I’m kind of holding my breath that something crazy happens.

So, last Sunday when we did our weekly call in report to our district leader, he asked, as he always does, what did we want to learn about in district meeting.  I said “How to Begin Teaching,” which is a section on page 187 of Preach My Gospel” that we use to establish a relationship with those we teach.  So Elder D. says, “Okay, you’ll teach that.”  So I taught at district meeting last week on “How to Begin Teaching” and it was pretty awesome!  Showed a clip from Elder Holland and just discussed everything.  So that was cool and taught me to never respond when asked what I want to learn.

So on Thursday I was in Hershey on exchange with Elder D. as well.  I’m pretty glad I am in a walk area because there is so much dead time just driving to appointments.  Though I guess the trade off is you don't freeze, but anyways, we had got a legit media referral for this Chinese guy named Y. L. He grew up in Mainland China before coming to Penn State and had no concept of God or religion or anything.  So we did some “How to Begin Teaching” and asked him to pray if there was a God.  He did, and then we had the inspired idea to have him pray again, in Mandarin.   He was worried because he didn't know how to say things like “Heavenly Father” or “In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen," but I said, “Well, I know that grandfather in Mandarin is Y Yea Yea, so just address him as father.” He was like, “Ok.” So he did it, then stood up and was like, “I feel something peaceful, and happy.  I think it is God.”   Wham! Legit!

In other news, work with less actives is just taking off.  It’s so cool, seeing these hearts soften and people gradually return to church.  The N family for one.  We really want J to start getting prepared for a mission, and so we’ve been working with him.  And Sister N just got a new and better job, so we told her, “Look, you start coming to church and see what happens.”  We’ve also seen Sister M, who hasn't been to church in decades, just start coming.  That’s been awesome.  She has two young teenage kids as well; who we’ll start teaching the discussions once she is more solid.  They are pretty into mutual though, so that’s cool.

At the bike shop, I learned how to fix brakes, totally, like completely taking them off and replacing them with better ones.  R. the guy who does all of it is pretty cool.  He’s older and has a pretty Pennsylvanian accent (something not too common in the inner city) and he just rattles off analogies all the time, it’s pretty funny.  But he is a bike genius, he can basically fix anything, and he is really willing to help out.  By the way, we're going there Saturday mornings now because it works better with our schedule, which is pretty dandy, except freezing, because it is not heated.  It's pretty bare bones.  It’s a bummer it gets broken into so frequently, because the bikes that are there, that he sells and repairs, are so cheap! But that’s the way life goes.  Oh well.

So the Harrisburg Inter Faith Council is Wednesday night at the chapel; it’s like a big old service with tons of religions, from Buddhists to Muslims to everything.  We (the missionaries) are passing donation baskets for a scholarship that the council sponsors.  So that’ll be unique, for sure.  I’m kind of holding my breath that something crazy happens. 

I love you all!

Elder Wright