just like the good feeling of catching a big fish (but way better because this is eternally significant) we got a baptism last night! Pan Zhao qi passed his second interview, and we set up his baptism for last night! It was such a good baptism. I felt the spirit very strongly. I don't know if I've ever seen a more prepared guy than Pan dixiong. The bishop and the ward were all so supportive, and came to the baptism and told him not to go inactive. (They all are real nervous about that, because there are very very few of the recent converts in this area that are still active. well, there's one. I'm working on that). And I think the ward will embrace Pan dixiong because he's so willing, and dresses up in a white shirt and tie. It's interesting to be here on the missionary side of the struggle to get active members of the church. Especially when i attend church, I see through the eyes of an investigator, because I'm trying to protect them, and help them understand stuff. When I get home, I kind of hope I live somewhere I could do a lot of missionary work, with investigators coming to church and stuff like that.
Anyways, life is good. I'm trying to be obedient. I'm also getting fat I think. That's no good. One day I was just real frustrated, because it seemed like that whole week or two my thoughts had just been real fuzzy, I couldn't think clearly, I couldn't feel the spirit real strongly, and I wasn't full of energy. So I said a quick prayer, and then the thought hit me like a scooter...remember Daniel. Immediately I thought of the word of wisdom. All those promised blessings were exactly what I was lacking. I was just like the normal young fatties that ate meats and wines when daniel was eating pulse. ew. I thought I could just sneak and eat whatever I wanted, and escape the consequences. oh well, I guess I'll try to eat better foods from now on.
There are so many good lessons learned on a mission. President Uchtdorf told us that a mission was just like a big treasure hunt, and we have a bunch of treasures to uncover. It might be lessons we learned, or people we meet, teach, ward leaders, or especially companions. Some of the treasures I've found on my mission are what I've learned from my companions. Elder Chen is so great, we've learned a whole bunch this move call. I've learned how important it is to keep recent converts active. Because he's really really sad about all his new members that aren't active anymore. Also from all my companions I've learned the importance of just doing things, instead of talking about them. If you talk alot about doing something, sometimes it just makes your companion feel like there's something wrong, and creates a problem. but if you just go do it yourself, they'll see you doing it and follow your example. For example. Our apartment was really dirty. I could have sat there and said, "why is our apartment so dirty? we really need to clean our apartment!" But that's not the best way to do things. instead, I just started cleaning the apartment myself. And then I realized that I really enjoyed cleaning. It was so much fun!
Anyways, i don't really know what else to say, because this move call has gone by so fast that I can't even remember anything that happened. Really, I've never seen time fly by so quick as this last move call with Elder Chen. We don't really have any golden investigators. We went through all the old records in our teaching books, and found a lot of people, visited them, and met with them. Turns out they all still have the same problems and reasons they stopped investigating as they did before, so they all dropped again. Lame. hopefully we'll be able to find some good new investigators. Or maybe I'll just focus a lot on teaching recent converts and less actives. My favorite is this recent convert named Du dixiong. He goes to the presbyterian church, smokes, and doesn't read book of mormon or pray. Whenever we met with him he just talked way too much and we couldn't get any points across. So we came up with actually a really good idea. Let's just read the book of Mormon. So we met with him again, and instead of teaching the 3rd lesson by us talking, we just read 2 nephi 31 together. I felt the spirit so strong. He understood a lot more than if we would have talked to him, and he came to church and brought his daughter who started meeting with the sister missionaries. I looked at Elder Chen after the lesson and said, wow, we need to start reading the Book of Mormon more with our investigators. I'm afraid I had it backwards this whole time. Before I used the Book of Mormon to support what I was saying. That's not right. The right way is to let the Spirit use us to confirm what the Book of Mormon is saying. The next time we met with Du dixiong we read 3 nephi 27. It's starting to get fun, I can almost read fluently in my mission language! Okay, not quite. There's usually 2 or 3 characters per verse that I don't know. But we read 3 Nephi 27, and i looked at him and said, Du dixiong, I love you, but what you're doing right now doesn't suan (count) as enduring to the end, Then we read verse 17? which said if you don't endure to the end, you get lopped off and thrown into a fire. he was kind of humbled, and said "I'm not really that zao gao already am I?" no, but you definitely need to jia you.
Well, that's all. I love you all, Happy Birthday to Daddy. hope asian buffet was yummy. Today I'm going to Japanese Sushi buffet I think. I don't really want to but my companion does, so I guess we'll go.
Elder Vernon
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