The Angelic Potential

sorry my time is a little low today....I spent some time translating for some other missionaries so that they could read and write to some of their really good friends out here....It is such a blessing to be able to read and write in this amazing language! There is NO WAY IN THE WORLD that I could do all this without the help of the Lord! But since I am low on time lets jump on in!!

GOOOD MORNINNGGGG SAND DIEGO!!! (Hallelujah...TESTIFY!!!!....yes Pops...I am thinking of mosters vs. aliens! :))

Okay so I know you are all just dying to hear about the miracles that happened this week! Well the thing is that most of them happened within me and so it is sort of hard to express through an email...especially when your English is sounding more and more like you should still be in elementary school....:(....it is too bad that google translate is terrible haha. 

So before miracles...I will start with some fun stories. FIRST AND FOREMOST I have a new found respect for baseball players!! We played baseball last week...my arms were SO SORE!! But Dad you would be so proud! I was KILLING the balls that were coming at 140km/h...I think that is something like 85 mph. Pops would be so proud! It was a TON of fun! 

This week I also got to enjoy a delicious meal of pig scalp and intestines....yummy....:) Mom would be so happy at the things that I am willing to even THINK about putting in my mouth out here haha.

Okay...MIRACLE TIME! So this week we tried tracting...my LEAST favorite method for finding people who are prepared...but we still did it because it was in our plan that we had prayed about the night before and guess what!? WE FOUND A COOL FAMILY AND WE FOUND A LESS ACTIVE WOMEN WHO WANTS HER HUSBAND TO HEAR THE GOSPEL!!! We are going to go over there tonight so....pray for us!! :) It should be really good! Another thing I loved is that we got to do TWO exchanges this week. One with the Assistants and one with the Zone Leaders! They were both really amazing! It was Elder Limpinostropong (spelling?....I just call him Elder Lick-an-ostrich-bone...sounds about right :)) and Elder Vandiford that were down here with me! It was SUCH A BLAST BOTH TIMES! One thing I learned is that eveyr missionary really has their own special thing!! One thing I have started doing is that as I go around doing different activities I try to think about and act as different prophets and missionaries from the Book of Mormon! As I go finding Less Actives...I activate Alma Mode.....when I am going to find a New Investigator...I go switch into Ammon Mode (minus the cutting off arms thing...) haha. And doing that has really kept me motivated and helped me to keep such a good attitude!!

Other than that I have really focused my studies and free thinking time (which is not much out there...) on the godly and angelic potential that we have as Sons and Daughters of our Heavenly Father. If we truly knew who we were and where we come from..I don't believe we would ever make wrong choices...if we could just see that we are LITTERALLY children of God....GOD! Then we would see our potential to be like him and we would be so much better in every aspect of life! So here is the INVITE OF THE WEEK! Pray, pray like you are talking to your Father. A REAL father daughter or father son relationship. If you don't pray...then start :)

I am sorry for the low amount of time this week...Know I love you all so much and I also really love getting letters from my amazing family and friends!!! :)

SHINE BRIGHT AND JUMP IN!

P.S. Me and my comp are the Ninjas of TaiZhong :) 

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Ge Sheng Long ZhangLao

葛勝龍長老

P.S. Elder Sam Gish’s brother, Chase, has been called to serve in the Hamilton, New Zealand Mission. If you are interested in signing up to receive his updates, the blog address is: http://elderchasegish.blogspot.com/

And the War begins!

The War?...yup, the WAR! Elder Gish what war? The war between the natural man and my eternal potential!!!

IS that not the coolest idea for a book ever!? Probably have a lot like that already actually...but still.

So here is why I say this! This past week I have really had a big struggle within myself. I don't really know what it is or why it was there, but if there was ever a time that I wanted to go on a walk with Mom again or hop in the mini with Dad it would be now! I just feel as though there are these forces within me battling for who will come out on top! It is wild! I have one that is totally natural man and wants to just give in and tells me things like "people will understand" or "no-one will know" things like that. Or even things like, "this time it is okay to just take a rest, don't worry about talking to that guy over there." And then there is this...強烈的感覺...(overwhelming feeling?)...That tells me that I have so much more to do here and that I can not settle for standard or just acceptable. This feeling tells me that as a Child of God the Eternal Father and being endowed with his spirit and his power I have so much more to do and that I CAN NOT settle for any less than what my God would have me do! It really is like a war between who I have been all the past and this new strength that has an incredible desire to take over! It is only interesting because until now I have never really felt like there where honestly two separate forces battling within me haha. Now this just reminds me of a story my Dad LOVES to tell about an Ancient Indian tribe. When a young man was feeling the same feelings I am...the old Indian Chief told the boy that there were two wolf spirits fighting inside of him...the one that wins will be the one that he feeds the most. So who am I going to feed? By Reading my scriptures, praying, choosing to obey the commandments and going to church I am feeding the new powerful angelic force within me! And by avoiding all other forms or temptation and evil I am starving out the other! YEAHH! Super cool! :)

