Hello Everyone!
This week was an awesome week! I got to be with my MTC companion again, it has been a long time. It is super fun to be able to relate and talk about experiences and stories from the MTC that we both remember. We got the new Elder Elder Chuang! He is originally from Taiwan, so Chinese is his native language. It has been great to be companions with a native because i can always ask him questions about anything with the language. It has been a great help. It has been pretty intense because I have been taking the lead in talking to and teaching the investigators because Elder Chuang is still learning and Elder Mensink is working on his Chinese as well (he was out of the Chinese branch for about a year and a half in English speaking wards). I have had to rely a lot on strength from the Lord. I have seen many miracles out here. I know that without a doubt God lives. He will answer our prayers, so long as we are willing and humble enough to do our part and let our actions fulfill our prayers. I have noticed that in the past too many of my prayers were asking for help and then me doing nothing and just waiting for the Lord to give me the blessings on a silver platter. It does not work that way. Just like a loving parent on this earth, he expects us to do our best, and will pick us up the rest of the way. The area we are in has been a much slower area than the past one I was in. It seems the elders may have lost faith in it. But my goal has been to come in here and turn it around. I know if we have faith things will happen. It is really as simple as that, it really is. One day this week we were tracting all day long in Chinese populated neighborhoods. We came to one door and the man answered and I started to talk to him and he immediately told us to come in. We were able to teach him about the Restoration of the Gospel and it was such a good lesson! Every time he would ask a question we would use the scriptures to explain. We will be seeing him again this week! This Sunday we had one of the best lessons we have had on our entire missions. The spirit was so strong. We were teaching our investigator named Alex, he has been faithfully reading and praying everyday but when it comes to being baptized he has few concerns that hold him back. We spent a lot of time in preparing this lesson, and the spirit was so strong he decided to put an extra effort in this week and to pray specifically to know whether he should follow his heart and be baptized. We are very excited for him. The rest of this week was just spent getting to know the new companion and getting used to this area again. It is awesome! I can't believe January is almost gone, time is going by quickly. I hope you are all doing well!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
January 23, 2012
Hello Everyone!
This past week has been crazy. Mainly because it was the last week of this transfer call. There are some pretty huge changes too!!! SO the changes for me are that I am no longer a Zone Leader. Starting today I am a trainer!! We are getting a new elder who is from Taiwan! A native Chinese speaker!!!!!!! The other amazing thing is that I will be in a trio. My other companion is Elder Mensink! He was my MTC companion, and it is even more intense because we will end our mission together! So we started and finished. I am so excited to train this new Elder! His name is Elder Chuang and we will be picking him up from the Mission Home tomorrow! This week we got the new pass along cards that Elder Bray and I designed and ordered. They turned out soooo well and everyone in the Branch loves them. This week Elder Bray and i were driving back to our apartment for dinner and we saw a ton of food trucks lined up in a parking lot so we decided to go check it out. It turns out they had the nations best food trucks all meet on one night and it just so happened to be then. We ate some pretty amazing food. Here are some of the types of food they had....Fish and chips (the fish instead of being breaded was rolled in Goldfish crumbs), Korean BBQ mixed into a Mexican burrito, Bacon wrapped churros, bacon wrapped PB&J sandwiches, sliders made with green apples. It was all very good, and then it just so happens the one ice cream food truck that was there was owned by a member and he gave us the ice cream for free! It was a pretty neat experience. This week we had a new student come to our English class, his name is Michael. Michael is from china and he is really interested in learning what we have to share, this last week we met with him to play some basketball because he told us he loves basketball....wow he was good. Turns out he used to be an announcer for China's NBA and he is very very good at basketball. He went out of town for a little bit but we are looking forward to when he comes back.
I am so excited for this new transfer! It will be full of awesome stories and a lot of miracles!
I hope your are all doing well!
