Coming Along

Hello Everyone!

 

Wow, it really has been a busy week this past week.  It's been tiring but so worth it! This past week a few cool things happened that I will highlight in my email today.

First off, our investigators are still coming along. We have meet with many this past week - older and newer investigators. We were able to meet with two of them that have baptismal dates for the 28th of this month. One is a father in his early 50's and the other is 21 and in his last year of college. They both have a great desire to be baptized and are still just trying to overcome a few things right now. It has been so inspiring to see them change through the atonement of Christ. That's what has attracted them to this gospel. They both have had some challenges in their lives and since they have heard about the sacrifice that our Savior has made for us and the enabling power of the atonement to change lives through faith, repentance and baptism; they have grown so much and have really begun to develop a testimony of God's love for them. My companion and I are excited to continue meeting with them to help them be prepared to be baptized.

This past week we have also been able to find some great new investigators. One of them is a Mr. Gu, who was a referral from another set of missionaries in Taibei. He met with us on Saturday for the first time and we had a good lesson where we invited him to be baptized at the end. He said when he receives an answer he will. We also invited him to church for the next day and he came! He is great and seems so willing to learn! He is about 27 years old and is an insurance agent. It has been fun to meet all of these new people here in Tucheng. I'm excited to continue to see miracles.

This past week we also had a really special thing happen. President had decided about 2 months ago that he would like to hold a big outdoor zone conference over the coming weeks for the 8 zones here in Taibei. Our zone's conference happened to be this past week. It was so awesome! The north zone and our zone (west) went to Yang Min Mountain - a national park. We were able to hike up the mountain and stop at several different parts of the trail for some training and for lunch. It was a spiritual experience to learn of the gospel amidst the beauty of nature. It was overall a great experience that I will never forget! I should have a picture to send to you guys. As part of the conference, Elder Forbes and I were able to give a training on "how to effectively manage our time through weekly planning sessions". It went really well and I think it helped the other missionaries to know what to focus on when planning so that the spirit might best be able to guide this work.

On another note, I was able to go on exchanges with another elder this past week. His name is Elder Bromley and he is from Utah. He happened to be in the MTC at the same time as me, just in the younger group. It was fun to be able to go out and work with him since I already new him a little bit. He is such a sincere missionary and really loves the Lord and these people here. I have been able to learn so much from going on exchanges with other missionaries. It is great! I hope to be able to continue to learn much more.

Well, I don't have much time left and this about sums it up for the week.

I hope you all have a great week at home! I love you all!

Elder Bastian