Another week in the life of a servant of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! What a blessing to represent Him everyday.
Awesome preparation day on Monday! We learned how to do a dance with a member that came down from the 台北 area. It was a super good time I enjoyed it and there was a lot of laughter. Before that happened I got to call home! It's such an amazing change I think the potential this has to help other people is so amazing and I can't wait to continue using it to it's full advantage. And it's nice to see and hear Mom and Dad's voices! Along with Noah too but sadly today I didn't get to video call him, I dropped the ball on that. Nonetheless the change is awesome. We also played a great game of ultimate frisbee today. I made some stellar throws and catches and our team ended up winning! Playing ultimate has always been one of my favorite pastimes so doing it today was super awesome. Aside from that nothing super special happened but it's gonna be a great week this week!
Tuesday was exchange day! We took a train down to 玉里 to do a District Leader exchange. I am with the District Leader himself Elder Thayne! We had a great day today biking around and visiting some people and we actually sat down and shared with three different people and it was incredible! The first was with their investigator closest to baptism and we watched President Nelson's talk about the Book of Mormon and talked about it some with her. Then we biked to a man's house who they call, "Mr. Yellow" since that's what he calls himself. We shared a Restoration story with him and it went so well. The last visit was more of a sit and listen since the man really likes to talk. It was all good though he has some good Christian values, even though not a member of our church he still agrees with some points we share about. I got to really be a part of the teaching and sharing today and I felt so confident in doing so. I know it was Heavenly Father's blessing. I even made 2 phone calls today which is way out of my comfort zone, but I did it. This exchange has already helped me a lot! Tomorrow before we finish I'll have to see what other insights I can learn!
Wednesday was such a great day. We finished up exchanges in 玉里 and hopped on the train back home. Because the time was weird we still had to do our studies so the day got pushed back to the point where we finished studies and had to eat dinner than prepare for our English class! Exchanges was really great though and I learned a lot from Elder Thayne. The biggest thing I learned pertains to how to make a mission really "your mission" and not be a robot. I think I can apply a lot of it into my own mission! I also learned that since moving down to 鳳林 I have lost 8 pounds. Pretty crazy but just goes to show how much biking we do everyday. Elder Thayne also has a skateboard he bought in a previous area (... 🤔🤔😏) and this morning I landed the first nollie of my skateboard career. Definitive proof that miracles happen on missions! I'm just kidding, but miracles do happen and amazing things unfold in my life every day!! That's what makes a mission so amazing is seeing the hand of God touch your life and others as well.
Thursday was incredible! We woke up in 花蓮 and played an awesome game of ultimate frisbee for our morning exercise than we got ready and headed to the chapel for Zone Conference! We had to be there early so we could practice our special musical number (will say more on that later...). The conference itself was amazing. Sister Peterson spoke to us about receiving revelation and I learned a lot from that. Then President Peterson spoke about recognizing the Spirit and using it to teach and always striving to feel it. I learned so much from these talks if we had ended the conference right then I would have been so filled spiritually! We didn't and received some other awesome trainings and it was super great. And of course we performed our musical number. It was the first time I have ever sung solo in front of a group of people in my life. And I was terrified. Thankfully it was only 1 verse out of 4. The number went great though. Everyone said they liked it so I'll take that as a great compliment! This was definitely a push out of my comfort zone but it ended up great (despite that however, I probably will never volunteer or let myself be volunteered for anything like that again). Zone Conference was the highlight of the day though and I really learned a lot that will help me in my ministry!
Friday was a great day! Due to the fact it is Friday it was our Weekly Planning Session once again. This week though I really tried to follow Preach My Gospel to the letter and follow all the parts it has. I really noticed the difference between using it as a guidebook and not a suggestion book. We set a lot of great goals and made plans to make it all happen! There is lots to be done, even in the second most remote area in the whole mission. I have that responsibility to make it happen, talk about pressure! Thankfully I have a companion to help, and we are really gonna rely on the Lord and it will all be done the way it needs to be. We also did some finding today and though we didn't get any firm return appointments we met a really nice Grandma who said we can try back on Monday or Tuesday. All the rest of the houses rejected us but we had that one small success! I am totally pleased. It is by small and simple things that great things are brought about.
Saturday was interesting to say the least. God's hand was definitely in it!! Nothing too crazy happened till we went to visit a member who lives on top of a mountain (no joke). We tried biking up but it ended up turning into just us walking our bikes up. It was raining too so we were literally walking in the clouds and it was pretty awesome. I tried to take pictures but felt like that one scene in Walter Mitty when Sean doesn't take the picture of the leopard. It was just so pretty the pictures wouldn't do it justice! We had a cool visit then came the fun part. Biking down a mountain in the rain. Needless to say I was scared and knew what could go wrong in this scenario. So we said a prayer for safety and started our descent. About a third of the way down though I took a section too fast and tried to brake but my bike slid out from under me and I slid about 10 feet on the road then off the side of it (no guards or anything and just a straight drop). My bike slid off the road too but thankfully neither my bike nor I sustained any serious damage. Just some great road rash and some ripped pants. My bike lost one bolt but it's an easy fix. I definitely had a great brush with disaster but I know that Heavenly Father had His hand in it and prevented a very bad outcome from occurring. I'm still beating myself up about the situation and I'm just grateful that things aren't worse.
I woke up Sunday feeling sore from the crash Saturday. As if my knee wasn't hurting enough now I got a nice big scrape to keep my attention on it. Thankfully once I got moving it felt a bit better. Sunday was a great day! Church was awesome and we got to participate in the circle of giving the gift of the Holy Ghost to the man we baptized last week! That was a very cool experience for me. We didn't have any appointments today so we biked out to a further part of our area to do some finding. Not a lot of people willing to talk but that's how it is sometimes. We were blessed with lots of rain today which made for some beautiful scenery! It was one of those times where pictures can't capture it all. It made me very grateful once again to be serving in such a beautiful place.
This week was pretty wild!! Thankfully I can see the end of it. Thanks for your prayers I know they are answered!!
Elder Heber Chase Ciminski
宋希伯長老