Anyways... on to the week!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY POPS!!!!!!! TODAY MY DAD TURNS....What is it...36? Something like that! :) hahaha...wait..was it 63?....I can't really remember any more...haha...:) Anyways...Pops I am SOOO GRATEFUL FOR YOUR AMAZING EXAMPLE AND INFLUENCE IN MY LIFE!!!!! Please take care of yourself! I expect another 100 years or more out of you so you better keep working out! I think that because your metachloriens (spelling? If you think my English is getting bad wait till you hear my Jedi...haha) are so high that you should be able to use your force powers so keep going :):) I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! YOU ROCK!!!!!!

This week I discovered something that I wish I knew a long time ago but that I will never forget. Obedience is the key to unlocking the power of our faith. I have dedicated these two years to my Lord and it is only when I am obedient that he can use my faith to bless me and those around me! Without obedience my faith is for not. I will be 100% obedient and continue to allow the Lord to bless me and those around me. No matter the struggle I want to be able to stand up and be strong and courageous!! It was a nice realization! :)

I love it when you wait 30min for the shower water to heat up but it never does so you finally step into the shower and its so cold you do that panting thing...that lasts the WHOLE TIME...and just before you get out it warms up...yup...thank you amazing shower in our apartment....

So Knight Roberts and I are on the ride, soaring on the wings of angels, slaying demons in our path and gathering souls to join with us and our God! :) haha...saying things like we live in the mid-evil days is always so much more fun...haha. We found a BUNCH of new investigators this week thanks to Elder Roberts amazing spirit...I still can't get why he doesn't have to say words but can get peoples numbers...haha.

I now see that with less than a year left....the clock is really ticking...before I know it time will be up. I need to really decide right now who I want to be and what I want to do. As do we all.

So...INVITE OF THE WEEK! Pick ONE THING that you FOR SURE want to do in that week in order to improve any aspect of yourself! None of us are perfect...But we need to all pick just one thing, small or big, and the WHOLE WEEK focus on that ONE thing. I would love to hear the results from people! I have SOOOO much to improve so advice would be nice too ;)

I love you all so much and I hope you have an AMAZING WEEK! Until the next Lovely P-Day!

JUMP IN and SHINE BRIGHT!

-

Ge Sheng Long ZhangLao

葛勝龍長老

The worth, of EVERY soul, is GREAT in the eyes of God.

I just want to develop those kinds of eyes so bad!!! I want to be able to look at each person and see the worth that they have to my God and thus to me. It is something I am working on and getting better and better at with sincere prayer and study! I just want nothing more to be THE MOST EFFECTIVE instrument in my Father's hands, I want to be a carrier of that power and that spirit!

OKAY BUDDY!!! YOU KNOW ITS THAT TIME!!!!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are finally a big boy!!!!!!!!!!! :) You better be playin it safe man! I know that al' dem' ladies are gonna try to be all over you but you just gotta say... hey...many are called and few are chosen baby ;) hahahahaha keep safe my main man!!! You are my best friend buddy I love you so much!

Can you believe that the one year mark for me is done!?!?!? HOW DID THAT HAPPEN!?!? Where did the time go!? Gosh Dang I gotta, get my game on!! I haven't helped NEARLY enough people!! Oh THANK YOU FOR THE AMAZING PACKAGE MY AMAZING FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT WAS SO WONDERFUL AND THOSE SHIRTS ARE OFF THE HOOOOOKK!!!! Just in case anyone else want's to know...As a missionary in Taiwan...I do love getting letters and packages and if you just happen to have a desire to send one...I guess I would be willing to receive it :) haha.

