A Great Week!

   We had a pretty busy week last week. Lots of stuff has been happening. First of all, our investigator C...decided to be baptized! I'm so excited for her. She has been great and prayed about what we taught her about the restoration and she got an answer that she needs to continue in this direction. We still have more to teach her, but she is scheduled for Nov 22 to be baptized. Unfortunately she wasn't able to come to church with us yesterday, but there's always next week. 

 

   Our other investigator W... decided she wants to look into the church a lot more. She wants to start coming to church. She was supposed to go yesterday, but she had a migraine. So I guess we'll just have to go next week with her too.  At least J... and his two girls were able to come to church. The girls both had parts in the primary program and they did great. One of them gave a short talk about D... meeting with us and being baptized. It was really sweet. We are going to meet with D.. and J... this week again.  It should be fun.

 

   On a not so happy note, B..., a recent covert that has been having a lot of struggles, just took a turn for the worse. She'd been letting a lot of shady people associate with her and they just got busted yesterday for breaking the law. She's getting kicked out of her apartment, and very possibly will lose her newborn baby. She's a single mom, and her parents won't take her in so she's in a bad situation. We are really praying for her. 

 

  About the bunk couch, we don't actually sleep there all the time. We all have normal beds to sleep in but we also have like 5 couches in our house haha. The inspectors didn't approve of that many but I think they're fine lol. We all have a couch to sleep on at nights when we do use them. They're actually just as good as my bed because my bed is too short for me and my ankles hang over the edge of the bed. It's a bed though, and it is all mine.

 

  My eye is doing alright. I'm still using the drops and wearing my glasses but I haven't gone to see the eye doctor again yet. I'll probably just keep using the drops for another week or two and go see him next week, depending on if I'm going to leave for Taiwan at the end of this transfer. We just had interviews with our mission president and he says things aren't looking promising. He thinks I'll probably be here for at least another transfer and possibly a few more. At least I'll be able to finish up some more of the work we've been doing. I really want to go to Taiwan, but that seems like a distant thing now. Who knows what will happen.

 

  Oh we just got a new investigator. His name is C..., he's 17 and he moved here from Virginia and has been investigating the Church for a while. We met with him this morning for the first time and talked about the atonement, baptism, and the Holy Ghost. He said that he's a little hesitant about baptism because he wants to understand things first. He said he would continue to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. He's a great guy and I think that he will get an answer soon because he is very sincere. 

 

  Wow that picture of the yard sure looks different with all of the trees gone. That's too bad that all of them are dying. It looks a little barren now, but at least you were able to get them taken care of. Ian nice job this season with soccer. You're doing great! you've won a ton this year! And I'm glad to hear that Alexa hasn't crashed the car yet. I'm still a little nervous lol. 

 

  Oh one more thing. Tonight I'm going to be teaching two girls from Taiwan who are exchange students. A guy from Hong Kong is going to help me teach them and says he speaks Cantonese and only speaks a little Mandarin. I guess we're both going to have an interesting time haha. I'm excited, but a little nervous because my Chinese has gotten a lot worse since I left the MTC. Wish me luck though.

  I'll try to answer your questions. I don't really cook a lot. Maybe I make some eggs for breakfast or some sandwiches for lunch, but nothing special. We eat out a lot of the time. The members always give us dinner and a lot of times we go out for lunch and people pay for us to eat so that's always nice.

 

  I'm feeling more comfortable now with my responsibilities. It's a little different than I was expecting. We don't do as much teaching or as much in depth teaching as I thought we would have to do. We mainly just teach the basics and just build friendships with people around us and help them with what they need. I was thinking that we would be doing a lot more teaching of complicated doctrine, but we just gear all of the simple doctrines towards the different needs of everyone. It's a lot easier than I thought it would be. We're just sharing God's word and His love. It's the most basic teachings that we could possibly be sharing with people. If they're ready for it, they will realize that this is what they've been looking for. It's so nice how people can know for themselves that the gospel is true instead of relying on someone else. I'm really enjoying it. What the hard thing is, is finding people to teach and then having appointments fall through. No wonder other missionaries always complained about lessons cancelling. We want so badly to share the message with them and to help them, but we can't force them to listen. Overall I'm really enjoying myself and am feeling more comfortable. All I have to do is smile and be friendly to the people we talk to. It's not too bad.

  During our pday we got to go golfing and I did really well. I don't think I've ever played this well any time that I went with you, Dad. I was so happy. I got 4 pars, 3 bogeys, a double, and a triple. I should have even gotten 2 birdies, but I'm really bad at putting and ended up getting a triple on one haha. I learned a new driving technique so I was able to consistently hit the ball far and completely straight. If I can keep up how well I was doing then, I want to golf a lot more with you when I get back!

  The lesson with the Taiwanese girls went well too. They made us some food and we talked a lot and played some card games. It was really fun to be able to practice my Chinese a lot with them and I realized that it's a lot better than I thought it was haha. I could still use a lot of work though. Then we taught them a basic lesson on who God is, who Jesus Christ is, how they love us, give us families, and that we can pray to them. It was a lot for them to take in and we just left them a Restoration pamphlet to read and then to pray when they felt prompted to. I hope that maybe this sparked their interest and so when they go back to Taiwan they might talk to some missionaries there.  

 

   Well I love you all very much. Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Andrew 

 

 

Teaching Exchange Students From Taiwan