This past week has been really great with some miracles. The temple
was absolutely amazing! I can't even tell you how much I missed going
to the temple. I just had this "welcome home" feeling the whole time I
was there. It was pouring the whole time we were there, so I got pretty
wet as we took pictures afterwards. English that night was a little
rough. Our lesson plan fell through and they don't know what they want
to learn. And we learned that a really cool student is going into the
military this week, so we won't see him anymore. But we got him an
English name, Aden. Pretty suave.
Thursday was my birthday. Yay I'm 1/5 of a century old! We had a
good finding morning and then lunch with a cool friend in the 2nd ward.
We then had a lesson with a contacted referral. We got to the church and
met up with another friend in the 2nd ward that bought me a cake. When
our contacted referral came through the door, our friend was like "wait.
He's a member! Me and him were baptized by the same missionary!" So
he's a less active member in the 2nd ward. That was pretty funny. We
went to a hotpot for dinner with a less active that lives directly below
us. It was really good. I have never been so full in my life. So we
shared about "feasting" on the words of Christ afterwards. We're really
hoping to work with him and have him help his family also want to join
the church. They're all really cool. After that we sat in on the
institute class with Zhu dixiong to help him feel comfortable for his
first time. Discussing Christ's parables in Chinese is way hard. My head
was thumping by the end. But Zhu dixiong liked it.
Friday we biked out to Tianzhong, one of our secondary areas. It's a
bit more of a trek, so we brought a big list of formers to visit while
we were there. Pretty much no one was home, including one of our recent
converts who has gone less active. It was sad. But we did get to sit
with another recent convert. He's in his 70's. He's really nice. We had
to bike way fast to make it to a lesson at the church. He's extremely
golden, but has a way hard time scheduling because of work. We can only
meet with him once every week and a half or so. And it's way hard to get
him to come to church. But he had questions about baptism, so we showed
him the font and talked about baptism. His desire grew a lot, but he
wants to come to church at least once before setting a goal. So were
able to schedule the 23rd for him to come to church! During that
lesson, our investigator that has a huge fear of water kept calling us.
When we'd answer, he wasn't there. It was a little annoying. But then we
finally got a hold of him and he said he'd been thinking about baptism
for a few hours that day and really wanted to get baptized the next
day... What?! So we set up a last second baptismal interview. He has a
small smoking problem still, but is really willing to quit. So we've
been following up with him everyday on that, and we have a goal for the
22nd. So I'm really excited for him!
Saturday we got to help a member move. It was a lot of fun. A lot
of heavy lifting in the rain. That took up all of the morning, so we did
afternoon studies. We had a really cool lesson with our long term
investigator that's having a hard time feeling that it's true. We had
our 2nd counselor peike and we all knelt and prayed one by one for an
answer. He's still not entirely sure, but the Spirit was completely
there. It was really comforting. We can see that he's progressing. We
then visited with a soon to be no longer less active. After helping him
work through his problems, he said he could come to church this week. So
we sat with him and he was really excited to go to church the next day.
Sunday was great for church! One of our investigators that can only
meet on Sundays made it for Priesthood meeting. The lesson was on
forgiveness. Afterwards, he said that the whole lesson was exactly what
he needed to hear. He couldn't stay for the rest of the time, but he's
really excited to come for all 3 hours next week! He loves reading the
Book of Mormon and he said praying helps calm his anger at work. He
loves all these miracles working in his life since starting to learn
about Jesus Christ. Liu dixiong, the one who has a goal for the 22nd,
made it to Sacrament meeting and loved it. He started getting worried at
the fact that a lot of ward members were going to attend his baptism.
But then we sang "Be Still My Soul" and you could tell the Spirit was
calming him down. It was so great. That afternoon we got to attend
the dedication of a Sister's house. That was really cool. We talked
about the power of the Priesthood and blessings that come from the
Priesthood. It was a really cool experience.
And that was pretty much my week! Miracles. Everywhere. Always look
for the miracles and blessings in your daily life. No matter how
horrible of a day you're having, there is something to be thankful for
each day.
Oh and yeah we are having a ward Christmas party. I'm pretty sure I'm singing a solo... I'm not entirely sure though. I just said I would.
Love, Elder Anthony Buckwalter
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| Adopted this dog. Don't know how to spell his name. Its pronounced Ahpeeyah |
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| Elder Fiala and Zhou Heng |
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| At the Temple |
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| Statue at Sun Moon Lake |
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| Staring off in an epic manner |
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| This is the cake Zhou Heng bought me for my birthday. It looks like it has gold flakes on it. It's completely made of chocolate. There's no flour inside. Just different chocolates. I think it said 97% chocolate. The other 3%, I'm not sure. |
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| Elder Nickell and I heading to the Temple |
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