Miracle Week - July 28th

Trip to Danxue

Hey hey hey famildamly and friends,

This week was a crazy one. 

We started meeting with a guy that comes to English class every week. He didn't have too much interest in the gospel but really respects who we are and loves our English class. I think this is so great! My companion and I have set a goal that when we teach English class everybody needs to constantly be laughing and having a good time. Sharing a spiritual message is super important. But if we are not able to keep interest than people will stop coming. We had over 25 people in our personal class last week! So Awesome!

I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with Elder Wesemann this week. Wow. All I can say is that he is an amazing missionary. He truly gets how to do missionary work. We found new people to teach and got to meet with some people. His main focus is just loving the people. Being real with people is so important. I really try to do this and Elder Wesemann is super good at this. People realize we are just normal people trying to become better and help people while we are at it. I think this is so great. We set some great goals together. My favorite being that whenever we contact somebody on the street we will ask ourselves how we would want to be randomly contacted by missionaries on the streets. It is weird to me when I see missionaries who, when they pull up to a stop light, will say hi and try to talk to every person sitting at the stop light. Super ineffective and really awkward. People see that you are saying hi to everyone and trying to talk to everyone and will just think, "Who is the crazy white person in weird clothes trying to talk to me?" We have to remember not to robot missionaries!

Now for the miracle.

The sisters had an investigator, Wang Jiemei. She was getting baptized on saturday. Friday night we remembered that because she had not been legally divorced she needed her husband's consent. They have been separated for 4 years and have had no contact except in court while they were suing each other. When we found this out it was about 10:30 at night which is the time we are supposed to go to bed. We decided to pray and ask to see if we should call her and try to get this sorted out for tomorrow. We were nervous because she really really dislikes her husband and didn't know how she would react to being told that we needed his permission. But we both prayed together and both had the strong impression we needed to call her tonight. Elder Nelson called her and explained the situation to her. She was really understanding and but she was not willing to try and contact her husband because of their relationship issues. She gave us his address though which was surprisingly close to where we lived. We resolved to try and figure it out in the morning.

In the morning we called a member that supposedly new the husband and asked him to go with us to meet with him. He could go at 1:30 at the earliest. We had to know by 2:00 if the baptism was still going to take place. Around lunch time we again said a super heart felt prayer and asked if we should go. Again we both felt like we should. So we left right away and biked to the house. As we were outside praying the mother of Wang Jiemei's husband walked out. We said hello and asked to see her son and she told us he was at work until 5:00. We then told her it was really important we see him and she told us that we needed to tell her the situation. As soon as we brought up Wang Jiemei she literally freaked out. Started screaming at us and for the next 15 minutes we tried to reason with her but to no avail. Finally her husband came out and was very nice to us. He apologized for his wife and invited us in (which was a miracle). We then spent the next 2 hours trying to get them to call their son so that we could get his permission. They told us story after unrelated story about her son and Wang Jiemei's relationship and how terrible it was. Just when we were about to give up (2 hours of trying) the son came home 4 hours early from work. He was more than willing to give his approval and actually fixed my bike for me. Really really nice guy and was very happy that his wife was attending church. Right before 2 o'clock we made the call that it would still be happening. At the end I asked if we could all sing a hymn together to bring the Spirit back into the room and they were thrilled. I played the piano and we sang nearer my God to thee. The mother at the end told us that we were actually okay people and that we could come back anytime. Crazy!

Moral of the story is that the Spirit sometimes tells you to do things that are difficult and uncomfortable. God really wanted her to baptized on that day and he gave us the patience and determination to make it happen. It was hard. The mother was incredibly rude to us and we had to endure about 2 hours of this but it all worked out in the end. I have truly gained a testimony about listening to the Spirit. It requires sacrifice! It sometimes requires you to be in super uncomfortable situations but if you follow it and have faith it will work out.

Our investigator, Wei Dixiong, is still on track for being baptized this saturday. He is happy that it is on my birthday and told me that this is my birthday present. At church on Sunday he expressed to us that he had a very strong feeling of peace and excitement about getting baptized. We had the opportunity to explain to him that this was the Spirit testifying to him that it was the right decision. He is such an amazing man and will be such a strength to the AnKang ward.

Wu Dixiong is still progressing and told us that since he has started meeting with us his life has been happier and has had a lot more opportunities at work. He is still reading 10 chapters in the Book of Mormon every week. He is doing great!

Now for some lighter subjects.

I'm starting to get the curse of my snacking father. Every night I crave peanut butter and a peice of toast. Without fail. The peanut butter spoon has full taken hold of my life. And yes I eat it just as disgusting as dad does.

Mom, could you change my Facebook page to say Elder Andrew Meeks? Nobody can find me when they try to add me. Apparently there are a lot of Andrew Meeks. Also will you accept the friend requests that are on there right now? Xie Xie!

There was a huge rainstorm this week. As me and Elder Nelson were riding our bikes back from exchanges (completely drenched) we went into this tunnell and it was flooded. We crashed into it and it was about a foot and a half deep. Crazy! The gross thing is is that it's all sewer water but we still played in it anyway. We were already soaking wet and had to change when we got back. I'll send some pictures. It was a good time for sure.

Did you know that here in Taiwan there are Aborigines? They are almost the exact same as the Native Americans. They do a lot of the same stuff. It's pretty cool. But they are becoming extinct because they are marrying Chinese people. The culture is really interesting though.

Had a long chat with an American Evangalist turned Atheist who was drunk. He previously did apologetic and was basically trained to destroy Mormon missionaries and the Book of Mormon. But because he was drunk he decided to be nice to us. He was actually a super cool guy. New a ton about the bible and can read it in Hebrew.

Oh yea, when I was on exchanges with Elder Wesemann President Day gave him a call. I was sitting next to him and I hear, "Elder Meeks? Oh yea he is right here." I have only talked to President Day twice since I've been here. First was the opening interview and the second for 5 seconds when he thanked me for playing the piano. There are basically three reasons why President would want to talk to me. 1. I did something wrong. 2. I was getting a calling. 3. Someone in my family died. So basically only 1 good outcome. Thank heaven it was the 2nd. My heart was pounding for a little while though haha. And you guessed it I was called to be the Mission Choir Director. I should have known that I would never escape a musical calling.

Anyway I will not drag this letter out anymore. Ya'll are awesome and I love you. I'd love to get some birthday mail. Send me an email if you get a chance!

Elder Meeks