TYPHOON! Golden Investigator!

I am still alive!!! The typhoon was insane. The entire city of Pingdong along the southern coast of Taiwan was completely flooded!!! The missionaries serving in the Taichung Mission went to service, supposedly they had to go and rescue the 4 elders serving in a district that were stuck in their home! We might be heading down to Taidong to help clean up some stuff that broke in the typhoon if needed, but everything on the east coast is okay. We could see the waves from our house!!! The day of the typhoon, (for morning exercises before the typhoon came) we rode our bikes to the ocean to see the waves. They were already massive by then and it was awesome!!! An hour later we were called to stay in for the rest of the day. I read scriptures and memorized characters all day. We used our time effectively, I'm not going to lie, it was kind of a tender mercy to stay in for a while and rest, but as the night rolled round we wanted to go outside! Since then we've been busy offering service at random places, helping people clean up their homes and sweep up leaves and stuff like that. There were no floods in Hualien, but we've been feeling a lot of earthquakes. Last night there were 2 big ones! I never know what the outcomes of these disasters are because we never watch TV. Oh Taiwan!!!

We just barely got back from Ocean Park Amusement park with the District! Ha-ha, it’s in the mountains right by the ocean, the world’s most beautiful place. It’s like a miniature Disneyland (I think, I wouldn't know, since I’ve never been there! Ha-ha.) It was a blast. We saw some aquariums and PERFORMING DOLPHINS AND SEA LIONS!!! It was so AWESOME!!! Those dolphins flew like 10 feet out of the water, back flipping. We had a member who is on our inactive list who took us around the park; he is such a nice guy!

This past week we have been pretty busy. The Lin family is out of town for two weeks but they are still progressing EXTREMELY SLOW. They are still standing on the edge of the pool. We are working with William Gao about some of his issues so we had a lesson with him about honesty and self dependency that probably influenced his entire life! To this date he is fine, he's repented sincerely we feel, so he will do his interview this week and be baptized the 1st week of next transfer!! The other elders initially had one set for this weekend but his parents suddenly decided to go against it, so we're praying for him.

I had exchanges this week with Elder Waters. One thing that I noticed that our Zone needs to work on is opening our mouths. We have old investigators that aren't progressing, we need new ones. So here is a miracle. I prayed to have experiences on exchanges where Elder Waters could learn the principle of having faith to opening one’s mouth. On that exchange we set 5 people up at RED LIGHTS, people on scooters, and one of which the next morning set a baptismal date and is THE most GOLDEN investigator EVER! It was awesome. Elder Waters walked away with the desire to open his mouth!

“I can speak with the sound of a trump but without charity it will be the sounding of brass.” I love that scripture in 1st Corinthians. It’s kind of the focal point for the things I've been learning recently. I want everything that is good, not only on my outside, but also on my inside.

By the way, that golden investigator truly is golden. I asked him, "Are you a member pretending to be an investigator?" He said, "No, but this is just the answer to all of my questions." He understood everything, and he even gave analogies to support his understanding! Huge miracle! :)

Next, Peter Zhan is still progressing. Some people need time and special plans to help with some addictions, especially coffee, but his goal is to give it all up is the end of August and then he will be baptized on September 19th! He’s awesome! Pretty shy, but he REALLY wants to be baptized, he used to be a devout Catholic.

Lastly, I probably won't move, but just in case, transfers are Monday so you'll know by then. Oh man, time is flying by. I have to start thinking about life now. President gave me permission to check out the classes on BYU's website, so I think I will do that now.