While there, I ended up with a bag of peppermint sticks. Yum.
We then went to the language study with the sisters. Elder
Bach & Sister Lisonbee discovered the handwriting keyboard for
Chinese while I had Sister Shang teach me how to write a few characters. It was great!
Later in the day, we moved a couch. The member was about to give up when I figured out the geometry of it. It was weird–the couch was a perfect fit to be moved in the house. No clearance, but not scraping the walls.
After that, we went back to pick up Elder Leterneau. He got his own phone for the office, which I didn't expect. We also found that he will be with us for weekly planning, which we should move to Saturdays. That's great.
Also, I didn't find the spider yet.
January 18th, 2017:
Reading the Book of Mormon quickly is pretty cool, as it reads a lot more like a story. I still learn, it's just different.
I still haven't gotten Kirsten and Jason's package, but I'll probably get it on Friday. I know the feeling of wanting to know if the mail you sent actually got there…
We had a weirdly paced day. It was a slow morning followed by an afternoon blitz of 12 people in about two hours in Emigration Canyon. Our
evening was short–Elder Leterneau's stomach & knees were acting up
and Elder Bach had some medical craziness develop so we went in early.
January 19th, 2017:
Well... Elder Leterneau basically told us he felt he couldn't deal with the issue at hand when Elder Bach and I started squabbling over some point of planning. He ended up leaving our planning session to "sort things out" in his head. Elder Bach left soon after that.
…
umm. Yeah. Sorry about not writing anything else for today.
January 20th, 2017:
Wow. Well, I'll start with the short things today:
- I got two letters from my grandparents! I haven't had time to read grandma's just yet, but thank you! My brother's card and sister's package haven't come yet… I'll ask about it tomorrow.
- I've gotten significantly better in writing characters! I need to practice speaking more, though…
- I got a character tie from one of our WMLs today! It's pretty wide & ornate, so I might only wear it on Chinese New Year. I ended up giving it to Elder Bach, since he wanted it too but I had already grabbed it out of the pile of ties our WML brought to us.
Alright, so now: Elder Bach crashed the car today. Or, he caused an accident. Really,
it was just a fender bender and also a true accident–the person ahead
of him hadn't gone to merge on the highway but he thought she had–so
he'll probably keep his driving privileges.
To be frank, Elder Bach doesn't have the best of driving habits. Now, I have a really low tolerance for that, so I may just be being too critical. Also, to be clear, it wasn't his bad driving habits that caused the accident. Maybe
it was partially due to his nature as a less cautious driver, but
really it was a type of crash that happens to everyone eventually.
The big spiritual thing I've found is in applying our mission nurse's, Sister Balling, advice. She helped me be more outgoing and happy in spite of my doubts of if people want to talk to me. It's part of letting others choose how they will and not letting that get to me. If someone's going to be a grump, so be it! If my companion is going to be disobedient, so be it! If my investigators no longer will progress, so be it! I
will still love them, I will help them still, as I can, but I have
freed myself from the stress and pressure and perceived judgment of
others. It is truly liberating, and I love it.
That being said, don't get me wrong. I am still a rational being.
By the way, I've decided to not keep the tie I bought. I'm
going to sell it to Elder Hyde for the amount I paid for and ship the
money home to my parents (I used the "emergency" credit card tied to their account because the express check-out line
only took credit and I didn't know if my Schwab debit card would work).
Also, Elder Paul complimented me on my suit-tie combo today. I pride myself in the little things, but I believe too much so. I'm working on that.
January 21st, 2017:
Snow! Snow caused us to miss most of our day. We cleaned while we sat inside, which was nice, but too often we miss proselyting time! Between the snow, my sickness, Elder Bach's shoulder, & Elder Leterneau's knees, we've missed a lot of opportunity.
We went to Elder Paul's 80 birthday today. He's part of our senior couple. It
made me think a lot about life–when you're 20 years old, you may have
80 years yet and time may have just started to pick up pace. But there's still a lot of potential with that time. If you're 80 years old, you may have 20 years left. That's a very different view.
I'm working on being kinder. More Christlike. It's
very hard; not that I'm mean, but if you set your sights to be like
Jesus Christ (to which I'm a far way always) eventually your eyes are
going to be opened to all the catching up you have to do!
By the way, I got many beautiful
panorama photos before attending Elder Paul's party at "This is the Place"
monument, which is at an elevated edge of the city.
I've realized that I, in a small way, am persecuting Elder Bach for not being obedient. It's a very small way, but it's tied to the scriptures. There's
a large difference between loving others and wanting to help them
improve and judging others and wanting them to change their
imperfections. It's certainly not the same level as in the scriptures, but it still hurts our companionship and I have to stop it.
January 22nd, 2017:
I forgot to mention: yesterday we helped a man move boxes and in exchange he let us keep a few things. He used to own a store that sold dress clothes. I'm
going to give him the money I'll get from Elder Hyde, as the belt he
gave me was $15 wholesale, so I will not be sending home that money.
We made a really good soup yesterday and ate it today. It was a joint effort on everyone's part and it ended up tasting pretty yummy.
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