Week 62

Blessings of Christmas

This last week was a very important week in my mission. I wouldn't say it was the easiest week, but it was a week full of blessings. We had a lot of things happen, like lessons not going through and companions being bit by dogs (yeah not good), but I learned a lot.

I learned a lot due to our branch Christmas party. Since there is a lack of active members down here, a lot of planning and preparation fell on us missionaries. We worked hard to get an activity together that would allow our investigators, less actives, and members to mingle together. However, when the time came, the people who came were very few. There were a couple of investigators, a few active members, and some less actives. It seemed unfair at first that we had worked so hard for this and the results seemed so little. However, as I was reflecting on Christmas, I realized that Jesus came to earth and He worked harder than anyone ever has, yet He was rejected. He went out everyday with perfect faith and perfect obedience, yet His true followers were few. He did all He could do, but He was still crucified by His own people. But was it in vain? No. Because of what He did, we can all return to live with our Heavenly Father again. Sometimes our influence seems small, but we can remember that the Lord will sanctify our efforts and by "small things" the Lord can do great miracles.

We had a lot of hidden blessings too. Our investigator, Xiu Zhong, has started to progress so well! He is reading and praying everyday and he is starting to really enjoy the gospel! He is supposed to leave for military service on January 7th, but it isn't certain he will go then. He took a test about a month ago to make sure he was ready for military service and he hasn't got his results back. Today for pday we are going out with him and Sister Huang. She is going to take all of us around Heng Chun, which should be fun.

Then we also have our investigator named Larry.  We weren't able to meet with him last week, but we are going to meet with him today, so we will get him going again.

Sister Lin is going to get baptized! She is finally ready! We are setting up a baptismal interview for her this week and she is actually really excited for it.

Also Monica is doing really well lately. She is coming to all three hours of church now! We have been so blessed lately.

The Wang brothers are a trial right now. They still want to get baptized, but last time we went to visit them their dog bit my companion.  Dogs really hate my companion for some reason. So I don't really want to make my companion go back if he doesn't want to. We will have to find out to help them progress.

This last week was a mountain, but it helped me progress so much! I love this work. Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! 

Elder Quist