The Flu

Hey all,

Elder Tsai has been sick for the past few days, so we've had a pretty slow week. The past couple days especially have been mostly sitting around doing not much. At least I've been able to do a LOT of language study.

In other news, on Tuesday we had a dinner appointment with the elders quorum president in the branch. They made dumplings and chicken. I can't tell you how many times I've eaten dumplings and chicken just in the past two months, but it was still good nonetheless. The Metro got shut down for about 15 minutes while we were on our way over, so we had to fight through hundreds and hundreds of people to get crammed into a train. It kinda looked like the world was ending in the stations. 

On Wednesday we had Zone Conference. We spent pretty much the whole time doing trainings on smartphones in preparation for next transfer when we actually get to use them. The main idea was "we don't really know how this is gonna work, but the Lord trusts you to figure it out. Don't do dumb stuff." I'm just excited to learn how to text people in Chinese. 

On Thursday, Oliver and Jiaying (the first investigator I taught in the field) requested that Elder Lehnardt and me to come to Oliver's house for lunch. I'm not entirely sure why they wanted us two specifically, but I suspect it was just so they could laugh at how bad our Chinese is. Which they did, but we were still able to communicate just fine. 

On Friday we took a trip to the Temple to help the branch do baptisms for the dead. The Branch doesn't have enough priesthood holders to run a baptism session, so we [missionaries] got special permission to go. In total, we had President Aloi (the white Branch President), Sophia, and one sister from an English ward in the west of the island who had to leave before we started. It was a pretty unsuccessful trip, but we got a lot of names done. 

After the baptisms, Elder Tsai was really feeling sick, so we went over to President Aloi's house with Elder Hsiung and Elder Saunders, who were also sick, and slept on his couch for about three hours. Elder Saunders helped President Aloi do some paperwork for the Branch to justify us using his couch. 

On Sunday, Sophia invited us to have dinner at her house with about 15 other people. In total, we had Sophia, Alice, Lanying (the recent convert baptized with Alice), Guanghui (the assistant ward mission leader) and his family, the senior sisters in our district, Yang yuan Lan, three of Sophia's super Quebecois friends who seemed very lost in all the commotion of making that much Chinese food, and Elder Tsai and me. Despite the huge number of people, we still didn't manage to even come close to finishing all the food she made.

Here's a picture of the first round of food Sophia made. There was a lot more that came after this

Yesterday, Elder Tsai was too sick to work, so I got to take another four-hour nap and read Chinese Liahona all day. It was pretty nice.

That's all for me this week. It's been an interesting one.

Love you all,

Elder Hadden

Mormonspeak 

elders quorum -   In the LDS church, this is a local quorum organized in each ward, but presided over by a president, who acts under the direction and authority of the local stake presidency, and under the direction of the bishop.

Zone Conference - Every three months, missionaries in several districts (a district is a group of missionaries serving in the same local area) hold a zone conference, which is held under the direction of the mission president. Many of the missionaries will have to travel to these meetings. They conference can cover a wide range of topics.

branch - In the LDS Church, there are two types of local congregations:  a ward is the larger, the smaller being a branch. A ward is presided over by a bishop, the equivalent of a pastor in many other Christian denominations, whereas a branch is presided over by a branch president.

baptisms for the dead - Jesus Christ taught that baptism is essential to the salvation of all who have lived on earth (see John 3:5). Many people, however, have died without being baptized. Others were baptized without proper authority. Because God is merciful, He has prepared a way for all people to receive the blessings of baptism. By performing proxy baptisms in behalf of those who have died, Church members offer these blessing sto deceased ancestors. Individuals can then choose to accept or reject what has been done in their behalf.  (from LDS.org)

ward mission leader - A member of the ward who coordinates the ward's efforts to find, teach, and baptize people who are investigating the LDS church.  He coordinates the work of the ward missionaries and full-time missionaries with priesthood 

senior sisters - female missionaries aged 40 and above.  

The Liahona - Elder Hadden is referring to the church magazine for countries outside the United States.  The magazine provides spiritual messages for adults, youth, and children. Contents also include church news and briefs. The magazine is named after a brass ball described in the Book of Mormon.  The ball had two pointers that gave directions-as a compass--and also spiritual instructions to Lehi and his followers when they were righteous. The Lord provided the Liahona and gave instructions through it.

A Physical Letter: Happy Chinese New Year!

From a card received 23JAN18:


"Dear family,


Well, I missed Christmas and I missed New Year, but at least I didn't miss Chinese New Year. I don't know when it actually is, but it definitely hasn't happened yet. No one around me really cares about Western New Year, and Chinese New Year is still too far away for anyone to talk about.


I hope you're all still doing well. I'm still all right up here.  The language is still coming slowly but surely. I can already read most some of the characters on this card, so I'm not doing too bad I guess.


I love you all.


Happy New Year!


Elder Hadden


PS: Sorry for how bad my writing is. Both handwriting and just general writing style. I've forgotten how to do it. English is hard."

(Note the Canadian international stamp is a Chinese dog, complete with Chinese characters for same.)

NOTE:  Chinese New Year 2018 is 16 February.