This past week has been crazy. Mainly because it was the last week of this transfer call. There are some pretty huge changes too!!! SO the changes for me are that I am no longer a Zone Leader. Starting today I am a trainer!! We are getting a new elder who is from Taiwan! A native Chinese speaker!!!!!!! The other amazing thing is that I will be in a trio. My other companion is Elder Mensink! He was my MTC companion, and it is even more intense because we will end our mission together! So we started and finished. I am so excited to train this new Elder! His name is Elder Chuang and we will be picking him up from the Mission Home tomorrow! This week we got the new pass along cards that Elder Bray and I designed and ordered. They turned out soooo well and everyone in the Branch loves them. This week Elder Bray and i were driving back to our apartment for dinner and we saw a ton of food trucks lined up in a parking lot so we decided to go check it out. It turns out they had the nations best food trucks all meet on one night and it just so happened to be then. We ate some pretty amazing food. Here are some of the types of food they had....Fish and chips (the fish instead of being breaded was rolled in Goldfish crumbs), Korean BBQ mixed into a Mexican burrito, Bacon wrapped churros, bacon wrapped PB&J sandwiches, sliders made with green apples. It was all very good, and then it just so happens the one ice cream food truck that was there was owned by a member and he gave us the ice cream for free! It was a pretty neat experience. This week we had a new student come to our English class, his name is Michael. Michael is from china and he is really interested in learning what we have to share, this last week we met with him to play some basketball because he told us he loves basketball....wow he was good. Turns out he used to be an announcer for China's NBA and he is very very good at basketball. He went out of town for a little bit but we are looking forward to when he comes back.
I am so excited for this new transfer! It will be full of awesome stories and a lot of miracles!
I hope your are all doing well!
Monday, January 16, 2012
January 16, 2012
(HE'S BACK!!! And here is his letter for the week. Josh also lost his camera this week and unfortunately he had all of his pictures that he has taken on his mission on SD Cards in the camera bag. Needless to say he is pretty sad about that. Please pray that he may find his camera and his pictures.)
Hello everyone!
This week was a busy week. We did a lot of preparation for our interviews with the mission president, because Elder Bray and I had to teach our zone while there district members were being interviewed. It went really well and I loved having the interview! It is crazy to think that is my last normal mission president interview on my mission until the one where I am interviewed at the end of my mission...time is going by way too fast! This week we spent some time up at the office creating our new pass along card for our Chinese branch. It is going to be so amazing! If any of you have seen the new Mormon.org pass along cards, it is kind of like that except we used pictures of our Chinese branch members. On the front of the card it says "I am a child of God" in Chinese characters. And then the back has a map, our church times, and bible study class info, and it is also all in Chinese characters. We already sent it to the printing company so we are now just waiting until we get them! This Sunday at church a member had his farewell talk in sacrament meeting, he is going to the Bangkok, Thailand mission. There were so many people that came to church to see his farewell, we had about 14 of our investigators come to church! I think that sets a new record. The Branch is doing so well and I love working with all these members! We are going to be getting a new Chinese speaking elder starting next week, and then about 2 weeks after that we will get another one and then will have 6 Chinese speaking elders in the Chinese branch!! It has definitely grown a ton since I first got here to the mission field! I hope everyone is doing well! I hope to hear from you all! Talk to ya next week!
Hello everyone!
This week was a busy week. We did a lot of preparation for our interviews with the mission president, because Elder Bray and I had to teach our zone while there district members were being interviewed. It went really well and I loved having the interview! It is crazy to think that is my last normal mission president interview on my mission until the one where I am interviewed at the end of my mission...time is going by way too fast! This week we spent some time up at the office creating our new pass along card for our Chinese branch. It is going to be so amazing! If any of you have seen the new Mormon.org pass along cards, it is kind of like that except we used pictures of our Chinese branch members. On the front of the card it says "I am a child of God" in Chinese characters. And then the back has a map, our church times, and bible study class info, and it is also all in Chinese characters. We already sent it to the printing company so we are now just waiting until we get them! This Sunday at church a member had his farewell talk in sacrament meeting, he is going to the Bangkok, Thailand mission. There were so many people that came to church to see his farewell, we had about 14 of our investigators come to church! I think that sets a new record. The Branch is doing so well and I love working with all these members! We are going to be getting a new Chinese speaking elder starting next week, and then about 2 weeks after that we will get another one and then will have 6 Chinese speaking elders in the Chinese branch!! It has definitely grown a ton since I first got here to the mission field! I hope everyone is doing well! I hope to hear from you all! Talk to ya next week!
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
January 2, 2012
Happy New Year!!
