Hey Dad!
Well sounds like you have had a good week with
your birthday and fun with the family. Also you seem to be doing a lot of goal
planning, reflection, and seeking to improve. Don't burn yourself out too much
though!
Here is President's response to my email last
week that I want to share with you because I feel like it has valuable info in
it:
Companionship unity always
starts with looking at yourself. Do you love, serve, and listen to your
companion? This morning in my personal study I read in the book of Mark chapter
12, where Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment? His answer,"
thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
And the second is like, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Pretty
straightforward. Is your companion your neighbor? Do you love him as much as
you love yourself? What have you done to serve him? Perhaps as you ponder these
questions you can find ways to improve. If you need help, pray about it. As you
study PMG and the Book of Mormon, the Lord will answer your questions.
Here is my letter to President:
Hey President!
I will make sure to keep my email short for
sure this time. Well as for me how I am doing, actually not too bad. I was
super happy this past week to see our English movie night go really well, super
happy to see my investigator John (in Zhanghua, thanks by the way) get
baptized, and happy/sad to see Elder Randall progress on to the next phase of
his mission life. I really appreciate what you shared in response to last week
about do you love, serve, and listen to your companion. Something I come to
terms more and more with is how much better I really can love, serve, and
listen to my companion. Definitely took me by surprise that Elder Williams is
my companion now, but I am super excited and really look forward to forging a
strong and awesome relationship.
Now to miracles. This past week I added a man
from English to meet on Sunday before church. Long story short he came earlier
than normal when we weren't there, but he still stuck around. We sat down with
him and started teaching the 1st lesson (he is Christian by the way and already
baptized) focusing on authority. We got through to the Book of Mormon but
church was about to start. So we ended the lesson and invited him to come and
attend church. He attended all 3 hours and in priesthood when the EQP asked if
there were questions, and this investigator asked about baptism in other
churches. The EQP provided a really good answer, and afterwards the
investigator asked when he could get baptized. The EQP kindly replied that we
(missionaries) would be happy to help him. We sat down after church again,
extended a baptism invite and talked about what he will need to do now to work
towards his goal. I have never had such a tremendous miracle happen as like
this just did.
Real quick from studies, I studied in Alma 7
the other day. It's super good and the part about the Atonement stuck out to me
in a different way. It talked about how the Spirit already knows our
infirmities, temptations, pains, but still the Lord suffered in the flesh so
that he truly knows how to help us. Really makes it feel more special and know
that the Lord really knows what you are going through.
Love ya!
Elder Dayley
So I hope you are all doing well. As for this
past week I saw many miracles happen that I am so blessed of the Lord to
witness. So really two stories. First we had our English party movie night this
past week. We watched the Restoration video that is an hour long. We had banana
split ice cream afterwards for everyone. It went really well I feel (although
only got 1 add, someone set up time to meet and learn more, but still I think
some numbers did get exchanged). But so after the movie got done and we said a
prayer I just went up to one guy and started talking to him. He attends my
intermediate class and I knew him a bit. I ended up talking to him for about 10
minutes, found that he didn't live in our area, tried to set up a time for this
weekend (he was just uncertain about time for Sat. or Sun.), but was still
interested and willing to meet. So I handed the contact info off to those
Elders. Then right after that I talked with another man who was his first time
attending English class. He is a 50 year old man. But so I talked with him for about 10 minutes
as well. I added him to meet with us before church on Sunday. Then I finally
got to go get some ice cream for myself (about half the people had already left
at this point but thankfully there was still ice cream) and right when I
finished scooping it the other Elders noticed that the Sisters were the ones
starting to put the chairs away. So the other Elders were like oh no, we can't
let the Sisters be doing that, that is not gentlemen like. So I was like screw
it, put my ice cream down and went over to help clean up all the chairs.
Finally I got to have a few quiet minutes to sit and eat my ice cream. Then had
to quickly get everything cleaned up and numbers counted for the night.
But so as for the 50 year-old man like the
letter to President said, he came, we met with him, he is Christian, already
baptized, but desires to get baptized now (I feel he more fully understands now
the importance for authority). So he has a goal for 9/13 that we will be
working towards and helping him with. We also gave another investigator a same
baptismal goal yesterday on Sunday. So it was a pretty killer Sunday if I do
say so myself.
Then the other cool miracle is that I got
permission from President that Elder Randall and I could go down to my old area
on Friday to attend an investigator, John (do you remember me sharing about him
before?), his baptism. Elder Oldham told me that he basically got an answer,
developed a testimony, switched from the children's Book of Mormon to reading
the regular one (because it is better and explains more), and now got baptized.
So I was super happy to see him as well as others from my old area.
Lastly, Elder Randall moved today. I am sad
because we really started to work at our companionship more and starting to do
a lot better. But so Elder Randall moved down to 員林. Then for the kicker. Elder Williams who was
with Elder Christensen in Dongying was kicked out because Elder Christensen
started training (we are all in the same district). He went with the north
Taiping Elders (Elder Ward and Elder Ames) rather than us. But then found out
the next night at move call madness when we get the call of who is moving and
found out that Elder Williams is my new companion. We were just surprised and
ecstatic. So basically Elder Williams is just moving next door over with me.
Also I am now the district leader for our district. Short about Elder Williams,
he is from Idaho, and you can tell, but he is also different and way cool. He
is pretty smart as well as he wrestled. So I am hoping one of these nights he
doesn't wrestle me. But so yeah I have our District training meeting to prepare
for tomorrow. A little nervous. But hopefully it should all go well.
I have to end now because we need to run off
and get groceries before the end of the day. Tell mom sorry I didn't get to
replying to her email. I read it though! I love you lots and miss you all the
time!
Elder Dayley
p.s. we went to the mission home today and it
is move day with 23 missionaries going home (so I saw tons of missionary
friends as well as member friends, some I haven't seen since Gaoxiong). You
will never guess who I saw. I saw Ryan Allen and Nate Erekson who are over here
in Taiwan touring around and seeing places. It was way fun and good to talk to
them. Ryan already seems to have grown a ton, but he said even I have grown and
have different feel about me from that day that I just got off the plane in Taiwan.
