Well, this has been another fun week. We have seen a ton of miracles and a ton of successes. Probably the biggest one had to do with the 張家庭 (Zhang Family). The mom is a member, but her three children are not yet because their father has abstained from them being baptized. Sadly, he still abstains from them being baptized, but there has been progress. Just the other week, 張姐妹's husband shared with his wife that he had had a dream about the church. Before sharing the outcome of it, for people in Taiwan, sharing a dream is something that no one does, so it is truly a miracle that he shared this experience with his wife and she shared it with us. As for the dream, he shared that he had see the church and the positive affects that church has and will have on his children and family. He continued to say that the felt the strong prompting in his dream that he should continue to allow his family to attend and be a part of the church. Up to now, the husband has been so so about the church, but now his is all in supporting the family with attending church. Now all we are waiting for is the time when he is willing to let his children be baptized and experience the blessings from baptism.
One of the other big miracles from this week was that we got to do a lot of service. As for the first service this week, we got to help 陳姐妹 (Sister Chen) make 包子 (Steamed buns) and 饅頭 (Steamed bread), which are slightly different, for her job. As for the difference, one is just a bread and the other has meat and other things in it. The best part about this service was that the last time we meet with her, she mentioned how recently she has been having trouble keeping up with the orders and has been needing to stay up late working to get all the orders done in time for the next day. So, we offered to help and had the opportunity to help her make the breads, which consisted of kneading the dough. It really was quite the work. All I can say is that having a machine to do it for you is pretty nice, but doing it all by hand is pretty fun too.
This week for service, we also got to help 黃家庭 (Huang Family) 拔草 (pull weeds) up at there house in the mountains of 公館 (Gong Guan), which is a neighboring county to 苗栗 (Miaoli), but still is part of our area. At first they were saying that we would need to bike to their house, but after they laughed about it for about 10 minutes because we said that we would and that it wouldn't be a problem, they told us they would drive us. All I can say is that biking wouldn't really be possible. It was about a 30 minute drive up a dirt road on the side of a steep mountain. We were both happy they decided they would drive us to the top of the mountain to do the service for them. It was also super cool when we got to there house because you could see all of 苗栗市 (The City of Miaoli). As for the service section, it was pretty good. We were able to help them 拔草 (pull weeds) and also build a stronger relationship with them. As we were chatting with them, it also came up where our siblings had served, which was a blessing. I mentioned how Trent served in England, and that seemed to catch 黃弟兄 (Brother Huang) attention, and he mentioned how his son is going to school in England and how he would really like it if I could see about having Trent talk with the missionaries in England to have the missionaries visit his son and help him become active again. It was really a pretty cool experience to see how through service, we can really find people that could use the support of the missionaries.
This week, along with past weeks, we also had service and the mentally disabled center and English class. English class doesn't fully count as a service, but that is how we describe it when we are contacting people about coming to our English class. For the service at the disabled center, we actually took Jenga and played that with them. They all seemed to know how to play and were playing pretty intense. It really was fun to watch and play it with them. As for English class, this week we taught weather, which is one of my favorite topics because it just feels so much easier to teach. We also prepared a word search for them, which they all seemed to love. Pry my favorite part about it all was watching the little kids do it as a race. I'm not sure how much of the English they learned from it, but I know they had a good time doing it which is pry the more important part of it.
One thing that was different this week was that we actually had an opportunity to go find in 頭份 (Toufen) to help the sisters there. Recently, the Sisters in our district have been having trouble finding investigators that will stick or even start meeting with them, so our entire district went to their area to help them find some new investigators. Probably the biggest thing I saw was how blessed we are to be in 苗栗 (Miaoli), even though our area is incredibly big, our area has a good number of people. A large portion of the Sister's area in 頭份 (Toufen) are businesses, so they aren't able to find many people that live in their area. With that being said, it was a pretty cool experience finding in 頭份 (Toufen) for the Sisters because we knew that everyone that we found would help them, which made finding for us a little different. When you are in your own area, you are looking for ways to help your area grow, but when you are in some one else's area, you are looking for ways to help them, so I guess it counts as another way of serving those around you.
Also, for this week, the weather was amazing. I know my parents and siblings think I am crazy from the other week saying it was cold, but this week was truly amazing. And with the amazing weather, came some amazing success. The biggest part being that people were back out on the streets again, which helped us with contacting. Elder Ure and I both love talking to people on the street, so with more people on the street, it means we have more opportunities to talk to people on the street. It really was quite the week for finding both in 苗栗 (Miaoli) and 頭份 (Toufen).
Well, my time is about up. Thanks for all the letters and prayers.
我愛你們,
Love you,
柯長老
Elder Okeson
P.S. Sorry Mom, Elder Ure and I did not stay up til mid-night on New Years eve. Here in Taiwan, they have a thing called 款年 (I think the characters are right, kuan nian), which is if you stay up til mid-night on New Years eve, your mom will live til 120 years old. But with that being said, I am sure Morgan, Tanner, Trent, and Nicole all did :)
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