Letters from Taiwan: September 29, 2013

Hey guys! End / Start of yet another week full of miracles!! Wow, this week was really something!!... but I'll get to that in a bit!

Alright! Well, it's been such a great week! Having a new missionary really does bring so many miracles! Everything we've been doing lately has been completely revolving around Faith and Diligence! We've been praying a LOT, we've been working really hard, and we've just been having a great time as we do it! This week, we met 4 New investigators, 2 of which have goals to be baptized in October, and we're continuing to find more and more prepared souls! I can't even tell you all how happy and humbled I am to see these great answers to my prayers!! When Elder C joined me in Daya, having just baptized, we had ZERO investigators. That first week was spent contacting every day... this last week has been spent teaching every day! We've grown so close to many of the families in the ward and we've found a good amount of investigators to add to our teaching pool!

One of our favorite families in the ward, is a family of 11 that lives on the outskirts of our area in a mansion... seriously! We've visited them 14 out of the 17 days that Elder C has been here! They used to be VERY less active, but they've been coming to church for the last month now, and they're loving every minute of it! The dad is now preparing to receive the Melchezidek Priesthood, and they're getting ready to help their little 7 year old get Baptized next month! Since we have the Zone Leaders in our area (we share the whole area), we've been working together to save this family, and we love them so much! We enjoy going to their house to eat dinner and to play with the kids and to share the Gospel with them! I love each time we round the corner to their house and hear the 9 little screams of: "The Elders are here! The Elders are here!" and then they'll come sprinting out, jumping on our bikes and trying to help us take our bags inside! It's one of those tender mercies to have a family treat us so well!

We had a really great Zone conference this week and had a great chance to see a lot of missionaries that I haven't seen for a really long time! I probably haven't told you, but do you remember Young from my high school? He's the one that was in Dan's ward and he was from Thailand? He's in our mission and he's now the Assistant to the President along with one of my old Zone Leaders, the super buff Singaporean guy! We get to go on exchanges with them tomorrow, so we're pretty stoked for that!

Yesterday we met an absolutely GOLDEN investigator... every question I asked him, he would answer with so much feeling and longing to learn! He's been to church quite a bit up in Taipei, and when he graduated he came back down to Daya... now he just wants to get baptized! So we set a date for October with him, and he's going to start meeting with us regularly so that we can help him hit that goal! We're so excited for him!

My Spiritual thought for the week has to do with Crocodiles... I don't know if any of you have seen the video that President Boyd K. Packer did with the "Spiritual Crocodiles" but it's really an awesome video. It talks about how when water buffalo will go to drink, the crocs will sneak up on them and then pull them into the water. There are times in our lives when we think we're too thirsty to resist that water, times when we think that we must break the commandments in order to have fun or to get the rush that we want... I want to tell you that we need not approach those dangerous waters in order to quench our thirst for fun and adventure. There are dangerous things lurking in those waters of Sin and Apostasy! We won't see what or where they are for the most part, but I tell you that they are there and it's better for us to do are utmost to avoid those waters and the demons within. Go to church, pray, read the word of God. These things will keep us away from Sin and will prepare and strengthen us so that we will be able to avoid every temptation!

I love you guys! You're all my favorite! ;) Have an awesome week!!

Elder Noll