This week has been full of ups and downs. We had a tough week of finding and weren't able to find any new investigators. We taught some good people though. We had lessons with Tu Jia1 Ting2 as well as Yang2 Jia1 ting2 which is actually Lee3 Jia1 Ting2 instead. It is so great teaching cute families. The mom from the Tu family came to church. Her husband doesn't have any interest and her son is so, so. We are trying to find friends to go and invite him to church next week which is pretty exciting. Lee3 Jia1 Ting2 is great. They have two cute little girls and their parents are great. The dad is Buddhist and the mom doesn't have a religion. We taught them the first lesson and talked about the Book of Mormon. We invited them to pray as a family and start reading the Book of Mormon. Both these families are really busy but we hope to be able to meet with them this coming week.
All the missionaries from our zone (about 50) got together with the Mission President in Zhu Bai (I think) and Elder and Sister Wilson from the Area Seventy. They spent all day teaching us how to use the Book of Mormon in our teaching. We read Chapter 1 of 1st Nephi and broke each verse down. Those verses have so much to do with the Restoration of the Gospel. This is a challenge for Nate and Jake: Read 1st Nephi Chapter 1 together and talk about each verse and how it relates to the Restoration. So cool! Truly remarkable how many parallels there are! Also, we were told to prepare a 3 minute talk and a memorized scripture in English on repentance. They picked four random missionaries to speak and of course I was one of them haha. It was good though. The scripture I shared was Mosiah 4:3. It is great! The Spirit was strong that day and we were all motivated to use the BoM in every single contact. I also met Sister Peay (Kyle's cousin) She is in our zone and we talked for 5 minutes. It was cool making that connection.
We had a tough week with investigators at church. No investigators except for the mom from Tu Jia1 Ting2 family came to church. They were all super busy with tests and other things. We are excited for the upcoming week. We are hoping to have about 5 or 6 investigators at church. We also watched this video about how to better involve the ward. Elder Westover and I had this great idea to do a huge, BBQ tailgate and do it with the 3 wards in our district. Just have everyone bring food and "tailgate" at our church parking lot. Super excited. We are hoping to plan and stuff and have the event the beginning of June. The goal is to have our ward members bring tons of friends and then us missionaries do the job and preach the word :). We think it will be really great and will help encourage ward members to invite friends. We need our ward members as missionaries. We need them to accompany us to our lessons. We need them to invite people and befriend our investigators. Elder Westover and I are blessed to be a part of a great ward.
A few really spiritual experiences happened this week. One night I was going through a list of our former investigators and there is one who I felt like we should visit. He was apparently really, really close to baptism about 2 1/2 months ago and then decided he didn't want to be baptized because he couldn't quit cha2 (tea). So, we visited him and he opened the door and invited us in. He was in hospital clothing and a tube was in his throat. He told us through hand signals (he can't talk) that he has throat cancer and they took muscles from his thighs and put them in his throat. He can't talk, can't eat, and can barely move. We were heart broken but we asked if we could give him a priesthood blessing. He first said a prayer in his mind and the Spirit was so strong even though we were just sitting there in silence. Then Elder Westover and I gave him a blessing. The Spirit was so strong. We are praying he will start relying on the Lord to get through this trial. We are going to go visit him on Wednesday. His name is Ye4 Di4Xiong1.
We also gave two other blessings. One to Sui2 Jie3 Mei4 and a less active's kid. (The mom was crying and really touched and took us straight to her friend's restaurant and bought us fried rice.) Both have been sick. Sui2 has Parkinson's disease and her body is in ok condition. These were both really cool experiences.
Our district had two baptisms this week that we went to. The Sisters and the other set of Elders. Really special. All us missionaries sang Abide With Me Tis Eventide at the service. It was special. Seeing how happy these 2 new converts were was remarkable. We are excited for our other investigators to have these same blessings.
Shi2 Di4Xiong1 had tests this week so we met with him once and are meeting again later this week. Habip and his wife are slowly coming along. We invited them to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know it's true. They have a great desire. They both came to the baptismal service which was great! Cheng2 En1 we are worried about. He didn't come to church and we hope we are meeting with him tonight and talk about his baptism.
This week definitely had its ups and downs but Im so grateful Im serving here in XinZhu and have great faith for each and everyone of our investigators. Mom the Easter pics were great :) Dad thanks for the random facts especially the weather updates. Elder Westover and I love them. Nate looking buff!! Way to be blessing the Sacrament. Jake you are turning into a man too! What's goin on? Also nice work with passing the Sacrament again :) Love you all so much! I am so blessed I have such a great family. Have a great week everyone! Doing great here! Can't believe in a week I've been here a month. Woahhhhh
Love,
Elder Willes
1 comment:
What a good big bro and an amazing missionary. Got a little teary eyed reading this.
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