July 23, 2012

First 2 things I need to tell you, I hear that Romney is running for president and for some reason the church is encouraging missionaries to vote so I would love a mail-in ballot, if you can send me one. Also Mom I ran into a man named Rice Banks who ended his mission in 81 and said they have a Facebook page you could join called "Powelson Taibei" if you want to join. I don't know if he was your mission president or not.

I am so happy to be here. Li Zheng Ru passed his baptismal interview so Saturday we will be having his baptismal service. I am so excited; he is such a great guy. This week went well. We got a lot of new investigators, and almost all set a baptismal date which is exactly what this area needed, I was so happy help find and teach them. I am a little tired now so sorry if my email doesn't make sense. Well this week’s miracles were good. On Saturday it was weird we saw some great miracles along with some disappointments. The disappointments were that Huang Jiemei said she didn't want to keep studying because something happened at home. I think her boyfriend and she got in a fight probably. I was devastated. Also that day 3 people I set up and who confirmed the day before about appointments today, stood us up. I was very frustrated. But that day Li Zheng Ru passed his baptismal interview and we went to a planned area that was not a really effective place to knock doors and ran into a new Investigator from last week who hadn't answered the phone since our first meeting and it turned out he thought our phone was someone else’s who he didn't want to talk to. So he set up and has answered his phone. This miracle is a literal miracle. Our area has so many people so we went to a and had been to in the past, and lo and behold we run into someone we had been trying to contact. That is a miracle because we planned by the spirit. Then that night when tracking we found someone who let us in and became a new investigator. Always a miracle. That day was up and down but I know that all things were done in the wisdom of god and that he gave us such great miracles so we could better deal with our disappointments.

  Anyways random report, this week I ate  a crazy cake made our of flour but felt like cheese on the outside but inside was extremely dry, and of course the middle had red beans. I also drank purple yam juice. Both very interesting, and overall good.

  Spiritual thought: This week I read Lehi’s vission and noticed a parallel to the Brother of Jared. In the vision at the start Lehi does as the Angle commands him and finds himself in Darkness/lost. Like the Brother of Jared who follows all the commands and finds that his ships have no light to cross the great waters. They both do the same thing to get out of this darkness...Pray. Prayer is so important and when we pray like Joseph Smith in the first vision, we can be delivered from darkness. Obviously in all three of these examples they meant what they said when they pleaded for the light. Prayer is so important. I don't know if this is doctrine but it seems that even if we do all god commands and don't pray we will still find ourselves in darkness. If we pray we will be partakers of the love of god, the light of Christ and come to know God personally. 

  Some about my companion. He is a convert to the church, his Mother is still not a member, he hopes to baptize her when he goes home. He is funny and loves to talk. He is a fun companion who never complains and is very humble.  My new mission president is much more relaxed. He Gwants to be more involved with us than President Grimly did. He seems like a nice loving man who sues other attorneys for mal-practice. He is different then President Grimley and I love them both.

 Here is my letter to president:

Hey President,
I am so glad to inform you Li Zheng Ru passed his baptismal interview! Saturday we will be having his baptismal service. Life is so great. He is so great and I feel certain he is prepared for baptism. God has prepared him.
 This week went well we found a lot of new investigators and a lot set baptismal dates so that was nice and just what our area needed. I am glad you want us to call you when we have someone commit to a date. Sorry we forgot sometimes to call.
  I had a good week full of miracles.
Love Elder Sabey

July 17, 2012

Hey all,

 I love you so much, I always look forward to reading your letters, sorry forgot to warn you this week is temple week so P-day is Wednesday. I am so glad you asked a lot of questions I will try to answer them.

How are you feeling about your companion?  Is he helping with your Chinese?  Tell us about your investigators, the branch?  What has your favorite p-day been?  Have you been caught in any rain storms?  Do you eat differently with a native companion than you did other companions? 

I love my companion. He is so fun to hang out with and his sense of humor is good. I only get a little frustrated when he doesn't proactively go and contact but waits for people to come near him. But our relationship is great and obviously his Chinese is helping. I believe mostly with the accent and grammar, oh and vocabulary and anything else there is to do with Chinese. So I am happy about that. I love it. My investigators are good, next week's Saturday Li Dixiong will get baptized as long as he passes off this Saturdays baptismal interview. He is such a great kid and friend. Husng Jiemei hasn't answered our calls for 2 weeks now so that's sad. But we have a new golden investigator who is awesome, named Chen Guolong he is so humble and has prayed daily since we invited him to and it has changed his life. When we gave him his The Book of Mormon he asked "Have I reached that level yet?" We assured him he could read it and He said "I will do my best to take the book and read the whole thing by reading it daily," This was before we even invited him to read it.

