November 8, 2010

Alright!! Well, this past week has been amazing!! We have been working pretty hard and we are starting to see a lot more success through our faith and efforts to find and teach those people that the Lord has prepared! This last Tuesday we had 4 lessons and English Class!!! We were running and teaching all day! It was amazing! This week has been really tough in the language aspect of things, because it is hard wanting so much to talk to these people and help them but then having a huge language barrier, that makes it pretty tough sometimes. But I am continuing to work on my outlook and realize how much the Lord has helped me learn just in a little over 6 months! I have been studying really hard and trying more and more to use Chinese more in my daily conversations. This week we got to go do service for sister King in our branch. We helped her clean up her garden and weed it and take down her possum trap (which elder Kim and I were sad there was no possum caught!). Elder Kim tells me that he is very much a city boy and he really doesn't like to get his hands dirty and I tease him a little bit ;). We had the opportunity of taking an 18 year old boy in our branch named Keoki tracting with us! He wanted to go with us to get prepared for his mission (It is something I wish I would have done!!!!), we talked to a lot of people and got some referrals for the other missionaries and then we were going to leave but as we were about to leave I had the feeling just to knock one more house, I didn't know which but I knew we needed to knock one more. So we kept walking down the street and we walked past a certain house and I had a huge feeling to turn around and knock on that door, so I quickly turned around and told my companion and Keoki that we needed to knock that one. We did and a lady answered the door, she is from Iran and her name was Shela. We started to talk to her and she was an amazing lady and I think it was the first contact I have ever had where I wasn't thinking or worrying about what to say, the words were literally just coming out of my mouth. We ended up giving her a Book of Mormon and committing her to read and pray about it and then we set up a time for the other elders in our district to go back and teach her! The spirit was so strong and I am still amazed at how the spirit really is what does this work, not us missionaries. We are just lucky to ride along ;). We had three investigators call this week and tell us they no longer want to meet with us, that made us very sad but it helped me to know that the Lord is still blessing and preparing them, maybe now is not their time but it will be some day. I want you all to know I love you all and there is always so much I could say in these emails but I can't fit it all or even explain it all. But suffice it to say that I know this work is true. I know that God and Jesus Christ LIVE. I know they know each of us personally and they love us more than we could imagine. They have restored their true church on this earth. We once again have the blessing and power of the Priesthood Authority back on the earth that can seal families together forever. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God and was written specifically for us in this day and generation. Everyone needs to hear this Gospel and know and understand the Plan that God has given us. I know we have a living prophet of God on the earth today that helps to know how we can live in accordance with Jesus Christ's gospel and lets us know the new guidance from Jesus Christ and our heavenly Father. It is all true! Once again I love you all!! Hope all is well! Zaijian!