A seasoned missionary

What a busy, busy week, phew! I'm still a little tired be cause we got up at 5:00 the past two mornings to get to and from Taidong for exchanges. We had exchanges with the assistants last week as well, zone conference, and a lot of action in the investigator field. I also finally held my first baptismal interview... he failed however.

Zone conference was awesome! I saw Elder Larson and Elder Dickson again and they came and hung out on Wednesday. :) I won, bowling a 174! Ha-ha

We were told at the last second that we were supposed to give a 1 hour sharing in zone conference about the visions that we should be making. Luckily, Heavenly Father had prepared us in advanced through our studies so the message went really well. We talked about “Diligence of mind,” (Mosiah 7:33) and finding unity with the Doctrine. President Grimley’s topic was similar, he hasked us the same question Elder Perry asked him, "Do you get it?"

“Do you get it?” That seems rather broad but actually is rather simple when you understand the relationship between the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, as well as the 5 first principles of the gospel. They are all brought together for the same purpose...UNITY!!!!

Heavenly Father blessed me to learn this principle at the very beginning of my mission while teaching the Su family. Only through Christ can we have unity with the Father. We must walk the path that Christ walked, and repent when we fall short, etc. This is all that we have been focusing on since zone conference and we have seen a HUGE difference. We went from having one person in the baptismal pool to 7 going on 8, four of which comes from the Lin family! They set DATES!!!

The lesson we shared with the Lin family was AWESOME! The dad was receiving revelation right before our eyes. We could see him piecing the message together in his mind and then he would explain it to his family. We focused on prayer and the Restoration and each person in their family FINALLY grasped on to the importance of this message. They are now praying for their answers (using the right method). In the past, they said they would lay on their backs and ponder some thoughts in their mind and end in the name of Christ. Now they are sincere and progressing, using all the faculties of their hearts to ask for the truthfulness of this gospel!!!

Brother Gao is FABULOUS! He calls us all the time now and asks if we have time to meet with him, ha-ha, not because he's struggling but he loves feeling the Spirit. He can't wait to receive the baptism by fire. He will go through on August 8th. He is 20 years old; he is also best friends with Jeff! They both work at McDonalds now.

I feel like an experienced missionary now, there are so many young people in my zone. They are going through a lot of trials and challenges that I remember going through. It’s very interesting to see how Heavenly Father has prepared me through my experiences to help other missionaries resolve some of their concerns. Elder Gassin, an assistant, went on exchanges with me. From day one Elder Gassin was a different missionary (people called him the chosen one) ha-ha! He is on a different level of missionary work than anyone I have ever met. He studied Chinese before his mission for a long time and he had some sort of conversion process that gave him a strong seed of faith from a long time ago. Basically he has given his heart to Christ completely, and he's been molded into a POWERFUL instrument in the Lord’s hands. I learned so much from him and I feel like after being on exchanges with him, my missionary work has changed. My companion told me he feels like I've reached a new level recently, after exchanges with elder Gassin. I feel like it’s been the focus on becoming unified with Christ and unified with the doctrine. I think I know what I need to do in order to endure to the end now, and it’s not just the end of my mission.

The more you become your own savior on mount Zion, the more you become unified with the true Shepherd!!!