December 20, 2010

I am so happy that I'm able to spend Christmas in this area, with this ward, and with Elder Chen. I love this ward, they take real good care of me, and I have a lot of good good friends. I also love Elder Chen. We have become really really good friends, and although we are both imperfect, and don't get very many people baptized, we still try hard and we have a lot of fun together. We thought we were going to be able to baptize the Shi brothers again, because we kept strengthening their faith, and we set a goal again to be baptized on christmas. They passed their baptismal interview, and we had it all planned out how they would ask their dad for permission. Their Dad just denied them, and then they got sad and didn't come to church last week. So I would really appreciate it if you could pray for the Shi brothers' dad's heart to be softened, and allow them to be baptized.

Thanks. I love all of you so much. I'm not really homesick. Sorry. But I just know that being at home would be not anywhere near as much fun as being here in Taiwan at this time for Christmas. It's really good.

Oh, also pray for the Shao children's parents' hearts to be softened as well, so they can come to church. (One time we were waiting at the church for an investigator, and I noticed these two little kids playing around the church. I was in kind of a funny mood that day, so I didn't take my usual approach to contact these kids. I just went up and squatted next to them and started being real funny and making them laugh. Then I told them they needed to come to church. I challenged the kid to a footrace around the chapel, but I would run backwards. We raced and he was soooo surprised that I could backpedal that fast. Then their two sisters came and we all played soccer together with an old water bottle. Turns out the youngest kid (who I raced) was named Willi. He's way cute. Their family has four little kids, ages 8 9 10 and 11. and all four of them came to church the next day for all three hours and loved it. We really wanted to start teaching their family, but their parents were really unwilling. I think because their buddhist.

Merry Christmas.

Goodbye!

Elder Vernon