We had a really great week, it started with p-day. We had lunch with Helena, last lunch with her we supposed before she became a member of the church. We went to a place that had a lot of her hometowns favorite dishes. We had a fun p-day and had some fun play monopoly. Later,
We had the Zheng family for dinner. This family is the best, really. Just a really funny family, Clarabelle was the funniest one there, she found out a trick with her pinky where she could totally straighten her pinky except the joint at the fingertip would bend down, and she was loving it. It was really funny, she said she was an alien. Funny little girl.
We taught Edward the 1st lesson to help him prepare for baptism. It was about a 25-30 minute lesson and he seemed to understand it all really well.
The other highlights of the week were tuesday night being able to teach Rocky again and help him out with his business. He said he wants to come to church, (but) there always is a but. That's his day to rest... ... ok.
We also on Wednesday met with Helena to go over everything for her baptism, she wanted to go over the rest of the commandments, and the rest of the Plan of Salvation and the interview questions. We were with her for about 2 hours. Pretty long time but it worked out just fine.
Her interview was that night, and she passed without any problem at all. It was one of the shortest interviews i've seen on my mission. It went really well. We gave her a blessing afterwards because she was getting a little sick, and then we walked her home.
Thursday, thursday! Zone conference, I don't know where to begin on this one, I guess I can share my general thoughts about it. I thought it was super good. I learned a lot about obedience and being that missionary that is obedient for The Lord, and not for other people solely. I learned who I am as a missionary and I learned that constant improvement is possible, and that balance is also necessary on your mission as well. It was a good zone conference. We learned a lot about the numbers of our mission are turning around, and how we are the only mission on the west coast that their baptismal numbers are NOT going down. We are projected to get between 550-600 baptisms as a mission this year. We are the only mission that is going with reversing the trends.
Moving on to the weekend,
So this weekend a lot happened that was pretty awesome. Well first, the wait is over. Helena has been baptized and confirmed a member of this wonderful church. This picture was taken after her baptism.
First to tell you about Ellie and Ritta
Ellie and Ritta are a mother (ellie) and daughter(ritta) that have made good friends with Sister Davis (a member from taiwan who just so happens to be our branch mission leaders wife) they met about a month ago at a singing class. Anyway, this friday we had our 3rd lesson with them, we gave them a reading assignment which was to read the entire Plan of Salvation pamphlet and be prepared to learn the material in it. So we got to the Davis' home that night to teach the lesson, and we were a little caught off guard because Ellie cut her hair really short, a big change from the last week (its very stylish!) anyway we sat down and talked for a few minutes, and then we switched gears and I asked her (and I'm not sure if she just wanted to say it or misunderstood me) "Who would you like to say the prayer?" anyway she didn't even blink and she just started saying the prayer.
After the prayer had finished, we asked them if they had a chance to read it, and they said yes of course, and Ritta who in previous lessons didn't seem super interested in what we had to say got really excited about it and pretty much taught the whole thing in detail to us in like 5 minutes. It was quite good, they both knew their stuff really well and you could tell that they had really taken time to read it through carefully. We started off with the lesson, and we taught it through and through (not without distractions of course...) and got to the end, talked about the three Kingdoms and briefly covered that (we had to leave for another lesson) and then Sister Davis testified, and then asked Ellie she said in chinese "Hey Ellie didn't you have something you wanted to tell the missionaries?" anyway she said she wanted to be baptized but she wasn't sure how to make a goal and she said she wouldn't be very good as a member to start off with...
She ended up saying "I can't be baptized because when I go to China, I will miss a week of church" and all this (she was being totally sincere, not just making excuses) and so we asked her if she would think about the day December 7th in the next week, and come back with an answer and she said that she would. She later explained that ever since she started coming to church in the beginning of October she doesn't drink alcohol anymore and she doesn't seem to know why she doesn't want to drink it anymore. Pretty interesting stuff haha. We asked her to read our next pamphlet "The Gospel of Jesus Christ" and set a firm goal for baptism for her and her daughter.
