Sister McKenna Wright: We must have broken some kind of world record....

My dearest family and friends, this was SUCH a funny week for me as a missionary. First funny thing first: I want to explain what it means to fang gezi. In Chinese, it literally means to let your pigeons go. What it means in context is that you get stood up, someone sets up with you and then they don't show up. It is one of the HARDEST things in this culture because no one likes to call and cancel, they don't want to reject you, it's just a thing to save face. SO this past week, finding all day every day, setting up appointments with people, being SO excited to share the gospel and THEN.....getting stood up 15 times this week. It's a record, it must be!!! But despite the fact that all day every day our lessons fell through, one after the other after the other, we just went out and talked to everyone and opened our mouths and spread the gospel.

Another thing I feel I need to explain is the grip that Buddhism has here in Taiwan, especially in Taipei. Because family and ancestors are so prevalent, everyone thinks that if they change their religion, it is betraying family and their dead ancestors get lost and their ghosts come to haunt their lives. They also just don't like change. The main thing I have heard this past week is "I am Buddhist. I can't understand this." It is so confusing to me, when we promise the blessing of a remission of sins, a chance to start over, a path to eternal happiness and progression and an escape from lonliness and sorrow, and people say no because it's too hard to change. But I have faith that we will find someone to be baptized on Christmas!!!!!!

Funny story from this past week:

Last night we got stood up so we started street contacting. We asked a guy if he needed directions because he was clearly lost. He said no, then a minute later comes up to us and says "I wanted to come talk to you because you're cute." and i'm like wait WHATTTT. And he is this 33 year old man (looks like he's 25 because he's Asian) telling me he wants my number so he can take me out for a drink and I'm like going into shock because my brain no longer understands how to process this kind of interaction with the male species. It was definitely weird. I told him I want to help him learn about Christ and he said no, so I said no and he walked away. Yup.

Miracle story from this past week:

This is our Sabbath miracle:) We went trying to find Less Actives and we found a man who was baptized 49 years ago, only 10 years after Taiwan even got missionaries, and he is now 73 and hasn't been to church in over 10 years. He still remembers how to pray and set up to meet with us next Sunday!! Crazier part is that we met him LAST week and he told us he was a member of our church, but then again everyone thinks that all Christian churches are the same so we thought he didn't know what he was talking about, but we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY.

Right after we walk out of this man's house, we start talking to a young couple who went to Salt Lake City on their honeymoon, and then the man says "I was baptized into your church like 30 years ago! I don't remember it much..." and we're like WHATTTTTTTTTT!!! AND THEN his wife goes "don't you know that they pray and ask God for help to learn Chinese so well? That's the only way it happens obviously!" And I'm just like CAN WE PLEASE HAVE YOUR NUMBER!? haha they move to a different area next week, but literally, we found this couple and this old man on the top of a mountain. It was so cool.

Well, this week was nuts. I have never had a week quite like this on my mission. It was hard, I'm not gonna lie. But I still had a warm light fuzzy feeling all day every day because I KNEW what I was saying was true. And I KNOW that someday we will receive blessings from our work. I KNOW there are people waiting to hear the gospel here in Beitou, we just have to listen to the Spirit to find them:) I encourage you all to listen to the Spirit more this week. I have made it a focus every day to be in tune with Heavenly Father's will for me. This week did not go AT ALL as we planned. But I was never even tempted to get discouraged because I know that Christ faced similar trials when He was on the earth:) I love you all, have a great week!!!

Sister Wright (Taiwan Taipei Mission)
Rèn Jiěmèi 任曼欣姐妹