Week 94 - Busy Week of Miracles!

大家好!

This week has been such a blast. Elder Lin and I have been able to see so many miracles and have really been able to learn so much. We have seen the Lord preparing so many people and even help pick the area up to something we never expected in just a week. So, there is a lot to share from the week.

To share a little about the week, we are in the rainy season. Last night when we were at the 鐘家庭 (Zhong Family)'s home, he told us that it would be raining until Saturday, which means the flood of investigators are still coming. Something about finding in the rain, we have truly found so many prepared people and even helped a few of our current investigators overcome their concerns so that this next month they can get baptized! So, right now in the area, we really do have a lot of people that are preparing to get baptized.

As for one of the biggest miracle from the week, it had to be church. We worked on inviting everyone we saw and met with to come to church this week, and God worked his magic. We ended up having eight investigators at church, which was a little bit of an overload for us, as we were trying to balance getting to talk with them and also getting member to meet them as well. But we were so thankful that miracle God gave us, and are looking forward to this next week with even more enthusiasm.

Another miracle we had this week was actually with one of our investigators on baptism. Our investigator pool right now consists of a lot of long term investigators, and we felt like a large majority of them are ready to take the step towards baptism. 陳昀(Angel) is one of them. She is a 20 year old college student who has been meeting with missionaries for over a year now, and the previous missionaries had set a goal with her to be baptized on June 25th of this year. Both Elder Lin and I felt like that was way too long. We prayed before meeting with her that day and felt inspired to reset the her date for April 9th. As we talk with her about baptism and some of the concerns she had, we were able to share some scriptures with her and re-invite her to baptism. She accepted and then shared how for the last couple of weeks she had felt like June was way to far away, but for some reason, she had already been thinking about April 9th. Elder Lin and I just turned to each other and smiled. We knew that the spirit really had guided us in resetting her baptismal date and we are super excited to be able to help her take those last few steps towards baptism!

Another miracle was 蔡欣彤 (Katie), who is a former from 2 years ago, who started coming to English class this last week. We met with her, and she is so prepared. We talk to her about baptism as well and asked her about her concerns and she said she said she wanted to wait til she was a little older, but that she did want to get baptized. We felt inspired to share about the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and she pretty much set her own baptismal date for the end of next month. So that was another miracle we saw.

As for two more miracles we saw were through referrals. One was 陳皇旗 (Ken). We received the referral Friday night and set him up for Saturday night. We had no clue what we were walking into, or any details on his background. We arrive at McDonald (Yes, we meet at McDonald a lot, the ice cream is cheap ), and 陳皇旗 (Ken) walks right up to us like we are long time friends. We say we want to start with a pray and started explaining how to pray, and he say, "Ya, I know." So at this point, we know he has prayed with missionaries. After praying, we ask him what his background is. He then shares how he lives next to the chapel in 台南 (Tainan) and has been meeting with missionaries for 2 years and just moved up here for university. He has quite drinking tea, coffee and smoking and is now just waiting for his parents approval to get baptized. That was the first cool referral. The second is 石佳平 (Claire). She was actually a referral from Elder Taylor, who was in my last district. He contacted her on the street and found out she lived in our area. She has a friend who lives in our ward, but who is currently serving a mission in the Toronto mission, but has already be introduced a lot to the church through her friend's example. So, we have started meeting with her as well and looks like she will be getting baptized during the middle of next month. So, next month is going to be quite the baptizing month for the 丹鳳 (DanFeng) ward! We are so excited and happy and thankful for the blessings and miracles that God is putting in our paths here in this area.

As for the last little thing that I have been able to learn from my companion is about leaving little thank you notes at members houses. We have seen members open up to us a lot this last week and even saw 3 members give us referrals that have now become investigators, one of which is 鐘家庭 (Zhong Family)'s son's girlfriend who we will be meeting with again next Sunday to share the gospel; and a potential one for this next week.

So, overall, this week was just full of miracles. And SOOOO many prepared people. So, moving in to the area has been a pretty fun experience. Still working on learning all the road names and all the member's names, but it is all coming pretty fast. Thank you all so much for the emails and prayers! We are really seeing the result of those prayers!

我愛你們,

Love you,

柯長老

Elder Okeson

P.S. As for a little more about my companion. He's family is a convert family. He was baptized when he was 14 with his parents and three other siblings (two older brothers and one older sister).

Elder Lin taking two calls at once!