February 25, 2009

Today we celebrate the one-third mark of Eric's mission. He has been on his mission for 8 months today, with 16 months left to go. This morning he told us he hopes the next 16 go as well as the last 8 have gone.

More exciting news in this morning's e-mail. John and Glume got baptized on Saturday. Vincent and Zibo are scheduled to be baptized on March 6. It's amazing how many young Chinese men are accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ in Sheffield. Eric joked about how they haven't found any young Chinese women who have chosen to be baptized. "If we baptised a Chinese girl at this point I wonder what would happen...I think there would be a lot of competition."

Lots more humor in today's e-mail. Eric and Elder Liu invited a man named Erik to church with them on Sunday. When he got there, he wanted to know if Elder Combs (who happens to be 5'3" tall) was Eric's son, and named after him, since they both have the same first name (Elder). Later on Sunday, they were at the stake president's home for tea, and the mission president and his wife showed up. One of the stake president's children asked the Elders if they were going to play Playstation with them again for a couple of hours. Fortunately, the mission president knew they were joking. I'd like to think he knows Eric well enough that he wouldn't worry about that.

My favorite humorous experience this week is that on their preparation day they went to the Peaks District, which is where much of The Princess Bride was filmed. Eric has video of one of the missionaries rolling down a big hill yelling "as you wish." I should add that The Princess Bride is my favorite movie of all time, so this one got a big laugh from me.