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| The city at dusk |
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| Ham fried rice for lunch |
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| Pot stickers are the BEST! |
Hello Everybody!
I hope everything is going well for you all. Sad to hear about the Cougs this weekend...oh well. They'll get em next time! KATIE SANDERSON, if you get this congratulations on the marriage this coming week!!! Anyway, I'm doing well here in Fengjia and I'm absolutely loving it here. I got your package this past Wednesday. Thank you! Not only did my companion and I love all the candy, but so did all the thousands of ants haha. Anyway, this week has been awesome, it went by super fast. So on with this week.
Monday we had such an awesome preparation day. We decided to go out and actually do something. You'd think that a big city like Taichong would have lots of fun things to do on p-day, but nope. We ended up having to travel quite a ways to go bowling. It's been so long since I last went and oh it was so much fun. On our way back my companion's bike started being retarded, flat tire, and the brakes stopped working, and so we ended up having to walk back, so we didn't get as much proselyting in because of that. However, we did end up sitting down with one of our investigator's uncle and taught him in the short amount of time we had.
Tuesday I went on Zone Leader exchanges with Elder Hanich. He is such an awesome missionary and I learned so much from him and learned from his different styles of teaching. We had a few lessons, and one of them happened to be with a lady who I actually met on our last exchanges. However, this time was a little different. She was a member now! Even though she wasn't one of my investigators, I was so excited to see her and hear about her baptism. We then met with a few other people who are struggling to believe that God exists so yeah...
Wednesday we met with one of our awesome investigators, we call him Wei Beibei (Way Baybay). I may have already mentioned him, but he loves meeting with us, praying with us, and he loves the scriptures now. While we taught him, he pretty much proved Buddhism is wrong haha. After meeting with him, a member in our ward asked for us to come bless his home. His name is Ellias, he is a student at Fengjia University and he is actually from Paraguay. He obviously speaks Spanish, but his English is so good and he knows quite a bit of Chinese. Ever since he has moved into his new apartment he has had these terrible nightmares pretty much nightly, and so his dad told him to have us bless his home. When we got there, we decided not only to bless his home, but also to give him a priesthood blessing. I actually gave the blessing on his home, and had no clue what to do. However, it was such in awesome spiritual experience. We found out that the next day he didn't have that nightmare, and so it just bore testimony that the power of the priesthood is real, and that it truly is the power of God.
Thursday we sat down with one of our new investigators Shi dixiong. We talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon and why pray is so essential. He truly wants to know of the gospel's truthfulness and so we emphasized that he needs to READ, PONDER and PRAY about it all.
Friday we spent most of our time just trying to find new investigators, visiting our less actives, etc... because all our lessons fell through. So yeah...
Saturaday was so awesome! We had a lesson with a Guo dixiong at Fengjia and the lesson went so well. He isn't quite sure if God exists and so we focused on how he can come to know that, and that is through prayer. One problem though, he personally wouldn't pray. We told him that it will help him get into the habit of daily prayer, but he told us that he wouldn't because his dad is a Buddhist, or some other religious missionary. Kinda frustrating, but we can only do so much. He now has to act upon what we told him and actually pray. Later on we attended a baptism of a sister! Ah, so awesome!! I absolutely love attending baptisms.
Sunday we had an awesome lesson with one of our other new investigators, Wu dixiong. He has been to church twice and this was our first time meeting with him. He is kinda shy, but he said when he comes to church he has the feelings of just talking with someone, which is awesome. He truly wants to know if this gospel is true and so we promised us he would read and pray daily he could come to know that it is. He is so awesome and so ready for this gospel in his life.
So yeah, I'm loving missionary work and I'm loving being here in the Fengjia area. It is so awesome and I'm grateful for all the blessings it has brought me personally, and to my family. I know that if we continue to stay obedient and follow the commandments, our lives will be so much happier. I have personally witnessed that in my life. Thanks for all those who have been examples to me in my life: my family, friends, ward members, etc.. I'm grateful for you all.
With tons and tons of love, Elder Smith
p.s. if you didn't already know, "dixiong" just beens "brother" (Shi dixiong = Brother Shi); Also attached are photos of my area and some of the food I get to eat.