So my wonderful family...can I tell you that all this week I was thinking about how much I would love right now to be in Florida on a vayy-kayyy-sheeeoon!!!! :)...DEL FUEGO! :) ( I hope you said it atleast in your head when you read that!) :)

So just today and yesterday I had two HILARIOUS moments with Elder Roberts...I was almost crying...hahaha So today's was we went to get some food to eat and something that people out here do a TON is just crack an egg into ramen and let it cook in the soup. It is a little funny looking I guess but really it is just an egg. When Elder Roberts saw it he had no clue what it was and had that face like..."uh oh....oh gosh..." hahaha. So realizing my chance for some good comedy I took a small bite of mine and put on a kinda funny face that made it look like I was struggling to get it down. Then he looked at me and said "what is this??" I said, "it is really good man just eat it." He was so scared and kept saying "no way no way, you eat it." Then I said, no man it is just an egg you eat it. It was funny cause I was telling the truth but he DID NOT believe me haha. Then when he finally put it in his mouth I was like "OHHHH YOU ACTUALLY ATE IT!?!?!?" haha he had a tiny freak out moment and said, "EW IT TASTES LIKE A WEIRD FISH!!!" I just started DYING laughing. After about 5 seconds he realized it was really just an egg...hahha oh gosh...that will be a good  memory. But I think the Other will be one I tell forever haha. It is one of those...chinese jokes haha. So we met with this Less active and we were teaching the First Lesson about the Restoration. In the Middle of it I handed it all over to Elder Roberts to completely take over! He is really a GREAT teacher. It was just super funny because we were using a pamphlet and Elder Roberts wanted to ask our friend to read a part from it and so he wanted to say "你可以幫我唸嗎 (Ni keyi bang wo nian ma?){Can you help me read this part?}" But he accidentally said "你可以幫我尿嗎？(Ni keyi bang wo niao ma?){Can you help me go pee?}" hahahhaha Oh my gosh I almost started crying from laughing so hard! The Less active sure thought it was pretty funny too haha.

So Long story short, I LOVE TRAINING!!! :) hahaha. 

So one thing that has been stuck in my head this week is I remember an experience I had with my awesome cousin Chris Gish a long time ago. He used to take me to Krav Maga classes with him. One day when we were down there he told me about how the radio in his car (EXPENSIVE RADIO) had been stolen. I thought I was some tough kid so I was all about, OH MAN AREN'T YOU SO TICKED!? You shoulda' found that kid! And then Chris Looked at me and said "If he needed it so bad that he was willing to break in and steal it, then he could have asked and I would have given it to him, so it's really okay." That really blew me away. I hope I can develop that kind of Christ-like charity and love for all those around me, even the ones that hurt me.

Okay, now this is for all those amazing missionaries and people out there that feel that they are working hard not not seeing the results that they want or had hoped for! I was thinking about how hard I work out here and how often I am disappointed in the amount of success I see sometimes. Then I got into that dumb..."man I work so hard for nothing" kind of attitude. Then I thought about how much I ACTUALLY work. I started thinking...do I really give my ALL ALL the time? Do I talk to some one at every light? Do I talk to the people on the sides of the road? Do I earnestly and sincerely call all the people that gave me their numbers? So one thing that I want to ask everyone who might be going through one of those moments...are you REALLY giving it your all? I want to be able to tell the lord that I REALLY will give my all to him and that I did ALL I COULD. So make the decision now and go do it!!

I need to call together the prayers of all of you so that I can make a HUGE SPIRIT BOMB and totally dominate satan here (that is right...lowercase S). We have a man named Brother Liu. He needs the prayers of everyone here so that he can quit smoking, get baptized and in a year be sealed with his family! He tried before and gave up...now we are not going to give up on him but we need your help!

We have found TONS of new investigators and so going through all of them would take awhile...I am so lucky that I have an AMAZING companion like Elder Roberts to stick up with my weaknesses (which I have found out recently are a TON), and to work so hard with me! We are killing our selves out here! I feel bad for him working so flippin hard! We hardly ever get home at 9:00 because we just don't stop working! His Chinese is also getting really good. I expect that he will be one of the best if he keeps pushing himself like this!! :)

Ready for theeeee INVITE OF THE WEEK!?!?!? WOOOO!!!! Okay boy's and girl's, ladies and gentleman!! This week I want to invite everyone to pick a special person and pray for them in EVERY prayer that you say this week :) Pray that they will feel the saviors love.

