-Bikes got stolen on Wednesday. Me and my companion both had gotten new bikes.
-they were locked to each other on the steps of the church porch. a guy came up and grabbed both bikes carried them onto his moto and his friend drove him and the two bikes off.
-Me and Elder Fletcher chased after them. It was intense but it was no avail. They got away.
-We have video of it but it was at night and so we can't get a license plate so its not really any use.
-We know what kind of moto it was and so we've been looking around all week for the same kind of bike but no avail.
-We went to the police but that didn't help anything, apparently a lot of times the police are in on the theft themselves. This isn't america people. They basically gave us a search warrant and sent us on our own investigation so we've been going to rich houses that have camera's and looking at their film but nothing yet.
-this kind of took a blow to our week but we are working on salvaging some old bikes to keep us in the work. Without a bike you can't do anything here it feels like.
-I thought i would give a little culture here that might be interesting.
-Like 4 times a day and once at midnight and once at 5 am every day the muslims have their prayer call which is becoming annoying i am sorry to say. It's loud and wakes me up every morning way too early. It is just this guy on the loudest microphone ever singing in tamel I guess so I don't know what he's saying but it just doesn't sound very good. No offense meant to the religion though of course.
-Another thing that happens here is a lot of people men grow out their finger nails really long. And all the chinese people grow out just their pinky finger nail on their left hand. There is some strange cultural reason why.
-Also the chinese refuse to cut their hair that grows out of their moles. its kind of gross but apparently if they cut it, it ruins their luck. DIdn't quite understand that one haha.
-One blessing this week was of the love out here for white people.
-one of our investigators just gave a smartphone which was sick because I was about to buy one. Chinese elders are allowed to have smartphones to text chinese
-Got to watch conference..some in Chinese and some in English..only understood like half of what was being said in Chinese but still good practice
Our baptism of the old man got moved to next week because of conference this week.
For all who watched conference and any who didn't I would like to end with a little of my favorite talk by President Uctdorf..
It was our beloved Savior’s final night in mortality, the evening before He would offer Himself a ransom for all mankind. As He broke bread with His disciples, He said something that must have filled their hearts with great alarm and deep sadness. “One of you shall betray me,” He told them.
The disciples didn’t question the truth of what He said. Nor did they look around, point to someone else, and ask, “Is it him?”
Instead, “they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I?”1
I wonder what each of us would do if we were asked that question by the Savior. Would we look at those around us and say in our hearts, “He’s probably talking about Brother Johnson. I’ve always wondered about him,” or “I’m glad Brother Brown is here. He really needs to hear this message”? Or would we, like those disciples of old, look inward and ask that penetrating question: “Is it I?”
Mankind including myself I feel has this problem more than we would like to admit. Look in yourself first before others. You and I might be missing something.
The Savior said:
“Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? …
“… First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”
Sending all my love,
Ping Zhang Lao
P.S. Here is the link to that talk and a favorite story from it of mine : https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/lord-is-it-i?lang=eng
Once there was a man who enjoyed taking evening walks around his neighborhood. He particularly looked forward to walking past his neighbor’s house. This neighbor kept his lawn perfectly manicured, flowers always in bloom, the trees healthy and shady. It was obvious that the neighbor made every effort to have a beautiful lawn.
But one day as the man was walking past his neighbor’s house, he noticed in the middle of this beautiful lawn a single, enormous, yellow dandelion weed.
It looked so out of place that it surprised him. Why didn’t his neighbor pull it out? Couldn’t he see it? Didn’t he know that the dandelion could cast seeds that could give root to dozens of additional weeds?
This solitary dandelion bothered him beyond description, and he wanted to do something about it. Should he just pluck it out? Or spray it with weed killer? Perhaps if he went under cover of night, he could remove it secretly.
These thoughts totally occupied his mind as he walked toward his own home. He entered his house without even glancing at his own front yard—which was blanketed with hundreds of yellow dandelions.
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