Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Typhoon Day

Happy birthday Dad!!! 45. Good age. :) Most of our investigators are that age. 45 or 80 or 20. Those are the average ages, not a lot in between.
I'll be sending pictures tomorrow. I know it's been awhile, and you don't have ANY pictures from Dali yet. We are close enough to the mountains to be able to run up them in the mornings. That's nice. There are bigger, taller mountains behind the "hills" we run up. But the view from the top is fantastic. You can see almost all of Taizhong on a clear day. Dali is great!
INVESTIGATORS
We have 3 investigators right now who are two weeks away from baptism. Lin Huang Cheng has accepted everything. He even came up to us with this question, "I've forgotten to pray for 2 or 3 three days…what do I do?" He has accepted everything including the Law of Tithing. But now we need parent permission for him to be baptized and his mom isn't too fond of the church. So, time to keep praying!
Joie. It sounds like "Joy". He is PURE GOLD. I ran into him at the McDonald's one day when we had another lesson up there. He told me he was Christian, and we had to get to another lesson, so he left, and we parted ways. I should've got his information there, but we were in a hurry, so we didn't. I repented. :) Because about a week later, I was at an intersection hunting for someone to talk to while waiting for Elder Durham to finish up his phone call. I turned around at that intersection and came to talk to Joie. I recognized him and he recognized me. His english is amazing, so he will usually only speak english to us. But we will still speak Chinese to him. Most of the time. He asked us if we could go to his house with him, and we followed him to his house and had the most GOLDEN first meeting with an investigator I've ever had. 5 years ago, he met missionaries and was meeting with them. He already reads the Book of Mormon every day, prays every day, and keeps most of the commandments. The only problem is he lives with his fiancee. But he already believes in everything, and is unbelievably willing. I'll tell you an example in a minute. He calls Elder Durham "Mr. Many". Elder Durham's Chinese name is Duo Zhanglao. That "Duo" means 'many' in English. Dork. Chinese people are really funny. When Joie gets baptized, he will be the first person that I found and got baptized. So cool!!!
Yesterday was "Typhoon Day". If both of my parents weren't being normal, than they weren't keeping an eye on the western Pacific. But if my Mom and Dad are my Mom and Dad, then they know about the Typhoon. (Note from the editor: We didn’t know about the typhoon. Don’t tell on us!) Well, it was lame. Way too hyped up. Saturday night was confusing because we had no idea what was happening with church the next day, and it was driving us crazy because our investigators needed to come to church! All three members of the Bishopric had different announcements for our ward, the stake had a different announcement along with our mission. Hello!!! At that time, it hadn't started raining or being windy, AT ALL. And they already decided to cancel church. Silly Taiwan people. Trust God, keep the commandments, or, at least, do your best, and Heavenly Father would have provided a way to go to church.
Sunday morning came and we were frantically calling our investigators to try to get them to come to church. No one would come, and our official ward meeting was cancelled. But, luckily, Taiping ward's Bishop is You Banfa and held a small sacrament meeting. We rode our bikes an hour and a half to get to church (twice the time), in unbelievably powerful wind (no rain). It was almost impossible to ride our bikes in that wind. BUT. Flashback--
Our bishop the night before called from the Czech Republic to affirm that there was no church. The stake president confirmed that, but Taiping still had a meeting. Plus my bike sprung a flat Saturday night, and we had no time to get a new inner tube, and the next day was Sunday, and we needed to get to the church, so we borrowed the Bishop's wife's bike. Short, female bike with "Batman" on the side. But bum hurt all day. Whatever. It was fun. The wind would make it near impossible to make progress on the bike, and literally pushed us back sometimes. If we had a tail wind, we went faster than we could handle, and the brakes could stop. That was a little scary, but SO fun!!!
