Really Really Busy

Hello!

 

Well it's been a really, really busy last week full of meetings, exchanges and meeting with investigators, but during all of this we have seen miracles while finding people to teach out on the streets.

It's so much different here in Tu Cheng than on the east coast. Life is really fast paced here and there are so many people! It's great. This past week we had our first Zone Meeting since I have been here. The zone is great. There are about 18 missionaries here in the West Zone. Many are younger missionaries, which I'm sure is how it is in other places now as over the past few months we have had sooo many missionaries entering the mission field. The zone meeting went smoothly and my companion and I were able to give a training at the end of the meeting on the importance of effective planning and how to do it. I hope it helped the other missionaries!

I was able to go on exchanges twice this last week. That seems to be the pattern. I first went to an area call Xin Zhuang with an Elder Edmunds from Mapleton, Utah. Elder Edmunds has been out for about 5 months or so. We had a lot of fun working together and were able to have dinner at a member's place that evening. We were also able to run into some cool people as we passed out flyers for our English class that is every Wednesday.  We ran into a cool lady whose English is pretty fluent, it was cool!

On the second exchange, I went to another area in our district call Xin Ban with an Elder Heaton. He is from Utah also and has been out for about 9 or 10 months. We were able to meet with a few of his investigators and some new members in his ward. One thing that is great about going on exchanges is being able to learn from the other missionaries that you serve with. I think it will be a great learning experience to be able to go 2 times a week as compared to once a month before. The miracles always come on exchanges!

This past week I was able to meet with a few more of our investigators and continue to teach them about the gospel. Right now we have 3 people who are really close to baptism.  We are just helping them to continue to overcome a few personal concerns. At the end of this month, the stake here in the west part of Taiwan will be having an outdoor baptism in the ocean. Right now our three investigators baptismal goals are set for that date. It would be so cool to help people enter in to the waters of baptism...in the awesome coast front beach!

Another miracle that happened a few days ago was also pretty amazing. We were riding back to our city after just finishing exchanges and I heard some man on the sidewalk call out my name and beckon me over. I was really confused because I had never met this man before and I was wondering how in the world he knew my name. He said, "Do you remember me?" I told him "no...I dont think I have ever met you." Then he said, "Yeah you have, you're Elder Bai (my chinese last name) right? You ran into my scooter this morning and broke my mirror. I have a gospel tract with your name on it." I was super confused and started to get a little worried that as I was riding around in the morning and had somehow nicked this man's mirror with my handlebars as I rode by, but I could have sworn I didn't. In the end we figured out that another missionary in our zone with the same last Chinese name as me had hit this man's scooter this morning. But the miracle of this story comes as he started to ask about us missionaries and what we do here in Taiwan. He then told us how he has researched every religion and how he feels like he has not found the right one - he has never found his "answer". We quickly shared with him the story of the restoration and the Book of Mormon.  We promised him that his answer was waiting for him and he would find it as he reads and prays about this book. He seemed so fascinated with this book and was really anxious to begin reading it. He thanked us and thanked us. He lives in another area so we will have to pass him off to the other Elders who can continue to teach him. I know that the Lord is guiding him to the Truth no matter where he goes. One of the coolest parts of this story is to see how God really led this man through a series of events. First, running into a missionary that breaks his mirror, then mistaking me for the other missionary but we end up having the same name so we stopped, and then how he was searching for an answer himself! I'm so excited to hear how things go for him!

I am sure that my companion and I will continue to see miracles here in Tu Cheng. We are pumped!