Hello everyone. How's it going? Rhetorical question, I know, but in my mind you're all doing great. Except maybe those of you that are starting school soon. Anyway, regardless of how you all are doing, I'm doing fantastic, thank you very much. I'm in a new location today. This email hails from Newport Beach, and I can see the beach through the library window. Okay, I've got to stop now. Things have been rolling here in the Anaheim mission. The English elders are on fire, and we came across a entirely Asian neighborhood in the northernmost part of our mission a few days ago. It was very strange to see only Asians on the street, because I've only seen that in restaurants before. Well, as it turned out, quite a few of them were Cantonese, Japanese, and Korean, so it wasn't quite as golden as we thought it was. And, in addition to that, it was a 40 minute drive away from our church, and there aren't too many people in Southern California that would brave that every week. (Call us wimps, but it's true.)
We've also seen some pretty great miracles this week. One of them occurred when Elder Wang and self decided to abandon all reason and enter into a yard that had a huge sign that said "BEWARE OF DOG." Being male, we thought we were up to the task. Well, we knocked on the door and a few seconds later a huge pitbull comes sprinting like mad towards us. I felt my life flash before my eyes (it didn't take long) as the pitbull jumped onto my knees and started to....lick my hands. The owner came out and told us that the pitbull was very friendly and didn't bite at all. The miracle is.....we talked to him about the gospel and he said he's been waiting for this all of his life and he's getting baptized this week. Okay, that last part was a bit of a fabrication. He wasn't too interested. The real miracle is that I didn't wet my slacks. A small miracle, but a miracle nonetheless for those that know me.
Aside from all crazy stories, let's get to the part that really makes it all worth it: the spiritual experiences. Guo Tongxue continues to be awesome despite having slept through church at 1:30 (let's face it, the life of a student can be hard). She was the one that suggested we start our lesson with a prayer, she set up a ride to go to our branch campout without us knowing, and she set up our next appointment. Really great. Well, she's just now starting to believe in God via the Spirit's guidance, and it's an awesome thing to behold. In our last lesson when we were talking about prayer she said, "I really hope God doesn't forget about me," to which Elder Wang said, "He has never forgotten about you." I thought that was amazing once I started thinking about it a little more. Even if we completely reject Him, God keeps track of every single one of His some-odd 6 billion living children. He's sad when we make wrong choices and is absolutely ecstatic when we make right ones. Just thinking about that a little more every day should keep us on the right path. I know that this is His work, and I have felt His help throughout the day in every aspect of the work.
Have a sweet week, everyone.
- Elder Daniel Winters
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