We are working hard and really have seen a lot of miracles. We have a family that we met about 2 weeks ago. At first they were only interested in English class. The mother is really concerned about her kids and what they do in life so she is really stressing them learning English. She even asked us if she could pay us for extra classes (which of course we declined, explaining our rules for that type of thing.) She was, however, willing to let us share our message even though it she thinks she will never convert. But this week there was a lot of change and up to this point they have met with us several times, all have a personal copy of the Book of Mormon(except for the father) and the 13 year old is already in Alma! He loves reading it! They even came to Church this week! What a miracle!
We also were able to see Lin Cheng Rong, the ten year old who was baptized last week, confirmed and it went awesome! He is young and it is hard for him to recognize the spirit so we will work hard until he can gain that testimony. In the special training this week I learned a lot. I realized that endure to the end is sort of broad. In the special training we were given a more in depth meaning which was "endure with deepening life-long conversion." I hope we can both experience this kind of conversion.
We met with our friend Adnaan, who is from India but speaks fluent English, Chinese and his native tongue. He is a really deep thinker and shares his views often with us. I always leave feeling enlightened and that I have learned something new. His background is incredible! He has seen the worst horrors in the world when it comes to racism, war, and death. He was raised in it, yet he still acts like a goof ball. He does not like how religion separated people like it severally does in India. Yet, he likes when the missionaries come :) We often go to his restaurant to clean and mop his floor and then talk to him about his life. He gives us all sorts of cool cookies and biscuits. So good! He calls us his angels because he always feels happier and something good always happens when we come. It is really cool. He shared this story with me the other day:
"There once was a God that loved his people so he would serve them. But they kept asking for money and other worldly things and it became too much, so he fled to the mountains to escape but they found him and wouldn't stop begging for wealth so he fled to the middle of the ocean but they got boats and found him there too. He eventually could think of no place on the earth to go to escape their greed so he fled into each persons heart. And there he stayed because no one ever looks into their own heart."
He said that he feels God is in our hearts because he would see all of his past neighbors ring their loud bells and chant to get blessings from their Gods and he figured the Gods couldn't get away because they were so annoyed so they hid in the human heart because no one searches there. Pretty deep haha. He is not sure who God is but he does pray because he believes in a power at least. He said when he prays with us he feels different. This is so cool!! When he prays, he talks about how God keeps answering his prayers for work and whenever they are answered we usually show up a few minutes later. He struggles in finding time to read, and come to church but he has already felt that this message is true and we are in the midst of teaching him the Plan of Salvation. It is hard to get him to read. We have known him for a while, too. Please pray for him, because he is probably the most open hearted man I have ever known and he feels different when we teach him. I love that man!
Thursday was miraculous because after a suuuper long training in Taipei (which was fun) we were heading back on the bus late that night and were worried we would not make our appointment with our less active friend, Shi Hong Yu and his family so we called them to say we had to cancel. To my surprise our bus grew two pairs of rocket jets so we made it back quickly. We called Brother Shi but his dad said not to worry about it and that we can meet later. He did not sound interested in meeting. Ohhhh man I felt so bad. But a few minutes later Brother Shi called back and said he had convinced his dad and they were on their way to meet us at the train station. We ate with them, reviewed Brother Shi's feelings when he was baptized. Then testified about how this gospel will help Brother Shi so we asked the parents to support him in coming to church. They are pretty familiar with the church. Like very familiar with the church! So they happily agreed. They support him so much.
That Saturday we played basketball with them and then Sunday after church we got a call from his dad asking if we could pray for his son because he was about to test into college and was too nervous. Ohhhh yeah!! We prayed with him over the phone and talked about how God will be on his side taking the test with him. He then got pumped for the test and it went smoothly. His dad called back and thanked us a lot. Then invited us to come over to eat and we sure did. We enjoyed their company Brother Shi brought an old translation of the Book of Mormon he got from his sister thirty years ago. Haha he was so dang proud of that book. We were looking at it and he kept pointing to the book and saying "30 years.....30 years......30 years.,.....30 years" like ten times haha. So guess what we did? We asked if he had read it and then recommitted him to read it with his son! We will hopefully be meeting with them each week to review. They are a wonderful family.
Love,
Elder Henry David Christensen
p.s. I think Joseph Smith is so awesome. Nowadays the trials are very different, but the message still stands that no matter what God will not leave us. He will hold our hands and comfort us. One of our investigators is worried that she won't be able to find someone in the Church to marry so we are trying to teach her that God provides a way for all things.
I love you and miss hanging on your neck while you try to type stuff.
I took this picture to show off my haircut. The lady took a razor all the way up the side of my head and said "is that good?" so needless to say my hair is short again :(
BEAR TESTIMONY EVERYDAY TO ONE PERSON!!
Thank you for your prayers I can feel them. I am so grateful for you! Thank you!
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