We also have some other great potentials or new investigators and I am excited. The branch is great and loves us missionaries, which is nice. My favorite P-day maybe was hiking a mountain which was super steep and sketchy and visiting Chiang Kia Sheks grave and memorial all in the same day. I always get caught in rainstorms the biggest one I was riding through a flood. That was cool. NO I eat about the same.

And: Are you losing weight? Do you feel healthy? I feel pretty darn healthy and am not sure about the weight part but it seems about the same.

And: how are you? I am Great. I love this area and my investigators and companion and branch, so I should be doing great.

Anyways here’s my letter to pres.

Hey President,
Thanks again for all the trust and love. I think that’s a good attribute.  God loves us and trusts us enough to be representatives of Jesus Christ in Taiwan. So thanks for the trust it means a lot.
This week was great. We saw some pretty big miracles, one day was so full of miracles I was baffled. In my prayer that night I just said "How great thou art." These miracles included talking with someone who hasn't answered our phone calls for 2 weeks, finding some prepared souls setting 4 new baptismal dates and receiving revelation during personal study.
 We have one investigator that will probably be baptized next week.  We met with him this week and ate dinner together and shared the apostasy and restoration again, because he often goes to other church’s activities and has many Christian friends that may not love our church so much. He really understood it this time and I felt a spiritual confirmation that he is now ready to be baptized. I love him and am excited for his life now. He hasn't been dealt the best hand of cards; he lived with his grandparents since he was a toddler because his parents abandoned him. He recently found out that he has an older brother and doesn't really know what to do about it. He rarely contacts his parents (one of them monthly, one yearly).  I am confused which is which, but when asked this week if he had money would he be willing to help them, he whole heartedly said yes. I love him and his charity and am excited for him and his new family in the church.
Thanks\Elder Sabey

Spiritual thought: I read Alma the Younger’s " Oh that I were an Angel” for district prep, and I just realized he had the experience he wanted to give to others, an angel calling him to repentance with the voice of thunder. But he said he sinned in the wish, and I thought why? And realized he wanted there to be "no sorrow" in all the earth (Satan’s plan) but by confessing he was immediately repenting and we see that his wish still came true.  Missionaries are called to be living angels, and Alma goes and calls people to repentance and brings many unto Christ. So God really does grant unto men according to their desires. As a song you all know, thanks to Rach, says "Be careful what you wish for ‘cause you just might get it all" SO I am wishing to baptize all of Taiwan...

Well love you all

July 9, 2012

Trying to figure out how to send pictures,

Any way I wanted to share another spiritual thought,

I love in Moroni 10 how it talks about God gives us gifts for the benefit of man, I just love it. And how Mormon says to his son we may defeat the father of all evil. We are all in an epic battle with Satan and sometimes you see others who have amazing gifts and are jealous. I know we all love Lord of the Rings, and Lord of the Rings would be lame without the 9 heroes, but would also be lame without the 9000 others who fought with them. Also imagine the joy they must have to have seen Aragorn fighting along their side. I think I am more like one of the 90000 who may not be remembered in the history books but am fighting on the right side and truly do make the story epic. I hope that I can see with spiritual eyes and be joyful not jealous when I see others with more spiritual gifts then me because they are on the same side, there is no competition between them and us, only between us and Satan, and we all have more spiritual gifts then he does. We truly can defeat the father of all evil. I am so glad to be fighting along your side and am so glad you are my family, you are my heroes.

Love you

Elder Sabey

President,
Thanks for coming out and getting to know us. I am so glad to be working under you. I am loving the work here in AnKang and have no problem with my companion, and am loving being with him. I am starting to find some LA's now because you told us we were going to focus on them and getting referrals from them, and promised miracles. I have already seen some, I have 2 set ups this next week with 2 LA's that I have never meet before. Last night I just went to the LA section of the phone and randomly called 2 and they both set up. I have seen many miracles recently, 2 weeks ago all of our progressing investigators had some major obstacles, Huang Jeimei is living with a boyfriend, Li Dixiong had to work on Sundays, Zheng Dixiong's family was opposed to him joinging our church, and Qi Jiemei was only meeting with us because she wanted to help her son. But now Huang Jiemei has talked to her boyfriend and he said they could get married, Li Dixiong felt too busy and quit his work(before we even taught him to keep the Sabbath Day Holy) and can come to Church, Zheng DIxiongs mother had a miraculous change of heart and is fine with him coming to church, and Qi Jiemei said that she was interested in the church herself and we could teach her even if her son was not interested, and here I am standing in awe at the work. God is doing the work and I just get to witness it.
Thanks for your work,
Elder Sabey