Letter # 14 with 20 new pics!

Hey, Ni hao Family

Transfers came around and I am still in the huge city Banqiao. I have a new companion. He is native Chinese who doesn't speak any English. (This could be an interesting transfer.)
His name is Elder Yo. He seems like a really cool guy so I am more excited than worried.

Well I don't have like any time today so I will just share an experience I had from this week. For the last few months I have been praying a lot asking to love the people we serve. I feel like my prayer was answered with a specific experience.
We were on our way to a lesson and we stopped at a traffic light. I started talking to a guy on a
scooter next to me. I only had the chance to talk to him for maybe 15 seconds. But he rejected everything I told him. He quickly drove off as soon as he could. Now we do this every day all day so I should be pretty used to this by now but for some reason this one was different. For the
first time I felt true sorrow that he was not going to have a chance to be blessed by this gospel. I know that sounds like a pretty normal feeling but it was something I have never felt before. It was a really weird feeling I had. It was a good experience because it gave me a really good vision of purpose. These people need to hear this, and they need this gospel. This is where true happiness is.

The scripture for this week is one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon. Moroni 7.
It has an amazing statement at in the last verse. It talks about praying with all the energy of heart to be filled with the love of Charity.

Okay gotta run sorry this week was a short letter. Love you all!

Letter # 13

Well another week in the Taiwanese summer down! The work is going fantastic right now. Our area is totally exploding. All of our investigators are progressing and we see miracles in finding people everyday on the street. We are looking to be having 4 baptisms next month. That will be huge for our ward. I found out big news as far as our companionship goes. I found out my companion will not be extending so he is going home next week. This transfer was only five weeks because of the whole new mission president thing. So I will be emailing this coming Monday, and getting my new companion. So it looks I will be staying in Banqiao for another transfer, and doing the same thing I did last transfer with showing someone around a new area and pretty much all that stuff. I am exhausted from last transfer. But I am totally up for it, I
kinda hope I get a native Chinese companion. One because I think the area really needs it and second my Chinese will get better a lot faster.

Well funny story from last week. One of our investigators (30 years old) took us to his house. He wanted his parents to warm up to us and trust the church before he told them he wants to be baptized. His parents made us a completely vegetarian meal. Come to find out they are like vegetarian missionaries and go about preaching against eating meat. They went on to tell us it was like an abominable sin or something. Things were kind of awkward for the first little bit.
But the funniest thing she said was that she believed in Jesus Christ but believes that he was a vegan. She went on to talk about when Christ performed the miracle of feeding the thousands. She said that when no one was looking he turned it all into vegetarian fake fish. I was trying so hard not to laugh. I just put my head down and bit my lip. Anyway things are going really good.

The language is still getting there. I feel like things have progressed fast with it but my grammar and the way I speak needs a lot of work. There is one thing I have gained my testimony of out here. That is that boys are called to exactly where they are supposed to be. There have been certain things for me personally that I needed to see and to face to start becoming the person the Lord wants me to be. I love TAIWAN. Best mission in the world.

Okay scripture for this week is Moroni 10:5. It is a scripture we probably use everyday. But it has been on my mind a lot this week. That promise is amazing. That by the power of the Holy Ghost we can know the truth of all things, especially receiving our own personal answers to things.

Okay love you all so much.
God be with you.

Wei Zhang

Lao

Letter # 12

...And another week has gone by. They are just flying now like its nothing. The last week was fantastic. We are seeing so much success. We have three people with baptismal dates planning to get baptized in July. There should also be two more people added on to that number by the end of this week. I am really hoping to see 5 Baptisms in the month of July. I know that is a really big goal. But all of our investigators are progressing really fast and keeping commitments.
One of the people I told you about two weeks ago is the Father of the Lin family. The one I met at the convenience store. He has completely given up drinking. Things are so much better for the family. He is planning on getting baptized in July. The Wife is a little more difficult because her Chinese is not so good. She is Filipino so we have to go get a translator for her and then teach the lessons. But that family has two kids. One is Ten and the other Four. We taught the ten year old girl last night. That was a little difficult but we used a lot of pictures to help her pay attention. They are the cutest kids. Right behind my nieces and nephews of course!

I know I say this every week but it is getting hotter and hotter. If there is any point in the day where I am not completely drenched with sweat, there is a serious problem. I am almost just getting used to being hot and miserable. ha ha. Seriously, the weather here is so weird. Yesterday we were dying of heat and then it got dark all the sudden and got hit with this huge rain storm with tons of wind and stuff. It was bad. But an hour later it cleared completely
up and went back to being blistering hot. The two pictures of me in the rain are from yesterday in that storm. Its not a joke either, the first picture there wasn't any wind and then the second one I was yelling at him to take the picture. It was so funny. Well there is one plus to all the hot weather. Every single house we go to they give us cold fruit. Pineapples mangos papya. Awww the fruit here is unbelievable.

So the scripture for this week is Moroni 10:7. I have shared it a lot this week. It talks about how all things are possible by faith. According to our faith we can do all things.

Well I love you all so much things are going really well.
Your in my prayers.

Wei Zhang Lao

6 new pics

Letter # 11

...and so ends the busiest week of my entire life.

Well, I got a new companion ten days ago. He is an older missionary. He goes home in just a few months. It was hard because he came into the area I was already in. So I was the only one who knew anything about the area. Wow. It was so hard for the first couple of days. I don't think I have ever worked harder in my entire life. We had to in order to get this area up and running. We saw 7 brand new investigators and a whole family coming to church. We also taught 22 "sit down" lessons. I haven't seen this in my entire mission. We were blessed so much with success. I know that the lord blessed us because of the hard work. I liked having things on my shoulders. It really pumped me up, doing this, and wanting to do it the right way. My new companion is awesome. We teach really well together and our investigators our really progressing - but still need a lot of work.
So the sun is really starting to cook me. I have the nastiest tan line from our shirts. My face and neck is tan until it gets have way down my neck and then pale white.
Ha! its kinda funny.
Oh and we also decided to try to do a deep cleaning of our whole apartment. Now missionaries have been in there for years and I don't think it has been touched with anything close to a broom since then. You would not believe some of the organisms we found living in corners. I swear there is a new species alive and well.
Other then that, I want to talk about the new family that we have.
We met the Father at a convenience store. He came up to me while I was buying a drink and he had tears in his eyes. He just starting going off about all these problems he has been having. I could also smell the alcohol on is breath. I didn't really understand everything he said but we were able to teach him really quickly outside of the store. We have met with him and his family 5 times since last week. The wife is Philippino and speaks better English than she does Chinese. (That gets hard a lot of the time). When we started meeting he was drunk at one of our appointments, It was crazy. The wife told us she really needed our help. I am not going to lie I was really nervous. I have never seen anything close to this in my life. She also told us that he gets violent when he is drunk too. The kids are the cutest. One is a 4 year old boy like Zeke and Grant. But really long story short they came to church and he promised not to drink anymore. We call him everyday to make sure he is still doing it. Since the other night he hasn't drunk anything. We are really happy. We are going to try to give them baptismal dates on Friday. I can't even begin to say how busy we were this week but this was just one of the crazy stories.

So this weeks scripture is 2 Nephi 32:9. It really expresses the importance of prayer. We shared this a lot this week. Love you all thank you so much for your prayers. I can feel the help.

Wei Zhang Lao