Church News
Taiwan welcomes Elder Bednar
Public Affairs missionaries
Published: Saturday, April 25, 2009
TAIPEI, TAIWAN
At the conclusion of a five-day visit to Taiwan, April 16-20, Elder David A. Bednar praised the faith of local Church members and missionaries.
"We have felt the strength of their testimonies and the power of the Spirit in every gathering," he said. "This has been a faith-promoting experience for Sister Bednar and me."
Elder Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve began his Taiwan tour meeting with the missionaries of the Taiwan Kaohsiung Mission on the south end of the island. It concluded with a meeting with the missionaries of the Taiwan Taipei Mission in the island's capital city of Taipei in the north.
Sandwiched between those meetings were a half dozen member and missionary meetings, plus a stake conference. In total, approximately 5,000 Taiwan members and missionaries were taught in the presence of one of the Lord's apostles. Hundreds more witnessed the various meetings by closed-circuit television broadcasts to outlying meetinghouses.
"We loved the people," said Sister Susan Bednar, who accompanied her husband. "They've been warm, they've been friendly and they have strong testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
The member meetings were conducted by Elder Joseph Chung, an Area Seventy in Taiwan. Elder Chung joined the Church at age 17. As a young man, he served as a missionary in Kaohsiung. Elder Sam Wong, an Area Seventy from Hong Kong, participated with Elder Bednar in the Taichung Taiwan Stake Conference.
Sister Liang Zhi-kai of Yuan Lin, Taiwan, a missionary in the Taiwan Kaohsiung Mission, considered it a high honor to be in the presence of Elder Bednar. "He taught me to rely on the Spirit in my missionary teaching," she said at the conclusion of the Kaohsiung Mission's three-hour meeting. "It is the Spirit that teaches."
Commented Elder Laren Helms of Manassa, Colo., of the same mission: "I learned that people are converted by the Spirit which has no language barrier," Elder Helms, like all of the non-local missionaries in Taiwan, has had to learn to teach the gospel in Mandarin Chinese.
At all of the mission and general member meetings during Elder Bednar's visit, his primary teaching method was to solicit questions from the congregation. He would then respond to the questions, always concluding his comments by asking the questioner, "Have I responded to your question?" He encouraged children and youth to participate along with the adults.
In both the missionary and member meetings, Elder Bednar emphasized that it is the member's job to find and the missionary's job to teach. He told the missionaries that they are now full-time missionaries, but when they are released they will become "lifelong missionaries."
At the meeting with missionaries of the Taiwan Taichung Mission, Elder Bednar emphasized that missionaries must listen, observe and discern when they teach the gospel. Unless such an approach is used, there can be no teaching, he said.
Commented Elder Zanazir Alexander of Bay of Islands, New Zealand, "Elder Bednar brings the Spirit into the meeting. He gives you a desire to change and to do better. His teaching style will help me in my missionary teaching."
At the member meeting in Taichung, Elder Bednar explained to the congregation that the pursuit of gospel knowledge is something that should be lifelong. "Our gospel knowledge is not the responsibility of the Church. That responsibility rests upon each one of us," he said.
At times, Elder Bednar's teachings were short, simple and direct. For example, he taught the brethren attending the priesthood leadership session of the Taichung stake conference with these words: "Living the gospel is not hard, not living the gospel is hard!"
The next morning, at a meeting for new members of the Taichung stake, he emphasized: "Membership is not a spectator sport. New members should not expect to sit on the benches. You will be expected to work." Later that morning, at the stake conference general session, he said: "A testimony alone is not enough; it must lead to a continuing conversion. A testimony is a beginning, not a conclusion."
Accompanying Elder and Sister Bednar during their Taiwan tour were Elder Kent D. Watson and his wife, Sister Connie Watson. Elder Watson of the Second Quorum of the Seventy is second counselor in the Asia Area presidency. Elder Watson served his first mission in Taiwan in the 1960s and in the 1980s was president of the Taiwan Taichung Mission. When he was asked to speak at the member and stake meetings, he did so in fluent Mandarin.
When called upon by Elder Bednar to speak at the Kaohsiung missionary meeting, Elder Watson's emotions came to the surface. He told of how, as a young man in 1963 and 1964, he had spent the first six months of his mission working in Kaohsiung. He and his companion were two of the four missionaries assigned to Taiwan's second-largest city. "Everything that I am I owe, in large measure, to my mission in Taiwan," he said to today's 109 elders and sisters of the Kaohsiung mission.
Later, he told the members and missionaries in other meetings that in 2009, 45 years after his first mission, that Taiwan, with its 10 stakes and two districts and nearly 50,000 members, is a beacon for the Church in Asia."
Abby Haung, a young single adult from the Kaohsiung 3rd Ward, is a freshman student at a Kaohsiung medical university. She left the Kaohsiung member meeting wanting to know more about the gospel and to come closer to the Lord.
"Everyone is worried about the world economy," she noted. "But Elder Bednar taught us that we will find comfort in our faith and in our families. He answered our questions."
Elder Bednar's soft-spoken, yet powerful messages to the Taiwan saints are captured in a comment he made at the Taipei member meeting. "Because I love you, I simply want to serve and assist you," he said.
For the members and missionaries of Taiwan, the memory of an apostle's visit will long be held in their hearts. Elder Paul Meyers of Provo, Utah, serves in the Taiwan Taipei Mission. He said he was touched deeply by his mission's meeting with Elder Bednar.
"I came away knowing that I had shaken the hand of [an apostle of the Lord]," he said. "It is something that I will never forget."
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