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Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Taiwan Week 28: This Letter Brought To You By The Letter B (Baptism)

Dear family and friends,

So this week has been, well I'd say pretty epic. We had a great Tuesday full of meetings. And also my district biked to this college in the mountains to do English proselyting. I have never seen such a beautiful campus! A member friend in the other Elder's ward that goes to that college says it's not that high up on the fancy scale, but I think it looked amazing. We also had our 1st counselor take us to one of our secondary areas to visit an investigator and two less active members. We've been working with this investigator for a long time, so it's really great to have a peike come with us to help him understand more. We only got to visit one less active member because of time, but the one we got to see is this really great 87 year old who just has a hard time making it to church since it's so far away. But he made it this week!

Wednesday we got to bike to one of our other secondary areas and spend the day there. We actually never found the people we were looking for. But we ended up sitting with one of the less active's father. He knows a lot about the church and wanted to talk to his dad about it once his son got home! We also got to sit with a guy during lunch. There wasn't much food out there, so we stopped at this little rice and noodle stand where it seemed like everyone ate. We became the main attraction since most people out there don't see foreigners too often. So this guy came and talked to us and we were able to share a bit before he left.    English that night was pretty alright. We talked about a ton of different foods. Describing brownies was really hard since they don't have those here. And then we played hangman. For the spiritual share, we read through the introduction of the Book of Mormon paragraph by paragraph and talked about the significance behind it. That sparked some people's attention. I thought that was pretty cool.

Thursday was a busy day. We had to get up way early to get on a bus for Nantou. We had planner checks and interviews at that chapel. And out planner check was before we were going to get instruction from President Bishop. So we had to get there way early. We got some instruction and then had our interviews. It seemed like it took forever to finish. But the Assistants took us back to our area in their car, which was so much faster! That night we got to meet with Zhu dixiong. We finalized everything for his baptism and our peike helped demonstrate how to be baptized. It was great!

Friday was really great as we got to visit Zhu dixiong's dad in the hospital after weekly planning. It was a very spiritual moment. We were able to find some really cool new people after that. It was a pretty eventful day.

Saturday we had a few new people that we added on the street meet with us. They were all really cool. We also got to meet with our 2nd counselor and discuss the ward mission plan a bit. He has created this epic booklet that should get the whole ward involved in missionary work. It was really intense. There are new ward activities, missionary training, and a new creation of Home teaching for the ward. This made me pretty excited. It'll take time to start up, but it'll be worth it. That night he helped us peike with one of our long term investigators. He's having a hard time feeling that everything is true, but he wants to believe. So having our 2nd counselor there was such a big help. They carried off in Taiwanese for a while too, so Elder Stone and I just kinda sat there trying to maybe follow their mannerisms or something.

That night was Zhu dixiong's baptism! It was so great! A member friend was supposed to baptize him and an 8 year old boy, but he got caught up with work. So last minute, I was asked to to the baptizing! It was a really great experience. The whole meeting was really great. Zhu dixiong has a really great testimony. One thing I liked was that he said the feeling of being baptized is a feeling that comes from God, so he knew it was done by the power of God. The ward welcomed him in really well.

Sunday was really great having him and the long term investigator make it to church. He shared his thoughts on the lesson during priesthood meeting. It's those times when we know that he knows it's true. We just need to help him know that he knows. Also last night we had our weekly FHE. A lot more people showed up, including a less active family that was in our plan to visit after the meeting. What a blessing! Zhu dixiong also came, and we all had a great time. The ward is slowly starting to grow closer together.

And today we went to Sun Moon Lake. Such a beautiful place! That's why this email is late. I had a lot of fun though. This last week was really great! I got to see a lot of miracles. I've really learned to be more patient. I've had to practice my patience this last week. I love you all! Thanks for all you love and support! Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was great!

 Love, Elder Anthony Buckwalter

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