This week has been quite an eventful week!
We had two P-days in one week because of July 4th!
On top of the unusual schedule, I felt like Sister Huang and I had unusual teaching experiences, unique opportunities, and an unusual amount of different opportunities to see a lot more of Minnesota than what we usually have.
Update on Cedric Shan:
WE have a baptism coming up this Saturday! Woot Woot! -- well that's if Cedric remembers to wake up in time and decides to join us for his baptismal interview later today. Cedric was found by the elders on campus about a few months back in April, he was searching for inner peace in his life throughout his school semester and thought that God was answering his prayers when he had met the elders. Since he's Chinese, we got to teach him! He is such a cool, humble, obedient, and xiao shun to his parents, guy. We've loved hearing about the things that he has done to better himself. For example, he quite all caffeine including coke and other pop when he found out that there is caffeine in coffee AND in pop. He said that he felt like he was deceived by the manufacturers all this time. This past week, as we reviewed the baptismal interview questions with him, we asked him how he feels like he came to and believes that God is our Eternal Father. He thought for a very long time and then he started to tell us a story of what had happened to him and his parents this past week. He said that he has been praying for his dad to quit smoking for a while now. Finally this past week, his dad suddenly called him and told him that he is officially quitting after being a chain smoker of 30 years as of that day. The reason why his dad feels like he should do that is because he feels like he should be a better example to his son. What sparked this sudden thought and motivation was because Cedric had sent a letter about him and his dad's relationship and memories growing up to him for fathers day after attending an FHE activity where they invited everyone to write letters to our fathers. Cedric was overjoyed when he heard his dad's call, and felt like God is continuously guiding him and his family, moving them all for the better.
Funny story though: He had missed his baptismal interview this past Saturday at 10:30am because he was completely dead asleep and and slept through all of his alarms and our phone calls and banging on his door. WE literally found his student apartment, somehow managed to sneak in, banged on his door for 25 minutes, and got ZERO reply. He felt sooooo horrible when he woke up. Man that boy is a deep sleeper. I think he gets the award for being the deepest sleeper that I have ever met in my life. And fam, you think I am a deep sleeper, well you all just gotta meet Cedric. haha
July 4th dinner:
Happy America Day! haha funny how we completely flipped it around and celebrated with Chinese food, and with two Chinese families instead. Sister Huang sure had a memorable first July 4th here in America...nothin new though, just more chinese and taiwanese food. haha
I don't know if you have all heard about Clayton Christiansen. He's an area seventy, and he also wrote a book called an Everyday Member Missionary or something like that. Well, we met one of his previous students Connie Zhang, who is a member here in the Eden Prairie area, and also good friends with Sherry and Howard Chan (Chang Qing's sister!) They invited Sister Huang and I over for dinner, so we could share a message and get to know her (Connie's) parents who were in town from Beijing. She so badly wants her parents to join the church, but her dad, has been quite resistent all this time. Wonderful people, wonderful philosophical and moral opinions, and just the cutest little old people. We had such a spiritual and enjoyable time with them, Sister Connie Zhang was introduced to the church by Elder Clayton Christiansen of the seventy. She is actually one of the people that he writes about in his book, except her name is Natasha in the book. They all just have the coolest conversion stories, and as I continued to study more about the talks given by Elder Christiansen, it just made me think more and more about you! FAM!
For example: mom, because you shared with your friends the fact that we go to church, and the blessings that have come to us because of the church, Lawrence and his mom had the opportunity to learn from missionaries and to be baptized! The family in shanghai that you had befriended, her and her daughters were able to learn about the church as well. Shar, because of your faith, you were able to talk to more people on the plane about your belief and what missionaries do. Many more people around us are waiting to hear the Gospel. We should all take on the challenge of Elder Ballard and many more leaders of the Church to set goals and to make plans of how we can invite more people to learn about the church through meeting with the missionaries. I'll write more of my thought next week, but for now, read this talk https://www.lds.org/ensign/
It's changed my view and literally have gotten me excited about becoming a member missionary after my mission.
We are working with our ward missionaries to have them extend this challenge to the rest of the members and YSA's in our ward. Seriously, if all of us can become more like Elder Christiansen and his wife, then we seriously will be fulfilling our covenants and commandment from our SAvior to go spread the Gospel to all nations.
Miracle from last night:
We've been praying and fasting for new investigators and one came our way last night! He's also Taiwanese!
I love you all tons! Until next week!
Sister Pao
