"NO GST FOR YOU"

This week was pretty good! I was actually able to eat some awesome food this week, so that is quite a welcome change. One thing about the mandarin branch in Calgary is that they aren't huge on feeding the missionaries, which is completely fine, but the last couple weeks I've been super dumb and decided that I didn't need any meal variety and it would be easier to buy groceries in bulk and just eat the same thing every day. Needless to say I am so incredibly sick of turkey, rice, and beans. This week I switched my diet over to buffalo chicken quesadillas, and those are possibly the greatest thing ever created. Also Cafe Rio Pork (shout out Katya for sending the recipe). We had a baptism in our branch this week for our friend Yu Ning. It was so awesome to watch him get baptised. Also earlier that day we had a branch hike. Most of us were able to get back to the baptism on time, but Elder Mcaffee and Baer's carpool had a bunch of little kids that were very slow at walking. They eventually got to the baptism 5 minutes before it started in hiking clothes, a Lakers hat, and no shoes because his were soaking wet from the hike. The baptism really was amazing though, and the showout of our branch was awesome as well. Also side note, at the beginning the hike was -13° so catch me dying out here this winter. Our car's doors legit will not open sometimes because they are frozen to the frame of the car. We went to the dry cleaners last week to pick up our suit coats. This isn't a super common thing for missionaries because dry cleaning is crazy expensive here and you really only wear your suit coat once or twice a week for a couple hours, but we had to do it because Elder Tang somehow squirted a ketchup bottle at me. Positive side to the story though, I show up and the lady tells me it'll be a certain amount, then I pull out cash to pay her. She got super excited and practically yelled "NO GST FOR YOU," pretty much meaning just no taxes. What a homie of a dry cleaner. It was a Vietnamese dry cleaning place. I have yet to go to a vietnamese store or shop in Calgary that won't drop the tax if you pay in cash. We found a couple new friends this week, but one especially awesome one named June. I want to adopt her as my Chinese grandmother. She is possibly the coolest 70+ person I've ever met (I don't want to ask her age so we're just giving an estimate here). She came to church with us, and in the middle of church started showing us pictures on her phone. She is a huge skier, and she was showing us pictures of her a couple weeks ago snorkeling in Cabo with turtles, doing a massive zipline, and going white water rafting. When I grow up I wanna be like June. Also within like 30 minutes of meeting her and explaining how we were missionaries, she told us she was proud of us and believed everything we said. I'll send a picture of her below. Anyways I read this scripture this weeks that I really liked in 2 Nephi 26:23-24: 23 For behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you that the Lord God worketh not in darkness. 24 He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation. We may not be able to understand or see why something is good, but everything God gives us is there for our benefit. - Elder Horsley