"Don't question the king's grammar!"

[Title references this line from "King George and the Ducky."]

1/13/2025

大家好！Hello Friends!

Great news! The cold ceased this week and we got back up to freezing point!

Greater news! God is doing a “marvelous work and a wonder!” Here are a few wonderful moments this week, when I marveled at the things that God was doing.

• Wong Lei met previously with missionaries and would always bring up some weird concern right before his baptism date. We have him on date for the end of January, and when we reviewed the baptismal questions, he didn’t have any problems! Plus, his 10-year-old son has been telling him that they should be going to church more. What a big miracle!
• Cancan has been keeping commitments! When we followed up with her on Friday about her prayers, she told us, “It was exactly like you said! I asked God for something, and he didn’t give it to me, but later he gave me something that was even better!” She also surprised us by reading several chapters in the Book of Mormon -- another big miracle!
• I went on an exchange with Elder Wells in an English area, and he managed to get the numbers of 5-6 interested people within 25 minutes! They were also all about 15 years old, which made me marvel as well lol.

Side notes: I had a cool realization in bridging English and Chinese writing. An online Chinese dictionary that I use has an entry about an influential Tang dynasty poet named Du Fu (杜甫) and includes some samples of his writing. In these samples, there was a very common pattern of 5 syllable phrases, or 7 syllable phrases. Then I later recited the Chinese translation of Joseph Smith’s first vision, and realized the syntax patterns were very similar:

我看见一道光柱   [I saw a beam of light]

正在我头上   [on my head]

比太阳的光还亮    [brighter than the sun's light]

缓缓降下来    [lower slowly]

直到落在我身上    [until it falls on me.]

光停在我身上时    [When the light stops on me]

我看见两位人物    [I saw two people]

Anyway ... I don’t know what you’ll do with that info, but I think it’s interesting.

Speaking of language, this week I’d invite you all to give three intentional compliments. I’m trying to focus on giving more compliments this week, since I feel like there’s often some good stuff I think about other people, but I’m not always that articulate about it. So I figure I’m going to rope you all into this as well. Words do matter.  They have a “more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else” (Alma 31:5). As we use our words to see others the way that God sees them, and see the potential that God sees, we will feel a divine love that will bless us and our neighbors plentifully.

Stay warm everyone! Love you all!

Elder Baer 熊长老

照片：

https://photos.app.goo.gl/yBaTy1Mc3BcoogrG6

[Bao & sausage. Dim sum literally translates to "touch the heart" -- the small portions are meant to "touch the heart" rather than fill the stomach]

    Literally, I don’t have any pictures other than some pics we took at the zoo earlier today, so enjoy!

 

 

Punctual as Usual (Not)

新年快乐

We have P-day on New Year's Day apparently, and it's been a phat minute since I've given you any sort of sneak peak into Calgary. So here's some highlights from the last few weeks:

Concert!!!
On the 21st we had the most epic opportunity for all of the missionaries in Calgary to go to see Jenny Oaks Baker perform! They had a great singer from Ireland named Alex Sharpe perform as well! It turned out to be a really uplifting experience and some great messages about Christ's ministry. Man…I've really missed being in a concert hall.

Christmas
Christmas was surprisingly busy. Elder Bigler and I went street contacting on Christmas Eve, and I learned that the Christmas holidays are perhaps, somehow, the most difficult days to share the gospel. Everyone is WAY too busy celebrating Christ’s birth to hear about his enabling power. I think this kind of irony is common, though. I mean, even the Jews were celebrating the feast of Christ’s Atonement on the very evening He was crucified.
Anywho. We had some cool meals with families in our ward that took up most of Christmas day, and then we had a district finding activity on Boxing Day ... finding the best deal at the mall! I got a good scarf out of it.

Friends:
The friends we’ve started teaching are SO AWESOME! Lemme tell you about them!

•  Shawn - I met Shawn on an exchange with Elder Pace, and he didn’t want to talk until I asked the classic “你会讲中文吗,” [Do you speak Chinese?] and then we’ve had a lesson and a chapel tour, and he’s got a ton of copies of the Book of Mormon that he’s studying! Super epic.

• Quinn was referred also by Elder Pace, but he’s been going to Christian churches for 20 years, and he said he had a good experience in the Mandarin Ward (also a miracle), and said he’s thinking about being baptized somewhere.

• Cancan - This girl has got to be one of my favorite people I’ve ever taught on the mission. She’s going to school for her master’s in science right now. We found Cancan near the mall, and she was really enthralled by whatever Elder Bigler and I were saying. So she took a Book of Mormon on the spot, set up a church tour, and came to church. She asks the most profound, deep questions and isn’t afraid to challenge an idea we teach for a few moments, but so far things have been going well.

Church was so awesome this Sunday! We strayed from the 5th-Sunday lesson about seminary and got all of the new friends in the district together in a classroom to teach about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ! It was a super good discussion.

I heard this great idea for New Years that I want to pass on! Goals can be exhausting and frustrating at times, but consider writing down 10 things you already do well and think about how you can do a little better at each of those! This can be much less daunting than finding new goals entirely.

That’s it for this week!
Stay warm everyone! Love you all!
Elder Baer 熊长老

照片：(photos Might be mixed up a little)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/yBaTy1Mc3BcoogrG6

Jenny Oaks Baker Concert!

Christmas Mahjong (Shout out to district 04-H for getting me hooked, miss you boys)

Service at the mall

[Member meal]

[Looking for a new fur coat?]