All Things Are Possible With the Lord, and Your Hard Work and Determination

Hey fam how are ya doing? I’m doing absolutely amazing, happy as ever. I’m loving my life, I hope you guys are too, because life is for fun, and if you’re not having fun you’re not doing it right!! (Playing xbox is not fun!! I wish I would have figured that out early in life, haha!)

But anyway, glad to hear all you guys are doing great. Here is my update since the last time...

P-day, we went to the temple we did an endowment session then me and my companion did sealing after. It was an amazing experience, I love going to the temple, it truly is God's home. But being in that sealing room, listening to the sealings, I can picture up in heaven or in the spirit world, there is some sort of barrier, and the parents are on one side, and the kids on the other side, then I could totally picture, when the sealing prayer was done the kids I was sealed for were able to run across that barrier and hug their parents with the sweetest most precious hug that they've been waiting to give since the 1700's. Man I love the temple! Then we were able to be the witness for a couple sealed together for the dead. The prayer is so powerful. I can't wait to get married, kneel across that alter with the love of my life, the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with and eternity, and say yes!! I love this gospel and everything that it is about.

Then we had zone conference the next day. It was way good. We learned about planning and setting goals to better our key indicators. President also talked about our key indicators and what we need to work the most on. Because they had a mission conference in Hong Kong with all the missions in Asia. We are the lowest in finding people to teach, we average 2 new investigators a week per companionship, and the rest of Asia's average is 7. But they send the numbers from the whole mission in to Salt Lake each week, then get a report back with all the missionaries in the mission and all their key indicators and if they are low they mark it with red. Almost every single companionship in our mission has a lot of reds on it. Then president was like some companionships are getting all golds (the best you can get), and when he said that the assistants looked at me and winked. I’m working so hard to not let this all get to our heads. I mean the Lord is blessing us so much, we are blowing all the numbers that the church wants out of the water all through the Lord's power. Satan is trying too hard to let it get to our heads, but we’re fighting with all our might to not let it happen, and it won’t. But that just gives a little example how well we are doing right now. The Lord is absolutely blessing us for our hard work and diligence. I’m so glad for the Lord's help in this work, without it, it absolutely wouldn't move forward.

The next two weeks are Chinese New Year, there is like a scared thought process about Taiwan during Chinese New Year, like you can try as hard as you want but you won't get even close to 20 lessons. But with good old hard work, faith and never having a bad thought about it we are going to blow that stupid thought process out of the water. This last week, no one in our zone got 20 lessons, but the Lord blessed us with 27. We are going to continue to have faith, and I know as we do that the Lord will help us reach the goals we've set. With the Lord nothing is impossible, but just the thought of Chinese New Year being impossible has already created doubt in the minds of a lot of missionaries. But we are going to move forward like a regular week.

But I will tell you something, during this week, I’m going to get so fat. Oh my heck it's not even funny, for the next week every lunch and dinner is packed with a member feeding us. They just bring out heaps of food, and we have to eat a lot, but we can't eat it all, like they feel really bad if you eat a dish all the way gone, because that means that they didn't prepare enough. But the food is so good, but man I have the worst food baby ever. Man it's scary. But I’m kinda breaking out of my picky shell inch by inch, I tried squid and octopus and all this weird stuff. It was all really good. I think it's funny they just bring out the fish and its scales and everything is just laying on a plate, and you just pick at it and eat of it. They dug the eyes out and plopped them in their mouth, gosh it was nasty looking, don't think I’ll try that stunt for a while. But the food is so good, and it's sweet knowing I won't have to buy food for a week. But yeah this is a crazy time of year. No one that you set up with on the street will meet during these 2 weeks. I literally have a list full of people to call and set up after New Years is over. It's not even funny, I’m going to have so many calls to make. (Maybe that’s why I worked at Convergys to get used to that, but I highly doubt it, man I hated that place, but I’m just trying to be optimistic about all things, haha.) But you know how I said no one will meet during the New Years, the other night we had a really cool experience.

We just got done eating at a member’s house, we went to the church quick and had about 30 minutes to go contact. So we said a prayer after we picked a certain place to go. During the prayer I had a night market pop into my head, then behind the night market pop into my head. After the prayer my companion asked me what I thought, I was like well I feel like behind the night market could be good. So we said another prayer, and decided to do it. So we traveled to the night market, literally talking to every single person on the way, not letting one pass our view. We turned down the road to get behind the night market, the second we turned down the road, under a stairwell the first things my eyes went to was a man in his 30's on New Year’s Eve night, standing there smoking and with a beer bottle. I had an immediate thought to talk to him. So I went and talked to him, while my companion went down the road to talk to more people. I started to talking to him, and asked if he was happy with life, he said no. Then I asked what his New Year’s plans are, and he said none. I gazed into his eyes, and saw the spirit of the Lord deep inside there somewhere longing to have a new start and come out and bless his life. so I talked about Jesus Christ, and the atonement, then he can truly have a new start to life and start over, and have a great life. He was getting excited about having that opportunity. I was able to prayer with him, and I committed him to prayer that night, and come to church the next morning. He agreed, and then we had to run home cause we were almost late. I left that, feeling I really spoke what I was supposed to say, and I really felt the spirit of the Lord flow through me as I testified to him. The next day in church he never showed, up I was bummed. Because I really wanted to give him a chance at a new start. Later on in the day my companion got a phone call and it was him. He was way sorry that he didn't come to church, he truly apologized he just slept in. Then said he really wanted to come, and he still really wants to meet. So we're meeting with him tomorrow. Something I left out about this story that is very cool, during the second prayer I said, since no one will meet during the Chinese New Year, I remember in my prayer I was praying for inspiration for where to go to find a prepared person in the next 30 minutes. Then I prayed specifically for someone that could meet during the Chinese New Year. And that is exactly what I found. The Lord lives, and I know that through faith and through sincere prayer we can be lead by his power. This was a cool experience, especially because of the thought process that you can't get lessons during the New Year, the Lord just blew that out of the water, because look what happened. I found a guy that can, and was prepared by the Lord to be under that stairwell, right then when I came around the bend of the street. The Lord is willing if we are!!

