October 2014 Baptisms

Shalu, October 24

Zhanghua 3, October 18

Yuanlin 1, October 4

This young convert was blessed to have two sets of missionaries teach him!

10-30-14 Mission Leadership Council

New AP conducting:

New Zone Leader and Assistant:)

Sister Training Leaders sharing miracle stories:

President's instruction on diligence...

and scripture discussion...

Country Wheat Chili and Cornbread for lunch:

Pumpkin Bars and Gluten Free Pumpkin Cookies: 

Singing in preparation for afternoon instruction:

Demonstrating a Baptismal Interview:

Practicing:

AP's Instruction:

President's Invitation:

Mission Song:

Our Mission Leaders:

Sister Training Leader Meeting:

10-28-14 Fengyuan District Training Meeting

Sisters sharing about their investigators:

 District Leader instructing district members...

  using Preach My Gospel principles of Diligence, Faith in Finding, and Talk to Everyone:

 Practicing talking to everyone, whether in line to dump garbage...

 and sharing a message on families:

Or in line at the grocery store...

 Helping them to understand the purpose of life:

 Or outside a 7-Eleven...

sharing why we came on a mission and what our message is:

 The Fengyuan District:

10-27-14 President's Weekly Letter

Dear Elders and Sisters,

This past week we finished interviewing. It was great to spend a few minutes with each of you. I wish it could be longer, it seems like 10 minutes goes so quickly and is never enough. I am grateful for your willing hearts and desires to improve. I am grateful to see so many of you striving to consecrate yourselves and all that you are to serve as representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To truly represent Him requires much more than simply putting on a nametag and showing up in your assigned area. It requires us to give our best effort, every day, all day. One of the ways that you can know that you are a successful missionary is that you “work effectively every day, do your very best to bring souls to Christ, and seek earnestly to learn and improve” (PMG, pg. 11). We are not salespeople and the work of salvation is not a contest to see how many people we can get to join our church. As Elder Boyd K. Packer stated in his recent conference address, “The true success of the Gospel of Jesus Christ will be measured by the spiritual strength of its individual members. We need the strength of conviction that is found in the heart of every loyal disciple of Christ.”

Although the month does not end until Friday, it appears likely that we will have around 19 baptisms for October. This is the lowest number of baptisms per month since I have arrived in the mission. I am earnestly striving to know how and what we can do to bring more souls unto Christ. This morning I reread President Uchtdorf’s talk from the priesthood session of general conference, “Lord, Is it I?” Perhaps we could all benefit from examining ourselves and searching for specific things that we could do to increase our conviction and improve our performance. Perhaps we have gone from focusing too much on key indicators to not enough. We must always remember our missionary purpose and strive to measure all that we do accordingly, however our mission standards can help us establish goals and expectations. If our goals and plans for the week do not reflect a commitment and desire to hit mission standards, then we need to increase our faith and diligence.

Remember: this is not “our work,” it is the Lord’s work. We will not be able to accomplish our purpose without personally repenting and coming unto Christ and doing it in His way.

President Blickenstaff

Mentor of Champions

PS. Thank you for completing the recent questionnaire. I look forward to studying the results and learning what we can focus on in order to improve. Also, please note that if you see a popup on your missionary portal that requests you to give your Social Security number to the missionary department, it is not a phishing scam and your email account has not been hacked. It is an actual request from the missionary department and the information is necessary to comply with a new healthcare law. This only applies to missionaries from the United States.

So Many Friends at the Taipei Temple!

What can be better than two trips in one month to the Taipei Temple with your missionaries?

A third trip meeting your friends!

Our good family friend from Camarillo, California takes a tour of the temple grounds given by the Taipei sister missionaries. His daughter is currently serving a mission in North Carolina!

 Spending the night at temple housing, we met these lovely sisters on their last night in the mission field. Recognized one immediately as the older sister of one of our Taichung sister missionaries!!!

 Then attended a session with this recent convert who was there in preparation for her mission to London, England. She was escorted by another returned sister missionary from the Taichung mission and accompanied by the elder that baptized her a year ago (who is still serving in the mission)!

 More returned missionaries from the Taichung mission:

 Members from Makong and Kinmen fly by plane to attend the temple:

 These two sisters, accompanied by their family members, will be returning home after serving faithfully in the Taipei mission. President had the honor of releasing them.