Week 37

Miracles and Typhoons Are Coming

This week was a really great week! It was hard at times but we saw a lot of blessings and the weather wasn't super hot so we survived!

This last Tuesday we had zone training meeting so we went to our zone meeting. We have to take a train to Taizhong City and from there we have to get on a bus and continue to a huge chapel in a city which is actually south of Taizhong. It takes about an hour and fifteen minutes in total travel. So we traveled there and had zone meeting, and then right after me and Elder McDougal had to split and we went on exchanges with the zone leaders. I stayed in the zone leaders' area and I was on exchanges with Elder Watson, who trained Elder Millet, my MTC companion. It was a good exchange, but while I was on the exchange I realized how much I like Fengyuan. It is a good city. However, on exchanges we also had a really crazy experience. We were biking up this road in the middle of nowhere, a really narrow road. On both sides of the road were dogs chained up that were trying to kill us when we went past, and as Elder Watson (who was biking ahead of me) made it further up the road, we realized there were a bunch of dogs who were NOT chained up. So all of a sudden I saw Elder Watson stopped at a dead end, surrounded by a bunch of dogs. He told me to bike back as fast as I could, and while I was riding back a dog jumped out of the bushes and tried to bite me! But we ended up getting away uninjured, even though it was pretty freaky.

Then on Thursday we had interviews with President. So we had to travel back to the zone meeting chapel to meet with President. It was a good interview and I learned a lot from it. Then we traveled back to Fengyuan, and from Fengyuan traveled to our secondary area to meet with a great investigator, Wu Dixiong. That day was just full of travel, I was exhausted.

The result of all this travel turned out to be a lack of finding time. So when we got to Sunday morning, we had no new investigators. We were pretty upset about it, and decided to pray for great miracles. So before we went to church on Sunday we said prayers seeking miracles. When we got to church, we saw the miracles come. We had 5 of our investigators come to sacrament meeting and 3 new people show up to sacrament meeting, who we added to meet another time. We ended up with 8 people at church and 3 new investigators, which is crazy and never happens. I realized that the Lord is mindful of everyone and He is a merciful God. I am so grateful for this chance to serve in Fengyuan in the DongFeng branch. This is a great place and I am also so happy I could serve in Taiwan. 

We also had a baptismal service yesterday! Tu Dixiong, an investigator who has been investigating since March, got baptized yesterday! Elder McDougal baptized him and it was a great baptism. I forgot my camera though! So I need Elder McDougal to send me his pictures and then I will send them to you guys. All in all, it was a great week in Fengyuan and I learned that no matter where you serve, you end up loving the are where you serve!

Love you,

Elder Quist

PS This week there are suppose to be three typhoons coming to Taiwan. Two are going to likely just pass by and might not even affect us, but one of them is supposed to focus on Taiwan. So it will probably be really stormy and rainy this week.