Lots of investigators

Hi Family,

Well, I don't know if you sent a letter last week, cause I didn't get one today. So I don't have too much to respond to.

Thank you for your prayers and fasting for Emily. I'm not sure that she'll be baptized this week, which is unfortunate, but she is still making progress. She fasted and prayed for an answer too. On saturday night, to start her fast, I went over to her house with my exchange for the evening, Brother Manning. We just answered a few questions she had, then had a prayer circle, where we would each say a prayer in turn, around the circle several times, in hopes that we could feel the spirit and have a confirmation. Afterwards, after some silence, I asked her how she felt, and she felt happy, peaceful, and she said it was almost like a voice told her "don't worry, it's okay." She definitely felt the peaceful comfort of the spirit. But it's so new to her, and so she's still not sure if that is her answer. So she needs to still spend some more time in the scriptures and pondering and praying. But she's doing great on all the commandments; we've taught her everything, and she's living it. She just feels she needs faith or else baptism is meaningless.

We have been getting to know her son too, through playing tennis. Elder Elkington is good at tennis, and Steven is really into it, so we've gone over there twice now, and I discuss the gospel with Emily while Elkington plays tennis with Steven. We're going out to dinner with them next week to get to know steven better. So maybe we can start teaching him the gospel too; his mom is a good example to him.

Tonight, we are having dinner with another investigator family, the Forkuses. The father, Rod, is a member, but has been inactive since childhood. But they are very open to us, very kind, and somewhat interested in educating their children in the church, so we are meeting with them weekly. So, dinner tonight will be a good step. The relationship of trust with the missionaries is really a big part; they won't even listen to what you have to say otherwise.

Mrs Ma, the elder Groberg referral, is doing excellent. I taught the second lesson without a hitch, except for my not-quite-good enough chinese. Elder Elkington had an exchange he had to go with, so I taught the whole plan of salvation in chinese myself. It was hard, but the spirit was still there, and Mrs. Ma is awesome. She's been reading so much and is accepting of everything and understands it. She is so ready for the gospel; I just wish I was better at communicating it.

We were dropped by one of our potential investigators, Ling Cao. She was very nice about it, but is too entrenched in the baptist church.

Isnt' it sad when people can't convert to the true church because they're friends with a pastor?

Our english investigator Rick Marx... I don't know if I've talked about him before. An active member, a ward missionary, with a son on a mission, just married him. So, of course he's investigating, perhaps to keep his wife happy with the show that he's "trying." We had invited to him to a baptism on friday so we could meet with him, and then he didn't show up. It was only later that we found out it was because he had heart problems, and had to rush into the hospital for surgery.

And I think this has caused a real change of heart for him, no pun intended. It injected a real dose of perspective into his life about what is really important. And he saw that the people in the church really did care about him, many of his friends were genuinely concerned and stopped by to visit him. So he says he thinks he's getting closer to joining the church. And thus we see God sometimes lets "bad" things happen to us in order to bring about his good purposes.

Yesterday, we helped a recent convert Gwen with her yard. She is studying very hard and I think she will be a great member; her heart and actions are very much in the right place. We also taught Emily again yesterday - well, we let the Prophet and Apostles do that. We watched Special Witnesses of Christ with her, and it was very good. I think. I couldn't understand all of it.

Here's a good holiday missionary opportunity- ask the sisters about getting Joy to the World cards or dvds and giving them to the neighbors. It's a good christmas video.

Also, mom, you and michelle could go on exchanges with the sisters. I think you would like that. That way they could do twice as much work, and you would both get missionary opportunities. Michelle would get to go on appointments with them. Michelle sounds like she is doing excellent in the gospel, not only sharing it, but applying it to herself. I'm really proud of her.

That's great that you are going to utah for thanksgiving, and it's really cool that you are going to meet up with Summer. We are going to Sister Ng's house with Emily's family for thanksgiving. Maybe we'll even invite Mrs. Ma too.

Make sure to tell Julie congratulations for me. Can you send me her address? Or better yet, tell HER to send me her address, that way I will get a bit more mail.

I got a lot of good mail from the mission office today, including 1500 flash cards from taiwan. However, non-mission mail was kind of sparse, I only got letters from Grandma and grandpa, and Jen Price. So make sure you're writing.

Well, I have to go, but have a great week. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Myers