A "really good" Sunday

Today was actually a really good day. We had 6 investigators come to church. Brother Sun, Dennis, Simon, Sister Guo, Sister Yang, and Sister Ruan. Such a good crowd. Yesterday we set a baptismal goal with sister Yang and she was really hesitant with accepting it. However, today she had an amazing experience. It was so neat. After sacrament meeting she came up to me and asked me, "why did you set the date for the 5th of February (baptism goal)?" and I explained because that was inspiration we received for her. She looked at me and said, "I agree. The Holy Ghost let me know during sacrament meeting that same thing." she went on to explain that this morning when she woke up she thought that she didn’t want to get baptized. She told me she had a feeling to turn down the goal we set with her. However, she then went on to say that one of the speakers during sacrament meeting said something that made her decide that she will definitely be baptized February 5th. She told me the spirit hit her stronger than ever during sacrament meeting and that she knows without a doubt she needs to be baptized on February 5. It was so exciting for her to tell me this. I quickly told president Byers (Branch President) and my companions what sister Yang told me. Sister Yang was just glowing all Sunday and telling everyone how excited she is for her baptism and for the Book of Mormon we gave her. She loved the things we wrote inside her Book of Mormon. She was super impressed with my Chinese handwriting. Let me tell ya, it's not an easy thing to write paragraphs in Chinese characters. So yeah, sister Yang is for sure getting baptized. I can’t wait. Our other investigators were great too. Simon and Dennis seemed to really enjoy church and then Sister Ruan enjoyed it more than anything. Sister Ruan is just getting the full court press from all the "younger" relief society women. We should be seeing some more baptisms in the next month.

Tonight we had an awesome dinner at the Ruans, Sister Ruan had us and the Evans over for dinner (Bro. Evans is a Taiwan RM, white, and probably speaks better Chinese than natives... and then sister Evans is Taiwanese). The Evans and the Ruans hit it off so well from day one. Both are younger and have kids that are the same age. We had a delicious dinner at the Ruans. Sister Ruan went all out. She made a very traditional Chinese dinner. It was tasty! Everything was made from scratch. She told us she spent over 6 hours today preparing that dinner. And then she bought this amazing cake from some famous cake place in California (supposedly the equivalent of getting a cupcake from Sprinkles times 10). We had a great lesson with the Ruans afterwards. The Evans helped so much. They just speak very clearly and bear strong testimony. The members are so helpful here. The Ruans loved the idea of the temple, being able to help our ancestors, and eternal marriage. I could tell eternal marriage hit brother Ruan really hard. Sister Ruan's husband usually isn’t interested in the church at all. He goes to church just because his wife has interest but as soon as we mentioned temples and eternal marriage, he was all ears. He told us how he has driven by our Newport temple and was really intrigued by it but never knew it was the "Mormon's." He had some great specific questions about that and Bro. Evans had some even better answers (I’m like freaked out at how good bro. Evans’ Chinese is... I hope someday I can speak like him... although it makes sense because he did his med school in Taiwan and now has a practice here in OC). So yeah the Ruans loved the idea of the temple and said they would definitely come to the Newport temple tour this Saturday (once a month there is a temple tour). It was such a good night at the Ruans. Oh yeah and then the Evans invited us and the Ruans over for dinner next Sunday to do the same type of thing (eat and teach). It’s an amazing thing when you have members become good friends with your investigators.