Sunday, July 20, 2014

HE COMES EVERY SUNDAY AND I HELP HIM TIE HIS TIE

Transfer 3 - Week 5

"We are going to do all we can and let God help us with our human weaknesses 
and help us magnify our callings."


Elder Marchant and Elder Willes

Another good week here in Xin1 Zhu2. 

To start it was really cool!  The Morphis family from Canada, are Mormon and apparently travel around and do singing performances.  They came to Taiwan to do a tour. (They sing religious/church songs). They came to Xin1 Zhu2 and we got to go! It was awesome. They have like 8 kids and all their voices were good. We had our investigators Yan2 Di4 Xiong and Lin2 Jie3 Mei4 come and Kelly, and Huang2 Jie3 Mei4 and they loved it. Their last song was I am a Child of God. They sang it in French, English, and the last verse in Chinese. The whole congregation sang the last verse with them in Chinese. It was really cool and the spirit was strong. Also cool seeing a white family in Taiwan haha.
 
The Morphis Family with Elder Willes and Elder Marchant and one of their investigators.

Our investigators are doing good. They all have their own challenges, obstacles etc. Huang2 Cheng2 Wei2's army schedule is 2 weeks away with the army and then 5 days at home. So he was home temporarily and we met with him three times this past week. We finished all the lessons with him and gave him a priesthood blessing to give him strength to quit smoking. His baptismal date is 8/2/14 and he gets back from the army the day before so we are praying and hoping that he doesn't smoke at all until then. Please keep him in your prayers. We have no way to contact him while he's away with the army so all we can do is pray for him. He is so great!

Picture with Shi2 Di4 Xiong1
"I love this guy!"

Also Shi2 Di4 Xiong1 has been really busy. We met with him and read 2 Nephi 31 about baptism and the spirit was so strong. The miscommunication is cleared up so that's good. His problem is his wife's dad is really sick in a Taipei hospital so they go up there every weekend to take care of him.  So he can't come to church. We invited him to pray about a baptismal date and hopefully this week we can help get him started on the path to achieve that goal.  Also, Zhou1 Chang2 Ding3 is the same. He is really good, but his mom won't let him get baptized. She thinks it's too early, he's too young, and has to test good before he can be baptized. So we are kinda stuck. We don't really know what to do there. It's hard not to get frustrated with the situation. Why does a less active mom stop her 12 year old kid from being baptized? Chang2 En1 is such a good example to him. [He is 13 and was recently baptized.] I love that kid. He comes every Sunday and I help him tie his tie every Sunday.
 
Also Kelly Huang2 Jie3 Mei4 came to church!! That was really cool. We found out she hadn't been coming because she was scared people would pass a bowl around and people would have to donate money.  She was scared she would have to donate money at church. Haha but she absolutely loved church. After sacrament meeting the relief society swarmed to her and met her and got to know her and talked with her. So, so cool!  We hope we can help her desire continue to grow and progress to baptism. 

Sui2 Jie3 Mei4 is hard too. She ended up not coming to church. Her problem is she can't leave her 90+ year old mom to come to church unless she finds someone to take care of her. She is too scared to leave her mom alone because her mom has cancer. It's a super sad situation. We taught Sui2 Jie3 Mei4 the Word of Wisdom.  She is the first person I've ever taught principle to that didn't have a problem with any of it.  She is so golden!  She has a baptismal goal for 8/9/14.  She just needs to come to church and then she can make that goal. Keep her in your prayers.
 
We also taught Yan2 Di4 Xiong1 and Lin2 Jie3 Mei4 the law of chastity. It seemed to me their desire to change wasn't really there. We asked them why they meet with us and they said to find friends and stuff. So we are kinda confused. We are going to keep trying to help them see the big picture in life. 



Ji2 Di4 Xiong1 also came to church. He is so funny. I need to take a picture of that guy. He looks like an ancient Asian like from olden times.  I don't know how to explain it.
 
Zhong1 Di4 Xiong1 came to church for the 3rd straight week in a row. We met with him last night and found out he lives just barely outside our area and actually outside of our ward boundaries. So as sad as it is we will have to refer him to the Xiang1 Shan1 Elders. Zhong1 Di4 Xiong1 is going to Japan for a month but will start meeting with them in a month when he gets back. He's so golden!  
 
A few cool things happened at church. Last week when we were knocking doors I felt like we should go down a little road and knock this apartment complex. The 2nd door we knocked on they let us in and it was the mom of a member. She let us come back the next day and teach them. The member is an endowed, Melchizedek Priesthood holder but has been going to the Xiang1 Shan1 Ward because he didn't know he lived in our ward's boundaries. He is also the only member of his family. But Sunday he came to our ward and is going to start to come to our ward. We hope to meet his wife and help her find the gospel. He's a big asset to our ward.  It's like just signing a big free agent in football or something but he's going to help our ward a lot. 

Snake

One other thing.  We've been working with this less active ever since I got here, Cai4 Di4 Xiong1.  All the sudden he has had this change and has been to church every week for the past 4 weeks. We meet with him every Sunday after church. And he got a calling! That is kinda rare here.  He is a young men's advisor. Really cool!  Elder Marchant and I were like yes!!
 
"Elder Marchant hit 1 year "on island" this week so we celebrated by drinking Martinellis and chilling on the roof of our building before we went to bed."

The view from our roof

This week was good. Elder Marchant and I have been growing a lot as missionaries. The guy is hilarious. We feel like our families are really similar too. The most important thing is we both love our investigators so much and want to help them so much. Last night we were both just getting emotional talking about how much we love these people and want them to come unto Christ. We are going to do all we can and let God help us with our human weaknesses and help us magnify our callings. Anyway gotta go eat at CPK ;) Have a great week everybody! Love you all!  

Nate and Jake good luck tomorrow! Elder Fisher good luck entering the MTC this week!
 
Elder Willes

1 comment:

Pat said...

Love the sunglasses pic. Those elders really know how to party! ;)