Nov 27, 2011

Hey all,

I had a great last week. No baptisms or anything, but a great week.

I first want to talk about the day of miracles. On Tuesday I was on exchanges with a ZL, and we had a full day planned with no finding time. Yet on the bus I decided to talk to the guy sitting in front of me, and he was interested and set up an appointment. Then we had a great lesson, and after we went outside and were waiting for our next lesson, and a high schooler on a bike was riding by and I asked him to stop and he did (first time that ever happened), and I invited him to have a tour, and he had time so he did. At the end we had a mini first lesson and learned that he had a friend die 3 years ago, and is still having a hard time dealing with it. It was a powerful lesson and he set up for 2 days later. He's golden. So yeah, the two people I contacted that day set up, kind of awesome. Then when riding to dinner the Shi Jiating(family) saw us and bought us drinks. We had been worried about them because they haven't been coming to church so it was nice to see them, and talk. It's so great to have all these miracles. Then that night was the best sun set yet. There were a few others but I don't remember them all.

Then thanksgiving, it was a good day. We had a lot of good lessons and John a member, who is in my advanced English class had invited us to dinner, and couldn't do it till after 8 so he helped us in a lesson at 7:30 and was a great help, then went to dinner at 8 in the night market. We got Stinky tofu for the first time, one fried the other spicy. I was starving and nervous, but it really doesn't taste as bad as it smells. I actually kind of enjoyed it. The soup for the spicy stinky tofu was great. The fried tofu was much worse, but it was still bearable. Then we went and got some chicken butt- which was good but super fatty, and whenever you thought about what you were eating, you wanted to puke. Lastly we went and xiao xian cao, a traditional drink/jelly that was super good. I don't tihnk I will ever forget that thankgsgiving dinner. So dad thanks for not describing yours to me. 

Friday we had zone conference and I taught, as the youngest missionary there because my companion is a district leader. We taught on the doctrine of Christ and it went well, I have learned that if you’re teaching by the spirit you can teach anyone, even if your Chinese is bad, or your teaching 2 year experienced missionaries. I knew I was teaching by the spirit because I got a lot of new insights as I taught. I learned/taught about how the doctrine of Christ is a "pattern of living." It's not just 5 steps but a cycle. Earlier that week I realized that faith, repentance and enduring to the end we all are still working on but then I realized the full pattern/cycle. If we develop faith in Christ, he will show us our weaknesses, and we will want to repent, prepare be baptized/take the sacrament and become worthy of a more full measure of the gift of the holy ghost which if we follow its promptings the more faith we develop, and the higher up we get on this cycle the broader the veiw, and more rewarding the view.  It’s just like climbing a mountain.

I love you all,

Elder Matthew Sabey