See his latest letter below:
Hello Everyone!!
This week has been a pretty busy week! I am writing today because we got to go to the temple today so this has become our P-Day. So I guess i will just try to catch everyone up on what has been happening these past couple of weeks. First to mention, I had my last zone conference on my mission...it was really weird to walk into zone conference and realize that I don't recognize barely any of the missionaries anymore, because they are all new elders that are replacing the oldies like us. Zone conference was absolutely amazing and we got to hear some amazing talks from our mission president and his wife. The most scary part about zone conference was when President Bowen asked for all of the missionaries that will be departing this next transfer to stand up. I stood up and then they said ok, all departing missionaries could you please come up to the stand and share your departing testimony with us. That felt so weird! Not to mention, that that was when I said goodbye to my good companion Elder Bray, he left the next morning back for Connecticut. But after Zone Conference I got myself back from being distracted and my companion and I have been trying so hard to find those that are ready in our area. We having been praying a lot to find 3 people this transfer, and just recently we have been receiving some huge miracles! So we are pretty excited! Those miracles are bitter sweet because we had a few people stop meeting with us, some of our favorite investigators even. But we are still pushing through and I am soaking up every minute of it out here. I am going to use the next few weeks to the fullest, and I know we will see miracles! I hope everyone has been doing well! I only have about 3 more of these weekly emails left, so I promise the next couple of emails I will make sure to add more of what is going on! You will hear from me on Monday!
And he sent another one as well...
Hello Everyone!
Ok, so the last email I wrote was on Friday. So I will try to catch you all up on the past couple of days.
So on Friday night my companion and I headed up to Garden Grove to our zone leaders office so we could work on a new Pass-Along-Card for our branch. We are making a new one because we found out the one that we made is not quite legal, and by not quite I mean isn't haha. We were told that we aren't allowed to use the logo of the church or copy the format of the church's new Mormon.org cards because they are both copyrighted. So, we have decided to make a new design that is approved, and I actually think it is going to be better than this first one that we made. So we have been spending sometime on making that, and I translated it into Chinese so everything on the card can be in Chinese. And then after we worked on the card for a bit we drove back down to Irvine so that my companion could conduct a baptismal interview with the other Chinese elders investigator who was baptized this Saturday! So yes, this Saturday our branch had another baptism, for a girl named Jessica Zhou who is from mainland China. She shared her testimony at the baptism and it was really good. She shared an experience how that when she was meeting with the missionaries they taught her about the word of wisdom which would require her to give up her coffee drinking habits. She was addicted to coffee. She said that she really wanted to keep the word of wisdom and not drink it but she said she was afraid that it would be really hard to do. She then said that she prayed and asked for help to stay away from coffee and a couple days later she walked into a Starbucks because she wanted coffee but as she was about to drink the coffee she felt like she wanted to throw up. She said every time after that when she went to take a drink of coffee she would get that same feeling, so she knew that it was God helping her to overcome that habit. it was a really good testimony and we are excited for her to continue to learn and grow in the Gospel.
Elder Mensink and I have been working really hard lately to find new investigators, and it seems that even though we are working hard we aren't seeing too much success. However on Sunday night we had somewhat of a miracle fall into our laps. We went to a member's house because we wanted to discuss a gospel art class we are going to help her teach this next week. This member is an amazing artist and thought of a missionary opportunity where she will use Gospel art and talk not only about the art aspect but also we missionaries can use the art to teach the Gospel, to the non-members who come. Anyway, this member told us that she had some news for us. I asked her what news that was and she said that an investigator that lives in the other Chinese elders area has requested that Elder Ellis and his companion teaches her. This investigator is one that I found and taught with Elder Bray when I was in the other Chinese area. This investigator was progressing very well and then her father died, and she stopped meeting with us because she was too busy with family and things but she said recently she has been wanting to meet with the missionaries again but she specifically requests that myself and my companion teach her. So we had to work it out with the other elders but now Elder Mensink and I will be teaching her and her husband! They are an amazing couple and are probably some of my favorite investigators I have taught on my mission. My comp and I have three weeks, so we will be praying for miracles! I hope everyone is doing well! I love you all!!
No comments:
Post a Comment