August 4, 2010 Re: ‏

Dear family-

This week was the temple trip so this is a couple days late. The temple was good. God loves me and the church is still true.

They are implementing a new mission meeting and training program that is an adjustment. We have less meetings now and more training I guess. It should be good because I've always sort of felt neglected in training as a sister. The Elders go on companionship exchanges about 2-3 times more than we do, and with really solid missionaries like the Zone leaders that can give them specific feedback and examples when teaching their own investigators. I hope maybe as a Sister I can have similar training. I'd like to be a better teacher, contacter, have better Chinese...

Thank you for emailing Sister Greene. Okay, let's clarify - I am flying into Elko on Tuesday November 23rd at 10 PM. Now we all know. Everyone nod. Now please don't bring it up again unless neccessary, or at least until November. Love you!

This week we had another halarious story. Sister Cooper has had trouble sleeping and mentioned it to one of our investigators, Shu fang. We have been helping Shu fang quit smoking for weeks now. She has some kind of illness that makes her in a lot of pain and then she breaks down and smokes. Today she started using the patch and SO FAR hasn't smoked a single cigarette today. Temple blessing! Yeah!

Anyway, earlier this week, Shu fang is a sweetheart and wanted to help Sister Cooper be able to sleep better. So she brewed up this drink for her of Chinese medicine. She put in five kinds of "ku." We thanked her profusely and took a sip...it was the most bitter thing I have ever tasted in my whole life. Nothing in America ever has nor ever will taste that bitter. If it did, it would be immediately spit out. Anyway, Shufang kindly poured us HUGE glasses of it. She also mentioned that she is worried it may give us diarrea, which I did NOT mention to my dear junior companion haha. When my companion tasted it and somehow came to understand the potential side effects, she couldn't stop laughing. It was really funny but I tried not to laugh. Shu fang really wanted to just help us. She was so sweet to brew us up this absolutely noxious beverage and was worried about our health. So I said a prayer for my insides, figured Chinese people drink it all the time and they aren't dead and drained my cup. So far I've been fine, no noticable health changes for the better or worse. Shu fang sent us merrily off with 2 2 liter coke bottles full plus another two more 20 ounce bottles. They are in the fridge at the church and we will probably dump them out tonight. Bless her heart.

Well, I will email again on Monday as the normal schedule. I love you all.

FML
Sister Johnson