Week 20: November 26, 2019

随便吃！

This past week has pretty much been the longest week ever. It was transfers again too! I'm staying in the Manchester YSA ward again with Elder Chen again. It's gonna be the 3rd transfer here but I'm really glad cause the YSA ward is pretty much the best area in the mission (its nickname is the Promised Land), and I actually get to use my Chinese here too! I'm gonna be here a long time too based off of what I've heard haha. Also! We got our friend Jeremy on date for baptism! I'll talk about him in a second!

So what the week it's been! We went finding a lot because we had a bunch of lessons cancel, and we weren't able to set up as much appointments as we wanted. On Tuesday I accidentally left my coat at the flat, so I was literally freezing! It got to -10°C that night (14°F)! By the time we finished finding I literally couldnt feel anything. At the end I was showing a random man some things from the BoM and my voice was literally shaking. It was a great time haha. On Wednesday we went street contacting for 6 hours! Sooooo long, it was a throwback to my second week in England, freshers week. My feet weren't happy from walking around all day haha. And the worst part is that we didn't really have any success with all of our finding efforts. We had lots of good conversations but nobody really interested. 

On tuesday one of our friends invited us to this Taiwanese/Chinese socializing activity at night. It was basically just a bunch of people talking in Chinese. But it was way fun, there was a bunch of people trying to learn chinese there too. I had some good conversations and got someone's WhatsApp! It was a good finding opportunity, we're probably gonna go next month too!

Thursday is where things picked up! We had a lesson with Jeremy early in the afternoon. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It went really well and we invited him to be baptized! He's on date for December 12th! We have a bunch of things to teach him, but we've found time this week to meet him a bunch. And finding from that point went a little better! We ended up getting 2 new friends which isn't a ton, but it's kinda been the average for the past couple weeks. One of them was a referral from a nonmember! Nobody even asked, she just invited her friends to come to church with her haha. She's amazing!

We got fed 3 times this week! Technically twice but we also had family home evening at the YSA ward so 3 times. Just in time for Thanksgiving! We got fed on Saturday by one of our nonmember friends - HouLin. She made us dumplings which were soooo good. She's an older Chinese lady. There's actually a bunch of older Chinese people that live in England. And all of them speak little to no english. It's not what I expected at all, but we're gonna try to find some for the chinese group! And then hopefully we'll be able to change the chinese group into a chinese branch!! We also got fed on sunday by a member, Jonah. He's super nice, he went on a mission to the Phillipines so he made us some filipino food. Then on Monday the FHE activity was a thanksgiving feast. Which was actually so good. The Manchester YSA ward is actually sooo good with activities. Its every monday, they always have a bunch of food, and it's super fun. We can only go if we have friends going, but we pretty much always do so we always go. Its super nice.

On a separate note, the new missionary standards let us read emails all week long now! So send all the emails you want haha

-Elder Ensign

Our Christmas tree featuring our trifle haha

Nice park! One of the only places with fresh air in Manchester haha

The Manchester bee, Christmas style!

Christmas market (peep all that fudge 🤤)

Christmas Market

Week 19: November 18, 2019

Hey all!

Really quick, transfers are next week! Wow this transfer went by fast. But that means my pday next week will be on the 26th instead of the 25th.

So it's been quite the average week. We haven't really been doing super great with finding and we dont have anyone progressing super well right now. We spent like a super long time this week finding which tbh gets super monotonous. I dont mind street contacting too much, but 4 or 5 hours a day of street contacting really just gets to me. So we've been trying to set up more appointments with our friends so we can help them progress. And then with our extra free time we go finding. We have quite a few friends who are pretty good, but I feel like the top 2 are really Jeremy and Jason. Every lesson I can just feel the Spirit so strongly. Theyve been so good at meeting with us and they attend church pretty much every week. Jason's mom was visiting him from China this week and he brought her to church! They both just seem so happy since we've met them! We're planning on inviting them to be baptized pretty soon. I'm excited for them!

In terms of random events:

1. I got “kabobtized” on Saturday for district tea! So every Saturday night my district all eats tea together. And this past time we got “kabobtized” which basically means eating “donner” meat at Pizza Co (a restaurant nearby). Idk why it exists but I guess I'm a part of Manchester YSA culture now haha.

2. Bible bashed a couple people this week! Not really bible bashed, just hastily cross referenced the Book of Mormon and the Bible for like half an hour on the street, while defending the church haha

3. I gave a talk yesterday in sacrament meeting! It was about becoming spiritually reliant. It's hard giving talks in the chinese group cause everyone there has been a member for only a couple months, or they're just investigators. Usually like half the people at church are investigators we have. So we have to talk pretty simply so we dont confuse them haha. But I think people were actually able to kinda understand me haha so good to see some progression!

