Loyalty and Small Miracles

Another week is gone. I realized the other day that I have about 32 weeks left before I'm home again. That's really crazy and seems so soon....I've gotta make the most of it while I can!

I'll start with a quote this week which come from Thomas S. Monson: "The crowning characteristic of love is loyalty."

That can apply to a lot of things; It could mean love for our family and spouse, it can be love for our neighbor or friend, one of the most important is our love for the Savior. If we truly love Him, we will be loyal to Him and His teachings. We won't forsake Him or forget what He has done (as still does) for us. We will hold fast to the iron rod and if we stumble, we repent and hold on tighter this time. Loyalty come from trust, trust builds loyalty. Without loyalty, love is either dead or is only lust, selfishness, or pride in disguise. Loyalty is part of what makes love so "blind". Loyalty is dedication, meekness, humility and standing firm by another's side no matter what. If you are loyal, there are no exceptions or boundaries to how far you will go for them. Loyalty, in it's strongest sense, is willing to give everything for someone else when they need it; even if it be your life. Loyalty to another comes when we realize that the person in front of us is a wonderful gift from our Father in Heaven and knowing that He trusts us with them; We can show our loyalty to God by being loyal and faithful to what (or who) He gives us. There are countless ways to be disloyal, but only one way to be loyal.

Now a small miracle: 

Remember the investigator from last week that came to church for the first time even though he seemed uninterested before? He came again this week completely on his own! We're going to talk to him about baptism this week! 

The week after is when M is getting baptized! The week after that is when A is (probably) getting baptized! Yay!

Another small miracle (though it doesn't really involve us too much): Another area in the mission (the small island beside this one called MaGong) has an investigator with a baptismal date for this Saturday, but he's moving to our area on Friday. So...we have a baptism this week for someone we've never met; He be counted as MaGong's baptism, but as our Recent Convert (since we take over once he's baptized).

My district is doing amazing! We have 15 baptismal goals, over 60% of our Recent Converts attend each week, we have an average of 23+ lessons each week and everybody is really trying to do their best. I'm so lucky to be their district leader -- they make me look better! ;) 

We decided that from now on, we're going to rotate the teachers in English class every week so we have a chance to help our investigators and find some new ones if they attend a different class. We also combine the English class in GuiRen (the one I taught every week last transfer) with ours so we don't have to waste an hour traveling every week.

The Sisters and us did a little project this week; we took a picture of us and printed a ton of them with a little note glued to the back thanking our ward for their love and help and offering service, etc. etc. in hopes to start working with them a lot more. We handed them out before Sacrament meeting and this week we're going to deliver them to some people who didn't make it yesterday and to some Less-Active members. I'll send one of the photos home so people can see if they want; we have a few extras. It's nothing exciting though :)

The last thing I have to write about is that we sang in a small choir at a funeral on Saturday. We sang 'The Lord is My Shepherd' (I sang tenor) and everyone there seemed to enjoy it. The funeral was for our Ward Mission Leader's father (also a member). Yesterday his wife, who has been less-active for years, came to church and really seemed to like it. Maybe she'll come back soon! She hasn't been willing to meet with missionaries, but she was very sweet to us yesterday. We'll see what happens.

Well, I guess that's it! I love you all and I hope everyone has a great week! 

Shake my Vanilla!

- Elder Christopher Wolf

 

Doesn't he look happy?

A poisonous caterpillar

Chris' companion passing time while waiting for an investigator...

A giant pomelo

"I just danced with my bicycle"

Here is Chris' letter for this week:

 

Hey everyone! Another week gone and one full of miracles at that! I'll use some stuff I wrote to President B to go off of to start:

This week was SO good here in TaiNan! We were able to give a long-time investigator a baptismal goal on Friday! He was met several months ago and was very prepared; his only problem was that his parents thought baptism was "inappropriate" for him, but after talking about it and the blessings of baptism and ultimately after having him share his testimony with us, he agreed and is excited to be baptized on the 30th of this month! It's a miracle! 

