Shang ge libai guode hen hao! Nimen ne?
This past week has been pretty good! Lots of studying, eating and sleeping. Sometimes I wish I had more hours in the day to study everything that I want to. This weekend is General Conference where our prophet, Thomas Monson, the Twelve Apostles, and other church leaders will address the members around the world. There has been a lot of buzz around the MTC starting this week. We are all very excited to see what they have to say. I know that what they do say, is exactly what God wants us to hear at this time. How cool is that!? I hope everyone will be able to see it who wants to. Anyway, time is really starting to fly by. Last sunday marked the the one month count down 'til I leave for Taiwan! I am so excited. This past week we have been watching some of the mormon profile videos on Mormon.org. We watched a couple of the Chinese ones. It was pretty cool because we were able to see how the natives speak and it's a fun little test to see how much you know and cool to see different members around the world, in places where I will soon be! Another big thing that has happened this week is that all of the new Chinese speaking missionaries have arrived. It was funny to see the deer in the headlights expression that first day. I'm sure that's exactly how I looked. It's been great to get to know them a better and help them out.
On Sunday, the Branch President asked to speak with me and my companion. At first, we weren't to sure why, but he got to the point very quickly and asked if my companion and I would be will to serve as the next Zone Leaders (leaders for the Chinese speaking missionary group) from the following Sunday, until the older group of us leave to our respective countries. We were both pretty suprised. This has been why I chose to label this weeks email home, "Being an Example." As I have come to notice pretty quickly, is that when you are given an assignment like this... pretty quickly everyone knows who you are, especially the new missionaries and they look to you to been an example. It's been humbling to see all of those around me who I have an opportuninty to get to know better and serve and help in anyway I can. I'm trying hard to make sure that I am always doing my best in whatever I do so that I may be an example to them. The the most important thing that I want to do as a result of this assignment is to really just love everyone. Making sure that I am doing all that I can to help everyone in their needs. I'm excited for this experience that lies ahead of me!
On Saturday we again had the opportuninty to teach at the Teaching Resource Center. It was a little different this time around because instead of teaching two 20 min lessons like we have done before we were to teach one 40 min lesson. The person we met with this week was a returned missionary who is attending BYU. He grew up in Singapore and served his mission and Melbourne, Australia. Our topic that we wanted to teach about was the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We were able to discuss with him why he tought it was important, and how it has affected him in his life. As we strived to listen to the promptings of the Spirit we were guided in how to convey our message in a way that would allow him to be strengthened.
At first, we thought that it would be hard to know what to say to him our how to go about the lesson because this guy was already a missionary and we didn't want to just teach another lesson to him. We wanted to convey it in a way that was personal to him and could help him even though he has already taught this same part many times. That is the goal of each of our lessons is to teach in a way that will convey the spirit to the investigator and allow them to know the truthfullness of the message and help build their faith and desire to act and change for the better. As we stopped worrying about what we needed to say and focused on him, we were guided in what to say. It was a very cool experience. Each time after we teach at TRC we always get a feed-back slip of how the people thought the lesson went. This week the returned missionary had written down our meeting together was the highlight of his week and really helped him to know what he should do in his life. So cool! I love teaching!
On last quick thing: I started playing 4 square this week its alot cooler than I remember back in elementary school! When everybody gets into it, its crazy fun!
Anyway, I got to get going but I hope that everyone has a great week!
Love,
Elder Bastian
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