4. New missionary handbook came out! Not super exciting but pretty much everything is exciting out here when you dont have Netflix haha (kidding)

5. Ate an actually huge dinner last night haha. Sophia (baptized in October) and her friend Jane spent like 3 hours cooking for us. Super nice, we never get fed in YSA so it was amazing! Also I'm betting Jane's gonna get baptized pretty soon so I'm pretty excited for that! That also leads to the next point which is that:

6. I got a Chinese name! Jane and Sophia made it for me, they're really proud of it haha. It's 高晟泽 (Gāo Shèngzé). They put like a week of thought into it haha

-Elder Ensign

We went to the Christmas market in Manchester today, I'll send pics next week!

Another old building

The feast

The feast

My new name

My new name

Week 18: November 11, 2019

Heya everyone!

Yesterday was remembrance day, which is kinda like Memorials day or Veterans day but in England. So for church we went to a remembrance day event in St. Peter's square (middle of manchester). There was bagpipes, a marching band, and a ton of people from the military marching around. It was way interesting, I'm glad I got to experience some culture here!

We have some new friends who I feel like are gonna start progressing pretty soon! One is YuBin, we met him street contacting the other day. I actually think he was drunk when we talked to him haha. It was at night and he was kinda staggering across the sidewalk haha. But nonetheless he seems pretty interested in meeting with us! We also have Crystal, who we met during freshers week I guess but lost her until about 2 weeks ago. But she's so excited to keep meeting with us and learning more! Also, some sisters in my district are super good at street contacting, and keep making Chinese friends. So they keep transferring them over to us so our teaching pool is actually huge right now haha. Which is a little hard cause my Chinese is not good at all right now but at least I'm getting plenty of listening and speaking opportunities!

Also, my district started doing street displays this week! It's pretty much a YSA tradition since all the missionaries in YSA see each other all the time, but we haven't done it for a while. Basically we set up a table with a bunch of Book of Mormons and a banner and then a missionary shouts out a message through a megaphone. Kidding, it's basically street contacting but with a bunch of missionaries in front of a banner/table with Book of Mormons. And it's super effective, we make a bunch of new friends everytime we do it. We made like 3 friends in 2 hours which is sooo good. It's the same thing we did in freshers week almost 2 months ago (wow time flies). So yeah, finding is going really well right now, we're just working on getting them all to progress!

Also england is sooooo cold, this week was literally the worst and it's only gonna get colder. Also there's like no sun here so I'm literally so pale right now. It's getting dark at like 5 right now, but in december it's supposed to get dark before 4. So I'm pale and only gonna get paler. But now people on the street dont think I'm asian and get more surprised when I speak chinese. So I guess theres some benefits to the lack of sunshine here!

-Elder Ensign 

Some pictures from remembrance day yesterday

Also some random person on the street we were talking to the other day wanted to take a picture with us for whatever reason haha

Week 17: November 4, 2019

Hey all!

This past week we started going tracting! I'm serving in the YSA ward, so literally nobody ever tracts here cause it's kinda useless. But there's also the chinese group here, and there's no age limit! This past week, Elder Chen had the idea to try and find a Chinese family, cause that would seriously change the chinese group for the better! So far we haven't really had any success, but we did talk to a Muslim man on his doorstep for about 40 minutes. He was pretty disappointed we didn't wanna argue with him. So he told us to read the Quran and then come back and argue with him haha. We've actually talked to an insane amount of Muslim people. Like every door we knock on is muslim. It's horrible, they won't listen to anything we say. So if yall have any ideas of how we can (peacefully & respectfully) argue with them next time, let me know!

In terms of other things happening this week, we got 2 new friends who are really starting to progress! We have YuChen (Jason) and Jeremy. They're both so good, we're hoping to get them on date pretty soon. Jason really loves meeting with us. He plays Euphonium at the music university across the street. Apparently he had a music competition which he took 1st in. And he claims it was because he prayed about it! So glad for him, he's progressing so well! We also have BoTing, who was already progressing. BoTing is a philosophy major so she likes getting pretty deep haha. When we first started meeting with BoTing, she mentioned how she really started meeting with us as kind of a hobby, she was just curious about our church. But we've seen so many good changes in her life as she's met with us. She mentions how special she feels when she reads the Book of Mormon and meets with us. We're hoping to invite her to be baptized next time we meet with her! So excited!

We also gave a bunch of chapel tours last Saturday to some Chinese people. The first one was Grace, who some other sisters in our district found. She seems really good! She loves how nice everyone is and she even invited one of her friends to come to church with her yesterday! We also gave a chapel tour to Ying, who I found a couple weeks ago. As soon as she walked into the chapel she mentioned how much peace she felt, that she felt really good to be there. She also mentioned some fears she had, that we were able to address really well using the Plan of Salvation! They seem so excited to learn, I'm hoping they'll be able to progress soon!

Also, Michael and Sophia are going to the temple on friday! I'm so excited, we get to go with them! And Michael got the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday! I'm so glad I've been able to see so many changes in their lives!

-Elder Ensign

Costco pizza

District Costco trip! Theres like no American stores in the UK so we all jumped on the opportunity to go to Costco haha

Some of our district in a train to Runcorn