After that lesson on Friday night, we had a pretty interesting experience with the infamous Wang Chongqi. He is one of the beloved non-member husbands of the branch (literally, everyone loves him and he comes to church quite a bit) but he is a very difficult investigator. Anyway I knew how he was, and i've been in their home off and on for the past 6 months for dinner appointments and things like this, so I kinda knew what we were getting into when we invited him to take the lessons again. Anyway this had been our second lesson, our first lesson had gone really really and he said that he had never learned anything from missionaries like that before. So we were determined to get to the root of his problem and his reasoning for not wanting to join the church. Elder Fisher and I had talked about it a lot and tried to come to a conclusion on why he wasn't wanting to be baptized. We figured it was the Word of Wisdom, and tea and coffee in specific. Anyway we got there, and we asked him some thought provoking questions like "What are the pros and cons of knowing God exists?" and things like this, and he said none. Anyway we got the point where we knew he didn't want to do personal prayers and we knew he didn't want to do them because he didn't want to receive an answer. So we talked to him about what was keeping him back. He said he didn't want to give up tea and coffee, and that he said he doesn't know whats wrong with it. Anyway we talked to him about trying to give it up and seeing the blessings that stem from it.
So we got to that point, and he likes to push back on the missionaries even when they are trying to bear sincere testimony, so anyway he said "Why don't you try tea and coffee for yourself and tell me that it is NOT bad?" We didn't want to get into that too much, so we bore testimony, tried to commit him to doing it, and left. Pretty hard lesson, but his heart isn't ready quite yet to receive us.
This brings us to Saturday, Helena's baptism.
Let's just say it was an incredible busy morning filled with exchanges with other elders, waiting for another baptism to finish, adding more warm water to the font, exchanging back, and setting up but at 12:30 we got started, we got some really great pictures, and it was a wonderful baptism. We sang "When I am Baptized" as the opening song, and had a great talk by Sister Catanzaro. Helena was baptized, and that was it! We had another talk on the Holy Ghost by Sister Tiu, and closed with "I am a Child of God" we stayed afterwards to congratulate her. I wrote a note to her bearing my testimony and telling her how proud of her I was and how she has been an influence for good not only for the people around her but for my family as well. She gave me a wallet she bought in china because she knew how much old wallet was falling apart. I've never been given a gift at a baptism before :P... Julianna came to her baptism and a whole lot of other people. It was good to see all of them.
Helena texted us throughout the day saying how thankful and grateful she was. I was happy that she was happy for how her baptism came out. She was very thankful for the note I gave her too. The next day we had her confirmed in Sacrament meeting. Brother Hessel her host father confirmed her, and it was a very joyous occasion. After the confirmation I told her "You made it." and she responded with "I know. I did it" she was so happy.
I am happy, and also sad. The church has gained a faithful member of the church, and we lost the best investigator ever.
Later that day, President Watkins called, let us know how proud of the baptism he was, and asked about the email we sent him about Helena not being able to apply for BYU because she was short a couple credits for transferring. He said he was going to call us back and pull some strings for her to get in this next fall. Isn't he the best mission president ever?
The last highlight of the week was with Christina the young girl from China. I love her so much, she is just the best ever. We had dinner with them once again, and so we had a good time looking at the pictures of her since she has come to America while we were waiting for dinner. Makes me want to adopt! Anyway, had dinner, and then afterwards we talked about what Christ does for us in our lives and how important he is. We talked about how he can heal us, and talked about he can heal her. Christina's left arm is really not very healthy, and hasn't been fully functioning since she was born, she said she doesn't have enough energy in that arm to do much with it. She was pick things up and move them, but nothing that takes a lot of dexterity. She told us a story that was pretty hard to translate at first because it was kind of vague, but as time went on she got more specific. She said that she was visiting a friends house when she was in China, and she was on the second floor area where they have the AC units, and she said she was by a unit and a electrical cord electrocuted her arm really badly. This was when she was 9 years old. It was the same arm that didn't function very well. She told us how for about 3 or so months how that arm was aching and hurt so much and how she had to peel the peeling skin off of her arm for 3 months. Her parents were not very happy to hear this story because they didn't know this had happened. They asked us to ask her if her arm now is worse or better than it was before that accident. Anyway it turns out her arm is just about the same than it was before that accident. So they were happy that it ended up that way. They are taking Christina to a physical therapy doctor at Stanford on Thursday to see how they can bring back full dexterity to that arm for her.
That was the week, been reflecting a lot on the past 6 or 7 months in this area, and how good a friend Helena has been. I feel like my time here in Cupertino is coming to close with this baptism. It may very well be the end of the time here, but only time with tell. We will know by December 7th.
Thanks everyone, a lot to read this week,
Elder Sanchez
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