Gravesweeping and Baptism of Huang DX

April 8, 2013

Hola familia!!! How are you all doing? I hope this email finds you happy as a bumblebee. Mom, Happy birthday tomorrow!!! I hope it is the best EVER. This last week was great, of course. I did kind of a horrible job with my journal though so I'll do my best to tell you all about it. This will probably be more like random bits from my week.

This week was super exciting! We started off with an amazing DTM where we discussed how to be both effecient and effective. I really enjoyed it and the practice role plays.We were also able to contact over 400 people while English Proselyting! So amazing when you can just smile at people, tell them about English Class and Church, and they are soooo happy and willing to listen to you, just because they think you look happy :) LOVE IT!

On Thursday we were able to go Gravesweeping as a service project! IT WAS AMAZING!!!!  We were able to wear jeans and t-shirts (with the helping hands vests) and clean up graves and weed for about 4 hours. It was so great to be able to serve! I love being outside working in the dirt! I hadn't realized just how much i missed it! We were also able to talk with so many families when they would come up to us and ask why we were interested in helping and serving. I was able to share about families and the church with incredible people all while weeding! It was great!!!

Okay.....Absolute highlight of the week....We had a baptism!!! I was sooooooo happy! I still am SO happy. His name is Huang DX and he is an awesome guy! He is 22 yrs old, and he just moved to Fengyuan with his new wife (Wang Jiemei) about a month an a half ago. They came and self contacted me while we were English Proselyting and we were able to invite them to Church that Sunday! We also started meeting with them, because his wife it turns out is a LA from a different area. They haven't missed a single Sunday of church since they started coming! The Elders took over meeting with him and teaching him the lessons after he expressed interest after meeting with us sisters and going to church, and now last Saturday night April 6 2013 he was baptized!!! We are sooo beyond excited for him! Yesterday at church, he was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and wore his new church clothes for the first time. I'm seriously SO HAPPY FOR THEM! Love that family so much.Cute side note....on Friday morning, Wang Jiemei, his wife, called us and and asked if Sister Burrows would help her do her makeup for the baptism. She had never worn makeup before and she wanted to know if she could teach her. It was the cutest thing ever!! Especially since she wanted to look pretty for him and his baptism. So tender!

We have another woman whom we visit who ALSO has schizophrenia....she's the one who thinks a wire is attacking her constantly....she asked us to please help her make foreign friends and learn how to talk with foreigners. She thinks that Taiwanese men are all horrible so she thinks that maybe she can get a foreign boyfriend that, even if he lives somewhere else, he can probably protect her and keep her safe.We'll see what we can do.......

I'm sorry I don't have much time, but I do love you all! I'll write more details next week and send pictures one of these days!

Love, Sister Smart