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| New scripture bag -- Nice! |
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| Hue dx and me -- farewell gifts! |
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| Goodies I got from home by courier Spencer! |
Hello family and friends!
How's everybody doing this fine summer day? I'm just super excited to talk to you all today. This past week has been nothing but rain, wind, and rain (due to the typhoons that blew on by) but today is nothing but beautiful blue skies. This week has been full of suspense in hope that I'd see some familiar face, but in the end I was grateful how things played out. That suspense will continue to roll on through this week, for it is the last week of the move call and who knows, it may as well be the last week for me in HengChun. But as for this week...
Monday was just a great day to hit the streets and contact a bunch. In order to teach people, we have to find people, and so that is what we have been doing a lot of lately, contacting.
Tuesday was another great day to hit the streets to find those prepared souls to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ. At this time, the typhoon was on its way which made it a lot harder to even get people to stop and talk to us. However, we pushed onward and were blessed with our efforts. I found a $100 dollar bill (about 3 bucks) in the middle of the road with no one on the streets, so we decided to treat ourselves with candy to end the night.
Wednesday began by going on down to Kenting with Klara, our eternal investigator, and eating at a steak house there. Oh, I miss steak so bad! So bad that I decided to treat myself to a 14 oz T-bone. It was good, but oh how I miss that 13 oz ribeye with the blue cheese sauce from Carraba's. After we enjoyed that we shared with her the role of the Book of Mormon. She is slowly making progress and knows that the Book of Mormon is true. We shared with her that it is the keystone of our religion and that everything that comes for this church relies on the Book of Mormon and it's truthfulness. She is slowly making the connections and I just wish that we could work with her a lot more than we are. She is constantly going up to Taibei for lawyer training so it's pretty hard to consistantly teach her.
Thursday I set up a sign at the church for Spencer telling him some info. of how to grab my stuff in hopes that he had received my email. Placed it nice and big so that he could see it. We then went on a hunt for some less actives in the area, spent forever looking for each of them, but none were where they were supposed to be. Spent the rest of the night walking all over the place looking for someone who could fix my companions tire, which got a hole in it. Got that all better and hit the sack.
Friday was a beautiful day. It began with weekly planning and then by cruising on down to Kenting for lunch to eat at McDonalds. Also, in hope to see some familiar face. Spent an hour looking out the window to see some white 17 year olds, but they never showed up. We then went on a wonderful bike ride straight up a mountain in hope to find another less active. Looked all over the place but again, his house was not where it should have been. As we began cruising back to HengChun, we ran into a member, Lu Jia (Tiffany). We stopped and talked to her and she wondered who Spencer was. She was thinking it was an Elder from before, but was super confused. I told her that it was my brother and that he was going to be here for a day or two. She started telling us that something weird might happen with this. She had had an impression to go to the church earlier that day to grab some items, and that's when she saw that sign. She then called Wang dx and demanded a phone call of Spencer ended up calling him for those items. Long story short, the phone call came to Tiffany and she called a lady and met up with Spencer for a short moment to give him those items. (Just wanted to thank you for those double stuff oreos! --- PHOTO attached) Super good, but would have been better with some milk! Well, we ended up the night by visiting with our favorite kid in the world, Huang, and reviewed the Message of the Restoration with him. He brought up a few concerns including that he feels terrible that he smokes. We bore testimony that through Christ's Atonement, he can become free from those feelings. He really wants to work hard to give it up.
Saturday was by far my favorite day of the week. We rode on up to MuDan to visit my best friend in the entire world, Hua dx. Today we had planned to have a bbq with him and to share a message with him. He cooked us some meat aboriginal style and we enjoyed it with some squid, dumplings, and his home grown mangos (Spencer knows what I'm talkin bout when I say they are so delicious!) I had mentioned to him earlier that my time in HengChun is limited, and because of that he prepared some things to give to me. He gave me his aboriginal scripture bag, his favorite aborigional hat, and then a super expensive aboriginal necklace ($10,000 Taiwanse dollars =$330 American dollars) (SEE ATTACHED PHOTOS). He absolutely would not take the necklace back, he said there is nothing in the world that could make up for what we have given him, the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Tears were in my eyes as I felt that what he said was true. No worldy thing can compensate for the happiness and joy the restored gospel brings. I am so grateful I had the privilege to help him back onto the path to our Heavenly Father. I know that his testimony will continue to change the life of his family and friends up in MuDan.
Wow this week was super great! Although it was super rough and just full of contacting, there were small things brought up daily by others that kept me going forward. It is as we put our trust in God that we are able to accomplish anything. The road may be rough, may seem impossible at first, but with God nothing is impossible. Also, there is nothing in this world that can make up for the joy and happiness the gospel brings. It is only because of the restoration that we are able to enjoy this endless joy and happiness. I'm glad I have experienced this now, so that it can help me and those around me in the future. I love you all and we'll see where next week takes me . . .
Love the One and Only,
司馬長老
