Monday, January 17, 2011

17 Jan 2011

Hi! I finally gave in and admitted it was cold enough to wear long sleeves. I think it's fun to wear short sleeves around when all the Taiwanese are freezing. But I started wearing my sweater. Then President Bishop said we had to wear suit coats if we were cold. So I started wearing my suit coat around.I was real happy to see the Shi Brothers bless and pass the sacrament on Sunday. That's the best feeling ever is when you see your new member up at the sacrament table. Pan dixiong is also extremely solid. He gave a talk in Sacrament meeting sunday, and said he hoped everybody would endure to the end with him! He is one of the most active members of the ward. I wish I were baptizing more, but right now I have somehow changed focus from baptizing a ton of people, to baptizing people that will be solid and have relationsips with the ward. Last night we visited what I thought was a really golden family. We wanted this family to progress so we set up the former bishop and his wife the relief society president to come with us to their home. It was the most amazing lesson. Those members were so awesome! The investigator Dad, Brother Wang, talked for half an hour about how he knew the Book of Mormon was true, and how he knew that the gospel could bless his family. I thought that was pretty good. Then on the way home, the members said "They have no interest. Don't waste your time teaching them." Both brother and sister Cai said that. They explained to me that because I was American, the family wanted to be really polite, so was saying what I wanted to hear, and being really nice welcoming us into their home. But that their buddhist belief was really deep and they didn't have any intention of changing. I was surprised, but I guess I had to agree once I thought about it more. When am I going to be able to discern things like this. Oh well. Things are going good here! Except for nobody is getting baptized. We had one investigator who seemed to be progressing real well. But then his family fandui'd and he didn't have a very strong testimony, so he just gave up on baptism. At first I thought that was really really sad, then I realized that it was a lot better for that to happen now, than in a couple weeks after he was baptized. So then I felt good that I still had a chance to help him prepare better. He was one of our two week C's. Then we met with our other week C and he was a little bit crazy. He said he really believed in Heavenly Father. We asked him why, and he said because he could predict earthquakes. yeah, I don't know how those are connected either. So, me and Elder Mitchell were sad that all of our investigators had so many problems, so we did a fasting prayer. Then we went to church, and the Lord blessed us so much! We had two really solid chen dixiongs come to church. one was a guy that is possibly homeless, but he really wants the blessings of the gospel. It is so refreshing to teach someone that is humble and actually has a desire. The other guy we had contacted like a week ago. We were in a hurry to go to a place, but we still contacted him on the way. At first he was unreceptive, and we thought it was a pretty lame add. But then he came to all three hours of church and liked it! And then a less active sister showed up to church and brought her non member husband, and he was really nice, and we added him. and then a former investigator that had been to church over ten times and then disappeared randomly showed up as well. Blessings of a fast are immediate! wow. oh, the other good news. Our church meetings are way less boring now! Our ward is getting better and better! When I first came here, I had a really had a hard time committing investigators to come to church at 8:30 in the morning to sit through a really boring lesson. But the ward has improved, and we've been able to get more and more investigators.

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