Find Him Through Our Eyes

and a cool sunset pic

Another challenging week. A lot of zeroes were seen on our daily totals and it has been pretty rough trying to get people to set up with us. Because of all of the meetings we had this week our finding time was really cut down on some of the more effective days. So it was a hard week and unlike last week, we didn't see the miracle of reaching the mission weekly minimum goal. But we aren't discouraged! 

This is Wayne , my friend

In fact, we had something happen that hasn't happened while I've been here, until yesterday. An investigator, George, came to Church! (We had previously thought he ran away, but he came back from the hospital). It was very exciting. Even more so because it was the Stake Conference which was pretty far from our area.

George lives in an old folks home and his story is pretty interesting. His family is back in America managing the business George started. He flew to China to start his restaurant there, but became ill and had to fly back to Taiwan. And he has been stuck here ever since. They won't let him leave but he still has hope. I don't know if you remember what little I said about him, but he has been taking the lessons for a while and is starting to really understand and believe in this wonderful message. Because he is old he can't walk too far and has no scooter or car, so we had some great member support in getting him to and from the meeting. We haven't yet met with him to discuss what he thought but we are going up to his house tomorrow. 

a beat up house that was cool

The meeting itself was uplifting and wonderful. It was our stake conference which is not too irregular but it was made special by the speakers. We heard from the Cantonese area 70 that spoke in conference twice this week. Once on Saturday and the other during that meeting. Both times were very uplifting and were good for the missionaries because he grilled the members on member work haha! He was very funny and spoke in English with a Mandarin translator because his English is better than his Mandarin. It was really funny. 

We also heard from President and Sister Day. They were both awesome! Sister Day shared her conversion story and also had a translator and President Day is still really good at Chinese so he did his whole talk in Chinese! It was very awesome and he helped us learn how to better use some of our tools as members and missionaries. It was a really good meeting. 

Me ridin a dino.

But sadly after that meeting our five scheduled lessons were all canceled and that goal we might have reached was sort of dashed against the rocks. So it was a hard day. The finding was really hard and not as productive as we would have hoped but we did get to meet with Guo DX. He is Zhang DX's main chef at his restaurant. (I don't expect you to keep up on all these names because I barely can.) He came out and asked if he could pray with us for his dad. He then said a wonderful prayer and showed a lot of faith. He is interesting because he rarely shows interest but he did yesterday and it was quite wonderful. 

dropped my name tag into their sewer system and an old man helped me lift the grate and it was nasty but I got it out.

A fun experience we had yesterday was with a man named Huang DX. We had never met or seen this man before but last night he came up to us and with more than a little alcohol on his breath he said " I do not want to live anymore." He told us over and over again how he doesn't want to live and how his family wouldn't care. We even called his family and they said they didn't care if he died. It was really sad. As he cried, I looked into his eyes and the sorrow and despair was almost overbearing. We shared the Plan of Salvation with him and told him that he is a child of God and that he is loved. He cried and cried. We talked with him for about an hour and then he said he had to go and walked away. We didn't know if we would see him again but this morning we saw him walking and waved him down. He is alive and well and as I looked into his eyes I could see the love of Christ. 

We find ourselves being tested each day. Those trials will drive us and drive us till we are at the breaking point. We will break under the pressure and we will be unable to resist falling. Unless we rely on Christ. Christ is the only way we can overcome trials. Through his grace Brother Huang lived another day and was able to see the sun again, and through his grace I have found the strength to rise each day and to find those who are falling. 

The pure love of Christ never will fail us. As I have been learning to rely on him, I have found this statement to be more and more true.
A question I have been asking myself recently is, what do people see when they look into my eyes? I don't yet know the answer but I know each day we should try to help others find Him through our own eyes.
Elder Christensen