Don't rain on my parade.

He experienced his first typhoon this past week thus the title of this post.

Sorry no pics this week.

Hey ya'll

This week was great! The temple provided an incredible opportunity to really ponder and pray about the feelings in my heart. There are many people that we are teaching right now who are incredible people. I truly care about all of them. The temple is an incredible experience and being on my mission has helped me better realize the importance of the temple. Not only is it the source of ultimate inner peace it is the Holy place where we may bind ourselves together as families forever. Such wonderful promises and ordinances to be learned from. 

We have the opportunity to teach English class every week. It is a wonderful time for people to come and have an incredible experience with the missionaries. My companion and I really focus on getting them to laugh and love the time they spend with us. We make lots of jokes and just help people realize how normal of people we are. Our spiritual thought and invite this week provided an opportunity for people to think about a question that they had about our church. Most were superficial and goofy but two of the individuals actually had very good questions. The first one being, "How can a person, who feels like God has forsaken them, not for guilty for the bad things he's done?" Wow! What a needful and thought provoking question. I was shocked by the question and had the opportunity to share the plan of salvation in just a few minutes. We sat down and talked about the Book of Mormon and how it would specifically answer that question for him. He was very appreciated and agreed to start meeting with the missionaries in his area! Woohoo! 

We have a basketball night every Thursday night. The primary purpose being to relate with people our age and be able to start meeting with them. This week we got a ton of phone #'s and are excited to start meeting with these people. Being a good example and having fun with people are amazing ways of helping people realize you are just normal people who really want to help them improve. :)

The typhoon this week was interesting. We were inside for a few hours but the Lord still gave us the opportunity to keep our number of people we met with pretty high. I don't know how we did it but we had 23 lessons and found 9 people. Such a blessing. The Lord is preparing people to hear this gospel. So wonderful! 

It is so important for new members, recently moved in members, Less Actives, and investigators to have a friend at church. I can't stress how important this is. We had the opportunity to meet with an LA that previously has not been contacted in our area. He told us that the main reason he stopped going to church was because when he moved to Xindian not one person in the new ward came up and talked to him the first two weeks he attended. He felt like no one was welcoming and so he started going with his friends to a different church. So sad! We really need to make sure to guanxi the people that need it. 

We set up a dinner appointment with a kid we met on the street. We were so happy and surprised when he brought his mother and two other friends to the dinner as well. They were such a great time. They had many questions about our church and were willing to listen to what we had to say. They were eager to share their beliefs as well. Their church believes in the gift of tongues. So, when they pray, they speak with the gift of tongues. We haven't had an opportunity to hear it yet but we're going to trade churches next week. They'll come to ours and we'll go to theirs. It will be an interesting experience!

We are continuing to work with a young man in our ward who is not sure if he will serve a mission. We learned more about his situation from his mother this week. The ward members mean well but they constantly ask him why he hasn't gone or when he is going to go. This really irritates him. I know the feeling and so I feel bad for him. Some people take longer than others and there is nothing wrong with this. We just need to be patient and be good examples. I hope the ward members will be more sensitive to his situation because it most definitely is a delicate time for him. 

Elder Nelson and I continue to get along as always. We've never had any problems and definitely won't in the future. We seriously love the people we meet with and thank God everyday for how much we are blessed in our companionship. We have very little time for finding because of how many people we meet with throughout the week. We did not have 1 scheduled finding time this week but still found 9 people to teach! Such a miracle. The key is just talking to and loving everybody that you come in contact with. Be real with them, have fun, make them laugh and bear a spiritual witness of your message's importance. When you do this they can't help but want to meet with you. 

These next four things are my personal key indicators for success:

CHILL

When I am doing these things I am happy. When I am happy we find new people to teach. 

Love

Work Hard

Have Fun

W-- D-- did not quite pass his baptismal interview. He is still having some issues with tea and coffee but he is determined to be ready for another interview next Saturday and to be baptized the following Saturday. He's so solid and comes to church nearly every week. The members are so good at guanxiing him and he will definitely be alright when we don't have the opportunity to meet with him every week anymore.

The work goes on and I love it. 1 whole transfer finished. Holy smokes! Where did the time go? I can't believe I've already been here for 6 weeks. Time flies when you are having fun is definitely true.

Elder Meeks