Week 12 - Candy, Soda, and Chinese Signs; Unstoppable Future, Rain, Here to Listen and Mourn and show Heavenly Father's Love

This marks 2 weeks in Canada now. Most of the time I forget I'm in a different country, everything is so similar. The only big noticeable differences between here and the US are the candy, the soda, and the crazy amount of Chinese signs. All the candy has different logos or is something from Cadbury. Cream soda is popular here, but it's pink. The  most popular kind is Crush cream soda which is a bit different to see. And in some parts of Canada, like Richmond, you feel like you are in a totally different part of the world. Downtown Richmond is almost entirely Chinese stores and shops, it's crazy.

My week has been pretty long but really quick at the same time. It's long because a lot of it is spent trying to listen to my companion speak Mandarin to people and comprehend what they are saying. I'm definitely learning a lot of new Mandarin words and grammar principles, but I am a long way away from being able to participate much. All the Mandarin I learned in school and in Taiwan has been replaced in my brain by Cantonese. I'll think of something to say in Mandarin, and then my mouth will say the Cantonese words for it. But think, once I get the hang of both, I'll be unstoppable! 

It's very wet here. It has been raining pretty much nonstop the whole week. This is good for me because I love rainy weather, but it kind of makes it hard to find people. It's nice that we have a car, otherwise I don't know how much I would enjoy the rain. People say that it won't really snow here except for one day in February maybe. That's a bit of a bummer and a blessing because I love the snow but it can be a real hassle. 

One cool experience I had this week was going on an exchange with an English elder in Richmond. We went finding at a park right on the beach. It was so cool to see and touch the Ocean, but it was windy and cold as all get out. When we were leaving, this guy sees the English elder's Book of Mormon in his hands and yells at us "Hey! Is that the Bible?" We were a little stunned so all we responded with was "Uh... it's similar" and he yelled back "What do you mean it's similar?" and started walking towards us. We were nervous he wanted to bash or something, but he immediately told us that he had felt drawn to come to the beach and to talk to us when he saw us. He was a bit drunk we could tell, but he talked to us very animatedly about the death of his son and the funeral the day before. We did a lot of listening while he got a lot of things off his chest. It was a super sad story and you could tell he was just sick with grief. In between his words, we managed to share our condolences and our testimony of how the Book of Mormon will help him find peace. We told him we knew he would see his son again and that we had both been led to find each other (we had felt prompted to walk down the street he was on but didn't think much of it). We managed  to give him the Book of Mormon with the missionaries' number before he left. I hope he reads it and finds some peace, but I think that's not the main reason why we were supposed to find him. I think that God put us there, in the way of his grieving child, just to listen to him, to mourn with him as he mourned. It wasn't much but I think that just a listening ear really was what this man needed. I hope more comes of it for him, but if not, I think we fulfilled our purpose there. It was tender to so clearly see how much Heavenly Father loves his children all over the world.

Anyways, I'm still here, still adjusting. There are good parts of every day and not so good parts too. But what matters is that we focus on the few good parts than the bad parts. I know that the gospel helps us enjoy those good parts more fully and endure the bad parts a little easier. Keep on being awesome!

-Elder Murray