Feb. 20 2011 Personal Revelation

Hello hello hello.
So this week was pretty good. We had two people pass baptismal interviews. We should be having at least one baptism a week for the next three weeks. Sweet. This Sunday a son of a lady who is also getting baptized who is thirteen is planning on getting baptized. Then the 5th of March a part member father (陳) who is on a quit smoking program right now will get baptized. He has changed soooo much. The first time we met with him he wouldn't let us pray and he wouldn't accept the Book of Mormon we tried to give him. He wants to go to the temple now. Sweet. And then we have a super golden guy who wants to be baptized as soon as possible. But he has only been to church once... so far.

Anyway. The way you get 31 new investigators in one day is you go around adding people all day long. Crazy sauce.

Outback Burger Day!

It’s time for Monday miracle madness!!!!!!!
Monday: I had an awesome two hour nap.
Tuesday: We had an awesome lesson with Sun Dx. Chen set a baptismal date. He has improved so much.
Wednesday: We had the same amount of lessons taught with a member as we did normal lessons.
Thursday: Sun is still awesome. Chen is good and has his interview tomorrow! We had 10 total lessons today. Sweet.
Friday: I got to go on exchanges with Elder Durham. Who is my MTC companion’s trainer.
Saturday: Lai didi passed his interview. Chen di xiong (Brother Chen) is on a quit smoking program and is set for his baptism on the fifth.
Sunday: We went over to our new member's (陳忠liang2) house and had an awesome lesson on the family and the temple etc... We also met his really nice and really Asian wife. I hope she gets baptized and then the whole family can go to the temple.
Yay for Monday madness!!! And now I will type out the thing I've been working on during personal study. Sorry if there are any errors or grammar mess-ups....

As members, but especially as missionaries, everything we do should be done under the guidance of the spirit (D+C 42:14, 2 Nephi 32:5, Alma 21:16). Personal revelation in missionary work is very important (Alma 17:2-3). In Preach My Gospel we are promised "You will succeed in your work as you learn to receive and follow personal revelation" (p. 89). A good example of personal revelation from the Book of Mormon is found in 1 Nephi 10: 11-14. Nephi's brothers cannot understand Lehi's revelation about the Gentiles (see 1 Nephi 10: 11-14). In verse 11 of chapter 15 Nephi tells his brothers how they can understand the meaning through the power of the Lord. He also tells us how he did it in 1 Nephi 10: 17-19(start with "I, Nephi was desirous..." We are promised many times that if we ask, seek, and knock, all things will be made known unto us. (D+C 4:7, Matt 7 etc..)
My old mission president, President Hoer promised us that we would have the spirit and thus be successful is we are Worthy, Obedient, and Diligent.
Just like commandments, being worthy does not mean simply not doing bad things. Being worthy to receive spiritual guidance also has some other requirements. Let’s start with the basics: The first one is "pray with faith" (see page 93 in preach my gospel). Nephi also tells us that we must "pray always" and pray for guidance ( 2 Nephi 32: 8-9) Also see chapter 8 of the Gospel Principles book.
In Mosiah 18:23,25 we are commanded to go to church. The Sunday block of meetings is a great place to receive personal revelation or an answer to a prayer.
Personal and family scripture study. Personal study is my favorite time of the day. As we read the scriptures we are filled with the Spirit. (1 Nephi 1:12, 2 Nephi 32: 3, 5)

To obey God is a commandment. There are wayyyy to many scriptures to back this up. But one reference I will make is in chapter five of Preach My Gospel. The first sentence on page 108 tells us that the Book of Mormon helps us understand that "commandments are not a restrictive list of do's and don'ts but guideposts to a happy abundant life." Missionaries have a lot more rules that members have. That is because we bear the name of Jesus Christ on our name tags. Sometimes I think that obedience as a member is just as important. Other people are watching their example as well. They make a difference in other people's lives.


Ok that’s all I have so far. Elder Graham has to go now.
Elder Graham

Feb 13, 2011 - Outback Steak House & Baptism

Dear family/friends and anybody else,

The guy in the baptism picture is not my investigator but I took pictures for Elder Petters and that picture is funny.

Anyway, how is my family?
This week was pretty OK. Today is move day but nobody in my entire district moved so its kinda boring for us. But I'm kinda glad because we found an OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE in our area and on Mondays (preparation day) it is really cheap for a burger and unlimited soda and unlimited bread. Like less than 6 US dollars. And so we can go there every Monday for lunch and be full for the rest of the day. Anyway. It is kinda weird being with the same companion for over three months.

