P-Day and Christmas

hi mom and dad!

well, today is p-day, and as dad has requested, i will give you a little run down of how p-days go. the highlight of p-day, is, of course, email, and we either do it at the couple's house, they live below us, or we go to an Internet cafe, which is cheap, but usually full of Chinese teen aged boys playing shooting games with the sound turned all the way up. whatever. we go shopping, and sometimes the couple will even take us to get groceries, nice, huh? we have a washing machine, but we can do laundry on any day of the week. no dryer, though, so we just hang up our clothes to dry. usually we hang out with the missionaries in our zone, they live kind of far, but within a bike ride. we go bowling or to a museum, we went to an orangutan reserve once, pretty cool. and sometimes, sister lim lets us go to the church so i can play the piano, dang, mom and dad, i am really getting into the piano here. i mean, i don't really have time to play it except the occasional p-day, but i bet i could play for hours if i had the chance. i wonder if that will keep going when i'm home and have a piano all the time, i can't even imagine.

so we usually go out for the morning and come back in the afternoon, because we can watch some movies that are approved, so we just watch, write letters, and at six thirty we go out again for appointments with investigators. but we usually just have two appointments, and then come home again. its pretty nice. today is a little different because sister lim is sick, kind of fevery, so we'll just take it easy today.

but we are getting excited for Christmas, because we didn't get transferred! hooray! i was sure they were going to, but it didn't happen. so it looks like we get to be here together for a few more weeks. our mission doesn't have regular transfers because we get missionaries from two different mtcs, Provo and Philippines, plus Chinese elders and people going on visa runs all the time just messes things up. the next missionaries leave in a few weeks, so there will be transfers then, and then another transfer in a couple weeks more. so you never know! but we are here for Christmas, and that will be really fun. probably new year's too, i want to still be here for Chinese new year too, because we have a Chinese recent convert, but that is stretching a little bit. we'll see.

something really cool happened this week too. on Sunday, two new investigators, Akie and Vanessa, came to church. we went to see them that night, but akie wasn't there, and Vanessa was crying and all upset, i think akie drinks, and she wanted to go back and stay with her parents. we saw them again on Monday, taught the word of wisdom, akie said he wanted to try to follow it, even though he has big problems with smoking and drinking. we saw them again last night, and we asked akie why he wants to learn, why he wants to go to church, and do you know what he said? that he wants to change and help his family, and he thinks that this, that going to church is going to make all the difference. we taught them about the gospel, and they were really into the lesson, you could tell by their body language. I'm really excited for their family. that is all it takes, you know, to want to change and have the faith, which obviously they have. we were reading 1 nephi 3.7 with them, and i was explaining the story a little bit, but Vanessa already knew the whole story, it was awesome, Ibans are not big readers, that is for sure, and they don't have a lot of reading comprehension, so when somebody actually reads and knows the story, it is so so awesome. we have this one investigator, who does read, but whenever we ask her what verse she liked, she picks the weirdest verses, like, i, nephi was told by my father to do this and the, and she says, yeah, this verse, i really like this one. hahaha.. another funny thing about ibans while we are on the subject, they have no concept of time. when we meet people who have met the missionaries, we always ask them, when was that, how long ago? and they always always say, i bet it has been two or three months ago for sure, when you know that missionary hasn't been here for one or two years, at least. oh yeah, our recent convert, dorina, always says, i think its almost been a year since i was baptized. yeah a year, maybe in like eight more months. hahaha, got to love the ibans.

i love you family!