CALLED TO SERVE: Devil Mosquitoes and Baptism

6/12/16

Baptism! We had our investigator named 蔡亞芝 (Cai Ya Zhi) be baptized and confirmed this last weekend! She is so awesome. She has such a sweet heart and is so humble. She changed a lot before her baptism. Before the missionaries met with her, she said she believed in Satan's church and was having gender problems. She said everything was just kind of dark and she felt confused. Now, she feels like she knows God and Jesus a lot better and she just feels happy. It is so amazing as a missionary to be able to witness the change that someone goes through when they really take the Gospel and apply it in their lives.

Other Investigators: Kay is a sort of 'hip' girl that has been super willing to meet with us missionaries. She accepted the Word of Wisdom like a piece of cake, and is totally willing to read and pray every day. Wang Jia Ting is this funny family that goes to several different churches, so they won't come to our church but love to meet with us. We are still working on that one.

Devil Mosquitoes: There is a special type of mosquito here in Hualien called a 小黑蚊 (xiao hei wen or "little-black-mosquito"). I think 'little-devil-mosquito' is a more apt description though. I hate them. My whole arms and legs are itching right now. The bites don't go away. My arms are literally covered in red dots that have a sort of constant, burning itch until you scratch it (accidentally or not) and it becomes extremely painful. All insects here are crazy, but the mosquitoes are the worst.

Studies: my studies this last week have been focused a lot on prayer. Both the Bible Dictionary and True to the Faith have awesome insights about prayer. Focusing on our relationship with Heavenly Father is key. The Bible Dictionary says that 'most so-called problems with prayer' come from forgetting the fact that we are sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father and that prayer is a communication with Him. A few other tips I found for prayer include specifically offering a kneeling prayer several times a day, making a special effort to vocalize prayer when possible, and leaving some time at the end of your prayer to hear any impressions or answers to questions from Heavenly Father. I love prayer, and I hope you all know you are in my prayers. I love you all!

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Sorry, you aren't sending the usual picture captions to everyone right? The big email and the big email only are meant for everyone else. The little captions and other stuff are all just meant for you guys. I will try to be better about sending more information and 'letting my hair down' (mom you do realize I'm almost a 20 yr old boy right? ;) I don't have much hair and the hair I do have won't go into a bun even if I tried) in another email.

You can see the ocean from our apartment, and on the other side you can see incredibly tall mountains. The mountains on the coast of Hualian are extremely dramatic. Look up some pictures of Turtle Island, the coastline, and Taroko Gorge to see a little bit of what I get to see every day down here. Absolutely beautiful. The train ride down was epic--dipping into deep mountain tunnels and then emerging along the rocky coastline covered in fog or into sharp valleys of the most lush greens. Incredible. There is also a baseball diamond behind our house.