We started a new transfer this week. Sunday night was perhaps the strangest transfer night that I've ever had. Nothing happened. I thought for sure something would. Nothing happened in our whole zone, everyone is staying except for one of the zone leaders. It will be another 6 weeks for Elder King and I in Stayner. At the end I will have served with him for almost as long as I was with Elder Bennett.
I got a chance to do some more zebra work this week when we had our district meeting. Elder Omer, the Chinese zone leader, came and taught the waitress from the local Chinese restaurant. So I was able to sit there and smile while they spoke in Chinese, it was awesome. She works 7 days a week and hates her job. We are hoping that she will be able to move to Toronto soon where she can actually be taught by Chinese missionaries and be mega-fellowshipped in the Chinese ward. Until then, there's not much Elder King and I can do because her English is really bad. But for some reason, our new zone leader is another Chinese missionary, so we have two Chinese zone leaders. I don't think that happens very often, especially in cities where there aren't many Chinese people.
We visited Earl this week. He gave a copy of the Book of Mormon to one of his friends! Now normally, this is where I would say something like, "If only the actual members would do that..." But the members have been on the ball recently. We ate 2 dinners this past week where the members brought a nonmember friend! And one of them came to church.
This week we also had travels and our district leader worked with me here in Stayner. We decided to tract some backwoods 1-intersection townships. It was awesome! No one there had ever talked to missionaries, as opposed to the people at the beach who have talked to missionaries a thousand times. We talked to this one group of people that reminded me very much of the kids from my high school shop class. They were much older(between 25-60's), but probably hadn't changed much since their high school days. It's strange how so many miles from home you can find the exact same culture.
I feel like I've learned a lot this past couple of transfers, especially about how to talk to people. The problem with talking to people you have never met before is you have to pretend to care about stuff that you normally wouldn't, like hockey and ugly dogs in sweaters. Otherwise you'll sound like a missionary-bot.
Well, that's my week. I love you all!
--Elder Wade
