This week has been awesome! I love Mingjian! I love Elder Gathright! And I love being a missionary! So, let me tell you about it. First, Elder Gathright. He is 20 years old. He's from Japan. I think the quickest way to describe who he is is to tell you to go watch the movie Elf. Yep. He's just supper happy-go-lucky and goofy, but at the same time, he's super focused on his purpose as a missionary, he has a super strong testimony, and he's willing to work hard! I don't think I could ask for anything else. This past week, we've worked really hard. We did something called power week this last week. Basically, we'd leave the door early every day and give 110% all day. Each day also had a challenge incorporated into it. We didn't accomplish any of the challenges, which I was pretty bummed about, BUT, we still worked hard and got lots of good stuff done!
Alright, about Mingjian. The branch is pretty tiny, but SUPER spread out. It takes about an hour by bike to get from town to town and there are members in all of them. This past Sunday, there were 20+ people at church, but almost half were guest speakers from the stake and their families. As far as people who actually live in Mingjian, there were only about 12-13. But, all those members are SUPER strong! The people I've met and got to know so far are our RCs, the Lin family, and Brother Liao. We have 3 RCs. One is Sister Lin. She's originally from Indonesia, but she came to Taiwan and married a Taiwanese man, so now she lives here. She does the night shift and her boss is pretty strict, so she isn't always able to come to church, but she came yesterday which was good! Another is Sister Li. She works at the train station. She's nice. The last one is Sister Zhang. She is originally from mainland China so she has a super awesome accent that I love trying to mimic:). She's super solid and really wants to help her husband join the church. He's pretty agnostic right now, but we're hoping his heart will be softened with time. The Lin family is fantastic! They just got baptized a year and a half ago and were sealed in the temple just a couple months ago. They have 2 kids who are hilarious. The dad's a school teacher who also has a feux-hawk and does kung fu. The mom makes really good food. I'm not super sure what she does for work. They're awesome though! Brother Liao was the first baptized member in Mingjian and he's super willing to drive us around and sit in on our lessons. He likes driving fast and sometimes it freaks me out, but he was a long-distance bus driver for 30+ years, so he must know what he's doing...right? haha.
Anyways, I love it here! We've found some pretty cool people. We don't have anyone with a baptismal date yet, but we're working on it and there are a few people who are definitely ready for it. I'm really excited to see success here! Pray for us:) Love you guys! Have a good week. Also, I didn't record a song. I'm sorry:( I'll have one next week.
-Elder Smith
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