I feel like I aged 10 years this week

This week was full of incredible miracles. I don't know how or why or what I do to be a participant and recipient of such amazing miracles. Maybe Heavenly Father loves me and these people in 玉里？ Probably :)

One of my favorite moments this week...we took a member with us to go see Lin Jiemei, the one who we've been meeting with for EVER and is still not willing to quit drinking coffee and tea. So while our member was talking to her, we snuck into her house (well we told her we were going to, but quietly) and found her coffee and tea and THREW IT OUT!!!!!! Woooo one of my proudest moments as a missionary:)

Bye Bye Coffee & Tea!

We met a really old lady biking home one day and she said to visit her that Tuesday. Well we went there and the people said they'd never heard of her, BUT the 20 year old boy with blue hair had met the elders the day before and was interested in learning more. So we gave him a first lesson, a copy of the Book of Mormon, taught him how to pray, and set up a date to be baptized all right there on his front porch!!! He said he had always wanted to be baptized but never really felt prepared and didn't know why so many churches existed. Well, it's a good thing that that's EVERYTHING we teach as missionaries:)

So as you know, there were typhoons this week. Not in Yuli, but it rained pretty hard. Well we were having a rough time finding anyone to talk to, people had fang'd us and cancelled on us and so when we saw the truck selling hong dou bing, we just had to get one. Well another man was ordering too, so I did a very basic missionary thing, pulled out a tract, and gave it to him. Turns out, he had gotten divorced only 7 months ago and so turned to religion to help him. He had started going to the Presbyterian church only FOUR MONTHS AGO, and has been reading 10 pages of the Bible a day! He just clung onto our every word about how we wanted to share all of Christ's teachings and prepare people to follow Him by being baptized, he also wanted to know what we had that the church he was learning about didn't. He didn't have a lot of time to talk, but he said he is SUPER interested in learning, and right before he had to drive off he goes "You guys pray right? Can we say a prayer RIGHT NOW??" He asked me to say it. It was SO amazing! Heavenly Father knew we needed a little snack and then He brought the prepared person to us:)

Yum!

We also went on exchanges this week. We almost missed the train on the way to HuaLian to switch back, and it was a nice young lady who told us which train it was. She also reminded us when we were almost pulled up to HuaLian station. She used the word "sisters" so we knew she was a member. Well, she is a less active member and divorced and has 3 kids. She hasn't prayed in years because her family problems lessened her faith. We prayed with her and helped her say her first communication with Heavenly Father in years. She REALLY wants to come back to church, and just moved to Yuli to work at the hospital and she lives there by herself and has no friends here. When we told her we have a branch in Yuli, she was so happy!!! She wants to come back, and just by chance running into her on the train, we were able to give her the opportunity to come back!! SO AMAZING!! God loves and watches over His children here.

We recently started a scripture study class here in Yuli, in hopes of increasing the testimonies of our less actives and investigators. Well it was about to start and no one but one member was there. I turned around, and before I even thought about talking to the man walking out of the internet cafe, my mouth opened and I invited him to attend our class for an hour RIGHT THEN. Well....HE ACCEPTED. Funny enough, he recently dropped all of his work and family and moved into a Buddhist temple in the middle of nowhere to ponder and gain knowledge. He is SUPER open to learning about anything and open to using prayer to find out if it's true. and THEN HE CAME TO CHURCH THE NEXT DAY. It was incredible. Even though he very specifically said he isn't interested in joining...well that's the special promise about our church. If he truly learns and applies it and feels the change in his life, he WILL want to join Christ's only true church. So amazing. 

Well as you can see these were some pretty impressive miracles. And I believe that Heavenly Father has blessed me so much this week because I am taking care of my companion. I am convinced that on my own, I do not know how to handle stubborn members, faulty investigators, and troubled companions, but Heavenly Father does. And I have spent more time on my knees this week than probably any other week of my mission. Because we, as humans, are weak. But Heavenly Father has PROMISED us that all we need to do is turn to Him in prayer and promise to act on whatever guidance we receive and He will lead us. What if we remembered what it was like to live with Him, to have accepted every challenge He wanted to throw our way and what if we remembered how excited we were to prove that we would stay true to His teachings and show we loved Him?

I want to invite you all this week to write a letter to yourself, either from your premortal self to who you are now, or who you are now to who you want to become in the future. We don't need to remember everything from the pre-existence to know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us infinitely and perfectly and only want us to be happy. It's hard sometimes. I can tell you, right now everything in my life is being tossed about by the winds of the adversary, and yes, his power and influence is so real. But I can also tell you that there is no influence more real or more powerful than that of Heavenly Father and Christ's love for us. Seek it, pray for it, work for it. Because you, I, and everyone else in the entire world need it. :)

We really do eat healthy food!

You probably wouldn't believe that I eat stuff like this every day - only fruits, veggies, and oats:)