First, I must quote the movie George of the Jungle. "This is the part where we throw our heads back and laugh. Ready? LAUGH! (all people on screen proceed to throw their heads back and laugh.)" The reason for this quote is that last Monday, I messed up cutting my hair too! I am the proud owner of an awkward bald spot behind my left ear, thanks to the fact that after I had trimmed my sideburns, I was doing a final check and found a couple of long hairs there, only to forget I should put the attachment back on before I proceeded to cut them. It's not as bad as dad's, but still really funny that it happened to both of us.
The suit thing...if it is going to cost 260, I'm going to request that you just take the cheapest thing that still fits the measurements I gave you, and have that shipped out, but wait until after my next email to place the order, so I can ask the other elders if there are any places around here I can get one for cheap. My only thing that I really strongly feel on suits is that there be at least 1 slit on the back, no slit feels really weird, but other than that, the rest of my requests have just been preference, I can work with what you send me. I know where I can get a suit down in the city for 90$-150$, but going down to the city is a full pday activity which I doubt I will have the time for in the near future.
Sorry, the package hasn't come through yet. What day did you send it?
My new goal that I've set for Chinese while I'm upstate has been to try and memorize 20 new characters a week, if not how to write them, then at least be able to recognize them as I'm reading. Thus far, I'm pretty close to on track. I've also slowly begun reading the White Handbook in Chinese, with a fair amount of help from Elder Wang on the characters that are still unknown to me.
Most of the trees upstate are still pretty green, I'm guessing that the real color change will come in October, and it will probably be glorious. Have most of the leaves in Utah already fallen? Sounds like a really early fall if that is the case.
The passport stuff I'm thinking is probably just me, and the fact that Elder Wang is convinced that China is going to open to missionaries in the near future, and he's made me paranoid I'm going to get sent there at some point.
Nice to know that Robin developed an allergy that I don't remember anyone telling me about. Hope the chiropractor works out well.
We have a couple of investigators besides Xxxxx, but no-one who is really interested in learning if it is true or not. They just are vaguely curious what it is that Mormons believe/have had good experiences with members in the past, but they don't really feel any desire to discover the blessings that can come from the gospel. All great people, but trying to figure out how to make them interested in the gospel with the correct desire is good at melting your brain.
Family are allowed to be friends with me on Facebook, and China doesn't actually allow Facebook (although Taiwan and possibly Hong Kong do.) The stipulation though is that you don't spend a lot of time talking to me on FB, and that the conversations be primarily missionary work related. More specifics will come as the iPads are issued I'm sure (we're getting 2 iPads per companionship some time next cycle, the transfer meeting that starts it is on the 2nd of October.) I'm guessing that I'll probably stay in the area for at least 1 more cycle, but President has proved that he likes to make life interesting via transfers, so it's impossible to say for sure.
Another spiritual thought I had during sacrament meeting this last week was to compare Christ to the heart of a body, and Heavenly Father to the brain. The brain is what controls everything, gives it all purpose, but the heart is the part that must continually be used in order for that purpose to be realized. Without blood from the heart, all body function would cease. The nervous system is what gave us the ability of movement, but the circulatory system is what gives us the chance to continue this movement. I didn't write down the full thought, so you can try to figure it out for yourself.
One final quote (slightly paraphrased I think) from C.S.Lewis to finish this week's report out: "The end goal of humility is to love our neighbor as ourself, and also be able to love ourselves as much as we love our neighbors."
Your son/sibling in service,
Elder Christensen
PS, I seriously encourage you to find and read "the power of everyday missionaries" by Clayton Christensen. It's awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment