Monday, August 3, 2009 - Prophecy Fulfilled

Howdy, y'all!

It's weird serving in what's probably the most bland place in the world - namely Abilene, Texas - and yet be involved in so many different languages. I'm still teaching in French. It's tough, since I'm pretty rusty. I just got a French "Preach My Gospel", so that'll help with common church phrases, such as "libre arbitre". It's funny: before my mission, I wanted a list of church terms and phrases in French, and now I have the whole manual.

Also, the Sisters have been working with other African refugees who don't know French, but speak Swahili. Elder Tuttle and I are going to get a copy of it (that's more just for fun than anything). It's cool being able to read it and sound like you have an African accent. "Holy Spirit" is "Roho Mtakatifu".

We're still teaching our Nepali friends. I'll tell you, the Nepali written language is cool, but rather difficult. There's 36 consonants and the vowels are made by adding symbols around the consonants (I believe they're called diacritics, but I'm not sure). On top of that, there's a line that goes through every word. But again, it's really cool to be able to write it and look incredibly Asian. Maybe we'll use it as our secret written language.

And speaking of secret languages, Elder Allred has started teaching me ASL. He learned it in Big Spring, where that big deaf college is (and where he helped baptize a deaf man). He loves sign language; he even got a name tag that says "American Sign Language" under his name. He's taught me about a dozen words so far.

Oh, and the most exciting news of the year: we doubled baptisms! For six years, this mission has been averaging 20 baptisms per month. In 1999, President Hinckley told the whole world to double what we're doing now. Between November and now, that's all we've been thinking about. Now, we've finally hit it. The fortieth person was baptized this month on the 31st, at 6:00 pm - just in the nick of time. Now, President Robison is arranging to have every single missionary in the mission to come up to Lubbock, where they're going to have a professional photographer take a picture of the whole mission in front of the temple. We've been talking about this day for a long time and we're all so happy that it's finally come.

I forgot to mention last time that Elder Trost is the new assistant to the President, to replace Elder Newman who just went home (along with Elder Northey). He was a zone leader here in the Abilene zone (in San Angelo, actually). I was on exchanges with him here in Abilene, so I got to be with him in the van when he got the call. I think he could've guessed that he would be the next one, but when President called, he had no clue. It really took him by surprise.

Yesterday, someone that we've been trying to teach invited us over for dinner and he had put "about $80 worth of meat" into his BBQ pit. Those ribs were so tender. We had a real feast.

We visited Brother Campbell, who's the stake executive secretary. He was explaining how a lot of things work behind the scenes in the stake. It's a lot more complicated than I thought. It's just like the mission: it wasn't until I served in the office that I found out just how complex running a mission is. It's also really cool. For example, in a company, the more people you have going behind the scenes, in most cases, you'll have more people lose respect for that company because they find out the secrets and skeletons in the closet. In the Church, however, you not only have many people working behind the scenes, but you rotate them out every seven years, or sometimes less! And 99.99% of these people don't lose respect for the work, but their testimony is strengthened. Yet another evidence that the Church, especially its organization, is truly inspired.

Transfers went well and smoothly. After it was all done, we went to have supper at the Monterrey Mexican Restaurant, which is right next to the chapel. It's good food.

Anyways, I have to go. I know that the Church is true and is run by God Himself.

I love y'all! Have a good week.

-Elder Brandon Wong