I got permission from president to do the Skype on the 19th, so you can expect me to call sometime then. I'll get it all figured out some time this week and let you know next Wednesday what time.
We (well, Elder Murray actually) found a new investigator for us on the street who is pretty much as golden as you can get. I don't know if I told you about her yet, her name is Gem (I might have introduced her as Jen before) she started studying Christianity in China, she's been in the USA for 3 years, has no respect for people who go to church to "go to church", only if you're there for the sake of learning something, and then using it. She's read most of 1st Nephi already, and she really likes it, she feels peace when she reads it, and she started taking lessons out and applying them in her life without us even needing to tell her to. She's also really familiar with at least the book of Genesis and the 4 gospels of the New Testament, and she knew the story of Daniel in the lion's den, so I'm guessing she's probably read the full bible before. We're teaching her about the restoration on Saturday, and once she has a testimony of that, she's so solid that we can't really see anything else from potentially holding her back. Her date is scheduled for June 23rd.
Lin [xxx] [xxxx] is getting close to the drop point sadly, he isn't very receptive, he doesn't want more of the BoM on his MP3 player, and doesn't listen to what he has or pray very often. We've been trying to schedule some lessons, but he's been sick, so we haven't actually met him since April 16th.
[xxxxx] actually came to church 2 weeks ago, which was awesome!, but he couldn't come this last Sunday because his uncle died, and he had to go to the viewing. He said he felt the spirit though during our lesson, which was really good.
We've been trying to stay in contact with Li [xxxxx], but she's been super busy with school still, she might be coming to church though on Mother's Day, which would be perfect for her.
Liang [xxxxxx] dropped us, she saw one of the sisters paying her tithing, and saw how much money went in. What she didn't realize was that that sister was paying 4 months of tithing instead of 1. She felt she couldn't keep a commitment like that. I guess this counts as a sobering reminder to always do your tithes in secret, because there might be some negative repercussions, not just the lack of blessings from doing them openly.
We're revamping the English class program, so it's a lot more interactive, and a lot more of getting the students to converse, not read or take notes (which if you know anything about Chinese people, is like asking them to hug a cactus.) It's really fun though, and I'm finally starting to learn the names of the people who I've been standing in front of for the last 2 months.
The Golden Pancake [restaurant] was so so. When we come back here some day 20+ months in the future, I'll take you to some places that have a lot better food, and maybe to some that also have some not so good food. PS, they aren't playing checkers, most of them are playing Mahjong. It's the Chinese form of poker.
The story about Dad [coming out of anesthesia] is quite funny, I hope you videotaped some of it. Also, props to Robin on passing your test on the first time. You are officially a better driver than I was at that point, and probably will be when I come home as well, seeing as I very possibly won't have driven a car in 2 years.
I think that Chinatown really picks up during the summer, and gets really slow during the winter, because so fewer people are willing to talk on the streets during the winter. Too cold. That's what all the missionaries have been saying at least. Since I've been here, we've had 2 baptisms, and we have another on this Sunday. I actually think though that part of the slowing down is because we had a ton of baptisms, but so many of them went inactive shortly afterwards, that now we are working a lot harder on retention, and so we aren't spending quite as much time on finding new investigators.
Love you all, Don't die before I talk to you,
Elder Christensen
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