Week 8

Hey! Sorry for the late email. Today is our temple day, so our Preparation day always changes to match our temple day.

It has been great out here. It's been a little hard adjusting to noise all the time, with cars everywhere, and sweating all the time. But it's not too bad. I know that I've been blessed to already be half fluent in Chinese. I can already talk to most people with little understanding issues.
（A Peanut Butter burger? It was pretty good.）

This last Thursday was simple amazing. We had a good 3 hours to contact people on the street, and we were probably teaching 90% of the time, which is really good. Everyone was willing to listen, and we taught a lot about the gospel. There was even a lady who poured out her soul to us. We were simply just talking, and she started talking about her life story, and her trials. But she was Christian, so she had faith that God really would help her in her trials. She started crying, and then suddenly went into a prayer. Wow. The Lord really prepared her for us to meet her. As she left, she said that she didn't know why she shared her story, because she usually keeps those things to herself, but there was something special about us. She didn't really set up to take more lessons, but hopefully we planted a seed that will stay with her.
(Elder Liu and Aunt 四姑姑）

The day after that was just plain hard. No one listened. No one even wanted to talk to me, let alone be taught by me. But I think it was for a few reasons. One, we got up late that morning. The Lord appreciates exactness in His commandments. So by slacking on our responsibilities, the Lord was a little hesitant to give us his spirit. And also, because of the success I had the day before, I think the Lord was testing my faith, and building my trust in Him. I learned that I really have a lot to improve on, and I need to rely so much more on the Savior.

I think the hardest part since I've been out here is to try to listen to the Spirit. One of my favorite talks by Elder Bednar is when he says if you're deciding whether it's your or the Spirit, to quit worrying about it. He says just be a good boy, and a good girl, keep your covenants, do what you're supposed to, and the Spirit will guide you. And while I like that principle, sometimes it's hard. We've always being taught "Without the Spirit, you can't teach. They need to feel the Spirit. The Spirit is everything." And while I know that's true, it's hard to know if I'm really following it or not. But I know through more experiences I'll learn to recognize the Spirit more effectively and strongly.

It was recently Father's Day here in Taiwan -- August 8th, which in Chinese is "ba1 ba1" which is very similar to the word for dad, which is "ba4 ba5". I got a kick out of that. It's a very meaningful pun. We Americans need to step it up with our holiday times.

We had a recent convert fireside about Marriage. A professor from BYU talked about how marriages makes you make more money, become more healthy, and makes you live longer. In fact, not being married is worse for your health than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. It was a very good fireside, and I think it was really what the people in Taiwan needed to hear. A lot of them needed to hear that families are still ordained of God, and so blessings will definitely come by raising a righteous family. I'm very grateful to have been born of goodly parents. And we all have. I'm grateful that the Lord can show His love to us through our families and our friends.

Good luck to all! Jia1 You2!

-Elder Liu