The General gets baptized!

Highlight of the week was that our 92 year old investigator, Ye Chang Tong 葉昌桐, got baptized! I’ll quickly explain his background. He is the former Chief Naval Officer in the Taiwanese Navy, and later became the adviser to the President of Taiwan. He’s as famous as people get in the Navy world. His wife is a member and has been waiting years for him to be baptized. In 1967 he was in Rhode Island at a Naval school, and he had a classmate who was a member of our church. He saw one day his classmate was only drinking water and he got curious. After multiple conversations with his friend, he was astonished that a religion would be able to tell people to not drink coffee, tea, and alcohol, and people would actually do it! After he graduated, he decided he wanted to learn more, so he drove from RHODE ISLAND to Salt Lake City to visit the temple. After driving for 12 days, he arrived...only to be told that he cannot enter into the temple because he is not a member. Fast forward 52 years...and he has decided to be baptized. Our mission president, President Peterson baptized him. He invited tons of friends from his time in the Navy to his baptismal service, so there were over 100 people at the service, and many of them were former captains and generals in Taiwan’s armed forces! There’s much more to his story and testimony, but not enough time to write it all down.

Eva set a baptismal date with us this week! She is a member referral and in the lesson this week said that she wants to be baptized before she turns 20, which is at the end of May! She has only been meeting with us for a week, but has already read all the way to 2 Nephi.

One of the coolest miracles of my whole mission happened this last week. I was on exchanges with the West Zone Zone Leader, Elder Bateman. We were contacting people on our way to the nearby college campus. We contacted one young man named Scott. When we first contacted him he said he had no interest, so we said goodbye and road off...we thought nothing of it. About 20 minutes later, as I am sitting down in a Family Mart convenience store, Scott slides into the chair across from me and says, ’’I decided I want to listen’’. This young man chased us down 20 minutes on our bikes to try and catch up to us because he had a sudden feeling that he needed to listen to us. We sat down with him for about 20 minutes and taught him of the Plan of Salvation. He came to church yesterday and loved it. He is meeting with us again this next week. I know the Lord is preparing everyone to listen to the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. All we need to do is open our mouths and let Heavenly Father work miracles through us.

Elder Smith 施長老