Dear People,
Matthew 3:16 in the King James Version of the New Testament reads
16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:
So, when Adrian (who was only baptized two years ago) was reading this in Priesthood yesterday, he saw the character for "dove".
鴿
It's pronounced "Gaap", but he read "Ngaap"...
鴨
(That second character is "Duck").
We all tried really really hard not to laugh, but when the Young Men's leader couldn't stifle a snort we all broke out laughing. Adrian's a good kid, so he laughed with us, and I'm sure he's going to pay a lot closer attention in Chinese class from now on.
ANYWAYS
It was a WEIRD week; people were unusually available to meet, we had pretty good lessons, and then on the way to Church we were held up by a Water Buffalo being followed by four shepherd dogs.
No, really.
If I had anything besides raw, uncompressed HD video to put up you'd all be laughing at the picture of the massive steer that stood in the cross walk holding up pedestrian and vehicle alike for a good five minutes. I mean, I've made analogies to the Kam Tin area being the boonies of Ellensburg, which I know is a farming town, but to see a cow in the road was super strange. The fact that the farm dogs following him were all drenched (there's not usually dew on the grass this time of year) made me think that the poor guy'd ran from his tortured life up North, slaving away in a rice paddy, and just wanted to be free.
THEN, we got to Church for a pre-meetings meeting (the only things Mormons love more than meetings is excuses to get us out of meetings) and no one we've been working with was there. After the pre-meeting meeting we called a gentleman we'd been praying would come to Church... and his phone was off. Crushed, we walked into the foyer to see K&D (brother and sister whom we were pretty sure would come) standing there chatting, which made us take heart that the day might not be a total waste.
THEN in walks Karen (I'll use her real name because it's my favorite girl's name) with her friend, A-K. That made us EXTREMELY glad. Then we had the meeting where Adrian talked about the Holy Ghost descending in the form of a duck, and after that a lady in our congregation came up and said "K&D's mom is here", and nonchalantly walked away. We thought she'd officially gone 100% crazy, because K&D's mom is the reason they're not baptized yet (she hates the Church). We asked D if his mom was at church, and he said, "Yeah, she didn't have to work, so she came", and he too walked off nonchalantly. We asked K and she did the exact same thing.
We were shocked beyond all belief.
She had a good time, and Sister J, our Ward Missionary (a normal person in our congregation that accepted a little more responsibility to help the full-time Missionaries) talked to her constantly through the entire 3-hour block, and I'm pretty sure they're friends now. We couldn't ask the mom how she liked the service afterwards because she was destroying someone on the phone, but I know she at least liked chatting with Sister J.
Last but not least, I got a Christmas package with hand-warmers in it from one of my best High School friends. "Hand-warmers" you say? "Doesn't Elder O' whine incessently about the heat" you ask? Thanks to my favorite Family member (my mom) sending me the forecast, I found out that we have five (count them 1-2-3-4-5) "Cold Weather Warning" days IN A ROW! I refuse to leave the house under 12 degrees [53.6°F] because it's so painfully cold, but, thanks to my not-so-secret-Santa, I have hand-warmers AND hot chocolate on a spoon to keep me happy. Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls!
Love,
Elder JE O'Gara
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