Week 3 of 9 almost completed, and
I'm already craving the 14 hour plane ride to Taiwan. I mean... I'm
learning so many amazing things here, and I'm feeling the spirit all the
time, I really just need a change of scenery. But this week has
definitely been awesome. So many stories for my diar- I mean JOURNAL.
Haha, I'll start with the... less spiritual stories. So we've been
teaching our teachers as "investigators", so that we can get better with
our teaching, and on Friday
my companion and I started teaching the 2nd lesson, about the Plan of
Salvation. We only had about 10 minutes to teach, so we were trying to
be quick, but I feel like the Spirit was there, and we did a pretty good
job. Our teacher kept laughing, though, which I thought was kinda
weird. I just assumed I had sworn at her in Chinese or something. When
we got back to class, she was still laughing.... Which made me a little
nervous. She proceeded to tell our whole district what had happened.
While we were teaching, I said "We have had many prophets", and then I
listed some off. Well, I listed one off: Adam. She thought that was
hilarious, since I had JUST said we've had many prophets, and could only
think of one... The rest of the district found that pretty funny, too.
We all ended up laughing till our sides hurt. We've had a lot of slip
ups like that, it's fun to laugh at our mistakes.
We
also have some... INTERESTING Zone Leaders, who like to have a lot of
run on jokes. The latest one is "Playing your Banjo to keep the Devil
away", which they'll routinely tell us to do promptly at bedtime (10:30).
So, to calm everyone's fears a little, I have put together a little
banjo out of cardboard and rubber bands. I added pictures to my google
drive of my masterpiece, for anyone who's interested. Crazy stuff
happens when you don't sleep long enough every night for 3 weeks.
Aside from that, we actually had an amazing testimony building experience on Saturday.
We had to teach TRC, where you just teach members in Chinese. I was
nervous, but I shouldn't have been, it was awesome. We taught a recently
returned missionary named "Wu Di Xiong", who is from ARIZONA!!! He's
from Sedona, so we instantly hit it off. We talked about families,
sports, hobbies, what he's studying (he goes to UVU), all in Chinese. It
was so refreshing to have such an uplifting conversation. Then we
started teaching him about the Atonement, and I can honestly say that
was the strongest I've ever felt the Spirit while teaching in Chinese.
The Atonement is personal, and it was made for each of us specifically.
God loves me, and he loves you, YOU SPECIFICALLY, He loves you so much
He sent His ONLY begotten Son, His Beloved Son, to suffer pain you and I
could not possibly comprehend. Could you even imagine? He had to watch
His own Son suffer the pain of every single one of our sins, He had to
watch as they cruelly mocked Christ, beat him, and finally, in the
ultimate desecration of the Savior, hung him by his hands, naked and
alone, before the eyes of his own mother, his own friends.God watched
all of this happen, could you even imagine the sorrow, the anguish, the
absolute helplessness, He, even as GOD, must have felt? Now consider why
he allowed that to happen. He wanted ALL of us to come home, not just
His only begotten Son. He wanted YOU to come home. He wants you home so
badly He allowed his Son to suffer the pains of the World. He loves you
that much. I couldn't even imagine allowing that to happen to my child.
But God allowed it, because it was necessary. These are thoughts all
three of us shared, Wu Di Xiong, Elder Raty and I, as Wu Di Xiong and I
cried. Lol. We all stood up and hugged, and he told us he loves us, and I
love him, too. He gave us some advice, IN ENGLISH. More important than
anything, than learning the language or knowing the gospel backwards and
forwards, is loving the people you teach, and helping them know God
loves them.
Well, my friends, my brothers and
sisters, God loves you. More than anything he loves you. He wants you to
come home, He wants us all to come home. To His arms. Come to Him, seek
Him earnestly, and He will find you. He gave His son for you, don't
ever forget that. John 3:16
- "For God so loved the world, that He gave His ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, for
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life." Believe in Him, He is.
I hope to hear back from you all! I love you all, and so does God.
Love,
Elder Shope
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