Probably my favorite mission picture of all time...me and a big pile of poop. And I just happen to match...
So biggest news first:
ALL OF MY SISTERS WENT HOME. So except for Sister Strong, all of the sisters who came on island with me went home this last Thursday, left a transfer early to start school. Yah its a pretty weird feeling. It was so strange to see Sister Morris standing up to give her final testimony, thinking "Wasn't the MTC just yesterday?" I think it was like 15 sisters went home this past week. I am officially the oldest 傳教士 :)
Other cool stuff:
-We went to the zoo last Monday with a less active LinDiXiong, a recent convert ZhengYiTing, a member ZhangJiaQi, and an investigator Teresa:)
-So Sister Facer and I are still together, we are now Sister Training Leaders over the new north zone and now central zone too, wow!!!!!!!! I am excited to work with new sisters:) My old companion Sister Chan is in our zone now, yay!!
-We went to the zoo last Monday with a less active LinDiXiong, a recent convert ZhengYiTing, a member ZhangJiaQi, and an investigator Teresa:)
-So Sister Facer and I are still together, we are now Sister Training Leaders over the new north zone and now central zone too, wow!!!!!!!! I am excited to work with new sisters:) My old companion Sister Chan is in our zone now, yay!!
-TERESA PASSED HER BAPTISMAL INTERVIEW!!!!!!!! She will be having a Christmas baptism:) We are SOOOOOOO excited!!
-We had our fabulous ward Christmas party, we had 7 investigators come and a ton of less active members. Our choir performed great and our ward had a Nativity skit, so cute. I am telling you, Heavenly Father loves me because He put me in this ward. Everyone is so spiritual and loving and it truly feels like a family, every one is close to every one else and I am just accepted and fit right in:)
-MIRACLE TUESDAY: We were fang'd by Resa, so we "broke up" with her and told her that she could contact us, but we weren't going to keep wasting our time setting up with her when she never showed up. So we went to go contact by the train station. I started talking to this man, and we hit it off pretty well. I shared prayer, the Book of Mormon, and baptism. People in Taiwan don't really understand prayer or scriptures or church or any of this kind of religion thing, so when this man 謝偉傑 said "Oh, so I pray to communicate and get to know God, and I read this book to get to know Christ and how I can have a better life? Ok, I get it. I would like to learn more." I WAS LITERALLY BLOWN AWAY. Pretty sure it was the first time I had ever heard that on my mission. And that started a beautiful friendship:) We shared the first lesson on Friday, he loved it and actually understands that no other church is complete and directed by God's power. He came to the Christmas party and brought his son, then he came to church all three hours yesterday, dressed in a white shirt and tie, slacks, and a sweater vest:) Not to mention, that when we had our lesson with him, he asked what kind of commandments we have to follow, our peike answered no drinking coffee or alcohol or smoking. He replied "BUT I LOVE TO DRINK COFFEE EVERYDAY!!!" But we set a date to be baptized on the 16th of January, and he said "well I don't know how it's gonna happen, but it will, I'll do it." He doesn't even know why yet!!!!:)
THEN right after we finished talking to him (this is still Tuesday, sorry I dont know why I am ALL over the place today) we were about to walk onto the train and we were stopped by a man wearing a BYU Hawaii sweatshirt! He and his wife came to Taiwan from Malaysia to be sealed in the temple. WOW. I was so moved by their dedication. This man served a mission in Malaysia and is from Singapore. His whole family are also members and they all came to Taiwan together to attend the sealing. He just got back from his mission a year ago and was SO excited to see missionaries in the place that he was staying for the week!! So amazing!! THEN we got to ZhuWei (where we were going to have district meeting) and went upstairs to the Starbucks to use the bathroom. There I started talking to a woman and she spoke fluent English because her and her husband lived in Dallas! So I started talking to the husband and his sister is a Mormon, and would actually be coming into Taiwan the next night!!!!!!! He said that she has been trying to "convert him" for years but he never has listened. He says that he is amazing by us missionaries, his nephew served in my mission 5 years ago! It was so cool to meet him, he gave us his number and they invited us over to their house to talk to him and his sister sometime next week:) Yes, this was all Tuesday.
