DOWN & UP

March 13, 2011 Sunday

This morning we went back to teach Ariel, the 13 year old who wants to be baptized. Her grandmother met us at the door and said Ariel’s dad, who sat in for part of the first lesson, thought we were giving her “too much, too soon” and didn’t want us to continue. The grandmother also commented that Ariel is a little slow in learning things and they didn’t want to push her. We felt so bad—especially because we had only taught her part of the first lesson. And if she’s slow, we certainly didn’t notice it. At church, I talked to her and she didn’t know that her dad had stopped the lessons. She said she wants us to teach her; so we are going to let her campaign with her dad. Hopefully, she’ll be able to turn that decision around.
James and Tai were both at church along with Ariel. That always makes missionaries happy when investigators come to church. We had invited Tai to the “Cottage Meeting” they hold monthly at the mission home for investigators and their missionaries. Sunny, Tai’s cousin, said he’d take him up there. After we got there, Tai phoned and said he was going to a YSA fireside instead. But Yingping, the Chinese girl we started teaching in the Como ward, came and was excited to see us. The elders who are teaching her now said that they’d given her a baptismal date of March 26, but she didn’t seem too sure about that. It was fun to talk to her. She showed us photos of her mom and dad in China. The cottage meeting was good—it focused on the prophet, Joseph Smith. A couple of elders and sisters provided the musical numbers and they were excellent. One of the songs was, “Oh How Lovely was the Morning” sung to the tune of “Oh Thou Fount of Every Blessing” and it was beautiful.