A Lady on the Metro

Dear all,

This week I did missionary work, the weather was cold and then got really warm, and Elder Cannon and I got along.

Something else really interesting happened, though. We were contacting on the Metro last night and I sat down next to this Chinese lady. I started off in a pretty normal way, just asked her (in English) if she spoke Chinese. She responded that she did, but she knew who I was, had seen missionaries like me before, and was not interested at all. Normally, that would be the end of the contact, I would go find someone else to talk to, and that would be that. But there was no one else around to talk to, and I felt like I could keep talking to her, so I asked her if I could just practice speaking Chinese with her. She said I could, and seemed pretty willing, so I just asked her where she was from and how long she had been in Canada. She answered pretty briefly, and then asked me how I could speak Chinese so well. I told her that I was a missionary assigned to speak Chinese, so I studied Chinese on my own every day and talked with a lot of people on the street and the Metro to practice. I also told her that I had only been studying for 7 months, and she, very genuinely, told me that it wasn't possible for me to speak Chinese so well in such a short period of time. I got to tell her that I agreed, and that I believed that God had helped me learn Chinese because He loves me and wants to help me.

She was by this point pretty intrigued by what I was saying, so we talked a little bit more about what missionaries do, and why we do what we do. She asked me if we were Christians, and when I responded we were, she said, "So what do Mormons actually believe?" Unfortunately, I had to get off the Metro just as she asked that, so I didn't have time to continue the conversation. 

I thought this was really interesting because a random lady, in about 5 minutes, went from not wanting to hear anything about the Church, to genuinely asking me about what we believe. I think it's incredible that someone's attitude can change from one extreme to the other in such a short period of time. The Spirit can work those kinds of changes in people every day. I'm glad I got to be a part of one.

That's it for me,

Love you all,

Elder Hadden

We got Hot Pot with a former [investigator] Elder Cannon taught
when he was in the branch before

We just went to this random giant orange ball on the west side of Montreal to get some Orange Julius.
I'm not really sure where this place came from, or why it's here, but the Orange Julius is good.

Back in Our Three-Bedroom House

Dear all,

I moved this week from Mandarin Central to Mandarin West (the area that I was in for two weeks a couple months ago. It's still in Montreal. I didn't move that far) and got my new companion, Elder Cannon. As a companionship, I feel like our most notable feature is that we're both white, and definitely not native Chinese speakers. President Phillips (our mission president) has never before put two white Mandarin-speaking missionaries together, so this is new. Our Chinese is pretty bad, but we can still communicate, and at least I can kinda read, so we can still text people. It's been a little difficult teaching and everything, but we get by.

Our apartment is massive, cluttered, and has three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a dining room. It is massive, but we actually cleaned it--or at least most of it--so it's better now. 

Chinese geography study cards made for me by Kening.

Other than that, the most progressing investigator in West is this girl named Kening from Shandong Province. She's really nice. Like, really really really nice. She made me Chinese geography study cards a few weeks ago (I sent a picture of them). She has a lot of potential, but she's going back to China in a couple weeks, so we'll see if she gets baptized before that. She might. We told her to fast and pray about it this week. Hopefully she will, and it will all work out in the end.

That's pretty much me. Love you all. Keep your houses and apartments clean, please. Don't leave it for two years for someone else to clean.

 Elder Hadden

We got dimsum with our favorite short Vietnamese friend, Cedric just before I left Central. (Google 'dimsum' if you don't know what it is. I don't know either)

 I found this book in our apartment. I'm gonna read it just to say that I did.

2..

Elder Hadden and Elder Cannon, from a post by Sister Cannon on the CMM Mission facebook page

Transfers

Dear all,

Yay. Transfers came this week and stuff is changing and all that. The call was supposed to come on Saturday night, but President said he wasn't ready to send it out because there was one missionary that wasn't in the right place in his plan, so the call came on Monday morning. This never happens. So I'm flushing (meaning neither my companion nor I were in that area this last transfer)  into Mandarin West (the area I hung out in for two weeks last transfer) with Elder Canon (a white guy who's going home in 12 weeks.) This is crazy for a couple reasons. One is that president usually hates flushing missionaries into areas, and doesn't ever do it unless he really feels he needs to, and the other is that President never puts two white Chinese missionaries together. Never. I don't think he's ever done it in his nearly 2 years here. This is the first time. I hear from Elder Furness (who was companions with Elder Canon before he came to the branch) that Canon really struggled with Chinese at the beginning of his mission and hasn't really gotten very good at it. He's still probably better than me, but definitely not anywhere close to native, so we're gonna have some fun figuring out how to communicate with people. It'll be quite the transfer. 

