Week One Hundred: 7/20/2015 to 7/27/2015--Lots of Miracles!

Hello everyone,

May I first just say that I love working with Elder Chen. He's super diligent, he's mature, and he can connect with people in a way that I never could. I'm very grateful to have him around. And it's nice because he's from Taiwan, so even if I wanted to, I couldn't have a very interesting conversation about home. It's like a firewall against trunkiness. Super nice!

We also saw a lot of success this week. Roger's still looking really good. His mom sounds like she also might have interest. She took his pamphlets and Book of Mormon to investigate them (she gave them back), and it turns out she's already ahead of Roger in the Book of Mormon. We haven't been able to meet her yet, but Roger says we'll be able to find a time this week. He doesn't have a set date right now, but I think he'll be baptized pretty soon. Maybe next week or the week after. He just needs to get into a good habit of coming to church. He came yesterday for 2 hours, but had to leave for the last part. 

We also inherited an investigator named Doug. He has accepted the lessons, as he says, "because I don't have any evidence to prove that it's false." It's a start, but I hope as he keeps coming to church and praying, he can get an affirmative and not just neutral answer. He's a good guy, though and he's an aerospace engineer so that's pretty cool. 

Another inherited investigator, Kent, accepted a baptismal goal for the 28th of August. He's a dad with a wife and one daughter. He's pretty quiet, but willing to share his thoughts and very humble and wants to learn. He hadn't made time to come to church for the longest time, but this last week, we let him know that if he wants to be prepared for baptism, he needs to come and that helped be a little more serious about it. I'm hoping he comes next week (he took his family out hiking this last weekend).

There's also a high school student named Jiazhang. We'll call him Jason so he'll be a little easier to remember. He's pretty cool. He likes to write raps and play basketball. And he loves the gospel. He came to church for the first time yesterday for all 3 hours. Afterwards, we sat down with him and he accepted a baptismal goal for the 28th of August. He said his mom is fine with him coming to church so hopefully she won't oppose him getting baptized.

We have a few more investigators, but those 4 are the ones that are making the most progress right now. Something else cool that happened was that there was this really old member who we visited this past week (quite an ordeal, by the way. the security guard didn't trust us at all) who came to church! When we met with him and invited him to come, his answer was pretty vague ("if I have time and I'm feeling ok, I'll go." But he was so old, we didn't blame him). But then a few minutes into sacrament meeting, he came trotting right in, practically dragging his son and daughter along with him. It was one of the happiest moments of my mission, seeing him so happy to come and worship in his old age. 

Anyway, there were lots of good things that happened this week, but there's a little sample. 

I started writing my mission reflection this week so I can give it in zone conference next week and it's a really odd feeling.

-Elder Smith    

This week's song: I Believe in Christ. Forgive me for my poor english accent ;)

Also, some friends from Tainan came up this last week and showed me a picture of a guy they saw on the bus who looks like the asian version of me. Let me know if you agree. I think it's a little eerie how close it is...