January 3, 2011

Hello!!!
This has been one of the greatest weeks I have had out in the field!! The work has been exploding this past week and we have found a ton of new investigators! We have been praying hard and trying our best to think of what things we could do to find more people and how we could better teach them, and this week it seems that our prayers have been answered more then we were expecting! We taught our investigator Levi, he is from mainland china and has only been here 3 months. Our first lesson with him we taught him about the Restored gospel and then committed him to be baptized. He accepted!!! Since that lesson we have met with him about 5 more times this week and he is now going to be baptized this Saturday!! He asked me to perform the baptism, so it will be my first time ever baptizing someone, and it will be in Chinese!! Levi, has been prepared so well for the Gospel, his testimony is so strong and in only 2 days he read 82 pages out of the Book of Mormon! When we taught him about the Word of Wisdom we talked about not drinking Tea and we were afraid he would have a problem with that because it is a huge habit for Chinese people to break...however during our lesson he grabbed a can of tea that was on his dresser and said, "Well, I have this...but for some reason when I came to America I didn't feel like drinking tea anymore, so that won't be a problem, I can stop"This week we are preparing for his baptismal service and it will be a great way to end the transfer because transfer day is next Monday! This week we opened up our closet to find more ants......so we had to take everything out and spray everywhere...I hope it is the last we see of them. We also had the opportunity of teaching another investigator named Matt. He is also from mainland china and has always been taught there is no God. However, he told us he has never believed that and he believes there is a god. We taught him about prayer and the Book of Mormon and then asked him to pray. He is 31 and has never said a prayer in his life, when we asked him he told us he couldn't and said he would feel like he is lying because he doesn't know for sure that there is a God. So we helped him with his concern and read from the Book of Mormon. After a long time we asked him to pray again and he said yes. We got down on our knees and closed our eyes and he didn't say anything for a long time but then he finally prayed. I can't describe the feelings that we felt, the spirit was so strong and that was the first time he has ever prayed in his life. It was a very spiritual experience for all of us. This Sunday Levi came to church and brought his roommates and they are all interested in the church!! I am so happy and the work is going so well! I have learned that nothing is better in missionary work then just getting out there and talking to everyone! I can't believe it is already 2011! I hope everyone had an good New Year!! I Love you all! Until next week! Zaijian!