Holiday Spirit

Hello Everybody!

 

How is everything back at home? I bet all of you are excited for the holiday spirit that is coming around! It's almost Christmas!  A funny thing happened on Sunday at church. Our ward mission leader came up to us after one of our meetings with a box full of Christmas stockings and told us to each pick one for them to hang up in the church. All of them had different sports teams/ American colleges on them. One was the Redskins, Connecticut, Huskies, Steelers, Michigan, Michigan State and a few others. It was so hard to choose because my allegiance lies with the Seahawks and BYU/UW. Eventually, I settled on the University of Michigan because my brother-in-law went there for graduate school. So I will represent them this Chirstmas! I'll try and put up the picture next week. It's a good one.

 

This past week has been pretty great! We got the transfer calls on Wednesday and the two temporary companions moved on Friday to other parts of northern Taiwan. My companion and I are staying put in Zhong He for at least 6 more weeks. We are so excited for this. This Saturday we will have a baptism for one of our investigators, Wu Di Xiong. He is the one that my companion ran after in front of the church my second week here. He is so great and his faith has truly blossomed as we have shared the restored gospel of Jesus Christ with him and he has began living the principles that Christ has taught us. On Sunday, he had his baptismal interview and afterward as we were talking to him about the baptismal service and who he could invite, he asked me if I would be the one to baptize him this next Saturday.  My heart was full. As I thought about the significance of the choice that this wonderful man is about to make, and that I will be able to assist in it, it really warmed my heart. The joy that comes from sharing this gospel and seeing people change their lives is like no other joy. It is true happiness. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be here in Taiwan sharing this wonderful message. I have learned so much!

As I have been thinking about Christmas this past week, I've kept dwelling on an email that my brother sent to me last week. He talked about the importance of Christmas, and the most wonderful gift any of us has received in this life, the birth of Christ.  He told me that the best gift I could give to anyone, and be able to give back to Christ too, would be to work my hardest to share His message with those around me. This has really impressed upon my heart as I have dwelt on it. This gospel truly can change lives and bring unimaginable happiness and direction to this life. I hope that all of you back at home might be able to take the time to think about the importance of the true meaning of Christmas in your lives - it is such a wonderful time of year! These next few weeks my companion and I are really going to try and focus on finding a family and sharing this message with them. Each day as I forget about myself and focus on helping others I feel the hand of the Lord helping us do his work. Anyway, my time is up for this week. I hope everyone has an amazing week.

Love,

Elder Bastian