"We did talk to lots of people who were diverse in their cultures"

Hello everyone!!

This last week went by really fast, but to be honest, I can't remember a whole lot of what happened. We were able to teach and find more people than the last few weeks, but nothing too outstanding. However, we did talk to lots of people who were diverse in their cultures. Examples include:  1. A Chinese guy (only speaks Chinese) who desperately wanted to come to church    2. A Chinese lady (only speaks Chinese) who kept saying "haha" at the end of each sentence (not sure if it means something in Chinese...?) 3. Tons of Arabic people (as usual) but we met one girl who is a part of some sub-group of Muslims 4. A Native American girl, who has a sister who recently joined the church 5. A Spanish-speaking guy, Eddie, from Mexico 6. An Irish lady and her son (both kind of crazy, but really nice) 7. A very nice lady from Liberia. 8. Muslim circle time!! Now I will attempt to recall some things that happened this week!

We were able to teach some new people! Hadis is a lady from Iran who doesn't have a solid religion and is looking at as many as she can. We had a really awesome lesson with her, and Evie (a member) shared her testimony of the Book of Mormon at the end, which I think was really led by the Spirit.

So "Muslim Circle Time" happened on Tuesday. We had an appointment with this Muslim girl Soraya. We brought Craig with us because we though we it was just her, but when we came, there were about 7 other friends of hers there, all Muslim with varying degrees of faithfulness. We sat on the floor in a circle and taught them the whole Restoration. It was pretty great!!

We knocked a lot of apartments on Wednesday and we ran into Weinji, the Chinese guy. He has only been in America a few months and speaks very little English, but all we could understand is that he REALLLYY REALLLLYY wanted to come to Church on Sunday. So, we had Mikey help us out and we got him to church. He loved it!!

We went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders on Friday-Saturday which was fun. Elder Stoddard came to the University with me! We ended up talking to a non-denominational Christian guy for a little while that night and Saturday morning we found the Irish people! So first we met the mother who was freaking out that her son was missing. About 5 mins later he showed up and talked to us. He said his mom was a little crazy and freaked out any time he ever left. But he invited us in and we taught him the Restoration. It went super well because he said he was Catholic and believed in God and Christ but the Church didn't do everything he thought was right and he understood and loved the truths we taught him!!

We also met with Bert at his apartment (we biked on the "rail trail" to get there) and taught him a little more about the temple. I really felt the Spirit during that lesson because I remembered the last time I had been to the temple. I whole-heartedly know that temples are real blessings in our lives and that the Spirit there is very unique and strong. I could feel the love of Heavenly Father there every time, even just in the waiting room! I miss going a lot, but someday there will be a temple in West Virginia, I know it!

Elder Vai and I also found Eddie, the guy from Mexico, waiting for the bus and had the best Spanglish conversation ever. We gave him a pamphlet in Spanish to read and he wants to come to church on Sunday! We actually have been meeting lots of Spanish speakers recently.

Church was really awesome yesterday, we had 4 people there!! Brunno was there for his last Sunday in America for a while (sad day), Weinji was there, and Joe & Holly were there. Joe and Holly are some people the missionaries taught a decent while ago who never got baptized (sadly) but they come to institute all the time and read the scriptures together and know the church is true but they just never felt like they wanted to be baptized I guess. But they are really awesome people.

Also, fun fact: Without noticing, Elder Vai will often talk to these foreign people with their accent; Asian people with an Asian accent, Spanish-speaking people with a Spanish accent and so on. It is really flippin funny!!!

Anyways, that is about it, it was a good week as well as a hard one. We did find lots of awesome people though and we should be able to see them soon! I hope all of you had a great week!!

Take Luck,

Elder Goold J