July 18, 2011

Today I'm e-mailing from my old area! I called President Bishop for permission to cross zones to visit one of my recent converts, the nine year old Zeng Wei Zhe. We rode there, and then he wasn't going to be there till the afternoon, so we were heading home, and then my gears stopped working... So we called for permission and ended up e-mailing over here instead where I e-mailed every preparation day three or four months ago! Nostalgia.

Anyways, I'm really excited to go see him in a couple minutes.

I don't have much news today, things are going well on a mission. Elder Harper is an awesome companion, we're both doing great, happy, and overcoming any struggles or trials that we might run into. I really love Elder Harper, and I've learned an incredible amount from this training experience. Mostly I've just learned how to try and lead people, how to motivate someone, how to not try and motivate people, how to deal with things, and how singing while riding your bike can help you.

I don't know where the time goes. It seems like things go by so fast. I don't really know why we haven't baptized a whole lot in Lingya. It's got more people than probably any other area in the mission. But we've baptized one. At least he's solid. He got the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday, and his son should be getting baptized next month. Yesterday we had 5 investigators to church, which wasn't as much as we hoped for. But it's not bad. The Li kid didn't come, that was sad. the Teng kid moved suddenly. :(  and brother xu went to taibei for who knows how long. But, the Zheng family came, and they set a baptismal goal for the 6th of august. Recently I've just been happy to see a lot of improvement in recent converts, especially one young man named Hong Yu Xuan, who was baptized while Elder Farr was here before me. he used to not come at all, because he slept in and his mom didn't want him to come, but now he's come consistently for a month, and his mom lets us into their house to read Book of Mormon with him. Yay!

Good luck to you all,

Happy Pioneer day! Bubye

Elder Vernon

July 18, .2010

We got move call! Me and my companion are both staying in Fengyuan! It's a great place! You can see it behind me in those pictures up in the mountains. That was last preparation day we biked up to a miao in the mountains, and it was really cool. But we couldn't go inside because it was actually just a bunch of dead people and you had to know which dead person you wanted to see to go in. Well, yesterday we baptized Zhan yi rong, and he was so happy. He was just really excited to get baptized, and we had a priest in the ward baptize him. the taller one is yi rong. That was a great experience. It's only been a little over three weeks since I first stopped him on his bike and invited him to come to church and meet with us. Solid! Well, bubye! Elder Norton will be home soon. It's still the same ol' Gavin, but way different. but still the same. you'll see. He's grown up a whole bunch and I hope I can too. Missions are good things.

Elder Vernon