This week some stuff happened. Yesterday I passed off "phase 1" which is a requirement for going senior. But all it is, is being able to teach all the lessons using everything you would use in a real lesson. Plus a lot of vocab and "teaching phrases" that have to be recited. It was really long. But now its done and I can start learning Chinese any way I want to. I think I'm going to keep learning vocab and keep working on my speech rather than focusing on characters. Anyway during my "pass off" this guy came in and wanted to pay off his sins. He looked like someone who didn't have a lot of money. In fact he looked homeless. But he came in with 20,000 yuan. That's over $600 USD. Six hundred dollars!!! He kept on saying that his friend told him that if you donate money to our church all your sins are forgiven. Apparently he never read Mormon 8:32-33. Yeah, we don't do the whole money for sins thing.

Friday was the baptism of a girl who just turned 12. My companion and I started teaching her and her father but then his father said he wasn't interested. And it would probably be a little weird for the girl if we kept on teaching her. So we handed her over to the sisters in our ward. That little girl is so good! She was baptized as soon as possible and she already went to do baptisms for the dead. Anyway that's who the girl is in the picture that I sent. That picture is really cool I thought because I took the picture towards the baptismal font mirror. anyway.

As always it is time for Monday Miracle Madness!.............................
Monday: I went out to eat with Ben from Feng Jia. He told me that my recent convert, Chen Yu Jie still goes to church sometimes and is fairly active.
Tuesday: We added 31 new investigators.
Wednesday: I taught English class and enjoyed it.
Thursday: Shen Di Xiong came back and was happy and wants to feed us on Saturday.
Friday: The sisters baptized 林 yi chen. A little girl who just turned 12. She was baptized, confirmed, and passed a temple recommend interview all in one day. She is doing baptisms for the dead tomorrow in Taipei.
Saturday: We have 2 awesome people who are just begging for baptism. Sun and 陳弟兄 (Brother Chen). Sun has been wanting to get baptized for a while and has absolutely not problem with any of the commandments. 陳 (Chen) received an answer to his prayer. He wants to be baptized as soon as possible. Which is two weeks. I also bought a light up crystal thing of a very "catholic" Jesus.
Sunday: we had five investigators at church. Both of our recent converts came to church. And 陳弟兄 (Brother Chen) got a calling doing Family history work stuff. Sweet.
That's it for miracle madness.

Watch out for May 21st, I guess!!!
Ohhhhh I want to see Brinn. She is so cute. Sisi that is a weird dream. You should probably stop having weird dreams like that 吧 (!). Tommy is a member friend who I first met in Taizhong but he lives here in Gaoxiong. He has perfect English because his dad owns a bunch of English learning centers and he used to go to school at SNOW.
Yeah most everyone is back from their traveling for Chinese new year. Except for our investigators... Anyway.
NO I DID NOT GET THE FORWARD ABOUT GEOFFERY"S MISSION CALL!!!!! AAAHHHHHHHH!
Pops, Preach My Gospel is legit. Anyone can use is as a way to study the gospel. Its really cool. We learned about it at the last zone conference. In the lessons that we teach it mentions the different parts of Jesus Christ's gospel like a million times. For Chinese new year we had lots of appointments and we had to eat lots of stuff that we still don't really know what it was... I would like that talk. Thank you pops.
Well Elder Graham has to write the president now. Later..
Love,
Elder Graham

Feb 6, 2011 - Chinese New Year & Mr. Chen Baptism

Dear Family,

I haven't gotten an email from you guys yet but that's OK because its not your fault. This week is power week which means we get out the door at 930 instead of 1030 in the morning. But I thought I should start writing. This week was super slow because of Chinese New Year. Which means everyone goes back to where they grew up. Which means all the big cities are pretty much empty. And guess where this Elder is. Right in the center of downtown Kaohsiung. (高雄). So pretty much everyone that we did talk to, lives in taizhong or china or somewhere else. Oh well. We got taken out to eat by a lot of members and had "real" Taiwanese food. yummy. Sorry I don't have any pictures of that.

We did have a baptism this week which was awesome! It was cool because Mr. Chen (陳) had to give up drinking every night to not drinking and it was awesome because he slept better and instead of drinking, he would read the Book of Mormon. He is a sweet, old, fat taxi driver who loves church more than anything else in his life. Its awesome.

