February 5th, 2014

Today was GOING to be transfer day, but upstate got between 10 inches and 2 feet of snow, and are currently experiencing freezing rain, so we don't know if the transfers are going to happen or not. At any rate, I'm staying in Chinatown, but I'm going to the Delancy Street apartment with Elder Zander. He goes home at the end of the next cycle after this one, so I'll probably be the one who sends him home. On a related note, I currently weigh about 166, which is about where I was before I went upstate, so I'm doing okay weight-wise I guess. On the other hand, Elder Zander runs Cross Country for UVU, and he's going back home pretty soon, so I'm going to be doing a lot of running these next few months. I've already done runs to the Empire State Building and past Battery Park. Elder Zander's goal is to run to Central Park and back at least once before he goes home. That's about a 6 mile run.....

I haven't been able to send your present yet Mom, but I'll try to get that done today. If not today, then next week for certain.

For everyone on Facebook that keeps putting up those pictures about "just keep calm and pray for snow", GIVE A SPECIFIC LOCATION. We have enough here, make sure you are asking for it to go to places that actually need it.

Welcome to the Year of the Horse! Interesting fact, there is no parade for Chinese New Year. They just fence off most of the streets except for Bowery and Canal, and then everybody just has a bit of a party in the streets. I have never seen so much confetti before in my life. It is also problematic because it is really hard to find food outside your home. I actually had dollar slice pizza for New Years, because all the Chinese places were closed. Most of the party stuff happened the first day, but there are some traditional parts that can continue for up to 2 weeks. Most of the people here though just did it as a weekend thing.

Based on his emails to me mom, Ethan is succeeding in his efforts to be overly socially interactive.

Most of the investigators are Mandarin, only a few are in English. On the bright side, I can finally make natural feeling small talk with Chinese people. Only took about a year.

Cantonese lessons were cancelled. The Cantonese area was dissolved due to lack of investigators (plenty of member lessons though), and the fact that we don't have any companionships currently that both sisters or elders speak Cantonese. I am officially back to being a 1 new language learner. On the plus side, though, I now know how to say pervert in 3 different languages (I don't know why the sisters thought we would need to know that word.)

The muffins are great, but you can hold off for a week or two before sending more, I haven't used it all yet. I don't know when I'll get the bands, either today or next Tuesday probably.

It seems that the first week of March is just our family's time for travel.

Spiritual thought. Read Jacob 4:6, see how it connects with Moroni 7 on faith and hope.

Tell Cam that I was going to write him, but my iPad deleted his email, so I'll write him next week.

Love you all,
Your son/sibling in service.
Elder Christensen

陳少駒