Hey peeps!!
This week was good. I've found that so far in my mission my greatest joy comes from helping Less Actives become active again and recent converts coming to church. We've had the opportunity to meet with quite a few less actives over the past couple of weeks and one of them even came to church. There are a couple others who I believe will come back soon. I've found that the pattern in LA's is that once they don't come to church for a while they are kinda embarrassed to come back. Or they are just used to not coming. Apathy is definitely a dangerous road when talking about church attendance. The most important thing to do is just love them to death. We've been getting some ward members in on helping us out and I believe it will bring a new fire to the missionary work here in Ankang.
I used my first analogy (a Rubik's cube) of the mission and was shocked by how well it helped some of our investigators and recent converts understand the 3rd lesson. I am beginning to understand why Jesus taught in parables. Sometimes it is hard for people to grasp gospel principles when they have not been exposed to church vocabulary for a long time. I'm really going to try hard to develop quick and easy analogies to teach more complicated doctrine.
We've had an investigator, R-----, for a long time who I care about very much. He is progressing for sure. Two days ago he told me that he really is going to stop trying smoking. Up to this point he hasn't had much motivation but he said that he is going to try to cut his smoking in half for a week and see how it goes. I'm super excited for him. He's about my age and we seem to just relate with each other very well. 4 new people moved into his apartment and we are super excited to get to know them all. We have already had a lesson with one of his friends and he seemed genuinely interested in prayer and the idea of a Heavenly Father. I'm excited to see where this goes!
We have another investigator, Y- D-------, who has been meeting with missionaries for over 6 months. He is very Christian and already believes everything about the church (except the Word of Wisdom). Every time we visit he shares with us something new from the Book of Mormon or asks us questions about it. The only problem has been that he has not been willing to come to church. He is an old man and just used to his way of things. He doesn't like going out very much. We were pretty disappointed when we invited him to church and he declined again. The next day my companion was talking to a member of our ward who knows this man and he asked him if he'd be willing to call and invited Y- D------- to come to church. He did and Y- D----- accepted!!!! We were so excited to see him at church yesterday. So many members helped guanxi him and he had a great time interacting with everybody. I believe he will continue to come to church.
W-- D------ is doing great. He met the chief editors for the two most famous papers in Taiwan and gave them his new book. He is excited that he is becoming more and more famous. We had a lesson on faith and gratitude. We talked about how God expects us to work as hard as we can to become what we are and then he helps us do the rest. He is 55 years old and has worked his whole life to get where he is. He said that he would think about how and if God had influenced his recent successes.
There is a man in our ward named Z---- B- who is so legit. He is so great to us missionaries. Consequently I am becoming fatter. He feeds us fried chicken noodles and rice like every other day. I love him to death though. He used to be in the Mafia but is like the strongest member in the ward. Everybody respects this guy so much. I was thinking about what I could do to be nice to him. While I was in the grocery store what to my wondering eyes did appear? DR. PEPPER!!!! WOOHOOO!!! I bought him one and we sat down and had a Dr. Pepper together. He drank the whole thing in two gulps and went and bought 12 more. He loved it so much. I was so happy. Seriously made my week.
I love hanging out/ teaching college kids. There are so many cool college kids in our area. We go and eat lunch at the college and play games with some of the students up there. A big portion of our investigators come from these activities which is shweet!! It's just funny when we tell them that we can't really "chill" with them all the time. They don't really understand how we could be this age and be doin what we're doin but it's all good. A couple of them are coming to church activities and having a blast with the members which is awesome.
So I've definitely gotten a little chubby... Gross. Hopefully I get the desperate enough to want to lose it all again. It shouldn't be to difficult though. My pants are feelin a little tight lately though that's for sure. Chubby and bald is such an attractive combo ain't it? :)
Well I can't think of any other funny stories.. :P I guess this will have to do. Until next week, live long and prosper.
Elder Meeks
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