CALLED TO SERVE: Cop, Learning, Priest

10/23/16

There was an awesome miracle last week when we were biking along a street and I had a prompting to stop in and ask at the police station if there were any service opportunities available. A few weeks prior, we had ran into a potential investigator named Xiao Wei 小薇 who for some reason wouldn't tell us her job because she was embarrassed. We had a good contact with her and she seemed interested in the gospel, but didn't answer her phone afterwards. Well, we walk into the police station and who comes up to the front desk but our friend Xiao Wei! She helped us find a whole list of projects in the community, and said she would set up! Super cool miracle!

On the language side, I have been struggling to memorize a few characters so I end up writing crazy sentences in Chinese. I will give some examples: 你可以捕捉一個流星嗎？(Can you catch an asteroid?) 海嘯來了，恐龍應該要快跑。(Here comes the tsunami, dinosaurs better run fast...) Well, I remember them now.

We do absolutely nothing on Halloween! Although it just so happens that Halloween is on Preparation Day this year, so we will go do something exciting next week! I am still in what I guess you could call the countryside. It is absolutely beautiful here, and it will be hard to leave if I do (most likely will) in 4 weeks.

Yesterday I ran into a not very fun fellow. We were out knocking doors when we ran into a retired minister of another faith. As we started talking, it somehow came out that he was getting paid around $16,000 NT a month from his church, and he said he "just couldn't use it all". He then proceeded to lecture us on how in reality all churches were the same(?). He talked about how he prayed to Jesus so he could be healthy, and how even though he was 80 years old he didn't look it. He said the most important thing in life was to be healthy, and then to have money.... oh ya and then to be happy. Without money you can't be happy. Of course, at this point I pull out the example of the poor in places like South Sudan that are still quite happy, to which he responds: "They are all so lazy. Why don't they just go find work? Black people are so lazy. In the Bible it talks about black people..." I just walked away. I would invite everyone who has money listed anywhere near family, happiness, service, knowledge, or love on their priority list to just take a moment and reevaluate. Moreover, anyone still stuck on racism should move to Sudan or another war-torn third-world country for a month and then I give them permission to speak at will. I guess it just shocked me that a man who taught from the life of Christ for that long would completely miss the mark. Christ taught us to love, and to sacrifice everything in the service of God and our fellow man. I hope that I can better learn to sacrifice for others, as well as have patience with those whose priorities are different than mine ;) Hope you all have a wonderful week!

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JiAn Daily News!

- Monday - biked clear out to an isolated community to try contacting some people that had never seen missionaries. Got completely soaked in the downpour, but had a good contact with the wife of a minister that had passed away a few years ago. Totally convinced she will get baptized in heaven, but in the end wouldn't take a Book of Mormon. Bummer.

- Tuesday - District Meeting was on setting S.M.A.R.T. goals and stuff like that. Unfortunately I packed too much content in too short of a time. Still ended up pretty good though, and the district members liked it. Biked super far today as well to visit some members. One member stood up the missionaries over 10 times before his baptism. Told us to give up on investigators like that unless we feel prompted to pursue like those missionaries had. They fasted 3 separate times on whether or not to drop him, but felt each time they should keep on going. Another non-member in a part-member family gave us drinks on the way home, totally in an answer to a prayer. Also met with an old less active that talked our ears off about really weird stuff. Probably let the senior missionaries in Hualien meet with him...

- Wednesday - not too much today. English class was pretty average. I'm trying to get on top of a system of business cards labeled with things like Study, Serve, Task, Remind, and Goal that are then prioritized so that I can stay on top of everything. I'm struggling to get the project underway and working at it's best, but I'm pretty proud of it. A smart phone would make it a whole lot easier...

- Thursday - got absolutely soaked today and didn't wear any rain gear because it was way too hot. Met a crazy guy from America that retired here in Hualien because the air quality is really good (he was smoking when we talked to him). Might meet with him later.

- Friday - did weekly planning and set some awesome goals with Elder Dickson and then headed to a lesson with Peter Pan. He is one of our best investigators but really struggles with coming to church. We have considered dropping him with lots of others because of church (what I talked about last week) but he said he was willing to keep working towards baptism and pray for a way to come to church so we will probably keep meeting. At dinner exchanged with the Elders in Meilun. I went with a new trainee that has been on the island for only two weeks. Went really well. He was concerned because he didn't feel the Spirit 100% of the time, and I told him that usually the reason for that is because what we are doing is right and we don't need to be corrected. When we should really pay attention is when we are either prompted to do something or when we feel the Spirit leave.

- Saturday - went to a very far location to look for a large group of less actives with Elder Balmforth. We got there and the addresses were horrible. There was no method to the madness and we ended up getting lost for a very long time and only finding two of the eight houses, both of which weren't hope. Night, watched Meet the Mormons at an activity. Mixed emotions. Cried during the Candy Bomber and during the Missionary Mom.

- Sunday - Primary program. Fell asleep periodically due to the muffled and intelligible Chinese muttered into the microphone by the Primary. If the language wasn't hard enough.... Ward council was pretty ok, and not the 2 hours long that it was last time (we left half way through last time).