Things are good. Sorry today is a little late in e-mailing. Turns out we had a zone activity today. Luckily we all live decently close together, except for the Elders in Xihu who had to ride a bus for half an hour or so. But we got everybody in the zone (except for the Elders out on the Island of Magong) together and took a picture in front of the big buddha on Bagua shan. The funny thing is, last week we were eating dinner, and there was this really really old grandpa, grandpa Zhang sitting next to us. We started talking to him and he was so funny. He told us that he was actually the architect/ designer of the big buddha! That's one of the biggest landmarks of Taiwan. It was really fun. we all got together and said a prayer that the people of zhanghua could be prepared, and then ordered pizza and took a lot of pictures. Our zone's doing pretty well. We had two baptisms and confirmations in the zone last week, and we're working hard to hit our goal for 10 this month. Even cooler, we had one of the best recent convert turnouts at church I've seen so far, we got 51 percent of the recent converts to sacrament meeting yesterday. Yay!
I've been having a lot of fun working hard with the recent converts and investigators in our ward last week. We've found quite a few new investigators recently, and we're also trying to go find lots of old ones. I also have really been having fun bringing back less actives. It's kind of hard though, because when they come back to church, the ward likes it, and is nice to them. But there's still nobody that will actually be their good friend, and so they eventually don't stay active for the first reason they left in the first place. I think if by the time I leave this ward, there are a couple more recent converts active, less actives come back, and have started home teaching and new member lessons, I feel like I will have done my job. But I still want to baptize more than anything else. I don't know why it's not happening. However, I found a family that I really want to baptize. Two days ago I saw a 13 year old kid on the road, and contacted him. He seemed like he wanted to be cool and rebellious, but as soon as I started talking to him I realized that he was really really humble and a good kid. We went to visit their house, and found a little shack way out in the country. Turns out this kid is the oldest of 5 kids, they all looked really hungry and dirty and humble. Their parents divorced, nobody knows where the Dad is, and the Mom works in Nantou, and hardly ever comes home. The only person that lives with them is an uncle who used to drink a lot, but converted to some weird christian church and stopped drinking. I called the number the kid gave me last night, and it was the mom that answered. Turns out she was christian too. And unable to come home because of work, she said she is always worried about her oldest child who is turning a bit rebellious. She said the only thing she could do was pray, and then we ran into the family. And then she said she had been meeting with the missionaries in Nantou! So, that is the Wang family. We hope they will be able to start progressing.
I love serving the Lord. I've been seeing so many blessings lately. I also am starting to realize I am very old. It was really weird to go up to the big buddha today, that's where we went for christmas last year to take a mission picture, and only four of the missionaries in our zone had been here for christmas! wow.
I don't really know what else to say. I'm learning a lot of things from my companion. Not just taiwanese. But that's one of my favorite things to learn from him. Taiwanese is such a funny sounding language. I'm now almost capable of communicating with people over the age of 60!!!! The lady that made my suit only spoke taiwanese, I didn't really know what she was saying. hope the suit turns out all right!
Haha. mom, sometimes I don't think you know what taiwan is like at all. I thought it was funny that you said I might not have the best computers over here. Taiwan is number one with cheap electronic stuff. I really can get anything you would ever need over here. for really cheap. Every person on taiwan has at least 2 or 3 cell phones. I still don't know why you would need more than one. but most people have two....?
Alright love you!!!
Elder Vernon
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