Miracles!

Dear Everyone,

 Well all the miracles that we were waiting to happen... all happened this week!! This past week we met with S..., who was still having lots of concerns about being baptized. He knows that everything we've shared is true, and he really wants to be baptized, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't want to make a commitment with God that he might break in the future. He was especially worried that he might not always be able to come to church. He wanted to wait until he was sure he would never mess up and then he could be baptized. (Which we let him know was actually impossible.) He is a very....firm person when it comes to his opinions, and it seemed like there was no way we could help him out. We met with him again and had one of the most intense lessons I've ever had. We bore strong testimony, and the Spirit was really strong. We told him that we wanted him to write down a plan of how he was going to keep the Sabbath holy. And if an accident happened and he wasn't able to come to church, we asked him to write down how in that situation, he would still be able to keep it a special day. He wrote out all of his plan, and then right there we kneeled down and he prayed about the plan. As he was praying, I had a really good feeling that the plan he had written was good. After the prayer, the look of comfort and relief on S...'s face was immediately recognizable! He paused for a bit, and then said that he was ready and that he could be baptized in two days!! Huge miracle!!

  The baptism was in the afternoon so not many people were able to come, but it was still awesome. Elder Grisenti and I both gave talks at the service, and they went pretty well. Elder Grisenti was really nervous to have to give it in Chinese, but he did really well!

  We have been working really hard to build our relations with the ward members here. We want to be able to work really closely with them so that all of the friends that we bring to church will be able to have good friends and support from the ward so that when we leave they will still be comfortable coming. We've been working at this for a while, and also trying to be able to meet with the members' friends, but at first it wasn't really working. This last week however, we had two members in the ward come up to us and say that they had friends that wanted to learn about the gospel. One family had even set up a time to meet, and we are meeting with him!  More miracles!! I'm super excited!

  Our other investigators are still having some trouble coming to church. We really need to emphasize coming to church so they can have lots of support from the ward members and feel the atmosphere at the church. Unfortunately many of them just are not willing to make the sacrifice to get up early and come to church. Some of them are willing to come and so I'm happy for that!

  Last week we were able to go up to the zoo for a bit. It was super windy and raining a bit, but it was still a fun time. The zoos here are pretty cool. All the animals that we think are pretty normal, are super exciting here. For example...rabbits, raccoons, cows, bison, and horses were all big attractions. It was pretty funny to see how excited they were to see animals like that. 

  I'm glad that Dad and Eric had a fun time going to watch general conference and attending the Japan mission reunion! That's super fun...but you're right...too expensive to do every year haha. Well I love you all!! Have a fantastic week, and I will too!

Love Elder Stevens

Joyful Day!!