Weekly Report: Hills, Blood Cake, Apartment Pillaging

Hey everyone!
This is my first full week in Dan4shui2 and it is great. First and foremost, the hills here are brutal when you're on a bike. Seriously, if I don't die, I will come out of this with massive leg muscles. The area is gorgeous though, it rains nearly every single day, and the food is great.

This week's strange food of the week was blood cake. It's this kind of abominable looking little thing that you put in a fire pot. I didn't really mind the flavor, but the idea makes it something that I probably won't repeat eating. However, I did have some amazing potstickers at this famous shop the other day, they are definitely a repeat, because they were really cheap as well.

Now, you may all be wondering what the title of this week's update is all about. I will give you the reason. There used to be sisters in Danshui, they lived just up the street from us, probably no more than a couple hundred feet away. Because our apartment had just been acquired and therefore lacked in furnishing and theirs was being closed, we went and acquired some new items. As we went there to get some stuff from the apartment, I exclaimed, "Let's Pillage!" just like Adam from Mythbusters did. Elder Benson thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. We ended up taking a couch, a table, four shelves, a HUGE white board (which we need for our nearly 40 investigators, some of which we still haven't contacted from the sisters yet), a full length mirror, a shower curtain, a chair, coatrack, kitchen items and switched dryers because ours was broken. It was an amazing amount of loot. Everytime we went over I would say "Let's pillage!" and when we got back with the stuff, I'd shout "We pillaged!" It was so fun. I have pictures with the couch and shelves and the three of us elders crammed into a little elevator, I'll send them soon.

We saw some really cool miracles this week. There's been an investigator that we've had for a long time who has some short term memory problems. He can't remember most of what we teach him from day to day. However, as we have prayed for him, he is starting to remember more and more of what is going on. It's so amazing. He wants to be baptized so badly and he is just filled with an awesome light. I hope that we can work with him more and finally get him baptized.

We were contacting this week and had set specific goals to find certain people. I had set a goal to find a college student who would listen to a lesson and want to learn more. I ended up talking to this college guy who was very interested and teaching him on the street. It was only after I said a prayer with him and left that I realized that he was the person that I had planned to find. Also, while we were contacting people on Friday, we were just getting rejected left and right. We said a quick prayer that we would find someone who was prepared to receive the gospel. The very next door we knocked into there was a man named Vincent who came out and talked to us. He said that he couldn't talk for long because he had to go to work, but he requested us to come back and see him this thursday night and also got the church address so that he could come. It was such a miracle. Then, we went down the street a little ways and we found Lu2 jie2mei4 who was willing to listen to us and talk with us for about twenty minutes. Finally, later that day we got a call from a girl Liao4 yu4 rou2 who wanted to come to church with us. Sure enough, she was there yesterday, and she loved it. It was just an awesome week filled with testimony building experiences. Keep praying everyone, because God loves his children and will bless them all if they will humble themselves enough to ask Him for His help.
I love you all,
Elder Siebert