This last week was incredible. I feel like it was incredible. Last
night as I was reporting from last week, when Elder Anderson asked what
went bad last week (not in those exact words) really all I could do was
count my blessings. I feel like this is an answer to my prayers, to be
able to love Xizhi and to try to be happier. I feel like as
missionaries, we're often focusing on the downside of things or focusing
on where we have to improve but this last week I could see how far we'd
come. Yes, I still see how far we have to go but it was almost like
Heavenly Father was telling me, "湯姐妹, yes, you still have far to go, you
still have a lot to improve on. But look how far you've come, let's
focus on that for a time. Look at all the blessings you've received.
We'll work on the rest later, but we'll keep doing it together." It
truly was a blessing. Last night I really was overwhelmed again with the
love Heavenly Father has for me and the amazing people of Xizhi. So no,
maybe in other areas our numbers aren't incredible. Maybe we don't see
the same miracles, but I feel like this last week, one of my miracles
was being able to find joy in the journey and being happy with the
blessings and miracles Heavenly Father saw fit to give me. And last
week, we did improve some, always a miracle.
An awesome miracle was our one new investigator.
She's so incredible, hard as she often is for me to understand, I know
that this gospel can help her and she seems willing to at least try.
She's had a hard life, especially since she came to Taiwan earlier this
year. We've only found out the tip of the iceberg but I feel like the
other night helped her to start to chip it off. Last Monday night we
were english boarding at Xizhizhan and our time was coming to an end but
there was a lady that walked up so I decided to give it one more chance
for us to find someone with interest. We had a full-on lesson right
there with her. I loved being able to use the Book of Mormon and share
with her about the atonement, that Christ knows exactly what she's going
through. I think it touched her. It was an incredible lesson. Another
miracle stemmed from that since I firmly believe we were supposed to
still be at Xizhizhan at that point and time because right as our lesson
was wrapping up, our district leader came walking down the stairs and
he doesn't know how to get to the church from Xizhizhan, just Xikezhan
so he was slightly panicking. His train didn't stop at Xikezhan and they
were already running late so he was going to be late for our
investigator's baptismal interview so he was really stressed, but we
were able to help him out. Then, our investigator called and was going
to be late anyway so he could calm down even more, another miracle. Then
she passed! A huge miracle! Elder Anderson said she was quoting all
sorts of awesome Bible and Book of Mormon stories at him, it was cool.
This last week really has been the little miracles,
the tender mercies of the Lord, like one person listening to us when
we're contacting for hours on end all day. Or having our prayer of fast
answered yesterday and we had 2 investigators come to church, one of
which is the one we met this week, the other has a baptismal date and
has been saying since she met the sisters that she'd come to church but
this was her first time actually doing so. I truly feel like Heavenly
Father's hand was guiding and blessing us here in Xizhi and it's truly
been through the small, tender mercies and miracles that we've been
blessed enough to see.
Haha last week President sent a Tsunami of 22
missionaries (11 companionships) to the east coast (That's what he's
calling it, a Missionary Tsunami) and it's cool to see the results. I
also got to see other interesting facts/results. Elder Teshima, one of
my zone leaders in Taidong is now training and white-washing WanDa. He
was blessed enough to be one of the missionaries chosen to go to Taidong
(Not fair he got to go back!!!) and since our district leader went as
well, he asked our zone leader to come conduct. Well, our zone leader
and Elder Teshima's trainee (mission lingo, we say his "baby") were
companions for the week until their actual companions came back. I have
never seen someone so influenced so fast! Oh my heck! As Elder Lee
(Elder Teshima's trainee) was talking, I seriously felt like it was an
Elder Teshima mini-me, he was saying so many things I could totally see
Elder Teshima saying. It was weird. It'll be interesting at zone
training on Tuesday to see how much alike they really are... haha.
Our members are "catching the wave"!!! They seem to
be opening more to us missionaries all the time! It's awesome!!! Good
relationships are building, I love it! We hope to go get real brown
sugar from Costco next p-day since I have to go have a follow-up
appointment at the hospital today so no time to do so and make cookies
and take them around to people. I'm excited for it. We tried the other
day but Taiwanese brown sugar is not the same as American and it tainted
my cookies, I was not willing to give them to any members... So yea.
Anyway, I think this novel is long enough. Hope all
is still well in your neck of the woods and that you enjoyed daylight
savings! haha, Taiwan doesn't have it...
我 愛 妳!!!
湯姐妹
Sister Thomsen
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