Well, the prayer roll at the Temple works! I had my parents put his name on it, and now 'M' (one of our investigators) has some good news! We meet with him 3 or 4 times per week (usually to eat with him) and his testimony is so strong! He didn't want to offend his family by being baptized after they didn't like the idea, so it was kinda put off for a while, but he came to church most weeks and FHE EVERY week as well as other ward activities. We basically just convinced him to make the decision to get baptized and then let his family see how it's blessed his life. It's refreshing to see people go against friends and family for something they know will be great for them
We also were able to give 2 priesthood blessings to a member and to an investigator. They are both such humble people and really had faith that the blessings would help them. I love seeing people with that much faith in God and His power and love for them; It really strengthens the faith of both the giver and receiver of the blessing - It's great.

We were going to dinner and went down a road we use several times every day and a woman opened her door and freaked out (in a happy way) when she saw us and had us pull over; turns out she's a former investigator that stopped meeting because she got in a scooter accident and was in the hospital for a while and then was too shy to come back to church or meet with the missionaries because her face was kinda scarred from the accident AND she was told to refrain from leaving the house because she has some blood in her brain that's pretty dangerous. She asked for a blessing, which we of course gave her, and then said that it must have been set up by God that she opened her door right at the time we rode by; her faith was super strong and we gave the Sister's her info. 

The other blessing was for a SUPER humble, strong member that we meet with every week. He's had some health problems lately and asked us for a blessing. Such a great guy!
At church this week we had 2 investigators at church that have never come before; one of them always seemed uninterested in coming and the other has had a HUGE desire for baptism, but just hadn't come to church yet. They both came this week and watch the primary program and really enjoyed it. 

'A' is an investigator that was taught everything by missionaries in another area before moving here and he couldn't go to church because his parents forbade him to do it; now he's on his own at college and decided to do what he knows is right; Lately he's had tennis matches and has visited family, so couldn't come, but he came this week! 

The other one is a Mr. 'L'. He's an older man who owns a traditional Chinese medicine shop and plays cool Chinese instruments. He's been baptized in 2 other churches and his faith in God and Christ is strong, but he never seemed interested in coming to church, but he ended up coming this week!
Someone asked me this week what the hardest part of my mission has been so far; I realized that the hardest thing is learning how to deal with people 'misusing' their agency; It's so sad to see people make wrong decisions and to reject and/or throw away wonderful things for the "easy" road through life. Then I realized that must be how God feels when I do something wrong too. It's a hard, but valuable thing to learn; It helps to develop all of our Christ-like attributes.

That's self-explanatory and applies to more than just religion and is applicable to everybody.

 

Anyway, I'm super happy to be here in Taiwan and to have all these wonderful experiences. This church is true; Christ lives; God loves us all. 

Elder Wolf

Short random stuff:

 - I killed a very large cockroach in my companion's bathroom with hand sanitizer and a lighter...enough said.

- We had interviews and planner checks with President this week; I really love President B; he's super amazing and is definitely meant to be here. 

- The missionaries here participated in the primary program. We sang 'I am a child of God' with the primary kids; they sang verse one in chinese, we sang verse 2 in English, then we all sang verse 3 in chinese. Pretty fun!

- I hit day number 450 on Thursday!

- Elder Funk from the Seventy will be touring our mission at the end of the month.

"I just danced with my bicycle (trying to get my feet back on the pedals while running at 15mph) and spiked metal pedals don't like skin. (almost healed now; that was last Monday) My pants, socks and shoes are fine and my companion got a good laugh from it."

My foot after it slipped off my bike pedal

A trip to McDonald's with my Zone Leaders

 

 

 

 

One year in Taiwan!

Chris' letter from October 28th:

To all the ghosts, ghouls, monsters and zombies out there, I wish you a Happy Halloween from the land of Taiwan!

Every stinkin' week is going so fast! I don't understand how this is possible! Not only is this week over, but so is my 9th transfer; my 10th has begun. Here's the news for move call: My district had 2 sets of sisters in it, one for tainan 1st ward, and one for 2nd ward. Not a lot of new sister missionaries came on island this time, so one set of the sisters here is leaving and there will be one set between the two wards; one sister from 1st ward and one from 2nd are now companions who will share both areas. The other two sisters left to other areas. One of our Zone Leaders stepped down to train a new missionary in DouLiu (my last area!), so now DouLiu has a 4-man and a set of sisters.  I'm still district leader (which is weird; usually they give you one move call and then move you down for the next one before putting you back up again) and I'm still in DongQu with Elder W. We are the only companionship in my district to not change. Kinda crazy.

