Hello!
Scratch the metal jungle comment, Neihu is one of the most beautiful places ever! We have lakes and just gorgeous scenery (with the mountains and everything) It reminds a little bit of taidong. The houses are really amazing as well. My new companion, Elder Montalto and I are stoked to get up and go to work! Elder Montalto was with Elder VanDenBerghe before so he had heard some stuff about me. Its good because I think it helped him prepare for me a little bit. I can be a little crazy :)
This week the Lord opened up the windows of heaven and blessed us greatly. First off, I thought that we wouldn't have any investigators as we got here. Wrong. The sisters handed over two awesome friends (well one of them is like a little kid) which was a great start/foundation. Definitely will take a bit of work to help them where they need to get to be baptized. One of them is li ming hong. He is like a little kid. Its pretty funny he thinks that we don't understand any chinese or something so he tries to say it in English and his tendencies are very interesting. The sisters said that this has been a problem that keeps the lessons from going smoothly. Fortunately the Lord has consecrated my efforts to learn chinese. I asked him what his chinese name was and he wrote it up on the board. I read it outloud and he was astounished. He was surprised I could read chinese characters and ever since then he has spoken chinese to me. Ha the only problem is that now he mumbles his chinese so I have to really work on listening. The other Friend is Ryan (Zhang liang jun). He is just a good good man. He just makes me excited to talk to him. He definitely has some trials in his life and will have to overcome some bigger trials to really get baptized, but I know Heavenly Father will prepare a way for him. We got his address and I wrote him a note saying hi and giving some scripture for him to read. I called him to see if he got it and he said he didn't see it but was going to go down and grab it. He sounded like a little kid who was having christmas!
Next the miracles of this week. Simple the Lord put people where we needed to find them or they came and found us. Elder Montalto and I were walking down the street when a ticket trafficker woman pulled up beside us and said she had a friend who wanted to be christian. I called him and he was good, the only problem was that he mostly spoke taiwanese. His mandarine wasn't that good. Luckily was we met the ward at church there were a few who where really excited to use their taiwanese to help with work!
One of the littlest but coolest ones for me was being led by the spirit. We didn't have enough time to get to our planned place and back to our appointment on time. So we said a little prayer and started riding. Not quite sure as to where we needed to go we went forth. As we hit a stoplight just felt like turning. Kept going up the road there really wasn't anyone on the street but kept going forth in this neighborhood. As we were going along we saw a lady standing in a cubby of the building. Started to talk and she said she always saw our church but has never been into it so she was curious. I set up a time and that was it. But the miraculous thing was it wasn't a huge thing, but simple going along not worry and trusting the Lord would do his part.
Also this week as I found a little serving (piling boxes) I got a referral out of it and within a few minutes ran into a russian woman who had heard things about our church. None which are good but she was willing to learn more and find a time to come to our church. It was really a cool thing. Elder Nelson (one of the traveling assistants) didn't quite believe what just happened. It was really cool.
Well another miracle was during the last hour of church some man walked in. We went out and talked to him. He said he is looking for a church and he is deciding whether or not he wants to become Christian. He wanted to know our differences with other churches, etc, and why he should join ours. Well I feel I know those questions pretty well and next week when we meet with him those questions will all be answered. :)
Last but not the least the ward here is amazing. They haven't had elders for a while so when we showed they were so happy. One of the members gave me a big hug as he walked in. Also they want to help out with missionary work. Its fantastic!
The pictures is what I walked into our first day here in our apartment. Yes, maggots, flies, nasty. The storm is being weathered and there is sunshine emerging from the mess. Well I get some good pictures to send next week!
Love
Elder Townsend
PS. Isaiah 58 and alma 17-22 have been instrumental this week in the work!
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