The Elder Rodriguez Era Begins

First full week with Elder Rodriguez and it went amazing! We were super busy all week but still were able to find a lot of new people willing to meet with us. Last P-Day we went to an all-you can-eat barbecue and then the beach to celebrate Elder Rodriguez's first P-Day on his mission. He loved it haha. That man eats a lot!

We got the special opportunity to do service this week! It's very hard to find service to do for people in Taiwan because they feel like if they except someone's help it shoes that they are weak, but this week we went and pulled weeds for an Elderly person! 

This week we met a few different times with Mr. Gao. He is a 20 year old who just moved into our area and we've been helping him clean his house and also have been sharing with him the Gospel. We've only shared with him the first lesson so far but he seems to have a lot of interest and potential.

Last Wednesday we had Zone Conference with Elder Muers, a member of the Asia Area Presidency. It was a very instructive meeting and helped me think a lot on different things I can improve as a missionary, especially when it comes to working with members. I was also asked to give a short talk at the start of the meeting about 3 things I thought we could do or change to baptize more converts. It was a fun experience to give a talk in front of many missionaries, President Jergensen, and Elder Muers.

We taught Shaun, Tina, and Rosie this week again. They are still slowly progressing but this time brought up the concern of how we know President Nelson is a true prophet of the Lord. We didn't have time that lesson to talk to them too much about it, buy we told them we would next lesson and sent them a few different articles and talks to read before next lesson . It's a huge blessing to have just had General Conference and a living prophet. Their words and guidance help is day to day as individuals and families.

Bryan progressed amazingly this week. He was feeling pressure about baptism and expressed a few concerns, but Elder Rodriguez opened up to some amazing scriptures that resolved Bryan's concerns perfectly. He's now wanted to be baptized and continually working on developing his faith.

We were blessed with a few new people willing to meet with us this week that include, Mr. Su, Mr. Jiang, classmates Liao and Wang, Ross, and Ann. It's an amazing blessing that Elder Rodriguez is from the Philippines because we can talk to all the Philippino's that live here in Tagalog! It makes it super fun.

One of the best parts of the week is I got to go on exchanges with my MTC companion Elder Otani!! He is also my friend from BYU! It was so fun. It is crazy that all the way from meeting at college we are now serving together in the middle of no where on a small island haha.

Elder Smith 施德臻長老