Sunday, November 27, 2011

November 27, 2011

Wow, crazy to think another week of my mission has come and gone. It was an absolutely beautiful week in DanShui. I can't believe how blessed I am to serve here. I really hope I will be emailing you from DanShui again next week indicating that I am still here for my next transfer. I haven't been in an area of the mission for longer than 2 yet, and I hope this is the place. I love it here and the Lord is continuing to bless us so much here in DanShui.


This week was magnificent. Things really felt like they got off to a bit of a slow start this week because of a lot of meetings, but they were spiritual so it was worth it. Then the last bit of this week all came together with miracle after miracle. I loved it.
 

I really feel like this was a big learning week for me on my mission. I tried especially hard to focus on the spirit and I feel like I learned a lot more about how to listen to those promptings from the spirit. We were out riding around on our bikes, contacting people just like we do every day and we had a feeling to go to a different part of DanShui. So we were riding down this little alley short cut I had found earlier in the week. As we were riding down I looked at a door on the left and felt prompted to turn around and knock it. So we did. A Christian woman answered and set up a time to meet with us tonight. She said she has a family of 4, and that we can meet with all of them. It was a pretty amazing miracle just to knock a random door while on the go. However the miracles that morning continued to follow as we followed the promptings of the spirit. We made it over to the area we had felt prompted to go and ran into Tony, from Nigera, and his family. Tony is married to a Taiwanese wife, and has 2 sons--ages 8 and 5. Such a cool little family with cute kids. He knows about the LDS church in Nigeria and had run into missionaries in Taiwan, but he said they had only invited him to go to the English ward in Taibei and he thought that was a little far. We told him that we could share this message with him and his family on days other than Sunday as well, and that we can share it in English, Chinese, and Chenglish, just not his native Nigerian tongue. His whole family will be meeting with us this week. I'm so excited and it was such a great morning.


The highlight of this week however was church. Investigators came to church, had great experiences, and came back. I really need to thank Heavenly Father and the DanShui ward on this one. We have some investigators that came to church last week, had absolutely great experiences, felt loved, and made friends. The ward was very warm to them and so they were excited to come back this week. It's such a beautiful thing when the ward fellowships someone. Specifically Ben Liang and Edward Liang and his family. They've became great friends. Since they are both originally from Hong Kong they can speak Cantonese to each other. They are now getting together to ride bikes for exercise, and they call each other to make sure the other is going to church. It was been a great experience and miracle. They both are loving church so much.

One of the coolest things this week was Edward's wife, who reads the Book of Mormon and loves studying and learning more, exercising the faith to pray. The elementary school where she worked was supposed to have a running competition for the kids on Wednesday and Thursday. It rained on Wednesday and was cancelled. She said a prayer that they would be able to run on Thursday, but also that the track would be completely dry and safe. Thursday was nice and sunny and beautiful all day. She was excited to tell us her story!!! I was excited to hear it!!!


A wonderful, miracle filled week. I've been too blessed to have some amazing investigators. I pray the Lord and my mission president will allow me to stay in DanShui again to continue to teach these people and help them progress toward baptism. If not I know the Lord has a plan for me and I'm willing to do whatever it is that he wants.


I love this gospel like nothing else. It's absolutely changed my life. This mission thing has completely changed my life and it's not even close to half way over. I LOVE IT!! I love being a missionary. It's the best thing it the world.


I love being in Taiwan and speaking Chinese because it's fun. And such a blessing to get to speak a second language and experience another culture.


In closing I would like to relate to you an experience that occurs every so often on the streets of Taiwan. Someone will ask me about my English name and what Elder means. I will inform them that Elder is a title given to full time missionaries. They will then ask me what my English full name is. I will say Bruce, like Bruce Lee. Then they think that's the coolest thing in the world. And usually like me a lot because of that. And they usually ask me something along the lines of this. Your parents must have really liked Bruce Lee? Then I inform them I'm not actually named Bruce because of Bruce Lee. I like the name Bruce, so thanks to mom and dad for picking it, but an extra thanks for naming me Bruce for the right reason and not after Bruce Lee.


Also this week, while on an exchange I met this crazy cool old Taiwanese guy in Shipai (another area). He had a long pony tail and a long mustache and Rayban sun glasses and was riding around on an old junky bike. He began talking to me and he was really funny. His English name is Elvis, because he loves Elvis. He then informed me most people in Taiwan worship their ancestors in the Buddhist temples, but he only worships Elvis. Pretty fun. Pretty Crazy.


I'm loving life and this work and everything.

I still have so many pictures I need to send home.

So I've been so bad with that.

Love you all!
Elder White

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