Halfway Through Training!

This week we had a ton of ups and downs. Are most progressing investigator, Wu Zhen Yuan had an amazing lesson about the Baptismal Interview Questions. He didn't have a problem with any of the questions and had an amazing personal understanding of repentance and what it means to be baptized. We were super excited for him and planned on him being baptized this coming Saturday. Out of nowhere, the day before his Baptismal Interview...he blocked our number. We haven't heard from him since and it really took the wind out of our sails. However, we were determined to keep pressing forward and not let it get us down. 

We had a ton of amazing lessons this week and met a bunch of cool new people. We ended the week with a total of 6 new investigators! It was a super rainy week, which meant a lot of finding/proselyting in the rain. Just about everyday we got home SOAKED. It's super fun to ride and just talk to people about Jesus Christ. The Taiwanese people hate the rain, so they always freak out about the fact that we're out in it with nothing to protect us haha. We have a lot of lessons set up this up-coming week and had a lot of new investigators last week, but it's hard to get them to stick. We're working on how we can keep people's interest in the Gospel and help them see the blessings of the Gospel. I'm getting decent at understanding what people say but I don't ever really know how to respond haha. It's especially tough because for language study they have 3 books. Book A, B and C. Book A is only Gospel terms/phrases and you have to have it all memorized and pass a test in order to get the next book. Book B is regular everyday speaking words, and Book C is reading characters. And even better, the test to pass off Book A got SUPER hard right before I got here, so there are people who have been here for 3 or 4 transfers and still haven't passed it off. I'm going to try to pass it off before training ends but we'll see how that goes.

We met one really cool family this week on the street, we were walking out of a Family Mart and started talking to a family whose Dad is from America. They have 2 little girls and they were all super nice. After talking for a few minutes we found out that the Mom is Mormon too! She is Less-Active but joined the Church about 6 years ago. We set up with them to all come to Church next week and are hoping we can get their Dad interested in the Gospel! The two little girls were super sweet and were worrying about my standing in the rain so they kept holding up their umbrellas above my head for me so I wouldn't get wet. Highlight of my week!

We said bye to Willy this week because he was headed off to college. We have been meeting with him for about 2 months now and he's really enjoyed meeting with us but ended up just not wanted to commit to something this big while starting his last year of college. We all left on really good terms which was really nice because normally it ends with our investigator just blocking our number haha. It was sad to see him go because we've gotten super close over the past month.

Taiwan is amazing! I fall more and more in love with the people every week. This week I had a HUGE Taiwanese dessert with about 8 other missionaries, pig blood, and 'hot-pot' at a place that also comes with all you can eat ice cream and rice...Good thing I sweat so much here or I'd gain so much weight haha.

Get out and serve someone this week! The Church is true and the only way to truly know is to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know for yourself. Love you all!

Elder Smith （施長老）