Monday, March 26, 2012

March 25, 2012

What an absolutely amazing week here in TaoYuan. I don't even know where to begin. There are too many blessings being showered upon our companionship and our zone. The Lord definitely blesses obedience, diligence, and faith. It's actually been a huge blessing to be in an area for 3 consecutive transfers because I can see my recent converts grow in the gospel. I've been extremely blessed so far in my mission to be able to work with people through their entire conversion process as well as see them into baptism, but because I've always been switching areas, the opportunity to see them grow in the gospel as new converts has only been through letters back and forth. It's been great to be able watch my amazing converts here in TaoYuan. They truly have strengthened the ward.


Tsai Duo An blessed the sacrament this week. He's a champion. He's really a changed person by the companionship of the Holy Ghost. Chen Hao Yun spoke in sacrament and brought the spirit so strongly. He and Sister Chen Pin Jun (no relation) both had temple recommend interviews yesterday as well. They will be attending the temple this Saturday. Brother Chi is still doing great, helping us teach lessons all the time, and attending every church activity and study class that ever existed. It's wonderful. 3 priesthood holding men, exercising their priesthood in one way or another and building the kingdom in TaoYuan.

Another great bit of news is about the Sister investigator, Sister Jiang, English name Nami. Nami had been coming to
English class a while. My first day here in TaoYuan I taught about the Book of Mormon for the gospel share at the end of English class. I shared my personal testimony of the Book of Mormon, and how it can bless our lives. She came up after class and said she wanted a Book of Mormon and to learn. She then started meeting with the sister missionaries, and made the preparations for baptism, but postponed because of some disapproval from her mom. But she's officially doing it this Thursday!!! And she asked if I could baptize her. I'm really excited to see her enter the waters of baptism. It will be so great.

Other big news. Brother Tsai!!! He said his boss was going to allow him to rest this Sunday, but when I called him Saturday night to confirm, he said his boss had asked if he could come into work. I told him that if he went in it would indicate to the boss that keeping the Sabbath day holy isn't that important to him after all. He said that he didn't know what to do because he wasn't in a good position to say no. I told him to pray about it, and do what the Lord tells him to do. I went to bed sad that night, thinking that everything we'd worked for for brother Tsai, all the fasting and prayers, were about to be in vain. Then Sunday morning... who walks in, wearing suit and all? Brother Tsai. I think my heart jumped through the roof with excitement, which is pretty high because we have a 5 story chapel. It was the greatest! I can't describe how excited I am.

This week we also had a big miracle with a former investigator. I was looking at a couple of old teaching records and I decided to call a Brother Huang. To my surprise he was willing to set up. He had heard all the missionary lessons before and had been to church more than 10 times, but was never baptized. We asked him why he wasn't baptized and he said there were some Word of Wisdom problems, and he had struggled with making scripture study and prayer a daily habit. He talked about how he wants to try this time around. We invited him to church and he said he'd think about it. He said he didn't want to say yes because if he commits he's going to make it a weekly thing, so he was debating that commitment. We went back Sunday morning to wake up Ru Pei Yuan, the nametag miracle less active, and Brother Huang's neighbor, so after waking Pei Yuan up for church we went to see if Brother Huang was coming. His wife answered and said he was in the shower.... because he was getting ready for church!!! He came and knows tons of members who were happy to see him and immediately fellowshipped him. What a sweet miracle!!!

The Huang family is doing great. They all came to church this week and when we visited them Saturday night the Mother and son had said they were starting to seriously consider the baptism thing!!! The daughter wasn't wanting to go to church and was planning on staying home the following day, but we took a great mother/daughter from a family in the ward and the daughter did a great job of fellowshipping the Huang daughter. So she came to church as well, and met lots of great young women. The young women in our ward really know how to fellowship. Overall we had 11 investigators to church. The mission's GOLDEN standard is 3. In all our entire zone, every companionship is performing at or above the golden standard level. It's amazing.

Brother Chen Hao Yun's little sister has run into some opposition from her mom. So we need to continue to pray for her.

Speaking of running into things.... more bike news!!! I didn't run into anything, more like over it. I was riding really fast, I mean really, really fast to this appointment in another area that we were a little bit behind schedule for, and we were riding past this big open park/plaza area. Out of the corner of my eye I see a little dog, running towards my path. I start to choke up on my brakes but then as I get closer the dog stops running, so I push it hard and then at the last second the dog jumps in front of my bike. It just folds under my wheel and I watch it all happen. The dog yelped as one of it's legs snapped. It limped over to it's owner and I was a little in shock. I went and apologized and the owner said, "You hit my dog." I said, "I know." Then she said it was ok and she was going to take her dog to the hospital. I felt bad, but I had to go to another lesson. So that was pretty much that in the story. I hope this lady has a great chance to accept the gospel in the next life because I think she'll always see the missionaries as the guys that ran over her dog. It was pretty crazy.

In other crazy news I was contacting on the street, talking to everyone like I always do and ran into a young Taiwanese girl dressed in the most immodest of fashions. So I do what I always do in these situations. Grab our English flyer and invite them to English class and then just ask if they want to meet with the sister missionaries. To start my typical English class contact I just start talking to people in English and they don't know I speak Chinese... actually I start lots of contacts this way... it's really fun. But I asked this immodestly dressed girl, "Do you speak English?" She said the typical Taiwanese response, "So so." Then I said, "What is your name?" I wasn't prepared for the answer. "Lucifer." It shocked me, so then I asked her why the heck her name was Lucifer. Anyways she needed help so I started talking gospel and the sisters will be meeting with Lucifer this week.
Crazy stuff going on. But overall everything is great.

I love the gospel. SO MUCH.
CTR always
Elder White

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