The Wang Family didn't come to church on sunday, because they went and visited their mom in Nantou. I thought that was a good thing for them to see their mom. I was sad they didn't come to church either. We had to move their goal back as well. I think they'll probably end up being baptized on christmas eve. Because I want to make sure the older one has good friends in church. They're really similar to the two Shi Brothers we baptized last christmas. When the older one stopped going to church, the younger one disappeared as well.
But, we saw a big miracle yesterday. We were going to go home to eat dinner, but we felt we should first visit them. I walked in, and only the uncle was there with one other guy. The uncle said it was his friend. So I was about to take off, but then I looked a little closer, and the "friend" looked a lot like the oldest kid. I realized it was their DAD!!! He had heard the kids went back to visit their mom, and got mad and came back to see what was going on. He was drunk too. But, he was actually a really really good person. Super humble. He told us how Jesus Christ had truly helped him many times in the past. He really had a strong testimony of Jesus Christ. I played a hymn on my violin for them. And then we shared the message of the restoration with him. And then we asked if he would allow his children to get baptized and join the church. He agreed!!! Haha, right when he was about to sign the paper, he stopped, and asked us like 5 times whether or not baptism involved any weird rites that included bleeding or cutting. We promised his children would not be bled at baptism, and he signed the paper. What a miracle. It was a gift from Heavenly Father. He's really preparing this dysfunctional family to receive the gospel. The Dad said he might come to church sometime. But I doubt he'll actually do it. Maybe we'll get him to the baptism. Then the kids got home, and we sang love at home, and pretended and treated them like they were a normal happy loving family. They really are humble, and love each other. Then We all read out loud together the part about family from the Strength of Youth pamphlet. We told them the ultimate goal was to help their whole family go to the temple and back to the presence of God.
We also have a really fun investigator named Huang Yi Li. He's the one that's basically read through the Book of Mormon. He's about 40, and he reminds me a lot of Dad. A whole lot actually. If Dad were Taiwanese, and didn't get married. He loves to take us to mcDonalds. Today he told us he wanted to drive us to look at flowers. At first I thought it was going to be really boring. I thought I was going to look at like a beautiful mountain view. Turns out he took us to a place that sells lots and lots of potted plants. I'm sure aunt miriam would have just loved it. But it actually turned out kind of cool. I bought some potted plants and also some seeds to plant at my apartment. haha. There really were quite some amazing trees and there was just hundreds and hundreds of stores selling potted flowers and trees. I bought one to be my christmas tree in a month. it's only two feet tall, but it'll do I guess. The only problem is it doesn't smell like a christmas tree. Oh well, Elder Zhuang would probably think that was stinky. I'll send you some pictures of the potted trees and plant places we went. The little ones were really cheap. but they've been growing some of the trees for many many years, 50 years. So the big ones can be as expensive as a million dollars NT! I never thought a tree could cost so much! Oh well. Mine was only 125 dollars.
On the way home the three other missionaries fell asleep and me and Brother Huang talked about some of his concerns. He said he thought the resurrection was something scary, and unrealistic, and he couldn't bring himself to believe something like that. He also had some concerns about the word of wisdom. We talked about how if you drink tea and coffee, you can become addicted, and it actually isn't good for you. (everybody here believes tea is good for you). I think he'll be able to be baptized in December too. I think he enjoyed the primary program yesterday. At least I enjoyed it! I was able to play violin to accompany every song the primary sung!
Things are looking good here in Zhanghua. Keep up the good work at home!!!
Love, Elder Vernon
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