Stumbling, Transfers, and Cops

10/9/16

 Pretty crazy week! Unfortunately a lot of it is newsy stuff without a ton of excitements, but it was crazy! Elder Dickson and I are still in training, so there wasn't any change in our companionship at the end of the transfer, but two companionships in our zone started training, a companionship moved down to 鳳林 FengLin(!!!!), and Elder Hamilton (in the MTC with me) came down to be the new zone leader that lives in our apartment! Super crazy changes! They also made a big change in the key indicators last week, so new investigators are only counted after we have met with them off of the street and set up for another time. This means that new investigators can't just be found on the street anymore. Also, today I found out that my previous companion Elder Karlinsey (now Mr.Karlinsey) is getting married!!!! So cool!

     Last preparation day was pretty crazy! We just so happened to be on exchanges with the zone leaders, so Elder Miner and I went with a few members to go visit a recent convert. The recent convert has been on the other side of the island for several months staying with her sister who has been in the hospital recovering from an almost fatal condition, so lately she hasn't been able to come to church. When her sister got better enough, she returned to Hualien but hasn't been acting herself lately, so her mother called a member and invited us to come give her a blessing. We arrived at the house with the member and a few other friends, but a strange man answered the door and wouldn't let us in. He said that neither the recent convert nor the mother were at home, when they had just called and set up with the member that drove us to her house. I still don't know how, but things got heated enough to the point that the member called the police. We had already left at this point, planning to visit another member and then come back when they had worked it out, and the rest of the story isn't very clear. All I know is that the police came and made everyone come out of the house. They found the mother, but not the recent convert, so they gave the mother a blessing and left. Crazy!

     So I have to mention Conference, because Conference was amazing!!!! I learned so much and I am so excited to go back through my notes and start applying everything I learned. I especially loved the talk about 'stumbling blocks', and how we all need to be valiant in our testimony of Christ. I just really like the idea of taking those stumbling blocks that are impeding or distracting from our focus on eternal life, and making them into stepping stones. It goes along well with an idea I was studying the other week: we, as children of God, are all heaven-bound. If we stay on the road prepared for us, we all make it. All we have to do is remove those things that have gotten in our way (i.e. sin, unawareness, pride). I love to ask people on the street, as well as myself, what their 'ideal self' is. Then, I ask, "what is the difference between you now and that person you want to become?", or, "what can you change to become more like that ideal self?" Take away these things that are limiting our potential, and we see miracles. I love all you guys and I hope you have a fantastic week!

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I got the package in time!! Thank you guys so much!!!! It was literally so awesome! The rest of my birthday didn't feel like a birthday at all, but that HUGE package made me feel like a king! Thank you! Your notes were just absolutely the best and the gifts were perfect. I'm wearing the shoes right now and half the bag of Mike and Ikes are gone. The 11-in-one tool thing is in my bag, the zone leaders have been shooting each other incessantly with the penguin thing, the fruit snacks are gone, the rats and cockroaches have already been part of several pranks (my companion flipped out during conference when he saw them in his bag of popcorn), and everything else in the box is all over my desk. It made my birthday so awesome! I woke up in the middle of the night too in a sweating rage. I didn't figure out why until you just told me you went to get Cafe Rio and Neilsens chocolate shakes on my birthday ;) I love you guys!!!

pictures from someone else's phone. I'll get a new camera this week ;) us singing at a baptism

our zone eating dinner before the big transfer