The Lord's Work

Hello Everyone!

 

I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving back at home! I actually have a quite interesting experience about my Thanksgiving here that I will share in a little bit.

This week has been pretty great. I have been able to see that Lord's hand in His work much more this week as we strive to find and teach those who are prepared to receive the gospel. In each opportunity we have to meet with people I see how the Lord has influneced their lives, or given them experiences that help prepare them to hear and accept this gospel. I am so grateful to be a part of this work. 

We had two baptisms on Saturday that went absolutely wonderfully. They were for Brother Mei and Brother Wang. Brother Mei is about 25 and is so great! He really loves the gospel. On Sunday I sat with him in Sacrament meeting and he started to tell me about his experience yesterday being baptized and today receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. He feels that recently the Lord has really been helping him personally and is starting to recognize the influence of the spirit more and more and his role in guiding our lives. It was so cool to hear him explain this to me and for me to better help him understand what these feelings are and how they can help him the rest of his life. The other, Brother Wang, is also awesome! He is 16 and loves Jesus Christ. He has such a love for Him that you can see whenever we talk about following the example the Savior has given us. He always focuses in more when we talk about Him. He had the opportunity to be baptized by his less active dad and it was such a cool experience to see them together. I think it will be a big boost in their lives and hope that this will re-motivate the father to come back to church. It was been so cool to see all these changes.

 

This week we have been able to continue to meet with our others investigators and share the gospel with them and invite them to make changes in their lives so that they may be able to follow our Savior, Jesus Christ. We have been using the Book of Mormon a lot more this week in the work. It has been so great in helping the investigator build a testimony of all these things as they learn of the significance of this book and feel the spirit as we read from it. It is truly the keystone of our religion. Each person that sincerely reads it and prays to know of its truthfulness, receives that witness. We have a lot of investigators right now and are working with them to prepare for baptism. I am learning more and more how important it is to have the spirit with me and my companion to be able to discern the needs of these people and best be able to help them accept this gospel into their lives.

 

Ok, now for the funny part of the week! On Thursday a couple in the ward took us out to dinner for Thanksgiving. I thought we were going to their house for dinner but it turns out we went to a sushi house. The husband kept pulling off all these different plates of raw fish and seafood. I dont even know what half of what I ate was. I had some sea urchin though and raw tuna and scallop and eel. It was pretty weird but an experience that I will never forget. Oh I also tried some squid this week too. Just thought you guys would like to know! Be grateful for the food that we do have!

 

Time's up for this week, but I hope everyone has a great week back at home.

Love Elder Bastian

Here Comes the Rain

Hello Everyone!

 

Another week has gone and passed here in Taiwan! So many things have happened. One of notable mention is the rain. 2 days ago is started to downpour and it was the same yesterday. I'm sure I am going to start seeing my dear old Seattle friend a lot more often these next few months. Luckily, i was able to get some rain gear about a week ago. That stuff is magic! It's super cheap and is totally water proof. We get dumped on as we are riding our bikes but are able to stay dry. Why don't they have this cheap stuff in America?

This next Saturday is going to be awesome! We will be having a baptismal meeting in the evening, where two of our investigators will be getting baptized. My companion and I are so excited. The first, is Brother Mei. He is such a golden investigator. He loves the Book of Mormon and understands the importance of each thing he reads as we teach him. He really has been prepared for us to teach him. It's so cool. The other is, Brother Wang. He is a teenager and has been living with another less active family but has been going to church for a little while with the family's son and daughter that are about his age. He loves Jesus Christ and wants to follow the example He has given us. He knows that His example is the door to all blessings in life. I love being able to see the changes and differences the Gospel makes in people's lives. It is truly miraculous.

The other investigator we have, that we bumped into in front of the church about 2 weeks ago, is doing awesome. He was able to come to church yesterday for the first time and he loved it. He loved the atmosphere and the spirit that he was able to feel there. We taught him about the The Plan of Happiness, God's plan for us, a few days ago and he absolutely loved it. It teaches about where we came from before this life, our purpose here on earth, and what happens after this life. He had some great questions and felt that this was able to give him much greater direction and purpose in life. We're excited to meet with him again soon.

The last investigator I would like to talk about is a brand new one that we met with for the first time yesterday night. Her name is Sister Lin. We had actually contacted her about 2 weeks ago in front of the church while she and her husband where on a walk. She asked what made our church different from all the others and we were able to briefly talk with her about the Book of Mormon.  She also said that she really liked how all of the Mormon men treat their wives so well. We were able to get her number and she got ours, but we hadn't been able to get in contact with her over the past week, but then all of sudden we got a call about two days ago from her. She said that she wanted to meet with us on Sunday night. So we met with her at the church last night. We were able to take her on a little picture tour around the church and show her 3 paintings that are hanging on the walls. The first was a picture of the Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane,  the second was of Christ ordaining the 12 apostles, and the last one was of Joseph Smith with God the Father and Jesus Christ appearing to him. We were able to talk about Christ and His purpose and who He is and the establishment of His church while he was on the earth and how after he was crucified the doctrines started to be changed by the people and how this is why there are so many different christian churches here on the earth today. We then talked about the Restoration of the Gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith and the coming forth of the translation of the ancient plates, now called the Book of Mormon, and how the Church today is the same as it was when Christ was on the earth. She really loved the lesson and was able to see the truths in these things. We gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon to read and to pray about to know if it is true. Towards the end of the lesson she told us how she thought that this meeting was a Godsend and how she was so thankful that she was able to meet with us. She then told us how she would have the Book of Mormon finished by the time we meet next Saturday! We were blown away. It was such a miracle experience, you could already see the changes in her as we met. I love this work and can't tell you enough how true this message is and how much I love being able to share it with others. I hope all of you have a great week!

