Week 48

Mountains to Climb

This last week was a really exciting week! It was different from most weeks and was packed with lots of things, including some miracles and some answers to prayers.

We got to go to the temple on Wednesday. It was a really great experience for me. The Taipei temple is a beautiful temple, with the Asian culture laced throughout. One of the traditions at the Taipei temple is that there are no shoes allowed in the temple. You leave them by the door before you walk in, no matter what ordinance you are doing. It is amazing to see the influence of God and Christ along with ancient Asian traditions and culture.

Then we had a really cool experience Wednesday night in English class. English class is a great opportunity to find people who are willing to meet with missionaries. We had a meeting with an investigator set up for after class this week; however, since he wasn't in my English class, I didn't know what he looked like. I knew he was in the intermediate class, so I walked into that class before 7, and asked Bill (the guy we had scheduled to meet with) if he could still meet after class. He said he would be able to. So afterwards we met with him and we had a really good lesson in which we learned that he has his own Book of Mormon and he is really interested in learning more about it. As we set up for a return appointment, I was surprised when he looked at me told me that I could call him "Sam." After asking a few questions, we learned that this guy wasn't Bill at all! It turns out I had asked the wrong guy in the intermediate class if he could meet and Bill had never even showed up to class. Sam, on the other hand, had, in the past, rejected the invitation to meet with missionaries, so we as a district had him marked as "not interested."  However, over time his heart was changed, and now he is meeting with missionaries (not us because he doesn't live in our area, but that's okay).

Then we had another miracle with Sam the next day. We were supposed to meet with him at McDonalds at 6 that night. We soon realized that we didn't have his number, we only had the number of the other English student, Bill. So, as the time came to meet with him, we realized there were about 5 McDonalds in our area and we had no idea which one he wanted to meet at. So we decided to go to the church and wait for him. At the church we prayed together that the Lord would help him know he needed to go to the church to meet with us. We waited for about 20 minutes and realized he wasn't coming. So as we were walking out of the church, we got a call from the sisters in the other area. They told us they had been contacting by McDonalds when they came across a student from our English class. He told them that he was about to meet with us, so they called us and we were able to get in contact with Sam! It was a miracle!  There are thousands of people in our area and the odds that the sisters ran into Sam at the time he was supposed to meet with us was a direct answer to our prayer!  I could see that the Lord really is involved in missionary work.  It is amazing how many miracles you see out in the mission field!

I got the chance to go on exchanges with the zone leaders last week. It was a really great time.  I got to learn how Elder Stevenson (the son of the Presiding Bishop!) does missionary work. He is a really cool missionary and he is going home soon. 

Oh wait, the title to my email. The reason I put that as the title was because yesterday we biked up to our branch president's house. He lives on top of a mountain. We biked straight up a mountain for about 2 hours. It was exhausting!  I finally realized why we use "mountains to climb" when we talk about a hard task that we have to do. But I did it.  And I know that as I come across more mountains in my mission, whether literal or figurative, I will be able to cross them.  With the Lord's help, of course.

I love you all and welcome home Davin and good luck Nate! 

Elder Quist