October 8, 2014

Well, transfers have happened again. The entire zone stayed the exact
same, except that sister Dong is going home to Taiwan, so sister
Palmer is coming back down from Connecticut to take her place. This
transfer was a week short because president Morgan has a mission
president seminar he needs to attend, so he is going to make the next
one 7 weeks long in order to correct for it.

Sister Dong and I

If you were wondering, she is 24. Pretty short, huh? She also already
graduated from a college in Taiwan, so no, she is not going to any of
the BYU schools. 

General conference was great. I'm now looking forward to watching most
of it in English. I decided to go for broke this time, and watch it
all in Chinese, especially since we had it broadcast in the Chinatown
chapel for the first time ever (normally we spend the whole day up at
65th street for Saturday and Sunday). We still had to go up for the
priesthood session (the building closes at 6:30 on weekends), so I
still saw that part in English. I actually enjoyed listening in
Chinese, it requires me to focus more, and I still got answers to
every question, without writing down all the cool quotes that just
slow me down when I write them. I'll admit though that the 2nd session
on Sunday was getting a bit hard to focus, I think my brain was just a
bit too blasted from listening to 8 hours of translation over a 2 day
period. We had a dumpling making activity for lunch during the
inbetween time from 2-4 (2 hours faster than you). We were planning on
trying our hands at making dumplings, then we realized that most of
the ward works in Chinese restaurants, and that they could pack
dumplings like it was their day job. And their night job too. So we
let them do it for the sake of time. 





We had an activity with a recent convert on Monday night though where
she showed us how to make dumplings step by step, from random pile of
dough and big bag of mixed pork, scallions, and eggs, to perfectly
identical dumplings. At least, if she is making them, when we made
them it was a little bit on the slow side, and pretty sketchy looking
at points. 





 I'm curious to see just how awesome the cabin is when I get back. It
looks like it's really nice location, maybe you could take a few
pictures of the inside next time to give me a feel for it. 

We have a baptism this Sunday, I will be performing the ordinance for
Chen Yan, she is a 24 yr old who the sisters have been teaching. Her
story is cool, a few months ago, we showed up about an hour before
church started because we were going to be teaching a lesson. She was
randomly sitting on the couch, the bishop had opened the door and then
gone into his office, so she was just sitting there waiting for church
to start an hour early. I only talked with her for a few sentences at
that point, but we found out that she had been feeling like learning
about Christianity recently, so she decided to google search
"Christian Churches in Manhattan" in Chinese, and our church was the
first one that came up on the list. If that doesn't count as God in
the Machine, then I don't know what does. I did the interview for her,
and I guess she had a really great experience, since she asked the
sisters afterward if I could be the one to baptize her. Then, we are
all going to the 65th street chapel, because Elder L. Tom Perry is
coming to give a devotional! That's going to be really cool. If I can
get a picture, I'll send it next week, but I wouldn't get your hopes
up too high, there will be a lot of people I'm sure who will all want
a picture with him as well. 

On the subject of baptisms, I've conducted interviews now for 8
people, and I have realized one topic that I am going to stress in the
next district meeting. Every time I ask them the question "Do you
believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was restored through Joseph
Smith?" They all answer yes, but then I ask them one word that they
can't seem to answer well to. Why? Why do they believe it? Most of
them sit there quiet for a little while, then start telling the story
of the first vision, which is good, but it doesn't answer the
question. So I have to start digging around for a little while with
them until we find the point(s) in time where they have felt the
influence of the spirit, and then help them see how that connects back
to Joseph Smith, because the spirit only will testify of truth, and so
if they have felt the spirit testify to any part of the restored
gospel, then Joseph Smith is a prophet. I'm going to make sure that I
mention it to my district so that they can do that with the
investigators, so when anyone, myself during the interview, or one of
their friends, asks why they believe, they can give a straight answer.
Because they have felt the spirit. 


We are going to watch the [Meet the Mormons] movie on Friday, the mission is letting us
watch it at 65th street, because they don't want us to go watch in
theaters. It isn't supposed to be a prosyliting tool either is what
we've been told, more just an introduction to how Mormons are regular
people and such. 

I have no idea why this only sent the first paragraph the first time. This was the
whole email. Hopefully president forgives me for this one instance of
slight disobedience. 

Your son/sibling in service, 
Elder Christensen 
陈少驹