August 29, 2011

Week 41

Qin Ai de Jia Ting!

This week has been spectacular! I absolutely LOVE my companion and I am so grateful to be serving with her.
 
I feel like lately I have been putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself. Let me tell you why... I think the hardest thing about missionary work is me. Yeah there are hard things that are expected like riding the bike in the heat, or up the mountains, getting rejected over and over again, and all that... But lately I feel that the hardest part of missionary work is me. My weaknesses. Sometimes I just get so annoyed with myself.... I want and desire so bad to be better. To be more like Christ. I know that through Him I can change. Everything is in my favor to change and become more like Him. But it doesn't happen at once. It is a life time process and I am so grateful that the Lord calls imperfect people to do His work.

Yesterday I had a little breakdown... I was sitting in sacrament and I was just hit with missing mom. I don't know why or what triggered it but I just needed to cry. I tried to hold it somewhat together until after sacrament. Then I made it to the bathroom and just cried... then sweet, sweet Sister Lin, our Relief Society President, walked in and asked how I was doing... I cried again. I told her about mom's passing and how I miss her so much... She just hugged me and let me cry and she said the same thing President Bishop said... Sometimes I just need to cry and let it out... It was truly such a tender mercy to have Sister Lin there especially because we have truly strengthen our relationship with her in the past few weeks and I love her so much and there is just a feeling of family. Truly a tender mercy.

I think sometimes I feel bad or guilty to breakdown or to think too much about my mom or home because it takes me away from the work... But, you know what, sometimes I need to cry. I think this goes back to the weaknesses... I want so bad to give everything to the Lord and His work. I want to serve with all my might, MIND, HEART, and strength... I realised I am doing my best and that is what the Lord asks of me. He knows my situation. He knows my strengths and my weaknesses. He knows me. I am so very grateful for my Savior. I am so very grateful to be doing His work.

I love you all so so so so so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Until next week!

Week 40

It has been a great week! Of course!

We have been getting no showed a lot lately... very few first lessons actually show. But we have been blessed to go outside and meet more people and have quick sit downs with them. Truly a blessing!

We have continued to work with less actives this week and we have seen so many blessings. We found 2 sweet families. One family's story is just a miracle. It all started with one daughter, Sister Chen, joining the church and then over time the whole family joined but now they are all less active. Went to go visit them this week and found out that there is a little granddaughter that just turned 8 and wants to get baptized. I truly believe this will help this family become active again and continue to see the blessings of the gospel. Sister Chen and her parents all came to sacrament on Sunday and heard the beautiful message from the Taiwan Taipei Temple President and his wife. What a beautiful way to get their focus to the temple!

We are seeing great blessings everywhere. Cute Bree (cute girl from last week.. here teaching english) went to church again yesterday and I believe she went to an activity up in TaiZhong on Saturday night. We continues to keep running into her and it has been such a blessing to have little moments to share gospel principles and we are planning to go to lunch with her on Wednesday so we hope we can find more ways for her to see and receive the blessings of the gospel again.

Today we had a fun outing with one of our investigators, Sister Lin. She is so pretty and is such a humble, genuinely good person. We went up to Ba Gua Shan with her today. I just love her!

A little note from President Bishop's letter again... I just loved it. "Sister Bishop and I attended the baptism of a Brother Huang whose wife joined the church 7 years ago.  She has been praying for his conversion since then.  Some 芖い Τ 快 猭 missionaries were able to invite him and help him come unto Christ.  Brother Huang now has the priesthood and will be able to baptize his daughter when she turns 8 in October.  The family is planning on being sealed in the temple in one year.  As far as temple work is concerned, they will be especially busy because his genealogy goes back 1300 years. Brother Huang proudly showed Sister Bishop and me the pedigree chart going back 25 generations of Huangs.  He is anxious to get started doing temple work."

The work is truly moving along here in Taiwan and I am so grateful to be a part of it!

I love and miss you all!!!!

Until next week!



Week 39

Nimen Hao!!!!!!!!!

It has been a great week! We are loving it here in ZhangHua! We are seeing miracles everyday! ZhangHua is getting ready to soar!!!

We have been busy busy and we love it!

Two miracles that we saw this week...

We met another less active member in our apartment. She is also one of the previous Bishop's wife. We met here because we were talking to the apartment manager and having him help us read the maps. Well he ended up calling her down to help us. She was really sweet and said that she is willing to help us anytime. She said that we are invited to come over and visit but she has no interest in going to church. We understand that her family relationship right now is a little rocky... We were able to go over one night and sit down with her kids. Her daughter even came to church yesterday!

We also had another miracle at our apartment complex... We have 4 cute English teachers that live in our apartment complex. We had talked to them about possibly helping us peike and different things and all said yes but her... Sister Pomeroy and I thought she might be less active so we decided to go stop by one night... Well it was the perfect timing because she was just coming home. We were able to talk to her and found out that her family is all members and that she was raised in the church but in college she had a really big trial and from the way her ward handled it she decided to withdraw her records from the church... We told her how truly loving the people are here and invited her to come to church. We were able to pray with her and truly testify of the love Heavenly Father has for her... She went to the English branch yesterday!

