He Pushed Them and They Flew!

Hey guys!!! How are ya doing!? I hope you got all my pics, and hope you can enjoy the fun of Taiwan with me. We ended the week with another splendid one. It was a good solid work week. The Lord once again has been blessing us a ton for our hard work, and obedience. We need to do better though, and as we do so the Lord will continue to bless us even more.

But, I’m glad to hear that the whole family is doing well!! I’m so grateful for you guys an all the support I get from my amazing family. I’m also grateful the Lord is blessing us with work; make sure we thank him every single day for allowing us to have the things we have, and always turning to him to improve as people.

Well as far as my week.

Tues-I went on exchanges with Elder Davies. He's the new elder that came into Song Shan with us. I’m not going to lie it was hard to work with him. He hates Chinese, he hates the culture, he hates his mission. He's just not happy and it stinks being around that kind of bad attitude. It's sad he's wasted 2 years of his life. He's miserable; I don't know how he's lasted these whole 2 years. He has like 2 transfers left. But yeah he just doesn't get the importance of it. He thinks he shouldn't have been called to Taiwan, and that they made a mistake. That’s the first big mistake. They are not having much success at all, they are teaching little over 10 lessons a week. The thing is they are in the same area as us they should not be doing that, but it goes to show how important it is to be happy, work hard, and trust the Lord. He said, "going out and talking to people in the hot weather was not part of the calling" He was like "if I could sit inside in air conditioned area all the time then that would be fine" It's sad!!

Wed-One thing that I really learned from the exchanges was that I won't take my companion for granted anymore. Haha, my companion is amazing. Complete opposite of Elder Davies, so I was very glad to switch back to my companion after that long day. English class was way sweet. We had so much fun. I absolutely love English class. Today was crazy, I was getting so into it. I was teaching them about college rivalries. Then I talked about "THE HOLY WAR" Then I talked about the game where Johnny Harline caught the kneeling catch in the end zone for the win, if you can remember that, I sure do... I was getting fired up man, I was freaking out, my whole class was laughing so hard. haha, I love teaching English, my class is awesome, we have so much fun. I had a new kid and his girlfriend come to English class, when I was talking about sports his eyes were lit up. Then after I asked if they'd come next week, he said of course that was sweet. haha it was awesome I found out the key of English class, you can't be worried about what others think about you, you have to be weird, and make it fun. I got all three, so it's going great, :D

Thurs- We taught 6 lessons with members present this day, and had 3 new investigators added. it was a good long day, we taught 9 lessons total. We were both so tired from sitting in the classroom all day. I mean it was way good, because that is our purpose to teach and bring unto Christ. but I do gotta tell you teaching all day takes it out of you.(dad I kinda know how you feel know). But we've been waking up at 4:30 in the morning to get more Chinese studies in. It's been going good, you feel so accomplished when you do it. You hit a major wall around 3:00 pm, but if you push through that hour your good the rest of the night. But Wakini, we can't even get a hold of her now. We don't know if her husband took her phone or not, but we are freaking out. It stinks, we don't have her address either which was a huge mistake, because now we have absolutely no way of getting a hold of her. it’s so sad, we are praying really hard to be able to run into her on the streets, but we'll see what the Lord's plan is. We went to a park to teach a mom, as my companion taught her; I played with a random 1 year old little girl that was so cute. I showed her all my baby pictures mom sent me, she loved them as well as her mom loving them. But I was able to set up 2 sweet moms at that park to teach. They are awesome; moms are so prepared I love it. One of the moms was from Korea which is cool.

Fri-I went on exchanges with the zone leaders. It was good. We didn't do anything way to fun, but we did our duty, we preached the gospel and taught lessons. But the lesson on Thurs night something really funny happened. One of the, “I’m new to the language give me a break moments” happened. We were teaching this about 29 year old lady. Who got married about 2 years ago. We were talking and I asked her, if she was married so she told me yes. I then asked her if she had kids, she said no. This is the stupid part. Right after she said No I don't have kids, I straight up asked her, "Do you want kids" Which in English sound just fine. But in Chinese I said it in the way that implies like do you want kids, because if you do I can help you make them. After I said that, she was like what, do you mean do I want kids with my husband or what? haha I was so embarrassed, oh my gosh it was awful. Asking a newlywed if she wants me to help with the kid’s issue. Man it was bad. But hey I’m a young American boy, who is still new to the language, and I got a little leeway to mess up, haha.

