November 29, 2010

Subject:  two weeks in a row = gold star

Snooooooooooooooooooooooooow! There is so much snow right now it's ridiculous. I love it. Its been snowing straight for the last 2 days and no one here knows what to do.  Traffic has stopped.  People are locking themselves indoors. No one owns a snow shovel or a windshield scraper for the car. We've been involved in quite a few snowball fights with strangers and I've fallen at least a few times trying to skate on the ice. Good times.  The only downside is it's not so good for missionary work.  It stopped a lot of people coming to church and the Chinese people won't come out of their dorms so there’s no one to talk to.

We were driving the other day and someone had rolled a massive snowball in the middle of the road.  It took 4 cars of people to get it out of the way. Also Elder Shen is driving in the snow for the first time.  He was kind of scary to drive with before and now I just cry. He’s done all right.  He hasn't hit anyone; crashed into a few curbs and slid across a few roads, but no damages and no one’s been hurt so in his words, he's safe.

I was going to send you pictures of us street contacting in city center but Elder Shen forgot his camera.  Everything is going really well. Hua got baptized on Saturday. Hua's amazing but it was the worst attended baptism of my mission.  We had 1 member of our ward and he was presiding and one recent convert and a few people from the other ward that were doing family history that we dragged in, but it happened and that’s what counts.

We're being really blessed right now.  We have 7 people that are looking really good to be baptized on the 7th of December so all being well, that will be exciting. We’ll keep praying for it. I've tried to find a spoon for Cliff but most people I ask just stare at me like I’m gay.

How’s everything going there? How are grandpa and Sandra doing? Tell her I've missed the newsletters.  They were always good.  Probably should have showed my appreciation earlier.

We bought a massive turkey and some of our investigators made thanksgiving dinner Chinese style -- it was interesting. I really am forgetting how to speak English properly and my sense of humor is going down hill. Chinese people laugh hysterically but English people just stare at me like I'm special.

I'm glad you got some good skiing in. I'm expecting to be impressed when I get home. Still hasn't completely sunk in that that’s going to happen yet. How are Kasey and Caleb doing? Does Kasey have her driver’s license yet? I was really planning on her having a car and being able to drive me around so she should probably get going on that.

It's really hard to think of things to write about. You send me like a mad lib style email next week and I can just fill in the blanks with various nouns and verbs. Speaking of the lights going out because of the Christmas tree, I've been surprised how many missionaries have no Idea how to deal with that problem.  Just thought it was interesting. That’s it. I'm out. I really have nothing else to say. I really do love you all though. Thank you so much. I love being a missionary.  It's such a unique feeling. The Church is True.

Elder Cody Scott Johnson