-Miracle on Wednesday: we met with Cindy and Chantelle, two english students. Cindy is living in Canada and goes home soon. We shared the Plan of Salvation with them and pretty much every time we asked a question, Cindy would answer and Chantelle would say "me too." So we invited them to baptism and Cindy started saying a million excuses and talked for a few minutes. So when I turned to Chantelle and asked her too, I was expecting a "me too." But...she quietly said "Actually, I am willing. 我覺得可以." IT WAS SO COOL. So she came to English class's christmas party, our ward christmas party, but not church because she got a cold:( But we are SO excited to help her, she is the most beautiful cute 22 year old ever!!! We're already like BFFs!
-Walking along the street at night, I ran to catch up to a woman I just knew I needed to talk to. She is a single mom named JoJo or 陳妍伶whose husband divorced her on their 10 year anniversary. I literally just boldly bore testimony that she needed what we had, and she agreed that meeting us must be some sort of God's plan for her. I love following the guidance of the Holy Ghost when it leads me where to go and what to say. I love running after people too because there are thousands of people on the streets at night, how are you going to talk to so many unless you run from one to the other? Just like the awesome missionaries in the scriptures:)
-I rang a door bell two days ago and the lady let us in. She acted like we had known her for years, she was so friendly and told us to sit down and listened to us share about Christ. I don't know if we will keep meeting with her (ZhangJieMei) but it was such a miracle...because hardly anyone ever lets you in from ringing doorbells:) No, not the same as knocking doors, when I say ringing doorbells, I mean the buzzers on a big building with lots of floors.
-I met a man from Ireland yesterday. He doesn't believe in God, but we got to pray with him. It was special, I told him my dad served his mission there!
Funny story, so in Taiwan, if you sneeze (you know, like regular people sneeze, its part of life) everyone automatically thinks you are sick or have allergies. So we were having scripture class with our recent converts and I sneezed like twice. Everyone flipped out and said I was sick because it was cold. (It was only cold on Tuesday andWednesday of this week) So 蘇弟兄 BOUGHT me a brand new winter jacket. If that wasn't enough, someone must have posted on the Ward LINE (LINE is a group chat app that everyone uses) that I had a cold because all throughout this week, members were asking me if I was feeling better, if I needed anything, how my cold was, giving me clothes and food. I was the only one unaware of the fact that I had a cold. So don't worry mom, I was well taken care of:)
I wanted to share a few scriptures:
Deuteronomy 13:4
"Ye shall walk after the Lord our God, and fear him,and keep his commandments, and obey h
I love this scripture because its pretty much my mission vision. I want it all to be about HIM and what HE wants and the vision that HE sees for me. If I focus on the verbs that are in this scripture, if I follow him and trust him and love him and obey him and listen to him and serve him, I will return home knowing Him.
another one is:
Alma 31:35 in the Book of Mormon
"Behold, O Lord, their souls
I love this because I have truly come to rejoice in talking to people all day every day about this gospel, because I know that it is the ONLY way back to Him. I know that there is no other reality besides the reality that we will one day stand in front of Christ and He will ask us what we did with our lives. I know that no matter who says what and no matter what happens, THAT IS TRUTH. No matter if no one else on the whole earth believed it, it wouldn't make it any less true. And THAT is why what I do, what every missionary in the world does, is SO STINKING IMPORTANT. So I know that this scripture is true and I pray every day that I can have the power and wisdom to convert people and bring them unto Christ!
PLEASE OH PLEASE MY DEAR FAMILY AND FRIENDS, take the time to remember and ponder Christ, the TRUE meaning of this season. Everything in this season is for us to have joy, but the true joy is in celebrating Him and His life. I love you all and I hope you have an incredible holiday season:)
Sister Wright (Taiwan Taipei Mission)
Rèn Jiěmèi 任曼欣姐妹
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