This week was pretty action packed.
Last P-day we went to that USA summer party, which apparently was a 4th of July party but it wasn’t even the 4th of July. It was like I was in America. It was at a nice international school. There was a huge grass field and a live band and a pony ride and bratwurst and ribs and frisbee. Pretty much our whole branch was there so we hung out with them and we talked to their non-member friends. And we met the Ambassador. He’s a homie.
Then Sunday we had church and afterwards we took our friend Tanner out to help us find some people to teach. Tanner was a missionary here a couple years ago. He served in the international branch so he knows our area just as well as we do and he is super game to show us around. That night Tanner let us come to his house and he fed us a delicious bachelor’s meal of instant noodles and fried eggs. Then we went to get dessert at the branch president’s house because earlier in sacrament meeting his wife invited the whole branch over for cookies and brownies. What a cool branch! We brought our new Chinese friend named Aiden.
Monday is not our P-day, but we asked President if we could go out and play soccer with everybody anyways. Of course he said yes because he loves us. We played. I’m still sore.
Also we had Cold Stone because it just opened this week: https://www.dropbox.com/
Tuesday was Mission Council. A General Authority, Elder Wong, was there teaching us. It was cool and all but the best part was lunch. So the Sister APs were in charge of lunch. They called a pizza place the day before and ordered 30 medium pizzas. But then Elder Wong came and changed the schedule around and lunch was now an hour earlier. So the Sisters gave me the phone and told me to figure it out. So I call the pizza place back, and they can’t get it to us on time. So I’m like okay wait up, I’ll call you back. Then I called another pizza place and they said they could do it on time, so I ordered enough pizza for everyone. Mission accomplished. I went into the council feeling good. Then about 20 minutes before lunch I feel hungry, then I remember. CRAP. I forgot to call the other pizza place back!!!! Oh snap. So I called them back and they had already made 17 pizzas. Anyways, I messed up. We had a ton of pizza for lunch. I was running around the whole time telling people to not eat the crust and trying to shove more pizza in their face. In the end we had a bunch left over but everyone just took the extras home and it all worked out.
On Wednesday Elder Wong gave a big Zone conference to everyone in the city. It was way cool. He is a super funny guy and he was cracking jokes the whole time. He really likes root beer floats so after the conference we made everyone a root beer float. After the conference I also got to do a baptismal interview for a 16 year old kid. And it was way cool. He is just a normal kid but when we were talking the spirit told me that he was ready for baptism. It was a cool experience.
On Thursday we had a super fun lesson with our new Chinese investigator Aiden. I forgot how much I love Chinese people and speaking Chinese. I don’t remember very much at all but we brought him a Chinese Book of Mormon and I recognized a few Characters. He is just super smiley and happy and appreciative of everything. He got a Bible from his friend in China and he has been reading it a lot. He liked our lesson and he said he will read the Bible and the Book of Mormon.
Yesterday we baked a cake. We ate half and then gave the other half to a cool member in our branch. We did it from the bottom of our hearts but we also hope that some referrals will come our way shortly. I think its a good trade all around.
And we went to a sushi buffet: https://www.dropbox.
This week I'm going round 3 on the Clayton Christensen hype. I'm not a fanboy but he just has cool fresh ideas and those are pretty hard to come by after a year and a half on a mission. So in his talk Decisions For Which I've Been Grateful he talks about being a member missionary a little bit. He says
Thats just a little part of it. The rest of the talk is so good."The fifth decision that I wanted to recount for you, was the decision I made to call myself on a mission again.I was listening to General Conference, and Elder M. Russell Ballard gave a talk at that time where he invited us as members of the church to set a date, a point in the future, as a commitment to our Heavenly Father. He invited us-don’t pick a person that we were going to share the gospel with but to set a date. He promised us that if we would do all that we could to engage in conversations about the gospel, with as many people as we could, that God would bless us by that date, that we would intersect with somebody who would accept our invitation to meet with the missionaries. His talk just sunk into my heart. That night I went home and knelt by my bed and committed to my Heavenly Father that by a date I would find somebody for the missionaries to teach. That was in 1984. That year, by the date, Heavenly Father blessed me to find a man who we could bring into our home to teach with the missionaries. I have set a date once, twice and now three times every year as a commitment to my Heavenly Father that I’m going to be a missionary, and every Sunday I fast that God will help me to intersect with somebody who I can invite to learn of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Every time I pray, I pray that God will put somebody in my path, and I’m grateful to be able to say that God has answered my prayer every time. It’s been 20 years."
Watch it here: https://video.byui.edu/
I love my mission. I get to bless other people's lives and I am blessed with the Spirit.
Love,
Elder Osborne