We also had another miracle in Taiwan this week. Here is a note from President Bishop's letter this week. "This week was also a record day in the Taipei Temple.  Last Saturday was temple day for 2 of the stakes from our mission.  Over 400 people were at the temple.  Five families from our mission were sealed to be together for eternity.   Twenty two individuals made covenants and received their own endowments.  The temple was bursting at the seams.  What a great problem to have!" One of the dear familes in our ward was one of those five families... They were just glowing yesterday! Such a wonderful and beautiful blessing!

It has been such a great week with hard work, funny moments, and lots of tender mercies!
I continue to be amazed by the miracles we see everyday! It is such a blessing to see the Lords hands in His work! I love it SO much!

And I love you sooooooooooooooooo much!!!

Until next week!

Pics...
1. Sister Huang's Baptism
2. Isn't she so cute? She is so funny!
3. Look out ZhangHua



August 9, 2011

Week 38

It has been a great week!

I love Sister Pomeroy, she is a fire cracker! It has been so fun working with her! She is so diligent and positive and I am so grateful to be serving with her. Last week I was a little nervous about going senior after all but 2 of our investigators dropped so I prayed for help and strength and direction... While praying I was filled with peace and an understanding of this is God's plan. I felt and understood why I needed to go senior, why Sister Pomeroy is my companion and what things I would learn from her, and why it was in God's plan for those investigators to drop... I was filled with peace and FAITH. Faith that we can do this!

With that we spent most of our week finding... We were so blessed to have 2 cute young women call us and ask us if they could come teach with us multiple times this week... it has been such a blessing. They have been willing to come to lessons, go tracting, ride their bikes, and read maps. It was such a tender mercy!

We have a cute sister really starting to progress... sister Zhang. We were talking to her yesterday about her baptism goal and she was just like "We all need to diligently work so I can hit this goal, let's do this together." She is so sweet and I fill that her desire id\s truly growing.. I am so excited to work with her and help her continue to work to hit this goal. She is AWESOME!


And our cherry on top...

Our sweet friend Sister Huang was baptized on Saturday!!!!! Oh it was a beautiful baptism. She bore the sweetest testimony... She is truly so humble.... She has been investigating for more than 2 years.... I wish you could have seen her beautiful smile and radiating glow when she was baptized... she was so very joyous.... It was a wonderful experience... I LOVE her!

Today we had and amazing experience... We were leaving our house to buy some things we need when all of the sudden I noticed I didn't have my name tag on.... Obviously we had to go back. I felt bad that we had to go back and get it... well when we walked into our apartment complex the manager pointed to a letter so I assumed it was for us but then he explain that is was for the previous bishop's wife. Then there she was and he introduced us and we could tell she did not want to meet us... Why? She actually went less active while her husband was serving as bishop (he was released the Sunday before I came to Zhang Hua) We started talking to her and she was really nice and said she would come to church on Sunday.... I realized after that that was why I forgot my name tag... All in God's plan!

I have loved this week! I have truly relied on the Lord and have felt of His love and guidance.....I LOVE THIS WORK!!!!!

I love you all so so so so much!

Until next week!!!!!!

August 1, 2011

Week 37

Nimen Hao

It has been a great and busy week!

BIG NEWS!!!!! I am now senior companion....ahhhhhhhh! So I might be freaking out just a bit.... It was a little bit of a surprise.... since I'm still pretty young in the mission transfers but I am excited for this new adventure (especially because I can't read the map haha)... My new companion is Sister Pomeroy! We were actually in the MTC together and became such good friends. We would always joke about the day we would become companions and now it is here! I LOVE her! She is from Texas (my first American companion haha) and she is such a great missionary.

The Chen family had their sweet baby! It was such an exciting day for them and I am grateful that they invited us to share in their new blessing and joy. Brother Chen said a beautiful prayer and prayed that his son would be able to go on a mission when he was older... it was so beautiful and such a wonderful thing to hear of what kind of a person they want their son to become and how they want to teach him the gospel. I love them!

We have a wonderful miracle investigator getting baptized this week. Sister Huang has been an investigator for almost 3 years. She has gone in and out and met with quite a few missionaries. She would go to church every Sunday but would not commit to baptism. She would attend a different ward than the one that she lives in. I met her one Sunday at church and we were able to meet with her a few times but she said that she did not want to get baptized..... Then one day I had a feeling we should try calling her and she said that the night before she was reading in 2 Nephi and now she knows that she needs to get baptized and she asked me when she could do it... I was so amazed I had to give the phone to Sister Li to make sure I understood her correctly..... It's been exciting and we are very happy that she can receive the blessing of baptism this week.

We also had some down falls this week. One of our investigators dropped out...  Sister Xu. We have been meeting with her for a few weeks. She seemed so golden. She loved learning about the gospel. She has a great understanding and remembered what we taught. It was really amazing. She lives in a nursing home and I believe she has autism or something like it because she is so smart. She was doing so great and then yesterday she brought a friend with her from this place that she lives to church. We could tell he didn't like us and that he was not interested. He kept telling her to leave and that she shouldn't meet with us or come to church.... later we found her and her friend smoking at church and she told us she didn't want to come to church anymore or meet with us.. It broke my heart. Especially because I don't feel like it is her true feelings or intentions. We want to try to meet with her again and see if that is truly her feelings or just her friend... :(

Well it's been a great week.... Excited for this week... freaking out a bit but its good!

I love you all so much!

Until next week!