Saturday, September 12, 2015

Hospitals, Hualian, Hot, Humid, Happy

So yes, I did go to the hospital this past Tuesday!!! Haha I was really really dizzy this past week and nothing I was doing was helping, sleep or medicine or water or resting, NOTHING. So we went to the hospital in HuaLian to get me checked out. We were taken there by Sister Singletary who was headed up anyway for work, so she dropped us off at the Mennonite Hospital, a giant Christian hospital with a giant statue of Christ with His arms reached out in it. So here we are, two white girls, in a city we are not familiar with, at a huge hospital and no idea what to do. But no worries, 5 hours, 3 vials of blood, an ultrasound, and one shot later, we were in a taxi headed to the train station!! I get to learn about the results of the blood test tomorrow when I go back, so stay tuned. :) 

BUT even though we spent the whole morning at the hospital, we saw HUGE miracles that night!! We stopped by 朱惠鈴's house (ZhuHuiLing) to meet with her daughter 郁珍(YuZhen). We helped her daughter write a card to her mom to express appreciate for her, and helped her think of specific ways she can treat her little brother nicer. We also roleplayed telling her dad that she wants to go to church on Sundays, since the main reason she hasn't come is because her dad makes her work on Sunday mornings. Then another miracle, her little brother came in and told us that sometimes he prays on his own!!! He became our new investigator:) Then, they invited us to stay for dinner and we ate dinner with their family! The magical part was when I asked if we could start with a blessing on the food. I got to say their first prayer as a family, ever. :) 

I realized I haven't really shared a lot about this family. When we met them, they were broken. Zhu Jiemei suffers from an alcohol and binlang addiction, she and her husband hardly ever talk to each other, but the way it is in Taiwan is that divorce is looked down upon when you have so many kids so they just deal with it. Her husband smoke and drinks all throughout the day and owns a binlang store. We have seen the faith of Zhu Jiemei as she has fully relied on her relationship with Heavenly Father to change her and her family. She has an intense desire to get baptized, and it is fueling her ability to quit this habit of drinking and chewing that she's had for over 30 years. Her husband doesn't support her in this change and doesn't believe she can do it, but she says that "at least Heavenly Father is there". Her changes have been INCREDIBLE. The Atonement changes everyone and no one is ever past the reach of the Savior's love. I have seen this women be transformed.
Then that same night, we saw a lady in a car that we felt like we HAD to talk to, so we went on a high speed bike-chases-car race, and finally caught up to her at a stop light, where she rejected us. But as soon as we turned to look the other way, we saw a man. As we talked to that man, he told us that someday he hopes he can join our church and feel God's love as he read the Book of Mormon. He will be a golden referral for the Gaoxiong missionaries, and well worth the high speed chase:)
We also went to see our former investigator 蔡姊妹 (cai jiemei). She has four of the most beautiful little girls I have ever seen in my whole entire life. Cai Jiemei is somewhat bipolar in her interest towards the gospel. She will see us in town and tell us to come over, then when we come over, she hides, and won't come out. So after like the 4th or 5th time this happened, I asserted my called-of-Jesus-Christ-authority and opened her front door, walked through her house, and marched up her stairs to find her sitting in the dark at the top of her stair well. I sat down next to her, put my arm around her and asked her what was wrong. She isn't much of a talker,  and she said nothing was wrong so I just proceeded to tell her what an amazing mom she is and look how much her daughters love her. She doesn't pay very much attention to them and seems to put her own needs above theirs, even though they are all under the age of 8. So we sat at the top of the tiny narrow stair well, me sitting next to this grown mother of 4, with her children all gathered around my feet listening to me tell stories about Jesus Christ. It gave me hope for the future, maybe I do have hopes at being a good mom;) The magical experience was just the Spirit that filled this tiny cramped area as I talked about family prayer and the importance of baptism in a way that a 5 year old could understand. When I asked Cai Jiemei to say a pray before we left, she thanked Heavenly Father that she could learn about Jesus Christ loving each and every one of us. It was an experience I'll never forget.
Another privilege we got this week was going out into real live genuine Asian farmer rice fields and picking weeds!!! Barefoot in the mud, picking weeds out of the rice paddies, that is what I got to experience this week. Once in a lifetime opportunity, SO FUN :)
Last miracle I will mention....we went to go find some formers that lived on 大同路 and we knocked on the door of someone who was supposed to be named Gucci. We knocked on the door and said we were missionaries and she immediately let us in. She was Christian and had seen missionaries before....BUT turns out that she wasn't the same person, just a different golden prepared person who lived at the same address as a past prepared person, how cool!!! We gave her and her little sister a first lesson and a Book of Mormon. She didn't except the invite to be baptized...yet:) She set up an appointment for us to go back and seemed fascinated in our message. Teaching the Restoration simply and spiritually is the most powerful tool there is.
This week I learned that all we have to do is ask Heavenly Father and He will tell us. No, not always when we want or how we want, but He will. I'm not sure why my health has been so poor lately, especially when I've never been sick this often in my whole life, but there is a reason. And because of the timing, we have seen some of our biggest miracles!!! Heavenly Father is so aware of the details of the details of every single one of our lives. We don't need to compare ourselves to others because HE doesn't. There is only one path we need to be concerned about: our path back to His side. That is our goal. All the other stuff we have to deal with is just because we are human and in this period of mortality:) Like Jesus says to the people in ancient America, bring any of your afflictions to Him and He promises to heal you. (3 Nephi 17:7)
Keep praying, keep studying, keep preparing for eternity. Love you all!!

Sister Wright 
(Taiwan Taipei Mission)

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