Love Elder Bastian

SO Busy

Hello Everybody!

 

Well, we jumped right into the work and have had so many things to do and so many people to meet with! This past week has been pretty good. We have a few new investigators that are preparing for baptism that we found this week. It's been so fun to see the changes that the gospel can make in people's lives even though i've only been here a week and a half. The language is coming along and I have been able to help contribute in the lessons and share my testimony. You can always feel the spirit in the lesson. It's great. So many people here are seeking for truth and are willing to change their lives when they hear about the gopsel.

 

One cool miracle we had this week was when we were finishing up a lesson one day at church and were walking out of the building. There was a guy who was walking past the church and was almost past it. My companion had the impression to run up to him and start talking to him. He invited the man to come into the church and take a tour and meet with us for a little bit. When we sat down and he started to talk to us he said that he felt that God had given him this opportunity to meet with us and that life has just been hard lately and he has been looking for somewhere to receive help. He has been really receptive and has accepted to be baptized after that first short lesson with him! He has been great and really is seeking for truth. The gospel is so miraculous in the ways that it is able to help people. We have been working hard

contacting at the intersections on our bikes and at the parks and on the street talking with everyone. Its been hard, but fun.

 

Other than teaching and finding on our bikes and in our parks, I have had some other pretty interesting experiences. I have tried a lot of new food since I have been here. Some including pig intestines and cartilage, dried pig's blood with rice, and some other weird stuff that i dont know exactly what it is. It's been pretty fun to see all of the different things they eat here. They have some crazy stuff! Another cool thing is that on Wednesdays we have the opportunity to teach English classes at the church. I taught the advanced class this week so everyone spoke pretty good english. The main point of the class is to get the students to talk and practice the language with each other. So we mostly just had discussions and talked about all sorts of stuff. They asked some questions about America and different things that were pretty funny.

 

The weather has been pretty good. It's been mostly dry. Yesterday was the first day that it rained and it kept up through today. Today is Preparation Day so we haven't  done any contacting in the rain yet, so we will have to see what that is like later tonight! I'm pretty excited.

I've Arrived

Hello Everyone!

 

It's been a week of many changes! We left for Taiwan last Tuesday at around 8:30 in the morning. On our flight to LA there happened to be a lady sitting behind my friend and she had a copy of the Book of Mormon in her hands and was reading it. He started to talk to her. She is from Taiwan but is currently living in Hawaii. She is not a member and had been visiting friends in Salt Lake City when she ran into some missionaries. She said that past weekend was the first time she really started to investigate church seriously and she was very interested in the church and in the Book of Mormon. The were able to talk to her and testify of the truthfulness of this book. It was really cool. They were able to get her contact information so that when she gets home she will be able to start meeting with some missionaries. It was cool to see the missionary work starting so quickly. 

The rest of the flights were long, but good. We arrived in Taiwan about 23 hours after we first left Provo.  What a culture shock! So many people and so many lights! It's a great place. We were picked up by our mission president, his wife, and the assistants. They took us to the mission home where we stayed for 2 days to receive some orientation and training before we met our companions and headed out to our proselyting areas. The mission home is right across the street from the temple so it was very cool to be there and wake up each morning to see the temple. Most people around in the neighborhood, when we talked to them, had said that they have seen the temple before. 

I think my mission president said that there are about 6 million people in the Taipei basin. The main area for missionary work. It is so cool. On Friday we were able to have our transfer meeting where I was able to meet my companion. His name is Elder Johnson. He is from Provo, Utah and he has been out for about a year and 4 months. His Chinese is sooo good. He's been such a help and a great companion.  He is really cool. He actually went to the University of Arizona for a year before his mission where he played baseball for them. So, both of us are collegiate athletes, I bet that doesnt happen too often in companionships! Kind of cool. We found out which area we are going to the same time and we are serving in the south Taipei area called Zhong He. 

Elder Johnson has been in this area for about 6 months. We were able to get our stuffed all moved over a little later that day. We had to take the "MRT" a little underground subway, which is supposedly the cleanest one in the world. It is super helpful! After some planning, we headed out to do some proselyting and we taught a lesson with a 16 year old who is preparing to be baptized. Right now we have about 12 investigators. They are all so great. It is awesome to be able to share the gospel with them and see their lives already changing even though it's only my 6th day here. One of our investigators, Mei, is so great! He just loves the gospel and eats everything up that we share with him about it. I have been able to meet about 5 other of our investigators and will meet more of them this week. 

The other crazy part about Taiwan is the traffic! It is nuts. There a tons and tons of scooters and cars everywhere and you just weave in and out of every one! It is a lot of fun. Especially contacting from the bikes at intersections. We usually have about 30 or so seconds to start talking to the person and get their interest and have to pull off to the side where we can talk to them about the gospel and set up a time to meet with them. It's crazy, but awesome! It's been a little hard for me because of the language, but each day is getting better and I get more and more confident at it. 

My companion has no fear! Ha, he talks with everyone, Literally. I know I need to do the same and am working on that a lot this week and improving my Chinese to be able to better talk with them. I have already learned so much! Yesterday, I was able to meet our ward. They are soo great! There are about 130 people in the ward and I was able to introduce myself and bear my testimony in Sacrament meeting. It was really fun and you could feel the spirit so strong in that meeting. They are all so great! Other than that, everything is going well. I am working my hardest each day. And I know that this gospel is true and will make changes in so many people's lives. It is just awesome. I love all the people here.

I hope everyone is dong well back home! Here in Taiwan my mission president allows me to receive emails from everyone. So feel free to send them! That is probably a lot faster than mail, but mail is still nice too! Time's up for today, but I'll let you know what's changed next week!

 

Love, Elder Bastian