Dear family and friends,
I don't even know what happened last week. It was all so full of
happy and sad and who knows what. It all started with the other Elders
leaving. I already brought that up, but Peja left too. He's a cool guy
in our ward that just graduated from BYU-H and lived in Australia for a
few years, so he has a sweet accent. He packed up and left for Wufeng,
Taizhong. It was pretty sad. Everyone is just leaving! And it gets
worse, so keep reading.
Tuesday we ate lunch at a hopeful new investigator's house. His
sisters that are members brought him to the church last week and we gave
him a blessing. He's a doctor and he's been sick lately. Huang Yi Wei,
who helped me with the blessing, called me up and said we were invited
to his house to eat lunch. To our surprise, it was while he was
sleeping. His sister that lives in West Valley, Utah was there checking
up on him and wanted to feed us. So that was really nice. She really
believes that the recent events will finally lead him to believing the
gospel. So we're going to keep slowly working with him! We also had a
great DTM on baptizing and formers. We then met with Ken right
afterwards. Every time we meet with him, he says he loves coming to the
church and he just wants to grow closer to God. But when we bring up his
smoking, he says he really wants to quit, but we don't need to worry
and he'll get over it eventually. He's having a hard time seeing the
severity of it. Luckily, we have some really great members with huge
testimonies of quitting smoking!
That night was the next wave of sad news. Zhu Zhang Qi came to
peike for Jack. While we were waiting for Jack to arrive, Zhu said he
had some kind of sad news to tell me. He said he's moving to Taoyuan for
work... Heart cracked. It was so last minute. I'm way excited for him
though! Better work and all. But we're such good friends! Now I know how
a recent convert feels when their missionary leaves the area. Harsh.
But the lesson with Jack went really well! We shared about the Word of
Wisdom and Sabbath. He remembered all of it and is completely willing to
obey them. He's beyond amazing.
Wednesday we met with a new investigator that doesn't have much
interest... But he makes a weird foot powder that you put in your shoe
that takes away the odor in the shoe and on your foot. Pretty cool. He
gave us a bunch of that for free. A Book of Mormon for sweet feet. He
doesn't know what he's missing... That night at English, we had a huge
blast. We had a total of 39 with 11 new. We just keep growing! I was
running all over the place to get people registered. And since we now
have enough to open all the classes, I was trying to get everyone into
the class that fits them best. It was crazy for the first half. But
everyone loved it. I'm so excited for the upcoming weeks. We decided on a
Harry Potter theme for the next party. It's going to be so great!
Thursday we had a follow up English training meeting in Taizhong.
So we all met there and had some extra training after seeing how the
first 6 weeks of our new program has gone. They're also getting this
mapping thing done for each area so you can have a map of all the
members in your ward as well. So we had to work with our ward clerk to
get the ward lists as updated as possible. We met with him right after
we got back from Taizhong and the first thing he said was "bad news!"
His key broke in the door to the building. He got the chunk out of the
door though. Our key can't open the clerks office, so he tried to put
the piece in and try to open it. It just got jammed in... Haha. So we
had to reschedule. Zhu Zhang Qi came to say a final goodbye. We got to
sit with him for a whole 7 minutes, but then he had to leave to catch a
train. It was so rough. We were singing a closing song and Elder Lathen
called out a number. I turned to it and it was "God be with you till we
meet again." I nearly punched him for that. Haha. Zhu has already talked
to the bishop in his new ward though. So he'll be good there.
That night we got to meet with Jack again. The bishop peike'd and
we talked about the Law of Chastity and Tithing. Also completely golden.
He's so good. We discussed getting an interview this week and getting
announced in church this Sunday so he can get baptized on the 30th! I'm
so excited for him. We then biked out to Shetou to meet with a semi
active family that I'm not entirely tight with. They're so cool! We
talked with the mom and dad. The kids are out at school. They have
really cool conversion stories and love to help out with missionary
work. They're mostly busy with their car business and it involves
traveling a lot. And boy can the mom cook!
Friday we had a ton of depressing lessons. Two with formers that
called us up and wanted to meet with us. They don't have a desire to
change. And two with less actives that have gotten too caught up in
making money to want to come to church. It was rough. But while waiting
for one to come to the church, the 2nd ward bishop's wife told us to
come inside and talk to all these nurses about the gospel. They were
preparing for this big all day long relief society activity the next day
and the nurses were curious about the church. So we got to share a bit
and got a few of their information for the Sisters. Right during ward
correlation that night, one of our progressing investigators randomly
called us and said he was at the church. So we split and sat with him.
He'd doing pretty good, but not entirely sure how he feels about prayer
yet. He keeps having a feeling that he can't describe though. That's
usually a good sign. We just need to keep following up on that.
Saturday afternoon we were called and told to come to the church
for that big relief society activity. Luckily our plans to go out to our
secondary area fell through. We got there and the first thing I see is a
ton of Nantou ward members! They all still remember me. They commented
on how I've lost weight and my Chinese has improved. (Those two things
are always brought up when you haven't seen someone in a while here).
Then they started giving me all this stuff. I got finger puppets, and
water bottles, and other little things. It was really cool. Our less
active recent converts were also there and we were able to set up with
them for dinner this week! Such a miracle.
Sunday was a nice regular Sunday. We had FHE and one of our
investigators came. Halfway through he said he wanted to meet with us
outside of FHE. So we went into another room and talked. I like that
he's been building this trust in us and is open with us. It really helps
to know what his needs are. It was a pretty nice way to end the night.
I feel like so many people just packed up and left this last week.
It's weird. It's usually me that ends up leaving at the last minute!
Haha. But it was a pretty great week. I love you all! I miss you all!
Letters are always really great. Pictures are super great too. Sorry I
haven't sent any in a while. Our emailing has felt really short
recently. I'll try to get some out next week! I didn't bring my cable
today. Keep the faith!
Love, Elder Anthony Kai Buckwalter
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