Wednesday, April 29, 2015

"There is sunshine in my soul...and a wiener dog on my shoulder"

There's just never a dull moment in Taiwan.  People here are a little obsessed with their pets....they carry them around everywhere and push them in strollers and put diapers and tutus on them. But this past week, well...

We were riding home from an appointment and pulled up to a stoplight, only to see a guy with a cat clinging to his shoulder. I looked over at sis smith, and she pulled up to contact the guy, starting with, "woah....your cat." Poor thing, the cat looked terrified. And the guy was just riding all around the city with it. We seriously laughed the entire way home. And the only thing that makes this whole experience funnier is that earlier this week when we were biking over to the church, we saw a guy standing on the side of the road with a wiener dog standing on his shoulder. It was like a pirate with a parrot, but instead just a Taiwanese guy with a little wiener dog, just chilling on the side of the road like it was no big deal.

This week was so good! I feel like I grew so much spiritually and had some really neat experiences. 

One thing I've been doing this week is using a prayer journal. I bought a little notebook, and I use it to record the things I ask Heavenly Father for in prayer. As I've written down the things I ask for, it's been so much easier for me to see all the little ways Heavenly Father answers my prayers- and it makes my prayers so much more meaningful because I'm really thinking about what things I need and what things my investigators need. One really neat experience I had this week with this was on our mission tour on Friday. Elder Gong of the Seventy came and we had a day-long training meeting with him and President and Sis Day. I had two specific things that I had really been thinking and praying about and wanting God's direction and guidance on. President Day stood up to do his training, and talked about the EXACT thing that I had been pondering about. His first sentence answered my question to a T. 

This week we also had interviews with President Day. I love President Day so much; he is probably my biggest hero. I really feel like one of the reasons I had to come to this mission at this time was to learn from his Christlike leadership and example. Anyway, as I was sitting there with him, discussing my goals for the next two months, I just had a feeling that this is what judgement would be like. Not scary, or filled with fear or guilt. Just like having an interview with President Day and feeling the love of God that we can recognize because we have come to know Him. 

We had a couple of great exchanges this week with brand new missionaries. I love working with them because they are so willing to learn and just full of energy.

Quick update on investigators:
-A is still as golden as ever. We taught her the plan of salvation last week, and at the end, asked her if she believed it was true. She said yes, and when I asked her why, she said, "because I can feel the holy spirit". Yep. She loves reading the Book of Mormon and telling us her favorite parts. Her biggest obstacle is still church. We tried inviting the ama that she takes care of to church, thinking that if we could get the ama to come, then of course A would have to come with her. But she was not interested at all. It's a really tricky situation, because if we push too hard, the ama's son (A's boss) could forbid us from coming over, or A could lose her job. So we have to be really careful. She wants to come to church SO BADLY. I am not stressed about it though. Parting the red sea seemed like an impossible thing too, and you see how that turned out. :D 

 Well, we still have no washer or dryer, and our patio flooded, so they have to bring in a plumber to drill a hole through the brick wall to get to the pipe or something. Sis Smith and I are always laughing because at the beginning of our time together, we struggled with unity in lessons, but now after all the crazy situations we've been in, we have the best unity of anyone ever. hahhaha!

Love you!
sis Murri


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