Tuscan Raider and Remembering the Savior

4/30/17

    Well, I forgot to bring my planner with me, so I'm not exactly sure what happened last week and what is worth mentioning. I didn't have any more dreams of teaching the gospel to Donald Trump, I wish I had only dreamed how many cockroaches I've killed in the past week (they may or may not have made it into the fridge (how do cockroaches make it into the fridge??)), we found another completely intact guitar in a trash pile on the street (that makes a total of three in our apartment now (all from trash piles)), my english is getting worse (notice how I didn't capitalize english on purpose to bother any english major reading this?), and this morning may or may not have been spent on our eighth floor balcony water-blasting all the dirt and grime away while holding brooms above our heads and making Tuscan Raider noises. Other than that, it was a pretty normal week.

   On to more serious things. We had two great lessons this week that in particular stood out to me. One was with the non-member family of a member named Rainbow 賴虹宇. Rainbow couldn't be there for the lesson, so we just visited her parents and her older sister. The parents are classic Buddhist/Taoist-Taiwanese mix, which means they think religion is just a culture and a scapegoat, so they don't know why they need to believe in Christ. The older sister got baptized into another church when she was younger and is very devout. The Spirit must have been there, because we somehow managed to talk with all three of them about their beliefs and commit them to pray daily as a family for a week. It was walking on eggshells so as not to cause conflict between us and any of them, and we even had to go about it in a casual way because the daughter started getting a little heated towards her parents. In the end, I felt we were all edified in some way or another, and we managed to get them to commit to pray daily! 

    The other lesson was with another part member family. The dad is returning from less-activity and bringing his kids, but the mom isn't as interested. Nothing miraculous happened, but we were able to encourage him and give him a blessing afterwards. Though it was simple, you could tell that it made a difference and gave him the hope he needed.

    The last 9 weeks of my mission, I decided to study the 1 of the 9 Christlike attributes in Preach My Gospel every week. Last week was diligence. An interesting aspect of diligence that I found was remembering. I would argue that a large part of becoming diligent is remembering your purpose, vision, and potential on an active and regular basis. Think about it from a scriptural standpoint: when Nephites or other righteous people lost diligence in keeping God's commandments, how did the prophets call them to repentance? Most often, I believe it runs something along the lines of: "Do ye not remember?" When we remind ourselves of the sacrifice our Savior made for us often, we are more inclined to remain diligent in keeping the covenants that are steps to using that sacrifice. How do we remind ourselves? Well, I think a look through the scriptures in the topical guide on remembrance to see our people in the scriptures reminded themselves is a good start. I'm so grateful for the lessons the Spirit has taught me as I have studied attributes of Christ and tried to become like Him, and wish you all the best in your efforts to become like Him!

Messing around at DanShui and Fishermans Wharf. We. Are. Nerds.

awesome beaches!!! really cool shells

biking preparation day to almost the very most northern tip of Taiwan. Rented fancy road bikes to do it, and biked from ShiLin to the top and then back. 

Super far. Super tiring. Super epic.