General Conference

This was such a great week. I really love my new area Xihu and my companion. It's still hard to adjust from being in the city to now being in the country. Normally, you have a stoplight every minute that lasts longer than a minute. Here in Xihu, there is one stoplight that is longer than 40 seconds. The work is done a lot different here. We tract a lot! That is super rare for our mission. No one ever goes tracting, but it works very well here! 

A cool miracle from tracting happened this week. We went out at about 11:00 to go tract. This is a hard time to do things because everyone is at work but we went out with faith. Every single home that we went to was just an old amah (grandma) watching tv, telling us she was too busy. Literally every single home was just and amah or agong (grandpa). We get to this one house and they had their zombie doors closed. Side note: in Taiwan every house has these metal doors that they pull down at night or when no one is home to protect them and such. I call them zombie doors. anyways, we figured no one was home but we buzzed in anyways. The doors started to open and this guy welcomed us in. He was so cool and he really had interest in the church! After a day of rejection, this one guy made it all worth it.

This week we are having a baptism!! woo!! His name is Hubert and he is just about the most awkward guy that I have ever met. It has been really hard for the elders to get him to open up and answer questions. But he had his baptismal interview this week and he was talking to our district leader and it was so cool. He told him that before he started to investigate the church he felt that there was no purpose to life. He would wake up every morning with the feeling of a giant rock on his chest and he had that feeling the entire day. But he said once he started to learn about Jesus Christ, he said the rock got lighter and lighter every single day. It was so amazing to hear him say that. It's so true. Because once we learn about Jesus Christ, He takes our burdens away from us. He puts them on His shoulder. So awesome

Also watching conference was just so great. I have never enjoyed conference this much in my entire life! Normally I just looked forward to eating smarties and m&m's all day, but this time I was looking for answers. Totally changed my perspective. I feel as though every single talk was directed right towards me and the questions and needs that I have. It really helped increase my faith in the Lord. I am also so grateful that we have a living prophet today. President Monson truly is God's prophet. 

Just like Elder Rowe said in his talk, I loved the talk by Elder Owen. Being a leader is so key because you can really impact others. I look at the leaders I have interacted with in my mission and I have learned so much from them. Not because they are the best missionaries or have the best advice, but because they follow the Lord as best as they can. Lots of times we will we have to be the best at something or be super popular to be a leader. But I can tell you that those kind of people have had no lasting impact on me. The best leaders are the silent leaders that lead by example through their devotion to God. 

General Conference was amazing. I hope you all learned as much as I did and had your testimonies strengthened. This church is so true. Never forget it. 

I love you all so much!

Love

Elder Anderson