MIRACLES WILL COME

"I know that as long as I have faith, and give my very best, miracles will come."

Elder Willes and Brother Xu

Hello everyone!!! This has been a crazy week. The best part of the week is that Brother Xu was baptized yesterday! Words cannot describe how happy I was and how strong I felt the spirit during the meeting. I am so proud of him, and love Brother Xu so much! I also learned this week that I will be getting transferred to UCR full-time! It is kind of a bummer leaving Eastvale because I love it here so much and feel like we just got the work rolling. I will be in another trio with Elder Zeng and a new Chinese speaking missionary who comes to the mission tomorrow. I move to UCR [University of California Riverside] one week from today.

We had another lesson with Brother Xu about obedience, temples and family history. All good stuff. He is ready. We changed his baptism date from Saturday to Sunday so that more members would be able to attend. On Tuesday
we had our ZDM meeting [once a transfer our zone gets together] where we received training on studying the scriptures, keeping an active journal, and "The Doctrine of Christ." The day finished off right with dinner with Tony and Tina, a Chinese couple in our ward. We had hot pot!!!! This hot pot one was a littleeeeee bit different though. I had frog, the 1000 year-old egg, lots of tofu, conch, and some other traditional Chinese foods. It was a fun adventure.

Frog or tofu anyone?

One of the coolest experiences I had this week was with Alan. On Thursday, Alan stayed and worked with us for the day. He left on his own LDS mission this week. Alan is a convert to the church as of about a year ago and is the only member in his family. His family does not support him, does not support his faith, and does not support him in his decision to serve a mission. Even with all of these challenges, Alan's faith and testimony are so strong and he is super prepared to go and serve the Lord. I am so proud of him! I gave Alan a priesthood blessing before he headed out on his mission. I felt the spirit strong. It was an amazing experience for me.

Elder Willes and Alan - Love this guy!

We had English class this week. That is always fun. We also met with Brother Miao to discuss the work in Eastvale. We had another lesson with Monica and taught her about the Restoration. We invited her to pray and read the scriptures everyday and she said she would! When we invited her to be baptized she told us she wasn't ready to commit to that yet. Please pray for her!

Friday morning we had more service at the Roubidoux Nature Center. It is nice being out and serving. Saturday morning we had our weekly blitz. Elder Yang and I went out together and contacted 7 people. We were able to get a referral for the Elders in this area! That made me happy. Brother Ding invited us over for lunch with Brother Xu. The Biehn family fed us this week. The members in Eastvale are amazing.

Sunday Brother Xu was DUNKED!!!!!!! Such an amazing day. We had 4 investigators at church that day too! Directly after our church meetings,  Brother Xu was baptized and President and Sister Mullen came which was special. We had an opening song and prayer, and then Sister Li gave a talk on Baptism. The Li family are such great examples. After Brother Xu was baptized Elder Yang and I taught The Restoration in Chinese! That was fun. Brother Xiong gave a talk about the gift of the Holy Ghost. Brother Xu bore his testimony. Powerful and something I will always remember. He said, "One of the reasons why I joined the church is because I want to teach my children the Gospel." Wow! So amazing. Brother Xu is so awesome!

L to R Elder Yang, Elder Willes, Brother Xu and Elder Zeng

The Elders with the Li family - They are so good to us.

Elder Willes with Sunny at church

This week has been incredible. I am excited to get to UCR and hopefully continue to see miracles everyday. I know that as long as I have faith, and give my very best, miracles will come. This work is the greatest work on the earth today. I am so grateful to be a part of it. Love you all have a great week!

Elder Willes