February 3, 2013: Miracles

Hello Family,

Greetings from Elder James here. We'll this week was a good one full of growing and new experiences and lots of little miracles. Last Wednesday night I had a pretty scary near collision. I was riding down a busy road after my companion who was about 50 yards ahead of me, when all of a sudden some lady on a scooter ride right across the road right in front of me. In order to miss colliding with her I had to slam on my breaks which flipped me over my bike handles and smashing me face first into the concrete road. The woman whom I nearly collided with parked her scooter, took a look at me from the other side of the road, and then walked into the store without checking to make sure I was okay. My pamphlets were all across the road, my suit pants were ripped open, I was a little scratched on the face and leg but I was miraculously okay. So thank you for your prayers in my behalf I was definitely protected. Riding a bike in the country is VERY different from riding it in the crazy traffic of Taiwan's cities.

I'm still in the process of learning the new area, the members, the investigators, and the less actives of this area and it's a little overwhelming. The ward here is a big ward with over 100 members attending each Sunday. The ward list is massive with nearly 900+ members on the list. It's a big big change from a small little branch in the south of Taiwan. We street contact everyday which is very exhausting. My companion is a good guy, fairly new to the mission and still learning, but he seems very nice is a hard worker and willing to work with me if I have some input in how we can change the work here to be more affective. We have some very exiting potentials. I'm trying hard to stay up with all the responsibilities of being a senior. It's a little more challenging to find people when neither of your are Taiwanese natives I'm trying to work on my ability to read characters so that I can read the street signs better. Everyone compliments my Chinese here, telling me how "standard" my accent is (blessings of a Taiwanese companion). 

An eternal investigator's baptism yesterday.

Some of the "miracle" stories

My companion and I were riding back from a secondary area. Saw a kid on the side of the road smoking a cigarette with his friend. My companion yelled out at him "you shouldn't smoke, it's bad for you!" and I yelled out "You're too young!" after riding about another 4 minutes I found out the same kid was on his bike beside me. He pedaled to the side of me and started asking me questions. I pulled over to the side of the road and he told me how he wanted to quit smoking and how interested he was in Christianity. He felt that the religions in Taiwan weren't "clean" like ours. So I got his information invited him to Church. Sure enough he came loved church showed great interest, and we have an appointment to meet with him next week. Investigators name- Zi Heng

We were trying to find a former investigator in a small neighborhood when we saw a guy on his scooter riding down the road. We motioned for him to come over. We talked to him and introduced ourselves. He's a firefighter age 25 very very cool guy. I asked him upfront if he would be interested in here about our message and he said he indeed would. He told us his schedule and we have in our plans a time to meet with him on Tuesday.

Called a referrel from some of the other elder's. The referrel call us back and agreed to meet with us. Had a member help us teach the lesson. The guy's name is Wai Wai and he is a college student. The lesson went well and he agreed to meet with us again.

Anyways so lots and lots of very exiting things happening I've been working very hard and trying my best. Each companion and area is like a new life and a fresh start it's tiring, challenging, stretching, and growing. I feel like i've lived multiple lifetimes within the past year. Anyhow fam, thank you for your continued love and support I've needed it.

Hope you're all doing well,

Love Elder Nathan James