Week #8... Starting to lose Count??

Hey all.

This week was great. Me and austin got to play our piano duets for a bunch of people here. I also got to play my arrangement of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" for the Departure Devotional here for like 300 missionaries. Can't compare to the 4th of July performance but still really cool.

So being district leader is like impossible. Our district can be so all over the place. I'm like study study study and everyone else is like play play play. We tried to set some goals and we are going somewhere but at times it can still be a little frustrating.

It is getting sad. Only one week left. I am so ready to get out of this place but on the other hand I know my chinese is no where near par. I know I will get there and know nothing but still it's time to teach real people. That is if I can understand a single word. We have these lessons with our "investigators" who are really our teachers which go great because I can actually understand them and teach to their needs. And then we have these skype lessons with real Chinese people aka Zhonguren and I have to ask them to repeat themselves every 5 seconds. Totally different language I swear.

The basketball has also gotten a lot worse lately. Not me, just the players here. A bunch left and so now the games are kind of pointless. At least the weights don't get any lighter. Still can hit the gym.

I swear my companion never lifted in his whole life (except hay bells) but now he loves it. All he wants to do is bench press though. He's obsessed with chest and biceps. Pretty common for beginner lifters who want to impress the ladies. 

The Mandarin branch is huge now. We have 4 singapore missionaries in our district and another 6 or so in another Mandarin district. We are the oldest Mandarin district now which is weird because it seems like just yesterday that we were the youngest. 

My companion lost his Journal (we seem to lose a lot of things here) and we were looking for days for it only to realize it was on his desk.  fail. 

Then he lost his journal again later this week and again we looked for it for a couple days (including his desk multiple times) We finally couldn't figure out where it was and finally we just decided to pray and within 5 minutes while he was on the toilet he realized where he had left it. The good ole laundry room. And of course there it was. Pretty crazy. 

I'll end with a spiritual thought. Me and my companion have been thinking a lot about Jesus Christ and his perfect life and Atonement. How can someone really live a perfect life on this crazy place we call earth. This week someone mentioned a thought that really struck me in district meeting. It was that Jesus Christ was the most talented person alive. If you believe he was the Son of God then you must admit he had infinite talent. And what did he do with all that talent? Well, he gave it away. To who? The father. He put his infinite talent and will and aligned to the father's will perfectly. And that is why he perfect. No one else in the world has been able to keep their will perfectly in line with the father's during our lives. We all lose the path a little bit here and there at some times in our lives. 

Love you all,

Elder Pierce (Ping Zhang Lao)

P.S. I forgot to mention but the food here is getting pretty bad. Just the same thing over and over. Can't wait to taste some real asian food. Although i might bite my tongue on that one. I have heard that the food can actually be pretty weird. We'll see, 8 days!!!