I wish I spoke Chinese

Well it's been a pretty fun, crazy week! Tuesday we had lunch at an assisted living home. We have a coupe of elderly members that wanted us to come have lunch with them. It's a pretty nice place, and
apparently whenever they want to have guests their guests can just eat for free. It was nice talking to them and getting to know them a little. It's funny, on my mission I've really enjoyed the elderly
people in the areas I've served. They're the best. Before my mission I was honestly pretty uncomfortable with older people. It still stresses me out when they can't hear me, but they're the sweetest. Anyway, for dessert they served "iced potato." That was pretty fun. A taste of Ida-home! It is vanilla ice cream scooped into a kind of ugly potato shape and then rolled in cinnamon sugar, with a drizzle of caramel on top. It's actually really yummy!

We also had a really good lesson with Sister Bailey this week. We invited her to a lunch that the senior sisters in the ward are doing once a month (they call themselves "silver belles" haha). She came! And it seemed like she really had fun. It was good for her to start building some friendships with people in the ward. That's something that I've learned--people need friendships with people at church, and it's not enough to just be friends at church. It needs to be a genuine friendship where you spend time outside of church too. When people are new or returning it is a struggle to get in that routine of attending church. It's so much better for them if they have the support of friends, and not just on Sunday. The progress with her is a little slow, but it's there. One day she will be fully active, and people that know her would never guess that she hadn't been active her whole life. She's awesome.

Saturday morning we got together as a zone for about an hour and did some kind of fun silly things to focus on becoming unified in our teaching. We sat in a circle and told a story with each person saying
just one word, so you don't know where the story is going to go because you never know what anyone else is going to say. You have to listen to everyone, and if you aren't listening the word you use won't make any sense. Then they had us do roleplays with our companion teaching in that way, with each of us saying only one word at a time. It was fun, but also really helpful. It makes you get out of your routine of what you usually say, and you have to be unified with your companion or you don't get anywhere. Which is actually true all the time, it just isn't always as obvious. :)

Sunday we had a lesson scheduled with a headquarters referral named Chen. We still don't know how she ended up as a referral, because her English is a work in progress so communication was a struggle. We did meet her briefly earlier in the week and she didn't have time to talk so we set up a lesson. Since we had talked to her a little we knew her English wasn't great so we found a YSA member that speaks Chinese. That was a huge blessing to have her with us, because we wouldn't have
been able to communicate much at all without her. Chen said that her interest started with wondering why there are so many different religions, and why they all disagree. She has heard a lot of criticism of Mormons but in all her experiences has found us to be very honest and genuine. She had a lot of questions, and since it all had to go through interpreting it was a real challenge to answer her questions. Teaching the Restoration would've answered a lot of them, but she got frustrated waiting for the answers to come since it takes a while to lay the groundwork for why there are so many religions and what is different about ours. So we did our best! We were able to answer a lot of her questions. Because of the language barrier though, we won't be able to continue teaching her. It's a shame because she seems really prepared. There aren't any Chinese missionaries in our mission. The ASL sisters are also covering the Chinese group, so they are learning some Chinese. Hopefully between them and the members in the Chinese group they will be able to help her understand and accept the gospel. I'm excited for her, understanding will come gradually but I know it will be a huge
blessing to her.

This morning in studies I read President Uchtdorf's talk from last conference, "The Gift of Grace."
Re-read it! What really struck me was the retelling of Christ's teaching to the Pharisee, Simon. We all need grace. We can merit nothing of ourselves. The Atonement of Jesus Christ makes it possible
for us to return to live with our Heavenly Father again, and to become like Him. I can't even begin to express the gratitude and joy I feel for that sacrifice. It is wonderful to me! Love you all!

Sister Robinson