Week 31 - Evacuation, Self Quarantine at Home, San Jose Reassignment, Attempting Mandarin again

Well if you didn't hear, I got evacuated from Hong Kong, spent two weeks at home in self-isolation, and by a weird series of events ended up in San Jose California. Darn Coronavirus. It is almost like an "out of the frying pan in into the fire" situation because at least in Hong Kong, they knew where all the cases came from. This week alone, there have been like 5 unlinked cases here in San Jose, meaning it is probably spreading throughout the community. Fun. Everyone is freaking out here as much as in Hong Kong. The idea is that once things cool down, I'll get sent back to Hong Kong eventually.

I'm in Cupertino meaning that I get to see Apple Headquarters and Netflix headquarters at least once a day. It's a nice area here. I'm assigned Mandarin speaking so that's a blast. I'm with Elder Chen, an Elder from mainland China. This week, we have been teaching a ton of lessons and referrals. This is something that never happened in Hong Kong, we actually had full days of teaching appointments. It is great besides the fact that I have literally no clue what is going on. So I have been studying my brains out with Mandarin too this week. Fun Fact: I'm serving in the home ward of Elder Siu, one of my MTC companions. I got to meet his family at church yesterday.

One interesting experience this week was teaching a lesson with our mission president, President Hunt. He is the previous CEO of NuSkin and if there is one thing Chinese people love, it's NuSkin. So the Chinese elders in our area held kind of a meet and greet event at a member's house. 

Anyways, that's been my last 3 weeks. Not what I expected to say the least. It has definitely taken a lot of prayer but I'm still alive and kicking.

-Elder Murray