Monday, January Eighth, Twenty-twelve

Well, this week we are having a baptism! He's one of the most humble and faith-filled men I've ever met. He overcame so much more than anyone else to get to this point when he can be baptized. It's like the parable Jesus tells of a man with two servants, one who owed him 50 pence and one who owed him 500. He frankly forgave them both. Jesus asks, which of those two loves his master more? This dear brother whose life was torn apart before is truly finding the peace and healing that comes from the atonement of Jesus Christ. I'm so happy for him. Our other recent converts are doing well, too. Brother (name), the 19 year old who was baptized two weeks ago, got the priesthood yesterday and he's been attending lots of ward activities. He's one of the starters for our ward's volleyball team in the stake tournament. :) I'm happy to see these people being integrated into the ward so well, because after they're baptized, we missionaries want to be in the picture less and less.

We've also been very blessed to find another person who will likely be baptized before the end of the month. His name is (name), and he's ten years old. His parents were married in the temple but were less active for a couple years. Now they're returning to activity and we are going to help their son prepare for baptism. Really, though, the greatest help for him is the teaching that happens in the home. That's the way God intended it. His parents are very supportive.

We're really working hard to find and teach families. I still want very badly to help an entire family of investigators be baptized together on the same day. We actually saw a miracle tracting yesterday. I've been trying to take Dad's approach and tract as fast as I can. This doesn't involve running, since every house is squished right up next to the one next door, but I'm trying to move on quickly if someone rejects me. We tracted into a guy yesterday and I was trying to tell him about the restoration. He told me "I don't really identify with any specific religion. As long as it's good, I believe it." I asked if we could come in and teach him. He said, "Hm. Sure, come in." We taught him the message of the restoration and he really felt something. A lot of Taiwanese people are confused and think that all religions are true, but when we shared some scriptures and taught him about the Apostasy, he understood right away. "Oh, so those other churches are not the truth because they're different from God's true church." He was super willing to read the Book of Mormon and meet with us again. This really built my faith, because we'd been struggling all week to find new investigators, and we prayed and worked and finally found this man tracting on a Sunday afternoon.

I am not pleased with how fast January is going. Time flies on wings of lightning, you cannot call it back ("Improve the Shining Moments"). I want to work to find and teach and baptize a family each month for the rest of my mission. That won't be easy, I'm sure, but I want to end off with a sprint, like I do when I run the mile in the mornings.

Well, I suppose it's about time to wrap this email up. Other than that, it'll just be clean the apartment, shop at Costco, and so forth. Then we'll go out and preach and teach and work as missionaries do. I love you all! Talk to you next week.

Love,
Carter