Loving missionary life!

This week was great! I feel like I just wrote you all a couple days ago:) I learned a lot this week. 

First from our 8 hour zone conference, second from starting the grind of studying Chinese characters, and third from all of the amazing experiences I had. Everyday I carry around 10 character cards in my pocket, and throughout the day I look at them and try to memorize how to say it, what it means, and what words it is used in. At the end of the day, I put it back in the box if I know it and I leave it out if I don't. Kind of fun!

Last week we continued to teach English pretty much every night. The classes are great, I'm building up a love for the people more and more! Some of the classes have a few Chinese people! We also invited Kevin and Tina to church and they declined, turns out they went to church at a ward closer to their house! Them going to church and doing family prayer and the best ways Tina can prepare for baptism next month. 

Saturday was an awesome day. We got the bikes out for the first time! I was smiling from ear to ear from the moment I woke up because I was too excited to get back on a bike. (Last time I was on a bike it didn't go too well)... but yea I was pumped! We went over to the 17th Ave chapel to make and put up posters but we got a nail in our tire and it was hissing loud. Conveniently there was a tire shop two left turns away. We dropped the car off and hopped on the bikes:)) Elder Ruan and I cruised down 17th Ave all the way down to 4th street putting up signs, singing songs, and talking to who ever we saw that looked Asian. We grabbed some lunch then made the long ride back up 17th Ave, it was steep uphill for quite some time. We smiled and grinned the whole time but we were sweating buckets. 

Later that night we had dinner with an awesome family that didn't have anything ready when we got there so I got to make hashbrowns and eggs. And Elder Ruan got to make pancakes! It was so much fun. So we ate, held a snake, shared an awesome message about "Believe, Love, Do" Elder Uchdorf's talk from last October, (read it, it's great) and left to our next meeting. 

This teaching consisted of us, two Spanish sister missionaries, a Chinese woman from China, and a Mexican guy from Mexico. And they live together but aren't married. Awesome situation to begin. We tried to teach them lesson 3, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The spirit was strong when the sister missionaries would teach and the nice Chinese lady would be loving it, but then our guy Enrique would interrupt and share what he thought about the certain topic... haha. He had some interesting beliefs. The time we were there was a third teaching, a third hearing what our Spanish friend wanted to teach us, and a third translating into Chinese and Spanish. They invited us back this Saturday so wish us luck! 

Sunday I gave a talk in the Chinese branch, I wrote it in English and my companion translated it for me so yea. I tried to write it in simple, easy english so that it was translate well but it didn't at all haha. I didn't have enough free time to change anything so I just got up there and read. Afterwards people were compliments my pronunciation but yea I got some work to do.. overall I'm glad I did it!

Monday and Tuesday were pretty weird days. We had zone conference on Monday for 8 hours so that's all we did, great spirit there, learned a lot. Then Tuesday we went back to the Maple Leaf Academy to meet some more Chinese people and then we went to the name tag guy to create custom name tags for some people in the zone. I'll send pictures of the ones I made next week! 

This week has been awesome. Everyday I come to realize more and more that being a missionary is such a blessing. I am so grateful to be out here in Canada serving the Lord every day. Every once in a while I think about how everyday that goes by is one less day that I have left on my mission! My whole life I have been preparing to serve for 2 years, that sounds like such a long time. But now, I only have like 21 and a half months left, that's so much shorter than 2 years and I just started! I probably sound crazy but being a missionary is awesome. Being able to feel the spirit so strongly so often is a blessing! 

I challenge each of you to find ways to feel the spirit more often in a regular day. Set aside some time to dive into the Book of Mormon, talk to someone about Jesus Christ. Anything. Just look for ways to come closer to your Savior everyday and you will be happier! I love all of you and hope you have an amazing week! 

Elder Giles

吉长老。加油(^ω^)