SAW SOME OF THE COOLEST MIRACLES FROM MY ENTIRE MISSION THIS WEEK!

Pig's Blood Cake

Elder Willes with his "loaner" bike

Wow this week was incredible!

This week our mission held a tsunami or a blitz!  (I forgot to tell you this was happening last week.) A tsunami or blitz is when we send a group of 20-30 missionaries to one Zone to go knocking and street contacting all day every day for a week to help find new investigators and build up the teaching pool in a Zone. 

So we prayed about missionaries and selected 30 (including Elder Stewart and I) to go to ZhuNan to participate in this tsunami. We held a mini transfer meeting before, received our temporary companions, traveled to ZhuNan, and went at it! My temporary companion was Elder Kennedy. We were together all week in ZhuNan (Northern Taiwan). The whole mission rallied around us and prayed and fasted for all of us and we saw so many miracles. Holy cow it was crazy! 

Elder Kennedy and Elder Willes

The week was tiring but awesome. From Monday at 11:00 a.m. we were contacting literally all day until 9:00 p.m. on Friday night. It was hard at times, hot and pouring rain lots of the time, but man it was such a blast. Being a missionary and sharing the Gospel is the absolute best ever!

That tsunami life

Lots of missionaries crammed in a small apartment

Saw some of the coolest miracles from my entire mission this week! 

Monday when we first got there, about 10 members were there to greet us and to let us rent their bikes. That was really nice of them. Elder Kennedy and I were literally out in the boonies in a really rural part of the city. We had no clue where to go. We knelt by the side of the road and said a prayer. Through the spirit we both felt so comforted knowing the week was going to go well! We ended up heading down this little alley knocking doors. We knocked into this family and WOW they were great. We met a grandma, her daughter, and their house keeper from Indonesia. They let us in and we shared a message about eternal families, and prayed for them. We also showed them the Because He Lives video and gave them a Book of Mormon! The mom told us, "I am going to read this entire book!!" We asked her, "why??" She said, "Because I want to have a testimony and feel more of what I felt when you taught me." It was incredible! We set them up for more lessons and that started off the week of miracles! A new investigating family!

Elder Kennedy and I had so many spiritual lessons on the street this week. So awesome. We taught 18 lessons and found 15 new investigators! We even gave out 13 copies of the Book of Mormon! Incredible!

There was this one day and we were out in the pouring rain and we kept getting rejected and rejected and rejected. But we weren't down about it! We started talking to this 50+ year old lady who had her 2 grand-kids with her. We were talking with her while on our bikes and asked her to pull over on her scooter. We started getting to know her and were teaching her. I looked at her and she had a tear in her eye. I asked her what was wrong? Then she started bawling. She told us she had been watching us for about 10 minutes as we were getting rejected and rejected and she felt bad because she knew what we were doing was right. We felt prompted to ask her about her family. She told us her husband passed away 3 years ago and that she and her 2 grand kids (ages 10 and 8) really missed him. We started teaching her the Plan of Salvation and taught her some of the principles found in Alma 40- that we through Christ can be with our families forever and that Christ brings resurrection to all men. The grandma looked at me and asked, "Can I really can see my husband again?" We were so happy to tell her yes! Indeed you can! Her cute grand kids each said their first prayer and prayed for an eternal family and how grateful they were that they can be with their grandpa again. The spirit was so strong. We met with this family later on in the week and now the Tou2 Fen4 sisters are meeting with them! One of the coolest things ever. Elder Kennedy and I looked at each other and asked, "Did that really just happen?" Haha so pumped!

One day this week in the pouring rain my loaner bike tire popped. We were in such a rural place without shops and we didn't know where the bike shop was. We finally found the bike shop and the worker there, who wasn't the nicest dude ever, wouldn't fix my bike for some reason. We decided again, to not let this bother us. We would go on foot. The first lady we talked to after that was super nice and we gave her a Book of Mormon. When she saw that my bike tire had popped she said, "We need to fix this!" So she immediately called her husband and he raced over with a car and said, "We know a bike shop about 15 minutes away. We will take you there and fix your bike for you." They drove us to this bike shop and fixed my bike tire, brakes, and my pedal for me! And they bought us Coke to top it off! Nicest family ever. They are Buddhist but we gave them a Book of Mormon. This family took over an hour to help us. He told me, "God watches and knows what we are doing. We all need to do good in the world." They said they would meet with us another day! Through these experiences and many experiences I've had on my mission the scripture D&C 84:88 has taken on new meaning! The Taiwanese people are angels!

"Whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be 

on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, 

and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." Doctrine and Covenants 84:88

In the car headed to the bike shop

There was also a girl sitting in a car. I knocked on the window and said hi to her. I don't know why I said this but I said, "How are you?? Happy birthday!!!" Her jaw dropped. She asked me how I knew that it was her birthday? She showed me her Facebook and it really was her birthday!! Haha it was crazy! We sang for her and told her we were God's messengers and missionaries and she told us she would meet with us another day. 

In total from the tsunami efforts (15 companionships) we taught 227 lessons, received 106 new investigators, 34 of those investigators set baptismal dates, and gave out 153 copies of the Book of Mormon.

The lesson I learned this week: God is a God of Miracles. If we have faith and ACT on that faith He will help us. That is when true conversion can take place for each of us. True conversion requires our action. God will give us the power to see miracles and help them happen.  I don't know how we had the energy to keep going, but we did. I literally felt this week that Jesus Christ was walking by our sides.

I love this work! It was a really great week here in Taiwan! I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Willes