Christmastime of miracles

Dear family and friends,

It has been one of the most miraculous weeks of my entire mission! Hands down. Tuesday we had a weird lesson with a less active that called us at the last minute during the afternoon. Luckily our English proselyting plans fell through with everyone else too. But it made it so we could sit with this less active that really needed what we shared about prayer to bring comfort. It was really good. We then met with Lai dixiong. He's really struggling to come to church now and it really strengthened my testimony of how church can really help you overcome trials. He's struggling more now because he hasn't been able to come. Immediately afterwards we sat with a new guy that is super sweet! His name is Aaron. He's really open and willing. We're really hoping to keep working with him. Then we sat with a less active that we've been working with. We're reviewing the lessons with him. We watched the Restoration and he liked it a lot.

Wednesday was Christmas! We celebrated by going to Feed Me and getting some big burgers. Then we went to do English proselyting at the Fengjia college and had a ton of success. Everyone was just in a good mood! Then Zhou Heng came and we had a quick dinner with him. English was super great. Our Spanish class had 4 people this week. And we then acted out the Nativity for the Spiritual share. It wasn't as epic as our family's version, but we did a pretty good job. I'm happy for that. Everyone loved it. We then got to sit with our golden Zhuang dixiong, Alex. He accepted a goal and is SOO ready to hit it. He's way excited. It was a merry Christmas indeed.

Thursday got to SKYPE! I loved that. That afternoon we went up to the Donghai college to meet with Kyle. He was in the middle of some testing on some kind of foam. He's a physics/chemistry major and he's in the process of making a new type of towel foam thing like that shamwow. It was pretty cool. He's really busy right now though and can't meet for a while. But we're helping him slowly. It was so cold that night. We had a nice hotpot for dinner. It was freezing.

Friday we got to meet with a former. He almost got baptized, but then didn't. One of his best friends is a girl named Sponge in the Fengjia ward. And it was her birthday. So we all went out to eat and then got to sit with him. I think he has a huge desire to get baptized. He's in college in Jiayi, so he was just back here to visit for the weekend. I'm really hoping to meet him again though. Then contacting on the road was full of a ton of miracles! We contacted a guy that used to work for Nu skin and had been to Provo before. Then we saw our RC on the road and set up with him. And we celebrated with some Subway for dinner. We prayed for a service opportunity, and then got it when there was a dead car in the middle of the road with a family in it. We helped them push it to the side. It was a sweet chance to talk to them about the gospel. They were really nice.

Saturday was a huge miracle! We had planned to go up to Longjing, our secondary area, right after lunch. But then a less active called and set up for 2:00. So we met with him, then God just put everything into place. So we got on the bus at the perfect time to get off in a place that we had never been to before, so we could see a 100 dollar bill (about $3.00 American) in the road. We didn't know where it came from. And a man was staring at us down the road. We thought it was his, so we went to give it to him. He said it wasn't his and we can keep it. He saw that we were honest men that wanted to return it to the owner, and since no one was there to claim it, we could have it. Then he said he was a member! He's one of the like 5 members to have a mormon.org video! He's a tour guide here. He was taking a Chinese couple that just moved to Hong Kong on a tour of the island. They were talking about religion earlier that day and he said he was a member of this church. So they were curious. And we got off at the bus stop right outside where he was taking them to look at these sweet wood carvings. So he took us to meet them. They were way excited to meet us. They were talking about the Book of Mormon before, so we gave them one and talked about our church for a while. The member got their info, and we gave them ours, and he's going to give it to the missionaries in Hong Kong. They're SUPER excited to meet with the missionaries there. And the mom said she was going to read the Book of Mormon to her really cool 6 year old son, Tom. One of the best experiences ever! Then we just saw so many prepared people on the road as we left that knew who we were, had once been to church or met with missionaries before, and wanted to meet again. Miracle day!

Sunday we had Zhuang and a Cao guy show up to church, as well as 3 less actives. They all loved it. The ward jumped in and helped them around. We sat with Zhuang after church and taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He's beyond golden. He's coming to a ward BBQ on Wednesday with us. I'm so excited for him. We then had another miracle with a former named Pony. He's had problems believing the Book of Mormon in the past. Elder Cuartas and I traded off teaching so fluidly, it helped him so much and he's really willing to start investigating again. Then we had a welcome home dinner for a Sister that just got back from the Taibei mission. It was just a good night!

And that was my week. It was absolutely crazy! The Lord is directing the work! I love being here in Taiwan. I love you all! I miss you all! Continue to write. I'm so bad at writing now. I'm sorry... I'm doing my best! Until next week!

 

Love, Elder Anthony Kai Buckwalter