We made it to the church, and it was the only church having a meeting in the entire city of Taizhong. So most of the ward was missionaries yesterday. The assistants came over from Beiqu to attend, and Elder Durham and I had 4 investigators get to church. YEEHHAAAWWW!!! YOU BANFA!!! I was SO happy. Heavenly Father TOTALLY answered our prayers. Joie brought his friend and older sister to church with him, and Lin Huang Cheng got a ride from Shi Baba to get to the church. Shi Baba also brought 4 other members of Wufeng ward to the church. So we had amazing members at the church on Typhoon day, plus 4 investigators to church. All progressing. Unbelievable miracle. And because Joie brought his sister (who also brought her little bunny, that was fun) and his friend, we were able to give his sister a baptismal goal for three weeks from now (just met her yesterday), and his friend was referred to other missionaries in Pingdong (his friend was outside smoking at the end of the meeting, lol). Joie's sister is amazingly willing, and Joie's fiancee is coming next Sunday.
Shi Baba is the all famous member in the mission. Everyone knows who Shi Baba is. His name "Shi" means 'to bestow, give all, big heart". Which totally emulates his personality. He had to meet with President Hoer to figure out a compromise on how often he can feed the missionaries and give them stuff. He's a very poor man, and will use other people's money to give food and things to the missionaries. So the rule is that he can't give the missionaries anything, and he can only take us out to eat once a month. Lol. He's super smart, and will figure out ways to get you to take his food. He sends other people to give it to us, or he tells other people to buy stuff for us, and he pays them under the table later. Dork. Lol.
Anyway, yes, the Typhoon Sunday was a miracle day like any other day, and my bike still has a flat, I was able to get a few letters out last week, I'll probably have time today, three people are getting baptized in two weeks, one in three, two more in four, maybe three, and I am UTTERLY EXHAUSTED. My Chinese is flying, even though I feel completely inadequate, people understand me, they talk to me normally, and they don't try to speak english to me unless they see me and know that I'm white. And have I mentioned that the people here in Taiwan and Asia are the nicest people? I don't care how often I'm rejected, at least they reject me in nice ways. White people culture is completely different. Asian culture (at least in Taiwan) is all about "saving face". We as missionaries can't allow people to "lose face" or they simply will NOT meet with us. It's so funny sometimes. Yes, we run into super mean Asians, but those ones are ALWAYS just having a bad day. Giving people face is a beautiful thing, and works miracles. You could sit there for 10 minutes arguing about who is more handsome, or cute [yes, guys call other guys cute here, it's not weird in this culture (I'm not part of this culture, so it's completely weird to me, when a Taiwanese man, like Joie, calls me cute in English. Saying it in Chinese is fine, but please, guys just don't call other guys cute in english, SO weird)]. Lol, I love the people though. They are wonderful.
Anyway. It's just been good lately, and there is a lot of success, and endless prayer. Thanks for all the support.
 I'm unbelievably envious of the other boys in the ward on their missions and my other friends. I feel like such a poor missionary when I read Elder Byers' letters. Trainer in less than 6 months?!! WOW. Future assistant ba. Elder Seamons is the humblest missionary I've ever heard of, and his focus on his investigators has motivated me to do better about that. Elder Brimley seems to be enjoying his experience, and has the you banfa attitude every missionary should have. He motivates me to stop worrying so much and just get back to work. Even when rejected, or investigators stop progressing. Be sad. But don't lose focus because of it. The other Elders that are in the field with me are already way better than I was in the MTC, and are storming the field with their testimonies which I've felt pretty hai hao about in my own mission. I am going to love hearing all the stories and the miracles performed and enacted through these, my brothers in the faith. One of my greatest hopes and desires is to have the Alma experience in Alma 17:2-3. I can already imagine the joy I'll feel at that point when Dustin comes back from his mission and we're all home safe, sound, and successful, having served the Lord well, and are all still brothers in the Lord. I pray every day for all of them.
This church is true, and if anyone has any doubts, attend the next baptism in your area, ask your Bishop to give you time to share your testimony in Sacrament meeting, or call the missionaries over to discuss your concerns. If you're concerned, so is God. But He's concerned for your welfare. He loves you. He spends every waking minute thinking about you. Since He doesn't need sleep, that means He is thinking about you all the time. He KNOWS how you feel. TELL Him. And you will feel Christ's arms around you as the Spirit whispers, "It's ok. It'll be ok. Just breathe. I love you." Mom.... why do those words remind me so much of you? I hear them every day...

-Elder Carter

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