February 22, 2009

OOPS I FORGET- MIRACLES RIGHT AND LEFT
Well I forgot to tell last week, that today is move day. I didn't move though I am still in Gang Shan. My new companions is Elder Li, he is from Taibei. Anyways, he was in the other companionship in my apartment, but now there are only 2 Elders in Gang Shan instead of 4. Its really cool to be with someone I already know. It should be a great move. Right now we have a lot of really cool investigators so we should stay pretty busy. So I have been playing the piano in Church the past couple weeks for sacrament meeting. Anyways, usually the coordinator calls me on like Tuesday and tells me that they need me to play, but he didn't call me this week so I just figured he got another person to do it. However when I showed up sunday morning he told me he needed me to play. If i haven't practiced at all that week I can't play. So I told him I would have to play one of the songs that I played last week and then I told him that the other 2 I didnt really know that well. So sacrament started and I played the prelude music, which was actually me just trying to practice the last 2 songs really fast. I got them down pretty good. Sacrament meeting started and the opening hymn was really easy. I played it no problems. Then came the sacrament hymn, which was also really easy, I messed up a little but I dont think anyone noticed.. Finally it came to the congregational hymn when everyone stands up and sings and stuff. So I got up there and started to play, but I was so nervous I could hardly make my fingers move. About half way through the 1st verse i decided just to play the right hand so at least there was a tune. I dont know why but I couldn't even do that, I kept having to stop and start and stop and start, finally about half way through the 2nd verse I just grabbed the Hymn book and jumped up on my feet and started singing the Hymn as loud as I could. The Bishop looked at me and gave me a humorous smile. Anyways, I had to quit playing halfway through the Hymn and just start singing. When you get nervous it makes it impossible to play. Everyone thought that it was pretty funny, so I wasn't that embarassed. I just wish the coordinator would have told me before i got there. Hahahaha... Since we are short 1 companionship here in Gang Shan that puts a lot of work on our shoulders. Our area is huge now! It spans quite a bit of land. We are going to be biking a lot this move I bet to go visit people all over the place. I don't know what we are going to do for our English class because Elder Li doesn't speak english. That will make things a little difficult. I guess we will find a way. I know I am emailing you a couple days earlier than normal, so don't feel bad about the fact that you didnt email me or anything. However, I must say thank you to Aunt Marylin and Ali for sending me emails this week.
Well I realized that I have stopped telling you all about the little things of Taiwan. They all just seem so normal to me now that I forget that you guys don't know. Have I ever told you that 7 Elevens own the world over here. Every street has got a 7-11 and i am not even exagerrating. You can pay your bills there, you can even go to these little computer stations and order a taxi! Its crazy, you use this little touch screen and then 5 minutes later there is a taxi waiting for you at the 7-11. Now that it is getting hot again we have been going to the little drink stands everywhere. They mostly sell tea, but obviously since we can't drink tea we buy juice and stuff.
Last week Elder Williamme and I saw so many miracles. Two weeks ago we had a rough week, but last week we had 5 new investigators. And one of them is a family. We have been praying to find a family, and finally we were tracting on Friday and we ran into the Liu man. We talked to him a little bit about the Gospel and he didnt seem to interested, but we asked if we could come back on Saturday and share a little more about our family message. He was a little reluctant, but said okay. So on Saturday we went back over and just chatted with him for a while and started to share about how families can be together forever. And that through the teachings of Jesus Christ our families can become stronger. He got so excited and started opening up to us about all the worries he has about his 3 sons. Anyways, he asked us to come back this Saturday to share with his whole family!
Every once in a while people will let us into there house, but people almost never invite us to come back and share the gospel with there family. Usually we ask them and then they just tell us they don't have time. I am so excited, because this Liu guy seemed really excited about what we told him too. That was only one of several miracles. On Saturday morning I got a phone call from a number I didn't know. So I answered and it was a guy that we had talked to on the street the other day. At the time he didn't want to give us his phone number so we just gave him ours. He gave us one of those "Don't call me, I'll call you lines..." I was thinking the whole time, come on body we are not stupid. We are missionaries, we get rejected more than Mugsy Bugs does playing against Shaq. Lo and behold, he did call us back and said he wanted to meet with us. We met with him and he was awesome. He is a young guy named Wu and he seemed to really listen to what we were sharing. I have never had someone like that call me back! It was awesome, I felt a little guilty though because when i gave him our number I didnt actually have the faith that he was going to call us back. Its crazy! The blessings are every where. This is a pretty long email, so i will let you all go. Have a good week i guess i will "talk" to you in a little over a week.
Elder Craig Anderson