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Friday, January 25, 2013

Taiwan Week 35: Members Are So Great

Dear family and friends,

What started out as a rough week became a pretty good success. We had dinner with our 1st councilor on Monday night. He took us to a part member family's shop. We were hoping to meet with the dad, who used to meet with the missionaries. But he wasn't there! He showed up right as we were leaving. It was pretty sad. We then talked about some other part member families that we could focus on. One of them was the wife of our recent convert. So we want to help her.

Tuesday was Zone Conference! It was a lot of fun. We set goals for this year, learned about effective planning, and how to retain and rescue members. I learned a lot. And it was fun getting to see a bunch of friends. It didn't leave a lot of time to find new people though.

Wednesday we got to meet with a less active that we've been working with. We're reading the Book of Mormon with him to help him learn how to read. We still not quite sure why he doesn't want to come to church though. He won't tell us. The rest of the afternoon was pretty rough until we had English class. It's a little hard to teach the children's class. Their ages vary too much, so the older guys like to goof off.

Thursday was the miracle day. We had two scheduled lessons in two different towns. So we went of member splits. I got to go with Zhu dixiong to Tianzhong and Elder Stone went with Huang dixiong here in Yuanlin. I went to visit our recent convert that actually just hit his 1 year mark. Zhu dixiong did a really good job friendshipping him. It was really nice. We scheduled to eat with him at Subway this week with a bunch of us. Him meeting more members is helping him so much. He still doesn't quite want to go to church though. We also had a crazy run in with a former investigator. He was a contacted referral that we thought we had never met before. When we found the house, I told Zhu dixiong that we had met him before. He wouldn't come to the door and said he had no time. Why he set up with us again, I don't know. So we had a good laugh about that. We met up with Elder Stone and Huang dixiong and ate dinner. Then following that we got a ride from our 1st councilor back to Tianzhong! Haha. We sat with our recent convert and his wife who we want to help get baptized. They're both in their 80's and he's from China. She wants to get baptized and be with her husband forever! So we just have to have the sisters follow up with her since she was their investigator for a while. Then she'll get baptized! It was a great day.

Friday we had a rough afternoon, but then did Sacrament powerboarding at night with the other Elders. We have a megaphone, a sign, and a lot of tracks that we hand out at an intersection. It's very effective. But then our investigator fell through afterwards. Not the most fun.

Saturday we biked out to Tianwei and sat with our investigator that's in special military. He accepts everything we teach him. And we brought a member, who friendshipped him really well. We just don't know what to do since he can't come to church! We then had another member split so Elder Stone could do a baptismal interview for the Sisters while I had a lesson at the church. The whole lesson was on believing. We had Huang dixiong peike and he did a good job helping our investigator. We asked him what his desires are, and he said he wasn't sure. So we asked him to pray about it, and we'll be helping him through those desires.

Sunday was a pretty good day at church. Two of our investigators came, but both had to go before the 3rd hour. But then last night as we were wrapping up our ward FHE, one of them showed up. So we were able to sit with him. He was pretty calm and his prayer was really sincere. It was a good end to the night.

We are now on our last week of this transfer! That's pretty interesting. Time is still all messed up. Fast and slow. I can't tell which it feels more like. I love you all! I can't wait to hear from each of you. Don't forget to write! With Chinese new year coming up, try to find ways to celebrate it. Get yourself involved in each day's activities.

 
Love, Elder Anthony Buckwalter

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