Hey Everyone!
It has been a good week, with conference and Zone Meeting! Super awesome, can't wait to tell you all about it!
Last pday: We ate lunch with some elders and members in xindian, where one of the elders previously was serving with his trainee. It's his trainee's birthday, and his trainee is training, so we just got together, ate then went to a park.  |
| A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by George Seurat |
You know that famous painting of people in the 1900's at a park, the painting is all made up of dots, called Sunday at the park I think? (I remember seeing it in the Chicago Museum, and seeing the other painting that goes with it at the London museum about a week later). That's exactly what it felt like, and ironically, a few days later, I saw a mosaiac of that painting at an elementary school in my area.
At the park, there was this lady dressed up like a cheetah and acting like a cat, just sitting there pretending to lick her hand. It was so crazy, a whole group was just staring at her. People were paying money to get pics with her. One member who was with us gave her money so we could get a pic. My camera battery was almost dead, so I got it on my comp's camera, I will send the picture shortly.
We have a Sister Guan getting baptized hopefully on April 29th. Please pray extra hard for her. She is 23, works, has some free time to meet with us. I think she needs friends and still needs to be converted a bit more. Please pray for her to have an amazing spiritual experience with repentance and Christ's Atonement. I hope that when she gets baptized, she is really ready to follow Christ her whole life. I have heard so many stories of people who are baptized but become LA as soon as the missionaries move away. Please pray that she won't follow that trend. The Sister Training Leaders found her while studying at a McDonald's weeks ago. They were teaching her until we came, since they didn't have sisters in our Taoyuan first ward for three years until we came. She is super awesome! Can't wait to see her get baptized!
Also, it was my Yuli RC Ding JM's birthday April 6th, same as Christ's. I called her and wished her a Happy Birthday. Please pray for her as well, she is super busy with her new work in Hualian and hasn't had much time to go to church and other stuff. Please pray that she will be less busy and can have more time to focus on her spiritual health.
Miracles
Last week we went to a park one night. My companion started talking to some kids, gave them cookies a member gave us earlier, and invited them to English class. We then played duck, duck, goose and blue shoes which they loved.The five kids from three different families came that Wednesday to our kids' English class and had a great time! It was so great! A few days later, the elders miraculously knocked on the door of the dad of one of those five cute kids. it was so cool, we hope we can teach them soon.
My companion and I were talking to three 11-year-old boys about basketball and invited them to play at our church gym on the fourth floor. We talked about our favorite NBA players, and my companion then proceeded to tell this story of running into Lebron James:
In Kaoshiung, where my comp is from (in the other mission, more south of Taiwan), there was a huge Nike store being opened and the people invited Lebron James to come (unbeknownst to my companion). One day as she was going to her classes, she had to get off one bus and walk across the street for another. She saw that the streets were empty of people, which she thought was weird. She then walked one direction and saw a ton of people, and she didn't know why. In her hurry to take a bus to her classes, she ran into Lebron James. African Americans are very rare in Taiwan, I've only seen a handful on my mission. She didn't know who he was, she just remembered running into a really tall African American. She looked up at him and was like "Sorry," than ran off. She found out later that it was Lebron James. I know that if it was my cousin Benjamin in her shoes, he would have hugged him :)
I canNOT believe this will be my last general conference on my mission, it was kind of a punch in the gut to think about that actually. Last year's April General Conference, I was just starting my mission. I remember from that conference when the choir sang, "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," and the camera zoomed in on three men in the choir who were singing with tears streaming down their faces especially the "Prone to Wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God Iove" because they were so moved at the song (they sang it at Elder Scott's funeral months earlier, and they sang it right after someone gave a talk about drawing closer to God).
Singing with the members in Chinese- so moving, as the Mormon Tabernacle choir sang with the congregation, we sang the same song in Chinese. It was soo cool and so moving. I will really miss singing in Chinese after my mission. I heard one thing missionaries really miss most after their missions is going to church in their language. I heard BYU has a Chinese ward, so maybe I could attend that :)
We watched it with members in English with Chinese subtitles in the chapel. It was so nice, in the nice big chapel with comfy benches.
Spiritual Share
Our marching orders from the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from last year's missionary training broadcast in January 2016 is Teaching Repentance, Baptizing Converts #TRBC (when I first entered the MTC). Interestingly, I heard a story about how the saying was originally just going to be Baptizing Converts, but Elder Oaks was inspired last minute to add Teach Repentance.
I really love in 3 Ne 11, when Christ came to the Americas. The very first thing after meeting the Nephites was calling up Nephi and charging him to TRBC (especially verse 23). I added my name and it was powerful, and I encourage you to do the same.
I invite you all to do some missionary work by sharing your favorite conference quote, scripture, or mormon message video on any social media site including Facebook. I heard one missionary say that the youth in the ward did that, then a week later they saw which of their Facebook friends liked it, and counted the number of people who liked it who weren't members and were surprised at the high number. It is sooooo simple and easy and helps introduce others to the gospel.
I also invite you to read The Living Christ which two or three people invited us to do.
Love God, love my mission!
Love you all, have a super awesome Easter Week!
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