January 23, 2011 "True doctrine understood, changes behavior faster than the study of behavior changes behavior."

Hello Family!

ok I got the flash drive and all the stuff that was in that package. Thanks.

Yay time for miracle madness!
Monday: I got 3 letters in the mail!
Tuesday: I played with the super cute baby for like 15 minutes. Both 陳 's said that they would "eventually" get baptized. we also got yelled at by a drunken guy for being Mormon and an old guy in a wheelchair yelled at him to go away.
Wednesday: Kevin agreed to pay Tithing.
Thursday: I got to hear 周長老 's voice. And I called him 辣哥 (hot guy) We added 24 new investigators.
Friday: Sun1 wants to be baptized as soon as possible.
Saturday: We added 17 new investigators without Elder Lloyd's help.
Sunday: We had 8 investigators at church. Over ten people called me 豆豆先生

So yeah. It was a pretty good week. Our district is pretty much leading the mission in people coming to church. With only three companionships, we had 26 people at church. So good.

Something Elder Graham loves about Grandma and Grandpa is they always say "I love you and don't you forget it"

Pops that is sweet you got to shoot guns all day. Guns are illegal in Taiwan (sad face)

I would love to read that book but I would have to get it approved first from president Bishop.



So I took some pretty sweet pictures. At the subway station. Flowers. And at the breakfast shop that we ate at this morning.

Yesterday we had something sad happen. Both my companion and I were really sad after. We met with an investigator who has been to church three times. Wants to join the church, wants to be baptized. He always tells us that he loves coming to church and he loves the feeling he gets. He reads the Book of Mormon every single day. He prays in the morning and at night and every time he reads the Book of Mormon. He knows this church is the only true church. He is good on all of the commandments. Except for one. So he had two problems keeping him from getting baptized. He told us before that his mom wouldn't let him get baptized because after you are baptized you can’t worship their family god. Also the Word of Wisdom. He smokes. After we shared the word of wisdom with him, he really didn't think he could quit. He went home that night after we shared the word of wisdom with him and told his mom that we are trying to help him quit smoking. His mom said that if we can get him to quit smoking, she will allow him to get baptized. So that leaves one problem. He still smokes. At church yesterday we had a very good lesson on agency. Then when we met with him last night, after a very good lesson on our part, it came down to "do you choose the road that leads to living with heavenly father forever and the celestial kingdom and eternal happiness? Or the road of Satan that is eternal unhappiness just for 10 cigs a day? He said right now he chooses his smoking. We were really sad. In the lesson he said he smokes because of pressure. Right after that I asked him how he feels when he reads the scriptures, prays, and comes to church. He said it feels good. I asked him if he remembered the first time I asked him that question. The first time I asked him that was about two weeks ago and his answer was "All of my outside pressure goes away". We testified that if he keeps doing those things, that he can and will quit smoking. But he needs the desire to quit. Which he doesn't have right now. At that point it was almost time for us to go home so we ended the lesson. Last night I was really sad about it and I read a lot in preach my gospel about this stuff. and We came to the conclusion that we are going to build his faith. In PMG it says that faith in Jesus leads us to repent. It also says that "true doctrine understood, changes behavior faster than the study of behavior changes behavior". It also says that when people have addictions to not just focus on that but to also continue to share the whole gospel.

Anyway. I have to go now. Love you guys
Elder Graham

January 16, 2011 Daily Miracle Journal

Dear Family:

Hello. Great to hear from you guys. Sisi. Don’t ever tell me that ever again. It was cool to hear from dad. I also got an email from Brother Hansen. I will print that off later today.
Today we cleaned the apartment for personal study, companionship study, and language study. It ended with three dumpster size trash bags full of stuff that had been there for years. We found a box of old mo men jing's. That's the old translation of the book of Mormon in Chinese.

Ok so I bought a 2011 daily schedule thing. I’ve been using it to write at least one miracle a day for this whole year. It’s my miracle book. I'm trying this out to like start seeing things in like a better light. If that makes sense. Just to try and has a more positive attitude. So I'm going to type what I wrote in there for each day. They are all really short.

Monday: We gave Kevin a goal to quit smoking, and to quit chewing betel nut, and to quit his job as a pimp. All within a month. He also said he thought God was telling him to get baptized. Sweet.
Tuesday: Today Elder Summerhays threw up three times and didn't die. And I didn't die laughing. We saw the homeless member of our ward sleeping on church property. I passed lesson 3 of phase 1 off.
Wednesday: We added 13 new investigators in the rain. We found a fairly cheap authentic Mexican restaurant where they only speak Spanish. Soooo good.
Thursday: Kevin committed (again) to stop chewing bin lang. We gave a priesthood blessing to a super cute Asian baby. We ate vegetarian and didn't die.
Friday: I passed my midway phase 1 pass off.
Saturday: I ate raw fish at an all you can eat Japanese restaurant. And didn't throw up. I met with someone I contacted over three months ago. And taught him and his friend by myself.
Sunday: We had seven people at church. One of them was the drunken guy we met about 3 weeks ago. We had a record breaking 141 people attend our ward sacrament meeting. Our awesome district of 3 companionships got a total of 25 investigators at church. We fixed everything with xu di xiong. We saw monkeys while we were proselyting, not while hiking monkey mountain.


Ok so that was my week. So yes mother we had (I would say) lots of people at church. But it was kind of sad because two of our most promising investigators did not come. Right now about 90% of our investigators have a smoking problem. And the two that didn't come, didn't come because they feel embarrassed being the only people at church who smoke. Or at least they feel a little bu hao yi se. And one of them is one of the part member families we are teaching. That was the only sad part of yesterday. Oh, and as you can see we gave a priesthood blessing to a baby. She is the super cute baby that I took pictures of a few weeks ago. She and her mom were both sick. The Sister missionaries told her that we could give them a blessing. And now the baby is all better and back to her cute little self.

Our recent convert is doing so well. He came for all three hours without us having to call him. He participated in class. He is getting the Aaronic priesthood next week. And he has a home teacher already. He is just doing awesome and the whole ward loves him.

Today we are going to an all you can eat pizza hut. its 250 Yuen and that’s about $8 US. Sweet.


Love Elder Graham