2nd Transfer AP

Dear all, 

It's been an exciting week here in Montreal. Last Wednesday was especially exciting because I got to be an AP....for an hour. Really, we just went on exchanges with the APs, but I got to go to the AP apartment and everything. It's my mission Lame Claim to Fame now. 

We had a second appointment with the two students we met on the street this week. We talked to them more about the restoration, and they had pretty good questions again. We taught them how to pray, and one of them said the closing prayer for us. We'll meet with them again this week to see how they're doing. 

Yesterday, we met with A Family. A real life Chinese, Mandarin-speaking family with more than one kid. There really aren't many of those around here, and there are even fewer who have any interest in investigating the church. They seem like they're really prepared. Both of the parents are currently unemployed, and are looking for more meaning in life and their family. They really have nothing else to do, so they're willing to continue meeting with us and investigate on their own. I'll be sure to keep you all posted on further meetings with them. 

Other than that, Alice, Yang Yuan Lan, and Oliver are pretty much the same as they were last week. Nothing particularly major happened.

ummm... I can't think of anything else to mention, so I'll talk about the weather. It was really cold, then it got really warm, then it got cold again and snowed, then it snowed again yesterday, and now it's about 0 C (32 F) and raining. Which means Freezing Rain. Apparently it happens fairly frequently up here, but this is the first time it's happened for me. Everything is covered in about a half inch of ice right now. 

I think that's about all there is for this week. Outside of being an AP and meeting with people, not a lot happened. I'll talk to you all next week.

Love you all. Have a good week!

Elder Hadden

Transfers

Dear all,

It's been an interesting week this week. We had transfer calls yesterday, which was a big deal for the rest of the mission, but not for the Chinese district. Everyone is staying exactly the same. There were a few changes to the Mandarin missionaries in Ottawa, but that's really far away. 

Everyone in the Branch is still doing well. We met with Yang Yuan Lan a few times this week to talk about temples and to help her with scripture study. On Sunday, she told us out of nowhere that she decided she wants to get baptized on the 24th of February, so she actually has a date again now. Elder Tsai and I were both pretty relieved about that. She's really ready to get baptized! She has a really strong testimony and has a great understanding of doctrines and scriptures. I'm excited to see her make that step.

We met with Alice to watch Elder Uchtdorf's general address to young adults the other day. I think she enjoyed watching it. Honestly, I'm not really sure what he talked about since we watched it in Chinese. I hope it was good.

On Friday we had a dinner appointment with a long-time investigator named Oliver. Oliver just graduated from college, but hasn't found a job yet, so has a ton of time and not a lot to do. He's been coming to church every Sunday for several months now, but hasn't really progressed at all. He's really smart, and asks some really complicated questions, but also can understand the scriptures on a really deep level. We've challenged him to read the Book of Mormon with the Branch, hoping that regular scripture study will help him start progressing. I can't really communicate with him that well, because he's from the North East and has a really strong accent.

I want to take a moment to describe the food that I've been eating regularly. Before I left, I always thought Chinese food would have to be nice and bite-sized with boneless meat so that you can eat it with just chopsticks. I was very wrong. Every single piece of meat I eat at an average dinner appointment has some kind of bone or gristle in it. If you're lucky enough for the meat to be bite-sized, you just stick the whole thing in your mouth, chew the meat off the bone, and spit the bone out on the table.  If the meat isn't bight sized (so far I've eaten whole chicken thighs and pork chops just with chopsticks), you pick the whole thing up with with chopsticks or your hands and just eat it a bite at a time. There's always a huge pile of bones by everyone's plate after meals. 

During our dinner appointment on Friday, Oliver made a dish that was about 75% bone, 5% gristle, 5% fat, and only 10% meat. You had to take a bone, break it apart as much as you could with your hands, and suck the meat, fat, gristle, and bone marrow off. It was really hard to eat, but surprisingly good.

The semester started last Monday, so our contacting efforts got a lot more effective this week. There are so many more Chinese people in the city now, and a lot of them just arrived in Canada, so they're really curious about everything Western, including Christianity. We met with a couple new investigators on Friday and talked to them about God and the Restoration. They had a lot of complicated questions, which I didn't understand, but Elder Tsai answered them all. They seem at least interested enough to set up a return appointment. That's the best we've had in terms of new investigators while I've been here.

On Saturday, I went on a temporary exchange with Elder Hsiung, from Taiwan, so that Elder Tsai and Elder Saunders could go visit a recent convert inactive member together. Elder Hsiung and I were eating lunch and doing some study in the church building, when a random French guy (like from France French) came in and asked us if we had a priest. He said that he wanted to confess his sins and thought we would have a priest since we're a church. I told him that we didn't, and asked him why he wanted to talk to a priest. He told us that he was looking for truth and didn't know where to find it. He had arrived in Canada just a couple weeks before and had been reading different scriptural texts and visiting different churches, trying to find a gospel that didn't contradict itself. I of course told him that we didn't have priests, but we had plenty of truth. Elder Hsiung and I then tried to teach him about the restoration half in French, half in English, and with just a little Chinese because that's the only language we know how to teach the gospel with. I'm sure it was really rushed and really confusing, but he seemed genuinely interested. When we finished, I tried to get his phone number, but he didn't have a phone yet, since he just arrived in Canada. I just gave him the numbers of some of the APs since they're the first listed in our contacts. He said he would call when he gets a phone. It was a really, really random experience, but at least I got to practice French.

