Teaching with the Spirit -- Sep 11, 2007

hey family!!
All is well here in taidong - my new campanion is great- different then elder marble- different styles of missionary work but its all good and we get along great-- it was kinda weird for me this first week because he doesent know the people or the area so i have been leading alot of the time until he gets a grasp on where he is in the city-- its good though lots of fun.languge wise i belive im getting better-- im scared to think about where i would be without the gift of tongues- last night we went to a house where a family lives, we were just teaching the mom and dad-- the mom is learning english so she likes half english half chinese so she can learn quicker- elder bean usually does that with her and i was talking to the husband who doesnt know any english- so we kinda had two lesssons going at the same time. he belives in god and we were talking about prayer and the blessings we recive from it-- he would say alot of words i dont know but usually i can get enough out of the sentence to understand his meaning. i had to acouple times have him say it in another way so i could understand. he asked me what blessings i have seen in my life from prayer and the gospel and we talked alot about missionary work. i asked him what he would do if he knew something was true with all his heart and it was so important that he had to share about it with everyone and that was all you did all day was try to help people recognise how important it was but no one would listen to you- everyone rejected you. he said he would be very sad and would be discouraged. i explained to him that that is one of the biggest areas god helps us today- he helps us to continually have faith that somone will listen to us. and god gives us gifts to help us in our lives-- alot of them are gifts of faith and the spirit in moroni 10 :8-18 it talkes alot about gifts and how god can help us. and he loves those scriptuers and we also read vs.19 talking about god is always the same yesterday today and forever and he said that he really belives that. it was a good lesson and it really helps me because i have no one to rely on to tell me what people say-- other then the spirit-- i really have to listen closely.

one of our members named lin- he brought a friend of his to church named chou-- and we were able to set up a time to meet with him at his house-- he lives in luye so we had to go to the train station and take about a 20 min ride and then lin dixiong (brother lin) picked us up and took us to his house. it was a good lesson-- he can understand chinese but it was easier for him in taiwanese so lin dixiong would translate and help in understand-- so mostly we guided their discussion which we couldent understand throughout the first lesson. we did feel the spirit strong though- we could tell chou dixiong could also. we commited him to baptisim and he accepted the goal. the 23 of october is the date now but will probley be sooner-- depending on how he progresses. his wife was in the lesson also she will be baptised but she doesent know it yet-- she harcore buddist but she will come around.

yesterday we were on exchages with the hualian elders- our zone leaders--- i was with an elder taylor who is good friends with shad and caleb from camp-- he lived in mountiongreen. really good missionary- we were going back to hualian to switch back and the train schedual had changed and no body new-- we usually meet in the middle between taidong and hualian and trade tickets and run and jump on the train but none of the traines lined up good enough to do that-- we were at one place called raie swaie and we didnt know if we should get off or stay-- so the train started moving and we decided to get off- we ran to the door and the trian isnt going the slowest but it is still by the platform-- we jump on to the platform and rolled- we got thrown of balance- the train was going faster then we had thought- it was fun!

journal wise i have a study journal and another journal that i keep one for studies and spiritual things and the other for everything else.
i dont speak in church at all because the branch is big enough to have members speak-- but i was put in charge of a christmas program- i have to plan it and all-- an activity its not church- like a ward party kinda thing- i dont even know if i willl stay around here that long.

it sounds like fun getting ready to go to new zealand- maybe there is a market in new zealand for griddles-- take this thing international eh?
no pool till 2009- how sad -oh well you will have on ocean to swim in

well thank you for everything- ill look for that list again- i love you all- oh ya-- i will write a letter to taylor hopefully today but maybe next week
love you all -- elder Langford