Taiwan Week 34: Nothing Like Stake Conference

Dear family and friends,

Well this week has been a bit of a downer. Us and the other Elders just had a hard time with lessons and finding investigators. All of their investigators called and cancelled at the last minute. And ours called a few days in advance and cancelled. It was rough. By the end of the week we only had one new person set up, and we got 12 referrals. That's saying something for our area. The other Elders got 20 referrals. Where did all the people in our city go?!

Tuesday we had our Zone Training meeting. It was really nice. We went over new goals for our zone for the year. We also had a good testimony meeting. Following the meeting we had a ZONE SCRAMBLE!! I love those. I got to go with Elder Han to Mingjian. Back to the Nantou district leader's area. It was a lot of fun. Mingjian is the biggest area in the mission, and is all mountain. So it's also the most beautiful for a nature lover. We biked out to Jiji. It's a quiet little town that is also a good tourist place because of the scenery. Not a whole lot of people work there. It's just a bunch of houses, a small night market, and a train station. So we did a bit of contacting at the night market. It was a lot of fun. We mostly got referrals, but found a few good investigators after helping an old lady up from crashing her bike in the middle of the road. Everyone here is so friendly! And then the ride back to the apartment was really intense going through a half mile tunnel on our bikes. It was all really downhill and the cars go way fast next to us.

Wednesday morning during English procelyting in Mingjian, we came across a really nice guy that let us sit with him. He's one of those really low voiced, full of wisdom, laughs like James Earl Jones kind of guys. We shared about God and he wasn't too believing in God. But he's still willing to listen to us. We then sat with one of their investigators that's a Baptist minister. He's really knowledgeable of the Bible. While sitting with him, we asked about his reading of the Book of Mormon. He just came out saying he knows that it's true, Joseph Smith translated it by the power of God, and it was written by ancient prophets. My jaw dropped. So he's on his way!   That night after exchanging back, we had English class. We're still teaching the kids class, so we went over animals. There was a kid that new all of them and kept yelling out "I've seen one of those at the zoo!" It was really funny.

Thursday we traveled out to Tianwei and got to sit down with our awesome school security guard investigator. We finally got to sharing about the Book of Mormon and he's way excited to read it. But he still has a problem with church because of his assigned time at the school. So we're not entirely sure what to do. We went out to eat with him afterwards and were surprised to be paid for by a guy that said he's a member in Jiayi. It was so cool. Then we got really lost. Tianwei is a lot of semi open fields and old houses. So we got turned around while finding a former. Then the other Elders called and said Liu dixiong was at the church waiting for us. So we had to bike crazy fast back to Yuanlin, which is about a 40 minute bike ride, to meet with him. We memorized "Lead Kindly Light" with him. We hope that will help him a lot with quitting smoking. Our night almost completely fell apart after that. Our really amazing investigator that is had to meet with cancelled because he had to get mouth surgery. So that was depressing. We dropped off some fruit at his house. We then decided to go visit a former. Either him or his dad, who is also a former. He wasn't entirely meeting with missionaries though. Only when he was home and they met with the son. The son is almost never home because of school and work, but we got to sit with the dad, Lin dixiong. After singing with him, he just gave us this pondering stare and then asked "What does it feel like when you feel the Holy Ghost?" This is a great turn-around point because he belongs to another Christian Church. So we shared with him about the Holy Ghost. It was a good lesson.

Friday was also a bit of a downer for most of the day. We went to investigate a new part of our area of Yuanlin. No one was sure on the boundaries, so there was a bit of a gray area. But we confirmed it with our Bishop, so we went to check it out. Nothing is out there. It was quite a downer. The whole day just crumbled. But that night we went back to visit Lin dixiong. We followed up on his reading and talked a bit about baptism and the Holy Ghost. Then he gave us that pondering glance and said "Why is it that every time you two come over, I get overwhelmed with a peaceful feeling?" YES! We explained that that was the Holy Ghost. We kept sharing with him some more. We were right about to get to an invitation to be baptized, but then his wife came in and changed the subject to prayer, so he said we should pray with his wife. And then our time ran out... What luck. So next time! Which should be tonight actually!

Saturday we biked out to Tianzhong and had an amazing miracle. Every time we went to visit a recent convert that has gone less active, he's never there. Both of us have never met him. And we'd always visit him at night. So we went by in the afternoon and he was there! We excitedly waved for him to come to the door. Once he came, the first thing he said was "I don't want to go to church" in perfect English. That came as a shock. He didn't speak any English after that. It's like he was practicing that once sentence. But we just kept being excited and did all we could to sit with him. He finally let us in. We all shared our favorite scriptures. Then we sang. He wanted to sing his favorite song "How Firm a Foundation" which was sung at his baptism almost a year ago. He still has it memorized. He's a really sweet 19 year old kid. We told him that we could get him a copy of the hymn book too. So he's now gaining a liking for us. We've set up another time to meet with him this week, and we're bringing Zhu dixiong, our most recent convert. I'm so excited!

Yesterday we had Stake Conference. It was such a good turnout. Liu dixiong came, but didn't want to sit down because his back hurt. So he was out in the foyer area which also had conference playing on a tv. The church was packed. There were a lot of really good talks on sacrifice and family history. I also got to see a ton of friends from the Nantou ward, including Chuson and Song dixiong. Song dixiong and his wife are doing really well with their daughter.  Then last night as we were heading over to the church for FHE, we ran into a less active walking home. He's a really nice guy. Really sincere.

And that was pretty much my week. It had it's low parts, but had some really high parts too. So yeah. I love you all! Thank you for all the love and support as I'm out here spreading this true gospel. Keep up the work in bearing your own testimonies wherever you go!

 

Love, Elder Anthony Buckwalter