Monday, September 8, 2014

IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK OF MORMON, JUST LIKE PRESIDENT MONSON SAYS, READ IT! BEST BOOK ON EARTH!

TRANSFER 4 - WEEK 6

Dear friends and family,
First off go Cougars!!!  What a sweet win. A member who knows I love football told me at church and I was so stoked. I hope they keep it going! 

This week was a great one. We had 24 lessons this week! Elder Nelson and I are working our tails off and Heavenly Father has been blessing us with so many miracles. And we don't have to worry about parting ways because the missionaries in the MTC haven't gotten their visas. Super sad. We don't know when they will get them, but it is looking like Elder Nelson and I are together for one more transfer. I'm not complaining about that! Elder Nelson is a stud.

An awesome member family the Liu2 Family!
Elder Nelson and I had some cool things that we did this week. We started contacting by switching off who talks every two sentences to help improve our teaching unity. We saw miracles. Our unity while teaching lessons is great and we know that we have each other's backs. Also we really wanted to get members to work with us this week so we went on splits with members and that was great. We also invited a dad and his 12 year old son (members) to come English contacting with us (hand out English tracts). It reminded me of if Dad, Nate, and Jake were out with the missionaries. They showed up in white shirts and ties. The kid asked me if he could practice his approach with me. He said to me, "Hello we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and we have a free English class every Wednesday night. We also share a message that can bless your family." It was the cutest thing ever. While out we bumped into a less active and he wanted to English contact with us too! Haha so all 5 of us went English contacting for a few hours and it was great!
We also have started calling members on their birthdays! We've been doing this now for a few days and have got hung up on, etc, but we are excited for this fang1 fa3 this method of building relationships with members. 

Andy, our investigator, called me last Monday night and told me that he went to his previous christian church and that is why he didn't come to church. I was heartbroken but we just loved him. We went and met with him and Andy told us that he went there because he feels more familiar there.  So we had a lot of members meet him and help us with his lessons. We also asked Andy if he could be our member pei2 ke4 for our lesson with Betty! Andy bore an awesome testimony! He improved so much over the course of the week. He hasn't drank tea in 3 weeks. He came to all 3 hours of church this Sunday and loved it. Every time someone shares a scripture he flips to it so fast. His baptismal interview is this week and should be getting baptized on 9/20. Keep praying for him. Such a miracle! I also randomly asked when his birthday was and he has the same birthday as you mom :)
No other investigators came to church because of Zhong1 Qiu1 Jie2 - The Mid-Autumn Festival. The culture here is cool. People ride around in the back of trucks and bang loud drums, have puppet shows on the street, huge barbecues on their driveways, firecrackers and fireworks haha. I also ate pig ear this week! That was interesting as usual....
Our other investigators are doing great. Joy is progressing well! She still struggles with tea and coffee. Also Betty. AHH her faith is so strong but she can't give up coffee for some reason and has trouble coming to church. Ace is great! Super busy but loves the book of Mormon! We found 2 cool new investigators this week: one Cai4 Jie3 Mei4, she is a 30 yr old lady who really is looking for direction in life. We are meeting with her on Thursday. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and that was a cool miracle finding. Also Liu2 Jie3 Mei4 who is a referral. We met with her and the first thing she said was "Can you teach me how to pray?" It was super cool! She is busy and works in Taizhong but we are really excited about her!
Members in church yesterday were talking a lot about how they feel China is SO ready to receive the gospel. It's an exciting time to be a missionary in Asia! Our member's testimonies are so profound and powerful.
Also, this week Elder Hopper and Elder Tsai4, the other elders in our district both ban1jia1'd (moved areas).  We think it was companion problems but anyway we are now in charge of their area too so we have A  LOT of work to do. Also Elder Nelson was just made the new district leader.   I am happy for him. 



Fan3 Zheng4 it's been a crazy week but I'm loving the work. I just started reading Our Search for Happiness by Elder Ballard. That dude is a boss! Things are great here. Heavenly Father has blessed us a lot lately! Diligence and obedience brings blessings! Have a great week everyone. If any of you haven't read the Book of Mormon, just like President Monson says, READ IT!  Best book on Earth!
Elder Willes

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