I  want to take a moment to share my love and compassion with the Nadeau Family. I wish I knew what I possibly say that would bring consolation or relief of any kind. [Shannon here: A very dear family to us lost their son, Nick Nadeau, this past week in a car accident. Our hearts our broken over it.] The thing is that I know that I can't...but I know someone that Can. And that is the Savior Jesus Christ. He will bear our grief and our pains. Nick is an AMAZING man. I loved him and looked up to him. Ever since coming off his mission I loved being with him, joking together in Young Adults or playing Ping Pong together at Robs. He is such an example to me of humility and charity. I really look up to him and I am SO grateful for the knowledge that I have that the Plan or Happiness is true! I know that my good friend, your Son or Brother is in a place where he can  "rest from all [his] troubles and sorrows." I know that this may not bring the mortal and physical consolation that many of us long for, but it can bring an eternal and spiritual peace to our souls. Because of the Savior, he still lives and is working hard on the other side. I love you all so much and as a full time servant for the Lord you are all in my prayers, so is Nick. I love you all and I hope I can hear from you. If there is ANYTHING I can do, feel free to call upon me for anything at all.

I love you all and this work!!!

Shine bright and just jump in!!

-

Ge Sheng Long ZhangLao

葛勝龍長老

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new liiifffee! :)

Shout out to Grammy!! You are remembered all the way out here in beautiful Taiwan :):)

OKAY NOW FOR THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS LETTER!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY GAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are so amazing my brother!!!! I bet you are pretty close to Bigger than Chase now eh? And knowing that you are a super saiyin...you are probably stronger too right!? :)

Oh man! First off, I am sorry that I didn't email on Monday, it was a huge surprise to us too when we got the call on Sunday night saying...hey there is no P-day on Monday so go and do your work, we will be....GOING TO THE TEMPLE ON WEDNESDAY!!

Ofcourse my first reaction was YEAH THE TEMPLE!!! I HAVEN'T BEEN IN ABOUT A WHOLE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!! CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!! But then the reality set in.....no P-day....and a full day of NOTHING scheduled since we thought it would be a P-day!? Thank goodness for the amazing humility of my amazing companion! We hopped right on our knees and asked God for help and then got right up on the phones and called everyone we new!!! After about 30 min of INTENSE quick calls, we had most of a day set up. Can you say miracle story?! I think soo! We we calm and ready for the next day! I am so glad elder Roberts is so willing to help and to serve and to just Jump in...Infact I made that my new catch phrase.."JUMP IN" I have started saying it all the time. Sometimes we really do just gotta jump in and not be afraid and not turn back!

So anyways the TEMPLE WAS AMAZING!!! About a whole year that I haven't been to that building...let me tell you...it was INCREDIBLE! I can't wait to go back again! I did the whole thing in Chinese which was even cooler! We could choose to do the Chinese or the English. Me and ONE OTHER missionary went Chinese. I was actually really happy to see that I was able to understand and actually participate as well!! It was so much fun! I love this language and this people!! I feel like I am really apart of this people! I can really participate in the culture! It is so amazing and I really am just giving my all to the Lord! :)

Alright I want to do a quick run through of the week. ( I don't have much time since the Temple literally took ALL of our time...) So here it is:

I am going through training with Elder Roberts and I pulled out my old Training book to help him see what I did and stuff...then I realized that I had that book out when I was being trained...I saw where I am now and my heart literally hurt for a second...I don't want to go home...(I mean I do want to be with my family again obviously) But I love it out here...I love being a missionary...I love helping and serving and loving people, inviting them to Christ! I don't want to ever leave this!

Elder Roberts doesn't even have to say a single word to get people to write down their information on cards...

I forgot Halloween was a thing....

I read an amazing article called "marriage is not for you" by Seth Adams...read it! :)

We sang "I stand all amazed" In Comp study and I remembered Mom singing me to sleep with hymns and what an impact that made in my life..MOM YOU ARE THE BEST!!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

And Yes dad...OFCOURSE I remember the Dragon stories with me and Tomak and Chase and Balarr....Why do you think I am so manly now ;) haha.

We had interviews last week and it was AMAZING to see Elder Wang again and so incredible to sit down with President again! That man is so busy but also still so full of wisdom! :) I love it!

Can I just say that one of my favorite things about being in Taiwan is making my companion try weird Drinks and foods? :) The best is when I give him something or tell him something and his face drops (but there is still that smile like...are you kidding me...) hahha....oh Taiwan...how I love you.

Shout out to Everyone in 高雄 and one in 桃園!! I love you all!! :)

Okay here is your Invite for the week everyone! Watch the Movie.."Joseph Smith and the Restoration"...I watched it again for the first time in a long time today on the bud ride up to the temple!...IT WAS INCREDIBLE!!!!!!! I Can not and will never deny that I know that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God! And that because of him we have the Church of Jesus Christ back on the Earth today!

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

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Ge Sheng Long ZhangLao

葛勝龍長老