That's about all for me this week.

Love you all,

Elder Hadden

Snow, More Snow, Cold, and Snow!

Hey all,

(Subject line this week written by Caiti Erin Christensen)

Contrary to the subject line, it actually got a lot warmer this week. Right now it's only -1 C and it's supposed to get all the way up to +9 C this week. I'll let you do the math on those numbers. I'm too lazy now.

This week wasn't nearly as exciting as last week. We spent most of our time visiting less-active members and working with Yang Yuan Lan on getting to a baptismal date. Yang Yuan Lan is still progressing. She's committed to read the entire Book of Mormon in 100 days with the rest of the Branch, and she's been doing pretty well so far. We went over to her apartment the other day to help her clean and eat dinner. She had one of her numerous Chinese friends over with us, so we could have a chaperone. He had never heard of the church, and wasn't really interested in what we had to share, but at least we got to meet someone new and leave a good impression. After dinner, we taught her about church callings, specifically home and visiting teachers. Hopefully, some time within the next 100 days she'll get the answer she's looking for, and finally feel ready to be baptized.

The less active of the week was Catalina. She's a tiny, sort of ditsy girl in her early 20s from China. She was baptized earlier this year, but still doesn't really have a great understanding of the gospel. We extended the branch's Book of Mormon reading challenge to her, and have been helping her to keep up as much as possible. Hopefully it'll give her the nourishment she needs to progress. Every time we meet with her she tells something new and crazy about herself. Last night, she took us out to dinner and told us all about how she used to be super into skateboarding, but just decided to stop one day.

On Sunday night, we had a DA with a long-time member named Sophia. We brought Alice, Zhang Guang Hui (the assistant branch mission leader), and his five-year-old daughter Celine.  Sophia is a really good cook and made a ton of food for the six of us. She made the best dumplings I've ever eaten. It was a great ending to a long fast Sunday. 

Alice just gave me permission to tell you a funny story about her (we're emailing in her building today). 

The other day we were riding the metro with her back to our apartments. We live at the same metro station, and she gets off school at the same time we have to finish contacting, so we ride the metro home with her a lot. She was showing me pictures from her high school in China and telling me, in English, all about her high school "porn." She showed me all these pictures of her and her friends in big fancy dresses and then asked me if I had "porns" back in high school. I had to tell her that she meant to say prom, not porn. Luckily, the MTC taught me the word for porn in Chinese so I was able to explain what she was really saying. She was pretty embarrassed.

That's about it from me. I'll let you all know how the warm weather goes this week.

Love you all,

Elder Hadden

It Actually Got Cold

Hey all,

It actually got cold this week. I thought it was pretty cold before, but now it actually is. It's been staying steady at around -20 C (-4 F) for about a week now. Yesterday was the coldest day, with temperatures at a solid - 25 C (-13 F) with wind chill down to -38 C (-36 F). It's very cold. We don't go outside anymore, and, of course, I caught a cold.

Here's a picture I tried to take of all the ice that's formed on the inside of the window in our apartment. There's a lot of it. The windows are ridiculously drafty.

Anyway, the most important thing is that we had two baptisms on Saturday! Yang Yuan Lan decided she wasn't ready and wanted to wait a little longer, so we only had two instead of three, but that's all right. We're still meeting with her, and she's still progressing. All is well. Everything went well. Elder Lehnardt, the other white missionary in my district who's only a transfer older than me, tried his hand at translating for the branch president's remarks from English into Chinese. His Chinese is really good, but not even close to being fluent, so it was pretty funny to listen to.

R2L: Elder Hadden, Elder Lehnardt, Elder Tsai, Alice, Lan Ying, Elder ?, Elder ?.

Alice was very excited and happy. It was cool to be a part of her conversion. Elder Tsai baptized her, and confirmed her on Sunday. Sunday night she invited us over for dinner, so I got to share a scripture about the Spirit with her, and talk to her about how to receive the Spirit's guidance. After dinner, we went outside and lit sparklers to celebrate the new year. 

Yang Yuan Lan moved apartments this week, so we spent a good portion of a couple days moving her stuff and cleaning her apartments. She was in a temporary university-provided apartment for about a month because her first apartment burned down. (Her copy of the Book of Mormon got really charred in the fire, but survived. The Church is true.) Now that she's back in her own apartment, she's back on her feet and is feeling a lot better. 

We did a lot of "service" for our branch president this week by eating all his food. He has a ton of leftovers from Christmas, so he's inviting as many missionaries as possible to come to his house and eat as much food as possible. 

That's about all I can think of for this week. I  love you all.

The kitchen of our tiny apartment (sorry for the mess).

Study area and the end of the kitchen

My desk/study area.

新年快乐

韩长老

Elder Hadden

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