The language of faith

My birthday was good. It seems like forever ago now. Heavenly Father allowed a lot of wonderful things to happen. It started of in the morning. I actually had woken up and forgotten it was my birthday, but my companion helped me remember by giving me a peanut butter castle on a toasted piece of bread. The peanut butter is glorious in Taiwan. Afterward my companion, being lead by the spirit, figured out what was wrong with the water system. We switched gas tanks and I was able to shower with warm water on my birthday!!! Hooray!!! The weather has been cold lately and we live in a tile house. The Su family came over and gave us a lot of stuff and to see them was my favorite part of the day. Then we went over to the church were the district had surprised me with a cake and a new Book of Mormon. What a wonderful gift! That night, my companion hid a new bike lock under my pillow that I didn't notice until the middle of the night! We had to saw off my other bike lock because we lost my keys in my companion’s pocket. It was a great birthday. By the way, the day before my birthday, we went out with the Lin family for our preparation day activity. They are the miracle family that Elder Barton had baptized when I first got on the island. They took us to a beautiful dining place to eat on the side of a huge river. It was so awesome and the food was amazing, plus I got to play with Jia Li, the world’s cutest mei mei. Good stuff.

We met with a lot of people last week and we worked really hard. We reached our goal of 20 lessons! Heavenly Father blessed us so much. In the past, twenty lessons a week has been a goal rather hard to achieve but we applied "the language of faith" and Heavenly Father answered our prayer.

Here is an example of the language of faith: Take out the “maybe's” and the “would it be alright?” and simply use commands. Such as, “Hello, I am Elder Daniels. Would it be alright if we come in and share a message with you?” Or, this, “Hello, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ and we want to teach you how to achieve your ultimate potential and obtain eternal life. Where do we take off our shoes?”

It works a lot better, as long as you remember we are here to invite and never force, then you are alright. However, when you have the language of faith burning in your mind, Heavenly Father allows you to command them to come unto Him and then they will do it willingly, humbly and most important, meekly. Have faith that the message you are bringing is what they need to hear. It is the path to eternal life. It is God’s eternal plan, not just a church that makes you happy.

This past zone conference was amazing, again. It was all about humility and meekness, the exact thing that Heavenly Father has been teaching me the past couple transfers. It doesn't matter how good a person is, if they aren't meek or teachable, they cannot enter into the kingdom of God. You must accept God's teachings in order to find that ultimate potential that each and every one of us has inside of us. You can't be prideful, you can’t pick your own path, we follow Jesus Christ’s perfect example of submissiveness, and then we don't miss a single blessing. We receive all of the knowledge. Alma 12:9-10 is awesome! I got to share it at zone conference.

We shared all of this with Ryan. Our lessons go so smoothly with him. We prepare spiritually before hand and then Heavenly Father allows us to be Preach My Gospel teachers when we meet with him. He is so dang close. He almost believes, he just wants to see the affect immediately. We’re working on his faith. He will be a good missionary. We need to help him with his parent’s opposition of the church as well.
It’s in the Lord’s hands.

We've also met two other young singles looking for answers, named Tony and Wendy. And then two more, named Sandy and Jake. They are awesome. We shared a first with them finally, and they loved it. They had a warm feeling. They are both very smart and the message gives them that warm feeling, they said.

We're always looking for the families and we've been blessed with a lot of singles. However, one family we've been blessed to work with is the Zhuang family. The dad is a member but insanely inactive. He never had a testimony of the Book of Mormon and he never had an understanding. His family is the hardest family to teach of all time and it’s kind of awkward, because they don't say ANYTHING. They don't look you in the eyes ever, but Heavenly Father sent them to us. We were bold with them last night and said, "Hello, I'm paying money to teach you a message of happiness that you aren't willing to listen to! Listen to what I am saying. Listen to my experience and it will bless your life." Then we boldly taught them the gospel of Jesus Christ and it went well. The dad felt pressure, which I think is good actually, because all we did was invite. He wants his kids to come to church.

Something amazing happened on Sunday when we showed up to the church at 7:30. A member was standing with a broken key, the other half being in the gate lock. He had called the bishop who supposedly was coming with a lock cutter, but he never came. People started showing up but we couldn't call a locksmith, it was too early. A priesthood man said, “Let’s use our priesthood power brethren. God will provide a path. He blessed the lock and nothing happened. Nobody was strong enough to break it, but after five minutes, the ma’s faith and prayer was answered. An idea was thrown out to "lift where you stand" and the huge gate was removed off of it’s hinges. Church could proceed. It was a miracle. Nobody knew that such a huge gate could be simply lifted off its hinges like that. The prayer was answered. What an awesome experience

I have learned so much recently. Elder Gong has gone from son to brother, he is the man, and I love working with him. The things I've learned with him will have a huge influence on my entire life. We will call you on our Christmas morning at about 7:00 am which will be Christmas Eve for you folks. I love you so much. (10:00 pm for us…can’t wait!)