This week has been by far one of the greatest weeks of my mission. It started out very slow, and it seemed that our investigators haven't been progressing. Elder Bray and I just continued to work hard but it seemed everything kept falling through. Then near the end of this week we had a miracle given to us! We were called by our Branch President and he told us that he was just called by a member of another ward that was at our Chapel. The member ran into a Chinese lady that was asking for a Chinese Book of Mormon. The member got her information and then we were given her number. I called her and she told me how 4 years ago she met the missionaries. At that time she said she just had a baby and he was delivered pre-maturely and she was having a really hard time with all of the complications. She said that on one of the hardest days she was having that two missionaries came and knocked on her door. They talked to her for a while and then they prayed for her and her baby. She said they continued to come back to serve her and pray for her. She told me how she was so touched by how they would go out their way to do those simple things for her. She said those missionaries gave her a Book of Mormon, but after a few months she had to move and when she moved she accidentally lost the Book of Mormon and lost contact with the missionaries. She said she forgot about all of it during those 4 years but recently she has been having very strong feelings to get a hold of another Chinese Book of Mormon. She said she looked up where she could find a chapel online and then went to the closest one. She tried going 5 times but each time no one was there. This final time was when the member was there. So when I was on the phone with her I asked if we could meet her at the Chapel again that day so we could give her more information about the Chinese branch and she did. When we arrived I got out of the car and asked if she was Shanel and she said yes, then she said "Where is the Chinese man I talked to on the phone earlier to meet him here." I said it was me and she was completely shocked haha. We took her on a quick tour of the Chapel and explained more about the Branch and she said she was really excited to come to church. On Sunday she came and in Sunday school the teacher taught about Baptism, and at the end of church Shanel came up to us and said she wants to be baptized! We had a lesson with her after church and through out the whole lesson she kept saying she felt so happy and had these feelings that were telling her this is all true. I shared with her the experience that the prophet Joseph Smith had when he was praying to know which church was true, and afterward she said she was very moved, I asked her if she could explain what she was feeling and she said "Wubi de xiyue" which translated in English means "Incomparable Joy". She is leaving for China on Saturday and she said that after feeling that peaceful feeling she wants to be baptized before she leaves. It was the most amazing lesson I have taught on my mission and she has been so prepared for the Gospel! It is such an amazing story, one that I never thought could happen on my mission, but it really builds my testimony that God is preparing people to hear the Gospel. God loves all of his Children. I can't believe it is already January of 2012! I am so excited for this new year and to see this Branch continue to grow! I love serving the Chinese people! I hope everyone had great New Years celebrations! I love you all!
This week has been by far one of the greatest weeks of my mission. It started out very slow, and it seemed that our investigators haven't been progressing. Elder Bray and I just continued to work hard but it seemed everything kept falling through. Then near the end of this week we had a miracle given to us! We were called by our Branch President and he told us that he was just called by a member of another ward that was at our Chapel. The member ran into a Chinese lady that was asking for a Chinese Book of Mormon. The member got her information and then we were given her number. I called her and she told me how 4 years ago she met the missionaries. At that time she said she just had a baby and he was delivered pre-maturely and she was having a really hard time with all of the complications. She said that on one of the hardest days she was having that two missionaries came and knocked on her door. They talked to her for a while and then they prayed for her and her baby. She said they continued to come back to serve her and pray for her. She told me how she was so touched by how they would go out their way to do those simple things for her. She said those missionaries gave her a Book of Mormon, but after a few months she had to move and when she moved she accidentally lost the Book of Mormon and lost contact with the missionaries. She said she forgot about all of it during those 4 years but recently she has been having very strong feelings to get a hold of another Chinese Book of Mormon. She said she looked up where she could find a chapel online and then went to the closest one. She tried going 5 times but each time no one was there. This final time was when the member was there. So when I was on the phone with her I asked if we could meet her at the Chapel again that day so we could give her more information about the Chinese branch and she did. When we arrived I got out of the car and asked if she was Shanel and she said yes, then she said "Where is the Chinese man I talked to on the phone earlier to meet him here." I said it was me and she was completely shocked haha. We took her on a quick tour of the Chapel and explained more about the Branch and she said she was really excited to come to church. On Sunday she came and in Sunday school the teacher taught about Baptism, and at the end of church Shanel came up to us and said she wants to be baptized! We had a lesson with her after church and through out the whole lesson she kept saying she felt so happy and had these feelings that were telling her this is all true. I shared with her the experience that the prophet Joseph Smith had when he was praying to know which church was true, and afterward she said she was very moved, I asked her if she could explain what she was feeling and she said "Wubi de xiyue" which translated in English means "Incomparable Joy". She is leaving for China on Saturday and she said that after feeling that peaceful feeling she wants to be baptized before she leaves. It was the most amazing lesson I have taught on my mission and she has been so prepared for the Gospel! It is such an amazing story, one that I never thought could happen on my mission, but it really builds my testimony that God is preparing people to hear the Gospel. God loves all of his Children. I can't believe it is already January of 2012! I am so excited for this new year and to see this Branch continue to grow! I love serving the Chinese people! I hope everyone had great New Years celebrations! I love you all!
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