Our Miracle Contact

Hello Everyone!

This past week was pretty good. Despite having spent 2 days in Hua Lian for a District Conference, Elder Nelson and I saw some good solid success.

Saturday and Sunday we were in a city about a 3 hour train ride up from our place, attending some district conferences. It was pretty exciting since the Asia Area seventy was able to attend and also our mission president. They announced the splitting of our two branches down here in Taidong to 3 branches. It will be interesting to see how it changes the dynamics here!

As far as our investigators go, we are continuing to work with Brother Zeng and he is coming along well in his conversion. Sometimes he feels limited by his circumstances and feels he won't be able to prepare for baptism, but I can see past these things and know that God will prepare the way for him. We are excited to see him be baptized soon!!! He has accepted everything we have taught him so far and we are meeting with him frequently to help him build habits to read the Book of Mormon and seek for God's confirmation of this wonderful book. He is great.

Some other cool things that happened last week:
We met with our "miracle contact" for the first time this past week. It was the one who lived in Argentina for a few years and met the church there but wasn't baptized. He is pretty golden! He has a few concerns and maybe a few problems to overcome, but still has a great desire to be baptized. I know that through the atonement he will be able to make these changes. I am excited to meet with him again, (or for the first time, since he met with Elder Nelson and Anderson, when on exchanges).

We also started meeting with an awesome father this past week, named Brother Wang. I had contacted him my first week here. When we met with him, I asked him why he was willing to let us come over. At first I was kind of expecting the answer many people give, that he wanted to see what our what our church was like because he is curious, but after I asked the question the words that came out of his mouth were like music to my ears! He said that lately he has really been seeking for direction in his life and now that he is a father of two kids he also wants to be able to help them have a solid foundation in life and wants to know how to best raise them. He said he feels that God will be able to help him and has know that Christ was real all along, but had just been putting off "finding a belief" till now. But he said now he is ready to set aside the time! So cool! He also said that his wife wants to come to our church. So cool x 2! I am very excited to see him build his faith in Christ. To me he seems like the man that could be a future Stake President!

Things are going pretty well over here. Im am greatful for all the learning that I am continuing to have here on the mission. Even though its been almost two years here, you never stop learning! I am grateful that the Lord is able to teach us through the spirit. It often comes from the words of those around us, as the spirit guides them and they don't even know it. Even a smile can sometimes change a persons life!

I hope everyone has a great week back at home!

Love you all,

Elder Bastian