OK everybody clap your hands for...... Miracle Madness!
Monday: We got to go to Costco. Oh yeah
Tuesday: We had nine total lessons today. Sweet.
Wednesday: We got to go to the island to eat "real" Taiwanese food. And I didn't throw up. A miracle!
Thursday: We got taken out to smoky Joe's. Sooo good. And it was zone conference. Double whammy.
Friday: We got to see my best 93 year old friend, Cha Di Xiong. Love that man. Also the homeless Buddhist guy that we see everywhere, that thinks we are so evil that he wont touch us or even shake our hands, asked me to loan him money so he could buy alcohol to drink on new years.
Saturday: Chen di xiong got baptizzled.
Sunday: We had 105 people at church even though it was Chinese new year. 陳 (Chen) got confirmed.

So that's it for the miracles. Right now we are focusing on finding new investigators. Now that Mr. Chen got baptized, we don't have any people with baptismal dates. We have lots of investigators that are willing to meet and stuff but that aren't "progressing". So if anybody knows anyone here....
So at zone conference we got new copies of the Book of Mormon in English so that we could focus our studies on finding and highlighting 1. The names of Christ. 2. Attributes of Christ. 3. Words of Christ 4. The Doctrine of Christ. (Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End)
Its been really good.
I've also been reading through the Bible. There was something from my gospel study journal I was going to write to you guys. But I forgot. Sorry. Maybe next week.

Love, Elder Graham

January 30,2011 - "He would drink every night before bed. But now he reads the scriptures in stead."

Hello family!

Good to hear from you guys and from pops.
Sisi that's not something I need to hear. silly girl.
So this week should be sweet. Chinese new years. We have dinner appointments every day pretty much and there will be lots of fireworks and craziness here.
This past week was different. Monday was preparation day. Tuesday I went on exchanges with someone who is younger than me but is a senior companion. Wednesday was English class. Thursday all the leaders had training and my companion is district leader and so he had to go to that so I went with Elder Wheeler from Idaho. And during that time I was the senior companion because it was in my area. We ended up with really good numbers. A little bit better than we usually get. It was really cool. Then on Friday the same thing happened except it was a threesome with me and Elder Wheeler and Elder Waters.
It was really good and we taught lots of lessons and found lots of new people as well.
Next Saturday we are having another baptism for a Chen qiu zhen. He is 60 years old and is a taxi driver. He was a really solid member referral. He had a problem with drinking. He would drink every night before bed. But now he reads the scriptures every night instead. He reads for about an hour every day. So good.
Last night we met with Xu wen hao. He is the one who wants to get baptized but he can't quit smoking. Last night he told us that he asked God in one of his prayers if he could be baptized and go to the Celestial Kingdom and still smoke. He told us that God gave him the answer "No.". He received an answer from Heavenly Father that in order to go to the celestial kingdom he has to quit smoking. We watched "Finding Faith in Christ" (thanks mom). It was really good and it build his testimony. He would be such a good member if he could get over the whole smoking thing. Whenever we say something he always says something like "Yes I know, because I was reading in the Book of Mormon in ______ and it said that _________. Which is exactly what you are saying. Right?" He loves reading the Book of Mormon, speaking with his Heavenly Father through prayer. He loves learning at church. He would be so good.


OK its time for..... Miracle Madness!!
Monday the 24th: We got Brother Zeng to laugh. It was beautiful. Elder Farr peed his pants. I got to take a two hour nap.
Tuesday: We added 19 new investigators. I ate peanut M&M's. I saw a guy shoot a homemade firework gun into a casino.
Wednesday: I got to sleep in Zhou zhang lao's old bed. I ate M&M's for breakfast. And a muffin!
Thursday: I was senior companion and we did awesome.
Friday: I was senior comp and we survived the scary place.
Saturday: Brother Chen passed his interview.
Sunday: We had 7 investigators at church. Both Chen's came. Xu received an answer to his prayer while at church. Chen zhong liang got the priesthood. Good day.

So those were the miracles that happened this week.
This week I learned that if someone comes to church, reads the scriptures, and prays. They will get personal revelation. Also last week I started reading the New Testament. I'm in Mark right now. Jesus is pretty cool. He knew what he was doing.


Love,
Elder Graham