January 30, 2012

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!