 

On Wednesday we had a Halloween party for English class (the last week of each transfer is when we do parties in English). It was really good and a lot of people came! We had a haunted maze, bobbing for apples, toilet paper mummies, face-painting, eating donuts off a string contest, etc etc. It was really good! 

This week we also were able to watch the Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration movie with a lot of investigators. A member in our ward translated the whole movie and added subtitles to it. He gave me a digital copy of it so I can show it to investigators and/or members when I need it. (his English is PERFECT).

The Zone leaders also needed help baking a cake, so I helped them yesterday and we tried mixing orange jell-o powder into the powdered sugar frosting and it turned out pretty good.

In random other news, I have decided that I want a motorcycle when I get home. I don't know too much about them, but my companion loves them, so I'm getting good information about them :) Anyone have any recommendations? 

I guess to end this week's letter, I want to give everybody an invitation. This will really only apply to adults (at least directly), but everyone will benefit from it. As a representative of the Lord, and knowing how important the work of salvation (including temple work and family history) is, I want to invite everybody able to make an effort to attend the temple TWO times in the month of November. For the most part, everyone has a temple close by and finding 3, maybe 4 hours in one month to do some temple work shouldn't be too hard and will benefit everybody so much. I promise that any trials, unhappiness, and confusion will leave and each of you will have peace, understanding, love and enlightenment replace it (among many other blessings). I've only been to the temple a dozen or so times, but my testimony of it is real and it undeniable. I love the temple and I also love all of you!

Thanks for all your love and support and encouragement. You are all in my thoughts and prayers! Have a great Halloween and a great week as well.

Letter from November 4th:

你好!

Well, it's November. I have been on this island for one year now. I have started my 10th transfer. I have lost all ability to sense time moving by. I can't believe it's been a week since I was sitting here last. 

I don't have a ton of news this week, but first I want to "follow up" on my invite to go to the temple. It's only the 4th (3rd for you all) of this month, but time will get away from you if you let it! To refresh your memories, the invite was to go to the temple 2 times in November. I highly encourage everyone to make an effort to go. You will NOT EVER regret taking a few short hours to give to the Lord and obtain countless blessings in return! 

Because it is a new transfer, the English teachers were rearranged a bit. I no longer need to ride 20 minutes to get to a different area to teach (the missionaries there are both Taiwanese) because I'm teaching in my own area this transfer. I'm teaching the beginning class; I have between 20-30 students each week, but they all participate, so it's really good. 

There was also a 6.? earthquake in north-east Taiwan this week and we felt it down here. We were in a lesson and we started swaying back-and-forth a bit. It was Elder W's first time in an earthquake and he loved it; Too bad we weren't at the epicenter :) It felt like maybe a 3.0 or 4.0 here. Just big enough to notice. 

Here's an excerpt from my weekly letter to President B this week:

   We received 4 member referrals yesterday at church! All of them seem pretty promising too! I'm looking forward to the coming days to see what happens with these souls! Our 3 progressing investigators are doing really well; one of them just needs to come to church in order to fulfill his HUGE desire to be baptized. He hasn't had a chance because of tennis matches and family visits, but I know he's really trying.
   I'm very proud of my district here in Tainan. Everyone is really working hard and is doing their best to find, teach, baptize, rescue, retain, serve and grow. I couldn't ask for a better district; I'm very happy to be here. My companion is wonderful and is a great example to me. I'm so lucky to be with him for a second transfer in this wonderful area and district. 
   I've learned a great deal about forgiveness, repentance, patience and humility on my mission. As was stated in General Conference, The Lord knows the difference between rebellion and weakness. Mistakes aren't rebellion, and God knows it; He knows us; I have learned that He is 100% ready and willing to forgive our weaknesses and help us grow. The prayer of faith is a powerful thing. Despite all the other changes I've had and the wonderful things I've learned, the biggest change and the most important thing I've learned is how to really pray. 

So I guess that's about it! I hope everyone has a great week and enjoys the November weather!

Love you all!

What a handsome missionary!

Elder Wolf  

Elder Wolf and his awesome District