20 months and counting...

October 3, 2011
Today marks my 20th month of my mission. This day 20 months ago, I entered the MTC to start my 2 year journey... I can’t believe how fast the time has gone by. Crazy. I still don't know when my departure date is though. I’ll find that out sometime next week when I sit down with President Bowen. Anyways, yesterday was good. The last 2 sessions of conference were great. I just realized that yesterday was my last time watching conference on my mission. The next time I watch conference, I will be at home. I learned a lot these past couple days. I especially enjoyed Elder Holland's priesthood session talk, Elder Christofferson's repentance talk on Saturday, Sister Dalton's father talk yesterday, Elder Yakashima (sp?) missionary talk yesterday, and many more. Conference is great. Those men and women are always so inspiring. Between sessions of conference we had lunch at Joe's house. Joe's dad is the counselor in the singles ward bishopric. He was so stoked to find out I speak Chinese because his neighbors are Chinese. As soon as he put two and two together, he grabbed me and we booked it over to his next door neighbor's house. He really wanted me to speak Chinese to them and hopefully get them interested in the gospel. That was a neat experience. We went over and the couple was super nice. They have 2 small children and they loved the fact I could speak Chinese. I actually spoke mandarin better than the husband (he speaks canto) so I mostly spoke with the wife. She was super impressed and confused how I spoke so well. We definitely established a good relationship and we plan on going back to discuss more church related topics. Brother Aston (Joe's dad) thinks it really was inspired that I came to this singles ward and that I speak Chinese. He really hopes I can teach that family next door to him. We'll see. After the last session of conference we went back to Joe's to teach Nick, a new member lesson. We mostly discussed missionary work and how Nick can begin to prepare for that. He really wants to serve a mission. We read some great missionary verses from the BOM and encouraged him to get ready to serve. He is totally committed to go on a mission right now. Hopefully he can keep his missionary attitude. He still has 9 months until he can turn in his mission papers. The rest of the night was spent at a waffle party with the singles ward. We had breakfast for dinner and then finished the night with some good ol' contacting. We found 4 super solid people while walking up and down Placentia road. It was a good night for sure. We set up a few lessons with people for Tuesday. Things are looking pretty good here in the singles ward. I’m still trying to get fully adjusted here. I miss the Yale branch a ton and often wonder what’s going on with all of those people. I wish I could get frequent updates on them somehow.