Bonjour!

Happy Hokkien Chinese New Year (as of 27 February)! :) Hopefully you all celebrated it to the best of your ability ;) Well, for starters, we went to Singapore for Zone Conference and got to go do some sight-seeing for P-Day. We were originally planning on having an epic badminton tournament, but plans changed, and we ended up seeing a kool exhibit on Leonardo daVinci's works. It was pretty intense.

In other news, we got to watch "Meet the Mormons"! It was awesome, and I highly recommend it! :) Elder Baer and I got to stay in Singapore a little longer for MLC, so we went to an Asian Cultural Museum and saw a bunch of really neat-looking Melayu swords. One of my dreams is to become a swordsmith, but I feel like that realistically is a little far-off. Whatevs. I'll still dream :) 

We also got to stop by a bookshop of another Christian faith this past week. They had ram's horn trumpets there, like from the Bible! Purportedly the horns were straight from Israel, but I have my doubts. While I was there, I found a Chinese version of the Punchinello book by Max Lucado (You Are Special, or something like that--I think it was actually a sequel). Anywho, that's a shout-out to my dad, who read that book to me all the time when I was a wee lad! :)

This past week I've had the chance to really ponder on my personal relationship with Christ. I know that I've probably talked about this subject a LOT, but that's because it's important. This week I was sitting in my study room, thinking about some of the mistakes and goofs I'd made throughout the day--the times when I'd let pride get the better of me, the times when I hadn't been as valiant in the Gospel as I need to be. As I was doing so, I happened to glance at the picture of Christ on my desk, and I could feel His love. He IS our hope! He is our Light! He can bring rest and peace to our souls. Sometimes I'm really eager to tell other people that Christ can forgive them, but I forget that He can also forgive me too. Sometimes I mentally withhold the blessings of the Atonement from myself or others because they're not normal, or they're not good enough--but the blessings of Christ's love and grace are freely given to those who are willing to lay hold on them! I love that about this Gospel!

This past week we had an investigator lay hold on some of those blessings. His name is Brother Tan, and he's such an awesome guy! I love him so much and he's made the decision to be baptized! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah for Israel! :)

I love you all, and even more importantly: God loves you! Sometimes I think we all take that phrase for granted. God LOVES us! GOD loves US! He loves us so much, He sent His Only Begotten Son, not to condemn the world, but save it. To bring us back to Him. To anchor us safely in the encircling arms of His love. Don't forget it! :)

爱你们! 再见!

--麦长老