[SENT NOVEMBER 19, 2016]

Gale's Farewell

Oye! 

Familia. Tudo bem? That's Portuguese. I'm currently sitting in the mission office on the 3rd floor of Hyde Park Chapel. To my right sits "The Mews", an expensive grouping of housing. To my left sits "Elder Burgess", my faithful companion. In front of me sits "Vanilla Yogurt", which is the most pleasing to the taste. Anywho, I'll tell you about my life during the past 7 days.  

Companion

Elder Burgess got a hair cut this morning. I'm so excited for today actually. It'll be the first p day that we've had time to just chill a bit; we are going to walk by "The Globe Theatre." T'will be fun. 

The Work

Our dear friend dropped us. ): It was quite heartbreaking. She "made a decision to give up", saying "it's too hard for me to have a religion. I tried, but I failed. And I have talked with my parents about this, they also don't agree. Sadness... 

I was talking to investigators (since they're friends, and Jing was the one who originally referred her). Our new convert had such a good attitude. She said "At least she heard about God. More Chinese people need to learn about God." What a good perspective. She went to FHE on Monday, is having fun, and making even more great friends. I'm so happy for her! She's just the coolest person.  

On Sunday we had Hot Pot at an investigator's house (she will be baptized at the end of this month. She's being taught by another set of missionaries in the ward). If you don't know what Chinese hot pot is, look it up on google! It was super good, and fun.  

After the dinner, we taught our first lesson with our new convert since she was confirmed (she was confirmed on Sunday during sacrament). We taught a wechat lesson. Our new convert was so excited to teach.  

We found another Chinese girl to teach! We taught her in person, with our new convert joining the lesson over my iPad. They met up the next day (since they both go to UCL), and now she is super excited for church because our new convert told her that Sundays are her favorite day. WOW! I wish you could meet her. Add her on facebook! She'd love it. :) 

Lessons Learned

I've realized that many of the skills I've developed at home (organization, computer skills, movie making, people skills, nunchuck skills etc.) are being used in the mission. It's quite neat! Yesterday I typed up in excel an availability calendar, displaying availability times for members. I was quite proud of it actually. One column is for the member name, and then there are 7 columns for the days of the week. If they can't teach then, I just put an "x". Otherwise I'd specify when they can teach. There's another column for phone number as well. I got all the information by mass messaging individual members and asking for their availability. It's quite beautiful, if I do say so myself. If I'm ever a ward mission leader, this is totally what I'd do. It makes it very easy to plan for and teach with a variety of members! Also it increases ward missionary work by involving more people. 

Funny

I asked my Chinese friends for a Chinese name on Sunday, and was given the name "Wei Shau Bau", which is apparently some polygamist Chinese character. Needless to say, I requested another name. Lol Chinese people are such jokesters. 

Elder Burgess and I made a funny video to preface our training to the Skype Super MLC we had yesterday. Our training was on interpreting Key Indicators (meaning #'s). I'll send the video to you :) 

Spiritual

It's just amazing serving a mission. I'm so grateful for the time I've had hear, and that I have lots of time left!  

Love you all!

Have a great week

Elder Withers