2/9/2014 - Two Brothers in Asia - Craziness

Family, friends and whoever else is reading!

The greatest thing we saw this week was members starting to get on board for missionary work., As we went to all of our Qingke throughout the week we focused on sharing with them the ways in which they can personally do missionary work. We also received 4 member referrals all of which have great potential. We are particularly excited for a Chen jiating. They are the parents of a member.

We have two investigators who have solid baptismal dates for Mar. 1st. L-- D-- and G--- J<. We met with both of them twice last week and they are still keeping the invites and such. We taught all of the commandments to guo JM and at the end she said, "That's it?" She was expecting there to be this huge change from her current life style which is already in line with all of the standards of the church excluding tithing. We might ever be able to push her date up a little bit. 

L-- D--- is still having a few faith problems. We did a lesson with him about changing his current perspective on life to an eternal perspective. We had a great review of the plan of salvation and he really saw the connection between how our actions on earth determine the next life. He is doing well and we will continue to pray for him. 

We had a lot of finding time this week and found some potential investigators. We also had a lot of call time this week because I was really sick for a couple of days throwing up. I believe I got food poisoning and it knocked me out pretty good. We do have some great set ups that came from our call time and are scheduled to meet with quite a few formers in the next week. 

I don't know if it was because I was sick or something else but it was a hard week in terms of companionship unity. For some reason my companion just doesn't particularly like me or my methods. I'm not quite sure which one it is. But it has been a very humbling experience as I have learned to think before I speak and be patient when others criticize me. I have really tried to change in order to have him not be so unsatisfied with the work we are doing. The problem is whenever I have a suggestion of something we should do he does this sigh, gets a sad look on his face and says, "oh okay we can do that." I've resorted to just letting him decide what we should do each day because for some reason whatever I decide is not the right choice. BUT I have most definitely learned some great things from him. He has a huge desire to help others and is incredibly obedient. Follows every invite to the T and we are seeing success from it. We aren't having contention though because I'm not arguing anymore which is good. It just has been hard to be positive the past couple of weeks. 

I had the opportunity to perform in front of over 300 people last night at a fireside which was super nerve racking. It was really cool though because even though I haven't played the song I played in over 10 months I performed it without any mistakes. The Lord was definitely on my side for that one. The fireside was great and had two recent converts who shared their testimonies. Super powerful! OOne received his doctorate from boston college in economics and the sounded incredibly intelligent. The other was a 21 year old girl who read the entire book of mormon and found the missionaries and asked them if she could be baptized. So cool! Miracles! 

Elder Holland is coming to do a fireside for just us missionaries on the 22nd. I can't tell you how excited I am to personally meet Elder Holland. He is truly the apostle I feel like I learn the most from and I know that he genuinely loves every person that he meets. 

The work her in Xinban is progressing really fast. The ward members are wonderful people. I've learned a lot from serving here especially about finding. More importantly I am learned how to become humble and love people for who they are. I truly do love the investigators I have worked with here. There are many who are so close to being baptized. The Lord is blessing all of his children. I know if the missionaries are in it together we will continue to see amazing miracles. 

Elder Meeks