One year into the mission!

The new year is really big over here, especially around the end of January. We are already having members call us to set up meal appointments to feed us, 3 weeks in advance! It will be interesting because they eat some pretty crazy foods at that time.

Let’s get to the chase…this week was great!! Elder Reid and I are getting along great. He has been on the island approximately 3 months less then me, he is from Cedar City, Utah, he is the oldest of 5 kids, he is taller then me, has more hair, has an "outstanding English vernacular," and he loves missionary work. As for his reasons for being a vegetarian, I wish I had an explanation for you, but it’s quite confusing. Oh well, all I know is that when lunch time or dinner time rolls around, we try some special things, hahaha.

Elder Reid is already helping me change quite a lot. I've learned to be more sophisticated and careful, especially in my eating habits, haha, kind of. Anyway, he's gotten me to eat his daily morning breakfast which consists of 7 different grains, red beans, and real soy milk. I'm not gonna lie, after I added peanut butter to it, it was pretty dang good, haha. The most interesting thing of all is that the other day, he talked me into having us buying a bonsai tree for our apartment. We did it and luckily, we were able to talk the man selling the trees down to half price, which made buying the “hormone free” bonsai tree more bearable.

Elder Reid is awesome and I'm learning a lot from him. He was home schooled, his gospel knowledge is huge. He's also spent 4 months in China teaching English to little kids, so he fits right in with me teaching the Primary class. He didn't study much Chinese before his mission though.

Yesterday was one of the best days of the past week. There were news reporters at our free car wash again, and they interviewed several of us, in English and Chinese. Surprisingly, the interview was harder for me in English than it was in Chinese. I don't know why, the interviewer was from America with perfect English, but I have a problem. If somebody looks Chinese and starts talking to me, it doesn't matter how good they speak, it’s hard for me. My English comes out all funny and I got weird looks from the news reporter, hahaha, dangit. Sometimes it gets confusing and hard to explain things, because English and Chinese grammar are completely different, like enemy languages, so as one gets good the other gets worse. Usually when you learn a new language, it helps your mother tongue, not when you speak English and you are learning Chinese, apparently.

Yesterday we met with Ryan. Last week we realized he still has quite a few big concerns that need resolving: doubt, fear, and some big questions from the second lesson. We shared with him yesterday and focused on Christ, and it was the BEST LESSON I have ever taught in my life! It went so smooth. MY TIME IS SHORT! He is so ready for baptism now and he has testimony.