Also my companion had his first baptismal interview as district leader. We had to travel to the other elders' area to do it. With a 9 year old kid. It was a cool experience. But on the way as we were waiting at the bus stop I saw a guys kinda by himself, with head phones on and so I felt like I should go talk to him. I asked him about life. Make a long story short, he has no work, girlfriend, and happiness. He hates life. But once again I talked to him about the power of the atonement and he really had a dim light but a light none the less in his eyes. so I set up a time for the other elders to meet with him. Just another little miracle that the Lord is blessing me with by talking to everyone. I love being a tool in the Lord's hands. I have a long way to go, but I’m really trying to be dependent, and right now I feel like the Lord is willing to trust me. But the second I don't give my effort, and talk to everyone, it'll destroy that trust, and I’m not going to let that happen. But yeah that was also a cool experience.

Well the baptism yesterday was amazing. Not just for Lin Ming ling but for all our investigators that were able to come to church. Because all our investigators that came to church also stayed after for the baptism. One of our kids he's 22 he smokes 40 cig's a day, a week ago, and we've made a plan for him to quite, he's down to like 3-10 a day depending on the day. So he's doing amazing. After he saw the baptism, he was so happy and was in shock.. He wanted to get baptized so bad, so I think that was a good motive for him to keep trying to do these things. And he was asking me all these questions about baptism and stuff it was awesome. And our other investigator Wakini (who is from Indonesia, but speaks Chinese) she over like a week period is already half way through alma, she called us the other night and wanted to know if we were still having church, we said of course, she was way happy, then at church I told her about the baptism after and she was way excited to see it. She also came with like 3 questions from her Book of Mormon reading. She has so much faith, and is so prepared. I grabbed a member mom and the 3 of us sat down and answered her questions. The scriptures she had questions about were great scriptures, and I loved sitting down with her and helping her understand the meaning of the scriptures. It was an interesting little session because she can't read Chinese characters, so we got her an Indonesian BOM, and the member had a Chinese, and I was using English, so we have 3 different BOM languages, but we were all speaking the same language. It was really cool. But we sat down, and with the help of the Holy Ghost we helped her understand the meaning, and she was glowing when she found out the meaning and wasn't confused anymore. Man I love her. She is amazing. She's the sweetest lady in the world. She is 28 years old and has a little girl. So yeah that was really good for her also.

But yeah, we have a lot of people looking good for baptism, the Lord is really helping us get organized, and do all we can to help these people receive baptism.

I’m literally loving my life right now, thanks to hard work, and the love of the Lord. I love being in Taiwan, I love the people, I hope I’m slowly learning to love the food, and I love serving my God. Seriously every day I’m happy, yeah I have days where I don't really want to work as hard, but just push through that and you come out even happier. It’s the greatest feeling in the world. I’m so glad I made the decision to serve a mission. My mission has already changed me, I can't wait to go back to school and study and gain knowledge, before I hated it. But now I love studying, I love working hard, and sticking with things to get it done.

I’m so grateful for the Lord's hands in all aspects of life. He really does live, and wants us to be happy. So if we'll do our part, and trust him, he'll allow us to be happy. I’ve found that to be 100 percent true on my mission, if we want to be happy there are two things we need to do. 1.Work as hard as we can 2.Trust/turn to the Lord. With these two things all things are possible.

I know my Heavenly Father lives, He loves me and knows me. I know that I’m serving him on my mission. I know that I was called to this area with my companion Elder Daniels, for a reason, because the Lord knew with our hard work and faith he could trust us to get it done. I know that the Book of Mormon is God's word, I know this because I prayed about it, and received an answer that I will not deny. It’s true, more true than any other book on the face of the planet. Through it we can learn to be happy, and draw closer to our creator and his son Jesus Christ. I know Jesus is the Christ. I know through him I will receive eternal life, or exaltation and live with you guys forever and my future family. This is my hope, that I can provide
a good example for you guys, and you guys will want to live with me for eternity. Thank you guys so much for being an amazing family, I love you guys so much. I also know that God loves you guys so much.

Thank you so much for supporting me in the Lord's work.

Love, Brock