The last few days my companion has been a bit under the weather, so we've spent more time than usual inside, which means more time on updating records and making phone calls. I think we're both excited to be outside more as she feels better, but there are still blessings to be seen from the indoors. For example, during one of my many hours of phone calls, I got in touch with several church members who haven't come to church for a long time, and haven't been answering their phones, and was able to understand more about their situations. Information like that is really helpful for missionaries (us now and others later) trying to figure out how to spend their time, who to meet with, etc., so we'll chalk those conversations up under tender mercies of this week.
On one of the occasions when we were out and about, we went to give cookies to the ward mission leader in 10th ward, Brother Jin. He and his wife have a little restaurant food stand thing. It's not exactly a stand--I mean, it's in a building, but it's mostly open to the outside (until they bring down the doors at night), and you can see everything they're doing to prepare the food. They sell things like noodles and dumplings. We actually didn't know it was their restaurant, because they just moved there. By the time we got there, it was quickly apparent that we'd be eating dinner there. At first I had a faint glimmer of hope that we might be able to pay ourselves, but that was dashed as soon as Brother Jin ordered for us. They ended up serving us delicious noodles with thinly sliced pork, a plate of appetizer things (tofu, among other things), a plate of dumplings (stuffed with shrimp and seafood), and soup. It was basically amazing. Of course, we offered to pay, and of course they refused. By happy chance, two church members came together to eat dinner as well, so we all ate together. It was one of those nights when I felt really at home, for some reason. Plus, I love dumplings.
