First Week of Real Work October 18, 2015

Having an extra hour and a half of proselyting time is pretty exhausting. However, this past week was great. We had a baptism and we celebrated my new companion's birthday! That means we went and got really good (but also expensive) food. So worth it though! The baptism was awesome and I almost cried when our girl, Sister Zhang, started bearing her testimony of eternal families! That's what it's all about! Not much time though, I'll let the pictures say the rest!

 Her cousin (a bishop in another ward) got to baptize her!

For Elder Chan's b-day we went to a place called Mr. Steak. :)

Another American place called Shark Bites Toast. They're famous for  their papaya milkshakes... so good.

Training Complete October 12, 2015

I'm officially just a junior companion! Training was an adventure, and I'm ready to start doing more work. This movecall I will be staying in Taiping and my new companion is Elder Chan from Canada! He's been out for just over a year and he's super chill. We're gonna do some great things here, I know it! This last week was one of my favorite weeks of the mission. We had a lot of great things happen. First of all, that buffet last pday was so amazing and was just as good if not better than the first time we went. I have learned to love sushi. I ate like 3 rolls of this smoked salmon sushi... soooo good. Then Wednesday we had our English class's Halloween party. As English leader (the least desirable calling) I was in charge of planning it, but it actually turned out pretty decent! English class is one of our best ways of finding new investigators, fun fact. Then Friday we had Alex's baptism! It was my first time baptizing someone! It was awesome even though I had to dunk him twice because the first time his knees came out of the water. Afterwards, Alex bore a powerful testimony but instead of closing in the name of Jesus Christ, he said, "any question?". Lol. Then General conference was awesome. All the missionaries had a room to ourselves and we all bought a bunch of snacks so it was awesome. Very few things are better than getting spiritually and physically fed at the same time. I loved so many talks and I especially enjoyed the first talk given by President Uchtdorf. I definitely think that sometimes I make my discipleship more complicated than it needs to be so that is something that I'm going to work on. I'm also gonna start ponderizing every week and I encourage all of you to as well! I also really liked the quote (I forgot who said it), "You don't need to prepare yourself to start becoming who God wants you to be". Seriously, general conference is such a blessing and such a great way to receive revelation! This week we've got a lot of work to do, gotta find some new investigators!!!

-Elder Poon

The Spirit of Revelation October 5, 2015

Many miraculous things happened this week! To start off, I will tell a quick story. This last Saturday I was on exchanges with a certain Elder Stevenson. He is the son of the newly called apostle, Gary E. Stevenson. During the exchanges the conversation came up about conference and his dad being a general authority. I then asked Elder Stevenson, "Dude, what if your dad gets called as an apostle?!" He replied, "There's no way!". I thought for a second and then said, "Well, there's 'apostle'-bility!". Lolol so I basically prophesied a new apostle with a pun. Life is good. However, last Monday my companion and I rode our bikes home from the chapel in a typhoon with approx. 832 mph winds. Perhaps one of the crazier things that I've done life. In addition to the risk of trees and other things falling on us, my companion almost got his leg chopped off by a passing motor scooter and I was almost blown over into a barbed wire fence. We made it back to our apartment safely though! My entire body was super sore the next day though from battling the winds! Fun stuff. The work is awesome. This week we've been stressin' out a little bit because our golden people have had a few little issues, but we've worked them out and as long as nothing else happens, everything is ready! Tracting sucks. However, I've learned that tracting is a great way to show the Lord your diligence and He will bless you for that! It seems like every time we go tracting, there are very few results, but afterwards (like the next day) we will have a miracle new investigator or a miracle lesson. God works in mysterious ways! It's my last week of training and the movecall is next week! I'm thinking I'll probably stay in Taiping though... but who knows? 

Have a great week y'all

-Elder Poon