2/23/15 Chinese New Year!

Oh boy, has this week been busy, tons of fun, and exhausting. First things first: Rosemary got baptized!!!!!! Remember, my adopted grandma from Kennesaw? That one! And I got permission to go! We had to get a ride, and it was a long drive, and we almost missed it because of the freezing rain predicted, but the Lord blessed us, and the rain missed us. It was so worth it. Seeing her come running down the hallway towards me, all dressed in white, was the best feeling ever. I was able to to give the talk on baptism, and I was privileged enough to have the Spirit testify to me, and then to her, how much the Lord loved her, how the Father and many of his angels were so proud of her. Their joy could be felt in that small room. It was truly an experience I'll never forget. 

Then, later that night, was the ward Chinese New Year party! Oh my, but do they know how to celebrate. Balloons, streamers, Chinese lanterns, lucky cats, the Chinese Zodiacs (its now the year of the goat), and everything was red. We spent the first hour and a half just talking and making dumplings. It's actually really easy, but I found that I liked the fried ones better than boiled. Sometimes water gets inside. We must have made at least 300 dumplings. Then there was red bean rice cakes, beef and broccoli, fried rice, hard boiled eggs, kung pau, white carrot cakes (a vegetable), and a bunch of other stuff that I had never seen before. By the way, squid tentacles are really good. Then after, all the children received "red envelopes." Apparently, every New Years, parents give their kids "red envelopes" which contain money. Quite a bit of money. The kids then save it to use for school, or weddings, or laptops, or stuff like that. Fun! They gave us envelopes with a dollar in it :) 

Lameriah came to church yesterday! I love it when investigators come to church because we see their progression shoot up after. I love it even more when they go, bring their family and then as a bunch of questions afterwards. We love her so much, and always look forward to meeting with her. She asks some hard questions, but it means she wants to learn and is studying by herself, so we welcome them. We have another investigator though, that every lesson is a mental workout. He is very scientific and logical and thoroughly does his research. Oh boy, I should have paid more attention in science. He is an atheist who sees no point in faith, but more than anything wants to know truth. He doesn't believe in a God, but we do, and He wants to know if it's possible. And we can teach about faith, and God, and agency, but when he starts talking about black holes, theories of time, Greek translations and Jewish claims, I really just pray. But we promised him that if he just read the Book of Mormon and pray for two weeks, with a desire to know, that he would get an answer. But after that, if there's no progression, we might have to drop him :( That would stink, because those lessons are a lot of fun.

Love you tons!!!

Gao Chien Mei  <-- my Chinese name