Baptism!!! In the...kiddie pool?
Braque's baptism was extra special because the Stake got permission to do it in WuLai, the river where the first baptisms ever took place in Taiwan! We were so excited to be able to do it there, but when we got there we found out that they just recently released water from the dam upstream. As a result, we weren't allowed into the water because it was too dangerous. So instead of doing the baptism in the river we did it in a kiddie pool right beside it haha. It was very memorable indeed!
This week we had spent a lot of time outside proselyting and had a difficult time finding new investigators. We were pretty frustrated because we were working harder than we ever had before but weren't able to get anyone to want to set-up. We decided we were going to get more specific with our planning so that the Lord would know exactly where we would be and when, so he can put those who are prepared to listen to the Gospel in our path. We planned and specific address of a member or LA to be at every 20 minutes or so. As we stuck to this plan down to the minute, we got 3 set-ups in one night! We went from hours of finding and no set-ups to 3 set-ups in about 2 hours. It is really cool to see the Lord place those in our path who he has prepared.
We've been meeting with Huang DX (Harry) for a couple weeks now, and when we started our 2nd meeting with him we asked him if he had a chance to read the Book of Mormon yet. He said, "Sorry, I've only read to chapter 17". Safe to say we were PUMPED that he read that much in just two nights. He's also come to church for all 3 hours every week since we've met him too. He is an extremely humble guy who comes from a not super well off family. He never went to high school because he had to drop out to work and earn money for his family. It is very humbling for me to meet so many people with such different backgrounds in life, and see how hard they work every single day.
It was also Mid-Autumn Festival this week! It's super fun because literally EVERYONE is outside of their house barbecuing. We went from house to house talking to families about the Gospel and they all kept feeding us! Everyone is so nice here, I'm so honored to be able to serve my mission in Taiwan and help so many people learn about Jesus Christ.
Two quick funny stories- a ton of grandmas here will gather the recycling from anyone who doesn't want theirs, and then take it to come recycle place for money. It's pretty funny to see a tiny grandma with a TON of recycling walking down the tiny street with cars and motorbikes flying by. Whenever we offer to help they never let us! However, this week we finally convinced some of them to let us help them! It was one of the highlights of my mission haha.
We also were riding across a bridge on our way home last week and there was a class of students, and their teacher shouted "There are the missionaries!" in Chinese as we passed by. I don't know if she knew we spoke Chinese, but we turned our bikes around to go talk to them and the entire class started going crazy because we were coming back to talk to them haha. Most of the people here love the missionaries and get super nervous when we actually talk to them haha. We got a fun picture with them and gave them about a minute long lesson about Jesus Christ!
Every minute of every hour of every day we work to help others come unto Christ and receive the blessings that come with it. To have the opportunity to help Braque enter into a covenant with the Lord was very special and helped me realize the importance of serving a mission. It's not easy, but there's nothing more rewarding.
Elder Smith （施長老）
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