REALLY short post this week. Sorry guys! Things are going well this week. We are continuing to teach Krystal and Evelyn, Housen now has a baptismal date, and basically things are good :) We had to give up our GPS recently (we were borrowing it from some other missionaries and they needed it back), which has meant that we've had to rely on maps the past little bit in order to get around. Needless to say, we've gotten lost a few times. Yesterday while getting to a dinner appointment and trying to find a place nearby to tract, we couldn't find the exact location we had been planning on tracting. Eventually, we decided to just try a different street we had passed. We tracted the whole street with no success until the last house. An older man opened the door and we were able to teach him a lesson on his doorstep! We've got a return appointment this week and I'm so glad that the Lord takes situations that appear to be not-the-best, and then changes them for good :) I love you all and hope things are going well! Also, sorry to anyone who hasn't been getting these posts for awhile. The problem should be fixed. If not, let me know and I...just realized that if the problem hasn't been fixed you won't get this message, so never mind. Either way, hope this makes it to you all okay.
Take care!
Sister Makena Bauss
Bao Jiemei

I absolutely love missionary work. Have I mentioned that before? This week has been just such a great week. We had three investigators come to church this Sunday which was a huge deal, and we finally got to teach a solid lesson to our investigator Housen. We had met with him several times, and each time things just didn't go the way we hoped and the Spirit wasn't as strong as it could have been. But he finally came to church and we taught him afterwards. It was amazing to see his faith grow as he learned about The Plan of Salvation. He had been so skeptical about God before hand, but he really opened up and the Spirit was so strong, and basically it's for moments like that that I am here. He even accepted a baptismal date, and I'm praying hard that he'll be prepared when that time comes.

This past week we went to my favorite resturant here in St.Catharines, a Vietnamese place that specializes in Pho, with our district. A bunch of the Elders were really wary about the food, because none of them had really had much authentic Asian food before. I recommended my favorite dish to them, and they were all about to get it until they read the ingredients. It's a rice noodle soup (not scary) with beef (still doing good) and...tripe. At that point they all got scared and just about every one of them ordered some form of fried rice. I did however, convince one elder to try my recommendation. And he loved it. And then proceeded to work to help me convince the other elders (the sisters all already agreed with me that tripe is actually delicious) how good it was. Moral of the story, tripe is delicious and we should all try to have an open mind to food and other cultures because you never know when you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Love,
Sister Makena Bauss包爱蕾姐妹 Bao Ailei Jiemei