Note 33 from My Daughter’s Chinese-speaking Mission in Vancouver: Happy Year of the snake! 新年快乐🐍！

大家好！It’s been almost a full transfer, I hope everyone is doing so good! Here’s the highlights of my past couple weeks:

We helped one of our friends set a baptismal date! She is so amazing! Last Sunday she brought her boyfriend, and her daughter, and her daughters friend, and almost brought her son to church! She lost her book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ a few weeks ago and we got her a new one this week and she was so excited! She always says her favorite part of the book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ is that “it speaks to her”

. She is so in tune with the holy spirit and she knows that God has a plan for her and she wants all the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ that she has found in the church of Jesus Christ.

We had a lesson a while ago where we had a member come and join our lesson and our friend and the member just sat on the couch in the church lobby and chatted for like 30 minutes about parenting and a ton of stuff.

The members in the Willoughby ward are so awesome! They are so good at being friends with our friends, like one of our members is going hiking with one of our friends later this week haha. Like even the people we’re not teaching anymore are still best friends with a ton of the members, so good! Everyone is so friendly and super cool! And like speaks like so many languages, really cool.

One of our friends taught us how to make dumplings the other day! It was harder than I expected, but I think if I practiced some more I could figure it out haha.

It snowed for the first time! It was very pretty and felt very Christmas-y haha. I finally got to see what snow is like in Canada! For our exercise in the morning we went on a walk in the snow and made some snow angels

新年快乐！We had Chinese new year! Happy year of the snake!

We had a fun little party and we played telephone, and they asked English speakers to come up so I thought the phrase was going to be in English, but it was it Cantonese! I really butchered the Cantonese, but we made it to the end of the line haha, and we got a prize too!

We wandered into a hockey rink…

…to do some studying and we watched the Zamboni go around for a while. But then, while we were trying to discuss a quote a hockey game started and the music got really loud and the lights started blasting. So we started to walk out and then we realized they were checking for tickets at the door, but because we came in early they didn’t check us, so we almost saw a hockey game for free?

One big highlight of the past few weeks was Elder Anderson, one of the 12 apostles, came to visit and give a devotional! He talked about a lot of powerful stuff, one thing he talked about was how the world we live in now is a world of evidence and proof and statistics, not of feelings and thoughts. But God speaks to us through feelings and thoughts. I was reading in proverbs the other day and I read

Proverbs 2:10:

When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul

I was reading through some commentary and ideas on this verse and I read: “In the Eastern and Western cultures, different parts of the human body symbolize the ideas of understanding and feeling. In the East one “understands” in his heart and “feels” in his bowels; in the West one “understands” in his head, or mind, and “feels” in his heart.”

Feelings are so important, we can gain know things through our feelings. We can know of the truth of something by our feelings. “Know” and “feel” can sometimes feel like they aren’t connected at all, but the spirit speaks to our hearts, God speaks to our feelings!

I hope you all have the best week and find time to feel what God would have you know!

Love you all!

A cute painting I like:

Year of the Snake — what does that mean? In the Chinese zodiac, people born in the Year of the Snake are said to be wise, intuitive, and mysterious. They are also known for being determined, hard-working, and good at forming deep bonds.

Personality traits

• Strategic: They are known for being quiet and patient, but move fast without hesitation.
• Analytical: They are known for their ability to analyze situations before taking action.
• Resourceful: They are known for their ability to create opportunities and pave the way for themselves and others.
• Caring: They are known for being good at understanding and caring about others.
• Mysterious: They are known for not allowing people to see their inner side.

Other characteristics

• They are known for being charismatic, elegant, and calm.
• They are known for being determined, goal-oriented, and responsible.
• They are known for being intelligent and graceful.
• They are known for being tenacious.

Potential career paths

financial analysts, economists, engineers, music composers, sustainability experts, entrepreneurs, lawyers, therapists, life coaches, and linguists.

Originally published at https://loadestone.substack.com.