14 NEW INVESTIGATORS THIS WEEK

 "Being in the service of the Taiwanese people has been the happiest time of my life.  I love every minute of it." 

Hello from Yilan, Taiwan!

Wow this week was a crazy busy one for sure. The Lord just kept pouring out a fountain of miracles on us. It was nuts. We worked our hearts out and literally, prepared and ready people just kept falling into our laps on the street. This week we found 14 new investigators on the street and taught over 30 lessons. 

This is my lucky new jacket. When we went to buy it we found 2 new investigators!

This work has been so fun with Elder Seamons. We both work our very hardest every day to bring others to Christ, serve, and help them feel of God's love. It's been such a blast. 

The biggest miracle of the week was Zhang1 DX, Ken, got baptized! It was a wonderful baptism. The missionaries all sang a musical number, "I Need Thee Every Hour." Seeing someone get baptized is one of the greatest joys as a missionary. It just makes you feel so grateful to be a missionary and you know that the Lord can change people's hearts. As I've seen many people go from not knowing who God is at all, to wanting to be one of His disciples, it is one of the coolest things ever. I am so blessed to be a missionary. (Alma 26:2-3) When we reflect on the blessings the Lord gives us the spirit is so strong in our lives!

Elder Willes, Zhang1 DX, and Elder Seamons

Practicing

At Zhang1 DX's baptism our Bishop gave a talk about a question he has been pondering. "If you could have a saying or word that would pass down to your kids and go on for generations as a family, what would it be?" The Bishop said after pondering this, he decided on, "Be humble." I think that is really cool. I loved it. Being humble helps us have more charity, be diligent, and be more obedient. The spirit can work through us more fully if we are humble. This reminded me of a quote that President Uchtdorf said, "We don't discover humility by thinking less of ourselves, we discover humility by thinking less ABOUT ourselves." Being in the service of the Taiwanese people has been the happiest time of my life. I love every minute of it. 

While we were out finding this week we prayed for this one guy and asked him how he felt after we had prayed. He felt the spirit so strong and said his body felt like he was on fire! It reminded me of the hymn, The Spirit of God like a fire is burning. Awesome. He became one of our new investigators. 

Grace and Sister Lin2 are two of our other investigators. Both of these women have Sabbath Day issues but both have baptismal dates set for Christmas Day. Isn't that a great Christmas present? We are praying for miracles with them that they will be able to keep the Sabbath Day holy. They are so so sincere. 

We are praying really hard that all these 14 new investigator we have found will stick and that we can help them progress. I'm thinking this week will be a week with lots of set lessons and sharing lots of lessons about the Restoration! 

Our ward has 4 companionships of missionaries in it and we have about 100 active members in our ward. Our ward has really struggled with finding less active members and helping less active members come to church. So this week we are having a less active blitz as a district. Each missionary, all 8 of us, will go out with a member and go finding and visit about 20 less active members. We hope to visit about 150 less active members. This is going down next Sunday so we are super stoked about it! Please keep these members in your prayers that their hearts will be softened and that we can have a bunch of them join us for church! We are all super excited!!

Also this week one of our recent converts, Huang2 DX, got his temple recommend and we are taking him to the temple. We are so excited about that. It should be a great week! Looking forward to it. 

Alma 7:23 "And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive." 

This has been my ponderize scripture for the week. I love being a missionary and I know the Church is true! Love you all!

Elder Willes

Elder Seamons and Elder Willes doing volunteer service at the local hospital