Week 61 - Stop light finding

你好!

Well, to say the least, this truly has been a fun week, full of find surprises which was super nice.

Most of the week was spent finding, which was a bit of a challenge, but there were some really cool blessings that came from it. One of them has to do with contacting people at stop lights when biking. I remember when I first got to Taiwan, that was probably one of the hardest things for me to adjust to with missionary work, was contacting someone at a stoplight. To explain what it is, you have until the light turns green to share what you would like to with the person driving the scooter next to you, so sometimes when there are only 10-15 seconds on the clock, things are a little crazy. Here in 香山 (Xiangshan), we really have seen the blessings from it. During our time being a companionship here in 香山 (Xiangshan), Elder Huang and I have contacted two less actives at stop lights that were not on our ward list but lived in our area, and this last week it happened again. We are looking forward to be able to meet with him again this next week.

Another cool thing from this last week was that we found out that one of our investigators just got her mom's permission to be baptized, which was truly a miracle. 陳怡如 (Chen yi ru)'s mom has had some major concerns about the church and some of the relationships in the church that were keeping her from allowing her daughter to be baptized.  But this last week, two of the Relief Society members helped us out and were able to clear things up for 陳怡如 (Chen yi ru)'s mom so that she understood the church's standards better. So, 陳怡如 (Chen yi ru) should be getting baptized here in about two weeks which is pretty exciting for her.

This week, we also were working hard to make sure that we were able to retain all of the people that we found two weeks ago, which has been a little hard because of there work schedules, but there are two that have been truly amazing.  The first is a freshman in college and the second graduated from college and is now working here in 香山 (Xiangshan). They both are really cool and are both keeping all the invites we have given them, which has been super cool. They especially have been keeping the invite to read the Book of Mormon, which has seemed to be one of the harder invites for people to keep.  They really are doing a great job and are both asking some really great questions.

As for the last miracle with investigators from the week, as we were contacting, we ended up contacting a former who, after about 10 minutes, I actually recognized from when I was back in 苗栗 (Miaoli). She was the 香山 (Xiangshan) Elders investigator, but we had an activity together and she attended the activity as well, so I had a vague memory of seeing here, but after talking for a few minutes, we were able to figure out it was from playing basketball with the 香山 (Xiangshan) Elders and she came and played too. After meeting with her for a few minutes, we set up a time for the next day and had an awesome lesson. We shared the Plan of Salvation with her, which went amazing. The previous Elders had shared the Plan of Salvation with her, but because she hadn't met with missionaries for a while, she forgot a lot of it and a few of the things got mixed up as well, so it was super nice to see how the things we had felt we should share with her during companionship study, were the exact things she needed to review.

So that was the bigger part of the investigators from the week. As for less actives, there is a lot of work to be done. Elder Huang's first area was here in 新竹 (Xinzhu), and he told me that he remember the 香山 (Xiangshan) ward having over 100 active members and that at that point in time they were really looking at building a new chapel for the 香山 (Xiangshan) members. Now though is another time, as we are less that half of what our ward was a year ago, so we are doing a lot of work with less actives right now. As for the best part of it all, was that we were able to get 6 less actives to come to church, which is amazing. The reason it is amazing is not because of the number 6, but the meaning of it. One of the trainings we had recently had to do with the sacrament and the meaning of it, which is to be able to renew our covenants with God. As for those less actives, there were two that had not been to church in over two months, which means that there were two months in which they did not have the opportunity to renew their covenants and be able to remember the sacrifice that Jesus Christ has made for each one of us. So, it truly was amazing to be able to see so many less actives at church this week and hope that they will be able to continue to come for the coming weeks.

As for some of the less actives that we met with this last week were Johnathan who is actually a Brazilian working here at his Pizza Parlor, Sister Ding who is Vietnamese, and Sister Yang. Just a note about Johnathan's Pizza Parlor, the pizza is AMAZING, but pretty pricey, so with a missionary budget, I only have eaten there once and got the cheapest pizza they had. But as for Johnathan, he really is doing great, the hardest part for him is the language. Since his Chinese is still progressing, a lot of the church stuff is hard for him to participate in, so we are working with him now to see if we can get him to attend the English ward in 竹北 (Zhubei), which is a little far, so we are looking for ways to help him get there. Sister Ding is also doing pretty well, she is struggling though with finding friends in church. Language is not a problem for her, but there are still those cultural differences that make things little hard. And lastly is Sister Yang, who actually just moved here from the 竹北 (Zhubei) Chinese ward just two weeks ago. She really is pretty awesome and has an amazing testimony of God, but because of work and a few other things, she is not able to come to church. But it truly was amazing to walk in and have her bearing testimony to us, so we looking to apply that testimony to keeping the commandments. The other thing we found out is that her daughter who is about 10 years old is not a member either and it sounds her mom wants us to start meeting with her as well.

So, to say the least, this has really been a pretty amazing week, that has flown by, along with the transfer. Elder Huang and I were talking, and realized we will be having interviews, next week Elder Huang has his final interview, and then the following week is transfers, which seemed to freak Elder Huang out a little because that is when he goes home.

Well, my time is pretty much up, thanks for all the prayers and letters! Hope you all have a great week!

我愛你們,

Love you,

柯長老

Elder Okeson

 

PS from the Mom :)

Todd's letter came late this past week and we had no clue why until the next day when I looked on FB and saw this picture!

 

Obviously Todd and Elder Huang had went to the Temple which would have changed his p-day.  This is a picture of Todd, Elder Huang and Julie Belnap.  Julie is a YSA that we loved having in our home and Branch.