Weekly Report: New Tires, Car Watching, Baptism

Hey Everyone!
I hope you all had a good week back home (and some of you scum buckets are in Washington...)! It was a good (but hot) week here in Tainan.

Happy Birthday two months ago, Elder Siebert! I finally broke down (literally) and bought new tires for my bike. I had a wheel pop and then when I got to the bike store, the guy there showed me how my tires were all cracked and almost gone. So now I have skinny tires, and I am rockin' them. I'm riding high and smooth. Classy. Real classy.

This last week, I bought a whole bunch of dragon eyes to eat during personal study so I could stay awake. Everyone told me that that was a bad idea, cause if you eat too many, you'll get a bloody nose. I thought I was stronger than that. But sure enough, on Thursday night, I got a minor bloody nose. Now everytime I open the fridge and see those little guys sitting in a bowl I get goosebumps of terror. I don't know that I'll be able to finish them.

We went to the beach last week. Pretty fun, except that the water was really really tempting cause it was really hot.

Me and Elder Lapray found a HUGE grasshopper in the church parking lot on Friday. So naturally, the first thing to do was catch it and put it in Elder Smith's box on his bicycle. Man, you should have seen Elder Smith scream and jump when he opened his box and the thing jumped at him. Hilarious! Elder Lapray and I were laughing so hard we were crying. Then we took the grasshopper back and home and took pictures of the Anti Nephi Jawa riding him (and pictures of us eating it). Epic 蚱蜢!

Excuse Review: I contacted a guy just standing and smoking and he told me that he was to busy to talk to me cause he was watching the car in front of him. The car was just sitting there, but the guy was really intent on watching it. I tried to convince him to listen, but he had an attention span of steel. 4 vehicular visions out of 5.

So, this last weekend, we also had a baptism. I contacted Brother Zhou last transfer and he was willing to come and meet. That was the week when we taught tons of first lessons. He was probably the worst of the bunch, mostly cause he'd reply to everything we asked with "so-so" (sometimes we get "not bad" now). But he kept commitments and started coming to church. He never had a singular event which confirmed the truth of the church for him, but had lots of trials. He came across anti a lot of times and his family and friends all opposed his baptism. But he decided that he wanted to do it (it's a great thing to hear, "actually, I'm ok with baptism" from an investigator), and this week, Brother Zhou entered the waters of baptism. He's still really shy, but the ward is slowly reaching out to him. I am confident that God will continue to build his testimony through small experiences and feelings. When I think back to how I got my own testimony, I think that's how it came. There really isn't an event that I would cite as the basis of my testimony. Rather, it came in bits and pieces, and now I can't deny the truth of the Gospel.

I love you all, and hope that you are all well. Love,
Elder Siebert