Monday July 1, 2013

                                                                                     Monday July 1, 2013

Dear Family,

This week was a fast one! Filled with way too many meetings. Half of our proselyting days were mostly filled with other things (and even among the other two we had some meeting things taking up a lot of our time)! But it was inspiring! 

We had a Zone conference on Wednesday, and I spent most of the meeting feeling the pressure of all I need to do, and the VERY LARGE difference between my responsibility and that expectation building up that I should be doing more. . . but then, towards the end, something changed (I'm not even sure what), and I stopped feeling like I was buried under all the things I couldn't do, and started feeling motivated to go out and be better (which was the point I am very certain). Then the next day we had a split with the temple sisters (sister training leaders I think?) . . . and their example was really inspiring. Those two things combined made me a lot more excited and motivated to talk to everyone and to work hard. Which is still easier said than done, but I have been a lot better lately at talking to everyone! Now I just need to start actually figuring out what to say when I talk, because so far I've usually just extended really blunt invitations to our English class . . . :)

This week the sister that the Elders gave us was baptized! It was neat-- she was so nervous before her baptism, it was kind of cute. But her testimony was really touching. I didn't understand all that much, or really much at all, but the sincerity and strength of her testimony was obvious, and it was so neat to hear. She already is an amazing and strong member. And don't worry, at church yesterday she gave us all the times during the week she is free and available to pei2ke4 (I think the translations is something like "accompany lesson" --pei2ban4 is the word used for companionship, as in companionship of the holy ghost, and ke4 is from ke4cheng2, which is lesson. So it means a member who accompanies a lesson.)! We will still be seeing her because of new member lessons, which will be fun.

Wow splits with the temple sisters!! I want to have that much confidence, faith, and . . . go-do attitude!! We went knocking on doors (my first time! we normally just contact on the street) and miracles! We went to a street right across from the church, which means missionaries have probably been there lots, and just started. The second house the lady let us in and we shared our family pictures, asked about her family and taught her to pray. She was wonderful! She told us she's lived there for 10 years, and we were the first missionaries she's let in! She loved praying for her family--we could really tell, because when Sister Sutton and I went back yesterday and asked her about it, she proceeded to demonstrate her prayer for us! She is so sweet. When we asked, she said she believed the Joseph Smith story . . . but you have to understand Taiwan and it's religious culture in order for that to make more sense. Because she also said she believes everything. She is Buddhist and for her and a lot of other people there is no conflict in believing lots of different religions. She said that we could come back, but she didn't want to waste our time either. Ah! That is so frustrating!

 We have another investigator, who is similar--she has been taught  through the plan of Salvation and is curious, reading the BOM and asking questions, but then still completely believing in her Buddhist beliefs and not seeing the conflict. I hope as we continue to meet and especially as we share more about Christ and the Doctrine of Christ the spirit will speak to them and more understanding will come.