Weekly Report: Earthquake Excuse, Cheap Hot Pot, Speaking with the Spirit

HELLO!
I hope you all had a fun week. I know I did. This week blew by so fast. I've never been so tired in my life. We went on exchanges twice and had to take care of both Jiayi areas at the same time. Needless to say, and Elder Hansen and I were very busy. We saw a lot of success though. On Saturday, we baptized Brother Huang, who has been investigating the church since January. It's taken some time and effort, but it's wonderful to be able to see him come unto the Lord through the waters of baptism. He was very and happy and excited.

Excuse Review: (sorry, it's been a while)
This week, I contacted this old man and lady on a motorcycle and the lady informed me that there was gonna be a huge earthquake on May 21. Not sure what it had to do with "How are you today," but it was definitely interesting. I knew that the Chinese had invented everything like paper, fireworks, etc. but I didn't know that they invented excuses as well. Har har. That was a bad one. 3 early earthquake predictions out of 5.

Food Review:
Oh man, this was a good one. Elder Hansen took me to go get a Hot Pot that costed 77 NT and included free rice and ice cream. It was a beautiful wonderful thing. We were so happy. Not sure that it was really anything special, but it was cheap (I doubt Matt will ever see anything like that in Taipei. Everything's expensive up there. Sucker.). 5...... I don't knows out of 5.

So, last week in companion inventory, Elder Hansen pointed out to me that I use a lot of euphemisms when I talk (dang it, heck, friggin'), and showed me that I wasn't supposed to. Let me just say, I didn't realize just how addicted I was to those words. It's been hard. The most embarassing is when I say something like, "Friggin' sisters... Dang it!" and then Elder Hansen just laughs at me. Don't worry, though. I'll clean up my language.

One of the high points of this last week was when we went to visit an inactive recent convert in the first ward. I visited him on exchanges with Elder Mix last year before he was baptized and he was good. However, since then, Brother Wu has not come to church and has started drinking tea again. Anyways, all I knew when we went into the lesson was that he had gone inactive and was drinking tea. We started talking about the baptismal covenant, and he talked about how green tea was good for a person. I started almost rebuking him. I was very severe in that lesson. I have probably been severe only 4 or 5 times on my mission, and that time was powerful. My Chinese got amazing just like it always does when I'm under the influence of the Spirit, and there was a palpable intensity in the air as I taught him. Everything just flowed out of me effortlessly and he committed to live the Word of Wisdom and come to church. It was a crazy experience to feel how powerfully the Spirit worked through me. After the lesson, Elder Hansen told me he'd never seen me teach like that, and that usually, Brother Wu gets angry when anyone gets even slightly strict with him. I know that the things I said that night came from God. It's so cool to have the commission to speak in behalf of the Savior. Sometimes it means speaking kind comforting words. That's what I usually do. But sometimes it means calling people to repentance. When we act in the capacity that the Lord would have us work in, we will see miracles and feel His power.

I love you all and hope that you see miracles this week. Love,
Elder Siebert