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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