General Conference

Hello Everyone!

 

I may be 10,000 miles away on a tiny little island in Asia, but I am so glad that I have the chance each week to keep in touch with everyone! Technology is just great! By the way, someone in church yesterday talked about some kind of "Google Glasses" that will be coming out next year. Sounds pretty crazy!  It will be cool to see all that has changed by the time I get home.

Well, this past week has gone pretty well! The work has moved a little slower this week since a lot of people went out of town to return to their original homes for a 4 day holiday. The Taiwanese people have a tradition called "Sao Mu" which is where once a year families will gather together, return home, and visit their ancestors' burial place and clean the graves. The Taiwanese culture really emphasizes families and this holiday is a really important one for them. So this week, we focused more of our efforts on the ward and finding and visiting less active members. We were able to get a hold of several of them and 3 of them came to church on Sunday. Pretty cool!  It has been fun to get to know the ward here in Long Tan. The ward starts to feel like family when you have been here for a bit.

This past week has been pretty rainy so the time that we spent contacting people, was mostly done by tracting which means going door to door and knocking and talking with people who answer their door. We were able to meet some very cool people!  There were a  few who were willing to let us in and they listened to our message. We ran into one family on Saturday that we were able to have a pretty cool experience with.  The wife let us in, and at first she was the only one to sit down and talk with us, but within 15 or so minutes the whole family had came down to listen also! They had a college age son that came down first, then the father, and then about half way through the father even called their daughter to come down and learn about prayer together. We were able to say a heartfelt prayer with them and I could see the spirit working with the father after that. In the end, the mom said that they would be pretty busy as they were only all home together that weekend because of the holiday, so meeting in the future with them might not work.  Still, I was glad to be able to plant a seed in their home with my companion, and I know that this seed will blossom in the future.

This past weekend was General Conference for the church, where many of the Apostles and the Prophet spoke to the worldwide church. Here in Taiwan, we have not been able to see and hear conference yet as they are still translating all of it, but we will be able to watch it this coming Saturday and Sunday. I can't wait to see it! How amazing it is that we have apostles and prophets in our day - just as in the days of the Savior. That is the key to our message. The windows of heaven are not closed. God still interacts with man and reveals his will to us as in times of old. The truth has been restored. How grateful I am to be a missionary here in Taiwan sharing this message with others each day.

I hope that many of you will have the opportunity to watch some of these conference addresses online.

Well, that's about it for the recap of the week. My time is just about up here for today. I hope that everyone has an awesome week!

I love you all!

Elder Bastian