We had a wonderful "chat" today on the computer where I broke the news of the Ute win over BYU. I think there may be some "rubbing it in so many missionaries faces" going on. Said there would be some "righteous pride" happening in Taiwan this week :)
How can you not love a boy who writes his mama a personal letter every week.
Feeling blessed and happy. Wondering how I am going to let another one go in 72 days. :(
Sup ya'll!?
Great week as always. Zhong qiu jie provided us with quite a few opportunities to meet with the members. Our members are so great. They are involved in the work and love feeding the missionaries. We had 2 great Kao Rou (BBQ) invites and we found a new investigator because of one of them. Friend of a member. Very religious Jehovah's witness. It will be fun to share the gospel with him. I had my first opportunity to bible bash. So much fun!!! It was very amicable don't worry. I'm always so impressed by the zeal of the members in Taiwan. They are living in a very non-Christian environment but still manage to keep the standards of the church.
We meet with quite a few young people and frequently they tell us that the standards we ask them to keep are just to difficult in the world today. I love this quite by Brad Wilcox, "A God who asks nothing of us is not making anything of us." I really believe this is true. God wants us to stretch ourselves, to gain experience, to choose to obey so that we are able to become more like him. It is a gift, not a burden. I still have a long way to go as well. We all do.
We got to meet with an investigator that we haven't in a long time. His name is J--- and he is such a prepared kid. Of course he has one of the biggest obstacles. He is the oldest son of a very Buddhist family. If he could he would be baptized but he is not willing to create the family uproar. He loves God and knows that Jesus died for his sins. His brother and him have their own band in which they sing Christian music. So awesome! I hope that in the future he will find the faith or his parents will soften their hearts enough and let him be baptized.
We tried to visit a family that we haven't met with for a while. But they were not home. The brother answered the door and invited us in because we had shang ke (had a lesson) with him before. We had the opportunity to teach this man how to pray. He was so confused by the idea of prayer. He didn't understand that he could communicate his own feelings to God. He is attending another Christian church and they read their prayers. It was so cool to hear someone pray for the first time. I'm excited to continue to meet with this brother.
The outdoor zone conference was an absolutely amazing time. It was definitely the most fun thing I have done on my mission so far. We all got to wear normal clothes which was the best part. Did you know that on P-Day's we are not allowed to wear normal clothes..? Pretty terrible honestly. But anyway I had many awesome conversations with so many missionaries and it was cool to just see everyone so happy. I got to hang out with my trainer for most of the day and with another Elder who I am super tight with. His name is Elder Peterson. He's from Salina UT and we seriously have the best time together. Oh yea something interesting about the Taiwan mission. Nearly everybody is either really intelligent or really talented/famous. We have two future NBA stars, two future NFL stars, 2 or 3 semi pro musicians, super famous DJ, nuclear physicists, tons of military, and I could go on and on. It's so cool. Makes for a lot of fun conversations.
I had a really cool experience this week. We were calling some potentials and I saw a name and had a good feeling about it. I gave him a call and he answered. I told him I was a missionary and the guy just started telling me how glad he was that I had called. He totally remembered me (I didn't remember him...) and said that he was leaving for New Zealand tomorrow for a 1 year work study. He told me that he had looked the church up online and that he wanted to start going to church and be baptized. WOW! He gave me his email address so he could find a church in New Zealand and then right when I was about to get off he asked if I could teach him how to pray. Talk about a prepared guy. So I did and then he asked me if I could say a prayer for his safety and a good experience in New Zealand. What a great guy. I hope that he will find the church in New Zealand.
We had a great experience with W-- D------ this week. When we knocked on the door he was like, "Hurry I'm on TV." It was his first appearance on TV and he was so excited. I'm glad that he is having so much success. We didn't have to much time to meet with him and so we quickly just talked about how we were happy for him and that we hoped that he was thanking God for his success. He said, "I was not spiritual at all before I met you. I might be starting to be a little bit." Music to a missionaries ears. Can't wait to keep meeting with him.
I had a major language fail this week. That sentence is ironic because the word I failed on was the use of fail. There is a recent convert that we visited with the sisters. She was telling us about some legal troubles that she has been having lately and, relating to her case, I said, "Wo xiwang ni hui shibai." Which is I hope you will fail. I meant to say jibai which is defeat them. Lol such is the life for a Chinese missionary. Everyone got a good laugh out of that one.
So far in my mission experience I have found that my greatest joy comes from less actives coming back. There is an old bei bei in our ward who has a hard time coming to church. This week we visited him a couple times and just spent some quality time with him. He came to church sunday and shared how he feels like we were sent to him and that we were charging his spiritual batteries. Such a wonderful old man. I love him. He has taught me Chinese Chess, Rubik's cube and a bunch of other puzzles and stuff. So great.
Overall great week. Nothing to complain about. The work goes on. God loves me and in turn I try to love everyone else with a similar love.
Elder Meeks
P.S. I am changing my last name from Mao to Mi. It sounds more like Meeks and doesn't have the negative connotation of Mao Zedong
No comments:
Post a Comment