Sat-We woke up still on exchanges, then we went and visited a member that hasn't been to church in a while, which went alright. Then we watched other elder’s baptism. Man I love watching baptisms, it is so true, they truly do, through the atonement of Jesus Christ receive a remission of sins and become clean, it's amazing to watch. But today we had 4 of our investigator pass their baptismal interviews. So hopefully if everything goes well and according to plan, next week end we'll be able to see 4 more people go into the waters of baptism. We had one of the 5 that had interviews not pass. He got onto the internet and saw a bunch of stuff about the church and started doubting a little bit. But he's a stud he'll come along and we'll get him baptized. But the 4 are, Wu her son Jimmy, Liu, and Zhou. So it's sweet. I’m way stoked, I hope we can help them overcome Satan’s temptations the last of these weeks, it's going to be really interesting to see what happens. Keep them in your prayers if you can :D Thanks.

Sun- That was a good day to end the week. We ended the week with 39 lessons, including 11 new investigators. And we added 6 people to the baptism pool this week, which is a very, very, very successful week. The Lord really is hooking it up so well. I was able to confirm Wu Guan Chen in church today. It was an awesome experience. as I gave him the blessing after I confirmed him, I felt the spirit of the Lord go right through me and I knew the power of the priesthood I was acting by was true, and from God himself, through his servants on this earth. It was crazy, I’ve never confirmed someone, and especially never in Chinese. so it was really cool. then that night we went to the fireside with some of our ward members. it was really good, it was on temples and the importance of going to the temple. It was really good for all the investigators that went. But man I love my ward. I would hate to leave. I’ve grown so close with them, they help us so much. Heck they come out and contact with us, I never even thought about doing that back home. There is a huge missionary excitement in the ward. Which is awesome, because everyone wants to share. Hard work, and Faith are contagious I tell ya!!

I gotta say like I do every single week, but like I also say every single week, everyday that goes by I just love this more and more. Yeah there are days where you don't want to work because no one is setting up, and no one will talk to you. But I know the happiness from getting that one person to set up then to teach them, then to set a baptismal date, then to baptize them is far beyond the feeling of not wanting to work. so I willingly push through that, and ask for the Lords help. Because through the Lord all things are possible. For the Last week or so I’ve been studying faith in my personal studies, to better develop my faith and help, my investigators develop their faith. But our mission as a whole is doing pretty bad with adding new investigators as a whole. I think we average 2 new investigators per companion ship a week, we are doing 5 times that right now as a companionship, Not because we are better or more worthy, but because we have figured out through the Lord all things are possible. This is something I came up with while studying faith: "We all believe Jesus is the Christ, We all hopefully believe he is our savior, and also we know that he is the Leader of this church. If we believe he is the leader of the church, then we believe that through him all things are possible and nothing is impossible. By knowing this we should be blowing all numbers and bad thoughts out of the water. We need to stop setting goals according to what we think we can do, and start setting goals according to what the Lord knows we can do, with his help. This is limitless, God created the world and men, he'll help us in life, accomplish to the human mind, impossible, but more than possible with God's help and guidance. Stop Limiting the Lord, and allow him to help us fly!"
So yeah, this is the approach I’ve been taking to missionary work lately, with the Lord all things are possible, and I’m in the Lord's hands right know, bearing his name so I will be able to do the impossible according to my faith and diligence!! I think that all aspects of life you can do this. Because the Lord wants us to be happy, and the only way to he happy is to accomplish things, and the only way to accomplish meaningful things that will help us grow and progress is through the Lord.

Well fam!! Thank you so much for always loving me and being so amazing. I love you guys so much, and pray for you guys every day. Keep working hard and trust the Lord, if done right, all things are possible.

Come the edge he said, NO we're scared they said...come to the edge he said, they came, he pushed them, and they flew!!

Trust the Lord, sometimes things may seem scary to do or impossible. But go to the edge, he may push you and at first you may be scared out of you mind, but you'll fly because that’s what the lord wants for you. If you’re willing to trust him and be completely obedient to the things he's asked us to do.

I Love you guys.
-Elder Rasmussen