Friday: We were on exchanges with the Zone Leaders this Friday I was with Elder Campbell, and Elder Richter was with Elder Wheeler. We also had Zone meeting that day which was good, and the Binghams brought tons of leftover bread....and the Mandarin house(the 4 Mandarin Elders in this Mission) took home probably too much of the bread...but yeah still pretty exciting because now we have tons of bread!!! Then Elder Campbell and I went to grounds to drop Elder Richter and Elder Wheeler off, and then we went to the downtown mall of Charlottesville to meet up with one of the Zone Leaders investigators. So we wait awhile(and in the meantime some homeless guy comes up to us and says "are you Mormons?"
"Yeah" we say...
"Oh you are Mormons!"
"Yep, we are"
"Well you two sure look nice, especially you(pointing to Elder Campbell)....you(pointing to me) not so much, but both of your shoes are nice!" and then he pretty much left....so I was a little insulted by a homeless man.
And after waiting more their investigator doesn't show up, so we walk up and down the mall a bit to see if we can see him. And we don't but we did see this weird down thing that some guy was hitting that made really cool sounds...and also met this old lady who doesn't like our church(inactive member) but she speaks 7 languages apparently and I could only give her our Chinese card because I didn't have any other ones(and she didn't speak Chinese though) then "talked" to some other guy who was shouting something at us....couldn't really understand him. But he said we was saying "Jesus" in some sort of African language and chastised us for not understanding...but then said he loves us and what we are preaching....so yeah...that was my downtown mall experience...first time too. Definitely different than UVA grounds.
After that fun time, we met back up with Elder Richter and Elder Wheeler because we had a lesson with Gloria(Chinese investigator) so that Elder Richter and I could teach her in Chinese, and that was a super great experience, we taught her the Plan of Salvation, and a little out of the BoM and it was really good. Then we had a prayer(and during this we had planned to commit her to Baptism and I kept feeling prompted to do so....) then after the prayer before we left I asked her if I could ask another question. And then I committed her to Baptism...in Chinese....and I messed up....but Elder Richter was able to clarify which was really nice.....and then...she said yes!!!!!! As long as she received that answer that this Gospel is true. Wow, I am really grateful for the Spirit to tell me to do that, as well as helping me to do so, even if I messed up. So that was really great.
Also a little side story during the lesson we turned to Alma 32:21 to talk a bit about faith and it was in her Chinese Book of Mormon and we get there(and before this I had learned how to read this scripture in characters because...well it's a little hard to explain but I learned how to read it) so being the prideful trainee I am, I started reading it....then forget that he Book of Mormon was in simplified characters...and I learned to read that verse in traditional characters....so I wasn't able to read it and had to have her read it....so yeah pride doesn't work folks...definitely felt more humbled after that. And that was mostly that day which was super awesome.
-Oh and later that night I stayed over at Elder Campbell's apartment and he is a pretty outdoorsy person(from Canada) and asked if I wanted to sleep outside...and I was fine with that so we take our mattresses outside to his small balcony thing, and we slept outside!!! But it was also really cold....like at least below freezing so we slept kind of alright...but woke up fairly often...and an hour before we were to wake up we went into the warm house...it was a lot nicer that outside.
Ok now for the Chinese Baptism!! So this isn't our baptism it is Elder Schellenberg and Elder Snow's(the other two Mandarin Elders) and it was for this Chinese boy named Tom Sun, and it was a really cool baptism meeting(they didn't do the baptism in Chinese because Tom wanted it in English) but it was a good meeting, then Elder Snow gets in the Font with Tom and the Spirit was already super strong and we baptizes him and it was really awesome feeling, knowing the decision he had made. Then when Tom gets out of the water, he wipes his eyes puts both arms out wide, and yells "YESSSS!!!!" hahaha it was pretty great.Also after he bore his testimony, and said he was glad that we came to his baptism instead of being home playing computer games....haha yeah he is quite the funny kid. And really cool too. He also said when he goes back to China he will share the Gospel with all his brothers and sisters....and then he said he was an only child. Haha super awesome kid.
Well that was my week, it was quite great, the church is true, this is Christ's Church on the earth, and if you want to get to know Christ, read the Book of Mormon. Learn to love the simpleness of the gospel, and you will discover what it is that Heavenly Father needs you to do.
Love you all and the support you give!!!
-Elder Smith
(Also Bronco Mendenhall[BYU football coach] is coming to UVA!!!)
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