In other news, Elder Leung is coming back to Central with Elder Furness (Elder Leung spent 7 consecutive transfers here last year and is now coming back. This also NEVER happens.) I think he's pretty happy about that though. 

All in all, a unique transfer experience for us Chinese missionaries. 

In other other news, we had stake conference this week. It was all in English and not many people in the branch came, but all the talks were really good. I sang in the branch choir again. I'm getting really good at reading hymns in Chinese now. 

We met with Zhang Ning this week to teach him about the Word of Wisdom. We were afraid that he was gonna argue with us about tea being good for the body since he's a Chinese doctor and knows way more about that kind of stuff than we do. We were surprised to find out that he had already stopped drinking tea since we passing mentioned that we don't drink tea in one of our earlier lessons, and that the Word of Wisdom is actually very close to a lot of the philosophies in Chinese medicine. Pretty crazy. 

That's it for me.

Love you all, 

Elder Hadden

Pictures!

Biodome pic from last week

Biodome pic from last week

Biodome pic from last week

White Christmas that we had on Friday (7 April) It's still winter here.

We saw a big green light in the sky the other day. I thought it could have been the Northern Lights, but it was in the western sky. Probably aliens. Spooky.

Selfies in the snow.  Elders Hadden and Furness

Mormonspeak

Word of Wisdom: The Word of Wisdom is a law of health revealed by the Lord for the physical and spiritual benefit of all people. On February 27, 1833, as recorded in section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord revealed which foods are good for us to eat and which substances are not good for the human body. He also promised health, protection, knowledge, and wisdom to those who obey the Word of Wisdom.   In the Word of Wisdom, the Lord revealed that the following substances are harmful:  alcoholic drinks, tobacco, tea and coffee, illegal drugs or misuse of prescription drugs.  

Conference

Dear all,

Well, I hear a bunch of stuff changed in Conference this year. Unfortunately, I watched most of it in Chinese, so I'm still not 100% filled in on all the changes. I'll just wait for the Ensign to really get filled in. It was a good experience though. We only got a good amount of people from the branch to watch the Sunday morning session, but at least some people came. 

In other news, we were really busy on Friday because we had a lunch appointment with Sharon (I feel like I've mentioned her before, but I'm not sure. She's from Shang Hai, in her thirties, and has a teenage daughter. She's super cool and very willing to learn). We went over with Alice and Cedric,  ate some crazy good Shang Hai cuisine, and taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Cedric sort of hi-jacked the lesson, even though he doesn't speak Chinese. It was a little tricky, but we got the information across. She accepted what is known as a "soft baptismal invitation" (she said she would prepare to be, but we didn't give her a date) and seemed really excited about it. It was a really good appointment.

Friday night was the annual Stake Easter Concert. A lot of people came. A lot of Chinese non-members came to sing with the "Chinese community Choir." They even sang a song from the children's hymn book, but they're all pretty anti[Mormon], so there isn't a lot of hope trying to preach to them. It's good they get the exposure though. One day maybe they will be ready. I sang in the missionary choir and the Branch choir. 

Alice moved to a newer, fancier apartment yesterday, so now she lives more than a block away from us, but still not that far. We probably won't get as much food anymore. :(

Oh, also, transfer call is this Saturday. I might move, but probably not.

That's pretty much it for me. Things go on.

Elder Hadden

Mormonspeak:

Conference:  General Conference.  General conferences are the semiannual worldwide gatherings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Church members gather to receive guidance and encouragement from Church leaders about gospel living based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. There are five sessions:  Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Priesthood or Women's session on Saturday evening, Sunday morning, and Sunday afternoon.

Ensign:  The monthly publication for church members.  The Ensign magazine provides spiritual messages for adults, youth, and children. Contents also include church news and briefs.

Stake:  The stake is an intermediate level in the organizational hierarchy of the LDS Church. The lowest level, consisting of a single congregation, is known as a ward or branch. Stakes are organized from a group of contiguous wards or branches. To be created, a stake must be composed of at least five wards.

non-members:  people who are not LDS church members.

transfer:  every six weeks, missionaries in a mission are rearranged.  Sometimes they get moved to a new apartment, sometimes they get a new companion, and sometimes nothing changes.