Weekly Report: Colbert, Speaking Japanese, Jimmy

Hey All!
How was everyone's week? Mine was really good. We saw a lot of success despite being in meetings for two days this week. The Lord really helped us make up for the lost time.

We have some of the coolest recent converts ever in this ward. We have lunch with a number of them each Monday. One of them, Paul (not his real name, but it's much easier for you white people to understand...), is studying for the civil exam that will occur next week. Because the test includes an English portion, he's been practicing his English with us. The other day, he said, "I am become America." Naturally, my first impulse was to respond, "I am America, and so can you," but I held it down. Then I realized that it's that time of year when there was another holiday, and not just America's Christmas, the 4th of July. Too bad nobody celebrates Hannukah here. Then I kicked that handsome Stephen Colbert out of my mind and got my focus back.

Excuse Review:
This week, I contacted some guy with a little Taiwanese, and he responded really great, then he noticed my name tag, and started speaking Japanese to me. When I tried to tell him about the Gospel, he continued to jabber in Japanese while he walked away. Nice try, but I'm an Asian as well, I could easily tell he wasn't Japanese just by the fact that he was missing his Pokemon paraphenalia. 2 lying linguists out of 5.

Just a note about the area: it's really hilly. Actually, the first couple of days I was here, my companion kept talking about "the HILL." I was really curious to see what it was, and now it's my favorite part of the area. While it's a little miserable to climb up it to visit one of our investigators up there, coming down is a BLAST. I love it. Don't worry, Mom, I wear a helmet...

Lately, we've been trying to find a kid named Jimmy (we call contacting the intersection where he sometimes shows up "Jimmy Hunting," which is really funny to write in my planner). He had heard all the lessons in Taibei and had a testimony. Elder Warnick and his trainer taught him once last move call but lost contact with him, and we've been trying to find him since then. This week, when I was on exchanges with Elder Salgado, one of my Zone Leaders, he contacted a kid and we immediately sat down with him. We was super awkward and we tried to get him to write down his contact information, but he refused to tell us his real name, and instead just wrote "Jimmy" on the contact card. I just about flipped. We taught him a little and I committed him to quit coffee after promising some blessings. We set up for the next day and then let him go. The next day, he showed up about 20 minutes late, but we started to teach him and eventually invited him to be baptized. He responded that he had never seen a baptism, and was therefore not too willing to do it. I started to think, "well, brother Lai has a goal for Christmas, so he could see it then and then get baptized the next week," but my companion showed his mettle by saying, "no problem, we can go to the church and watch a movie with baptism in it." So we did. I had to teach a first lesson, so we split up, but 40 minutes later when I got out, my companion had shown Jimmy the movie, the font, and invited him to be baptized on Christmas. Jimmy is now progressing towards baptism and entry into the kingdom of our Father in Heaven because of my companion's bold actions. While his Chinese may not even come close to comparing with mine, I have much to learn from Elder Warnick. I'm grateful that the Lord put me with a missionary who knows how to be bold without being overbearing. I think sometimes I've been "anti-bold" because so much of the boldness I've seen has just been over the top, but I've really learned from Elder Warnick that this is not necessarily the case. This week, I'd love to challenge you all to try and learn something from someone you might feel is perhaps less talented than you. Those of you who are married can learn from your companions (I'm not saying they're less talented than you, just that this exercise is especially suitable when you have a specific person to learn from). I know that as we try to learn from others, we will see them in a better light and we will also increase in our own abilities!

I love you all! Have a great week! Love,
Elder Siebert