This past
week there was a transfer for all the missionaries who were finishing their
mission to start school. But the new missionaries won't be here for another two
weeks, which means that there were several people left without a companion,
including our sister training leader, Sis Zhong. So, we became a
tri-panionship, and are now covering DanShui (our old area where a lot of our
investigators live), Zhuwei (where we live now), and Beitou (where sis zhong is
serving)...craziness! But we have been having a blast! Sis Zhong is
awesome and the three of us are pretty much best friends. :D
Last
p-day we went with the elders from our ward, and our zone leaders to the
National Palace Museum. So cool! I love museums- I think we could have spent 3
days there and still left without seeing it all. The main attraction there is
the Jadeite Cabbage. Which sounds pretty lame, but cabbage is a big deal here,
and the story behind it is pretty cool. I think there was an article about it
in the Liahona and Ensign a month or two ago.
One of
our members whom we just adore, and who helps us peike all the time, X,
invited us over to her house for dinner this week. She asked us beforehand if
we had any requests. Sis Jenkins and I looked at each other and said,
"Mexican food!" So, she made us tacos, mushroom soup, some
incredible salmon with an apple and onion salad (and it's saying something
when I like eating fish...), honeydew melon, and a homemade apple pie.
Wow. Soooooo goood! Her house is super cute and that plus the food and eating
with a fork and knife made me feel like I was in America. And she has one of
those super cool toilet seats with lots of buttons (yes, I did try it out, no
it didn't work). But besides all of that, I felt like her having us over was a
really clear expression of how much progress she has made. When I first got
here, she wasn't really very active. Her husband isn't a church member, so we asked
her if we could maybe eat dinner all together as a way to meet him. She didn't
feel comfortable with that, and didn't think he would feel comfortable with
that either. But over the past few months, we have been having her help us
peike quite a bit (because she is retired and has lots of time :D). But we have
just seen her testimony blossom and develop. So to have her invite us over
tonight- and on top of that, to bear an awesome testimony about prayer to her
husband during the spiritual share- was so neat. I never really believed the
whole "a testimony is found in the bearing of it" thing before my
mission, but now I really agree that it is true!
We met
with several other less active members this past week and have been having a lot of success
with them. We had a few come to church this past week, which was really
exciting. It is so cool to see people's testimony reawaken- it's almost as if
they have just been waiting for someone to reach out and invite them. We and
one of the sets of elders helped one lady clean her house yesterday- this was the
same lady whose house we cleaned a few months ago after her friend cut his hand and
was bleeding everywhere (if that's not ringing a bell, go back and look through
my emails from Aug). Luckily this time there was no blood, and we had a blast
all working hard together. I really do love cleaning, I must be turing into
Mom. :D
We are looking forward to
finding some new people this week. But we saw an incredible miracle this past
week with a referral who came to church yesterday. He has end-stage cancer,
but as he was on the way to church, he got a message from a doctor at Stanford
who specializes in his type of cancer that they have an operation which they
think will save his life. He took that as a message from God that he needs to
keep learning about the gospel and coming to church! He is an incredible man
with a ton of faith and willingness to learn already. He just thanked me over and over for calling him and inviting him to
church. It's so neat to see God working through us to the blessing of His
children.
I love
this quote from President Henry B Eyring: "The more faithful service you
give, the more the Lord asks of you. Your smile is a happy one becuase you know
that He increases our power to carry the heavier load....Increased spiritual
strength is a gift from God which He can give when we push in His service to
our limits. Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, our natures can be changed.
Then our power to carry burdens can be increased more than enough to compensate
for the increased service we will be asked to give." (click to read
the whole talk: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/10/o-ye-that-embark?lang=en )
I love
this because I have realized on my mission that it is so true! Just when we get
comfortable, God gives us a new opportunity to stretch. How thankful I am for a
loving Heavenly Father who isn't satisfied with where we are now, but rather is
always looking forward to where we can go.
Love you!
Me
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