Letters from Taiwan: February 24, 2013

Good Morning America!... I guess it's more like, good evening, but it's morning here! How's everybody back home? I feel like the week has gone by so fast! It's only been about 3 days since I last wrote home, so I don't actually have a whole lot to say! Some things I could tell you about... we have a new investigator this week, he's awesome! He's a really young guy and has PERFECT English, so the lessons are all in English! It's kinda weird teaching in English after using Chinese for a couple months! Well, the situation with him is that his parents want him to wait a while until he can get baptized... he wants to wait a while too... how long is a while? About 5 years!!! Ha, as much as I'd love to just change his mind and get him baptized as soon as possible, I know I can't do that myself. Our goal right now is to just teach and invite him to keep commitments and let the Spirit change his heart. He's doing so well already! We last met with him on Wednesday night and we asked him how the Book of Mormon reading was going... he was already in 2 Nephi 20!!! In 3 days he read about 100 pages in the Book of Mormon and he told us the entire story up to that point!! Isn't that incredible?? We've gone a couple weeks so far without having any steady investigators and it's been a little sad! It's definitely inspired me to go out and work harder, but at the same time it's really sad to watch people reject something that will save their lives!! So now, we've got 2 new (ultra awesome!!) investigators and it's all due to the blessings God has given us. We've been working harder and God has blessed us so much!

Yesterday, we were talking during companionship study about some previous investigators who wouldn't answer our phone calls anymore and trying to figure out what to do about them. We'd given them about a weeks break of us calling them, and we were trying to figure out why they wouldn't answer! Elder S left the room to go to the bathroom or something and I decided to pray. I just felt so sorry for those people who I'd grown to love and I was trying to figure out why they didn't want to talk with us! I just asked God to help us find some more Investigators and to help those who left to come back. Elder S came back and we continued talking... when all of the sudden, Elder S pulls out the phone and tries to call an investigator who hadn't answered a call in a month... all of a sudden his face changes and he says: "Elder... he just answered!! Wait.... I can't hear anything! NOOOoOO!" so he hung up and called again... and he answered again! He said he could meet with us in an hour! We met with him and found out that he'd been going through some seriously challenging times for the last month and he was in serious need of friends and comfort. We didn't even talk about baptism because he was just so sad! We prayed with him and we continue praying for him. I was so happy! I can't even describe the joy that I experienced as he answered the phone! It was so nice to see him again, but it was just as wonderful to know that he came because Heavenly Father was answering my prayers.

That's about all that happened in my 3-4 days since I've e-mailed last! I'm sorry it's so short! The rest of the week was very normal! It's been Power Week all week, which means we leave the door a lot earlier and have a specific goal for the day that we're supposed to focus on. That's been a blast!... and totally exhausting! haha not really, it's been really fun and I've seen a huge increase in our numbers because of it! On Friday, I went on exchanges with the Guiren elders and I met some of their less active members and investigators. On Saturday, we had a baptism to attend! The Sisters in my ward had an investigator being baptized Saturday night, and our recent convert was baptizing her! Our recent convert (we baptized him the 2nd Saturday I was here) has been SO SO active ever since his baptism and he was really excited to baptize someone... also he was a little bit terrified. We had to practice with him about 100 times and he was still so scared! He had to baptize her about 5 times before her hand would go in the water! He said the prayer great each time, he just couldn't get her all the way in! Eventually she went all the way under and they could come out, our recent convert was smiling bigger than the girl he just baptized was! He just looked so happy and it made me so happy to see him exercising the priesthood!

After the baptism, their was a little get together with food and all the members welcoming the newly baptized sister. I was picking some food out, and another one of the sisters' recent converts came up to me and told me to eat a piece of the pork. She kept telling me how much she loved it and how good it was, so I just took a piece and put it in my mouth! It was really good! A little spicy and very, very chewy! I asked if it was bacon and she started giggling... then all of her little friends cracked up as they told me it was pig ear! They were pretty surprised when I told them I liked it, and even more surprised when I got a plate full of it!

So that's the week! To end my e-mail, I'll share my short spiritual message! I was looking at my quote wall just this morning and I saw a scripture that I put up there about 2 months ago. It's in 1 Corinthians 13:11. It says: "When I was a child, I acted like a child, I spake like a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things." I've looked at that quote a LOT of times over the years. I first came across it about 2 years ago when my friend shared it with me and it's just always stuck with me! I was thinking about it today and I thought to myself, how do we become a man, and what "childish things" do we need to put away? In different cultures, there are different definitions of men. Sometimes, in order to become a man, you have to do some kind of special task or test. Sometimes you just need a beard! But what does it mean to God to become a man? I think of the story Elder Holland shared in the last conference, about the disciples on the sea of Galilee. Christ calls them Children even though, in their culture, they were very much men! A thought came to my head, that there is only one way to truly become a man. Through and only through our Savior Jesus Christ can we truly grow into manhood. In order to put away those Childish things, we must change. We must repent and turn away from our sins forever! That is what it truly means to become a man, and that was part of the call that Christ gave to His disciples that day in which He called them children. I can't say that that was His only reason for calling them Children, but I feel as though it could have been a lesson he was teaching them. I know we can all become the people God wants us to be if we will only put away those things which hold us back!

I love you all a ton! Miss you guys each and every day and you're always in my prayers!

羅正杰長老