This is the saying I use to end every letter! Yes there was a tear in my eye when I saw it.
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Hey Ya'll!
This week was great. Saw many wonderful things happen. This week we had the opportunity to meet with many LA's, members and investigators. I truly believe that the best way to do missionary work is through the members. We also saw many contacting miracles! We are continuing to meet with a Lin Dixiong. I believe we have had 3 lessons with him. He is 17 years old and super mature. HE really has a desire to learn about what we have to say. Up to this point he has been really reluctant to pray and such but this time we really pushed it and he prayed for us. His prayer was great. I can't wait to keep meeting with him.
We had such a spiritual experience with one of our investigators Brian. Our lessons are sometimes hard to focus in because he is just really funny and we chat a lot. But at the end of the lesson he told us that the real reason why he started meeting with us was so he could practice his English. But he now considers us to be his true friends. He then opened up and started telling us about some deep concerns he had in his life. This year he has to decide what career path he wants to take in his Law profession and he is really nervous about it. We began to share about how God can truly help him overcome these feelings and help us choose what to do. We just told him that the things we have been inviting him to do are the things he needs to do in order to have this blessing. At the end I asked him if I could say a prayer. While I was praying I had the strong impression to just tell him that God knew how he felt and was eagerly waiting for him to ask for his help. I told him how much my companion and I cared about him and that what we were teaching him was because we truly believe it will change his life. He said at the end of the prayer he was fighting bursting into tears. 25 year old guy feeling the Spirit for the first time. Wonderful experience. He came to church, is hopefully reading, and prays everyday. He is trying to quit smoking and I really believe he'll come around. He might take a while but I know that if I had to leave my mission right now I would feel like I accomplished a lot.
I went on exchanges with an Elder You in Banqiao. It was great. I really got to use my Chinese as a for of everyday communication because he is a Taiwanese Elder. I loved it. It was cool to see that if I really had to I could get around and be okay.
We had tracting miracles this week! One of them was on the way to tracting. We talked to a kid on the bus and he had some interest. We are hopefully going to set up with him soon. Then, on the first door we knocked, the person was like, "okay, come in." We had an awesome lesson together. Mars (cool name) was totally willing to pray and read the Book of Mormon. Super cool person!
We had dinner with a less active family this week. The father was in the bishopric previously but because of being offended has stopped coming to church. Super sad. They are an incredible family and still read the Book of Mormon and pray. They are so great towards the missionaries. Every time we go over they give us fruit or food of some sort and are excited about the message we have to share with them. They will eventually come back to church but right now they are just being stubborn. They have super strong testimonies just not strong enough to come back to church. They think they ward members don't like them which is super sad. I hope that we can help them come back. We are going to start inviting families to start to reach out to them.
There is this older gentlemen we meet with. Wu Dixiong. He is so intelligent. He has written 36 textbooks and read 10 chapters of the Book of Mormon while completely understanding it. He pulled out so many personal meanings and applied them in his life. He doesn't really have that much religious background so we are taking a slow approach to teaching him. Right now we are just discussing the Book of Mormon and sharing short messages with him. We are trying to help him realize God wants to have a relationship and that he can use his intelligence to bless others because God gave him this incredible talent.
Our investigator Wei Dixiong's baptismal interview is this week! Woohoo. I'm so excited for him. He is really prepared to be baptized. We taught him the Law of Tithing and without hesitation was completely willing. He has been to church at least 7 or 8 times and is just a great guy. We love meeting with him and are excited to help him to make this first covenant with God.
Now for some funny stuff. We have a guy that we meet with . His name is Leo and he is literally crazy. He is a major alcoholic and smokes every 30 seconds or so. We invited him to church just praying that it would be okay.........yea........ He started smoking in the church! Got really mad because people got mad at him and kinda stormed out. He called back later and apologized but yea. Crazy stuff. We went to his house and I played the piano for him. He started crying. He has had had a rough life. I hope we can help him to some degree.
Sometimes I feel like we are like the tri-cycle kid in the Incredibles. We have this amazing experience where we see something impossible happen. We are sometimes just in the right place at the right time. (When Mr. Incredible lifts the car over his head and the little kid in the trike sees him). I would liken this to God blessing us or him giving us a witness of truth. The next time the kid comes to the same spot expecting to see a "miracle". Mr. Incredible asks him, "Well, what are you waiting for?" The kid replies, "I don't know something amazing I guess." Sometimes God just gives us blessings. He gives us these great experiences that we don't even ask for. The trick is not getting into the habit of expecting him to continue to give these witnesses without work. We cannot expect to keep receiving the same witness over and over again while doing nothing. We have to go out and search for it. (My prophetic attempt at a parable).
So there is this man in the mission known as underground Frank. He literally knows everything about all the missionaries. Really cool guy but a stalker. He's a less active and just loves spending times with missionaries. He is a great guy to have on your good side. My companion and I got to meet him this week and because we were so chill with him he decided to bring us costco muffins and peanut butter. Woohoo!
Did you know Taiwanese people are obsessed with talking about poop? Random Fact
Last week for P-Day I got to go to Taibei 101. It is the second tallest building in the world. Cool place. You should google it. I'll attach some pictures. But ya you can see all of Taibei from the top. Are area is like a half an hour away and you can see it just fine. So tall. An LA we do a lot of stuff with paid for 4 of us to go. So nice of him. About 80 u.s. dollars.
Well this is about all for this week. My P-Day is regular day next week so you'll be gettin a letter from me Sunday. :) If ya'll have any questions please feel free to ask. Don't be afraid to send pictures. Seriously though.. I love pictures. It's kinda like the only attachment to the outside world. Also, is their any breaking news lately? Except for the plane crash?
Love ya'll and the Lord does too!
Elder Meeks
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