Tuesday, April 13, 2010

13 May

Happy Mothers Day everyone! Mothers day is a big holiday as a missionary because we get to call our families. It was lots of fun to talk to everyone. Basically my family is going crazy--my 2 sisters and sister in law are all pregnant! And in about 4 months I will officially be an aunt. Exciting!

On mother's day I got a nice little surprise. I was getting off my bike at church, about to walk into the building, when the 1st counsellor in the bishopric came up to me and asked if I would give a 5 minute talk in sacrament meeting. Ever willing, I asked what the topic was on. The answer: the law of chastity!!! Awkward! That is a topic that you don't really want to talk on in your native language, let alone Chinese! But I survived without making too much of a fool of myself and mostly focused on temple marriages and the sacred covenants that protect our families and eternity. It was still really really awkward, though!

The other day we rode out to Shulin to try and find and make contact with some less actives that the ward asked us to visit. We went to the first house and it was all boarded up--obviously no one lived there. Well, we still had some others to visit but I felt that perhaps there was a reason for us being there other than finding an empty boarded up house! So we said a prayer to ask the Lord to help us know which houses (of the 1,000 + available within a 5 minute ride) we should tract to find His prepared children. We started riding and I turned down this street. I was about to get off my bike when I turned and looked down the street--there was this huge buddhist altar inside of a covering. It was glowing red and incense was being burned to the gods...and the back wall had this dragon god with red glowing eyes. It seriously looked like the devil himself! And then my companion whispered, "angry dog!" because there was an unchained angry dog growling at us. Well, I thought to myself as we rode away quickly, this is what happens when I choose where to tract! We find devil street! :)

So we picked another street and picked a 5-stack (I will try to describe houses in Taiwan. Picture this: a narrow alley with rows and rows of buildings on each side. Each building has 5 stories, and each story is a house. We call these 5-stacks) and miraculously the door was open (usually to get into 5-stacks you have to ring the little buzzer doorbells and talk to the people and try to get them to open the door for you). We knocked on only 3 doors with no success before a 16 year old girl opened one door and started listening to us. When we asked her if she had ever been to church before, she said, "My uncle is Christian and he lives right across the street!" Astonished, we followed her over there. Well, the uncle came out and said he had met the elders--and they had given him a Book of Mormon! Turns out he had met with the elders 2x (not at his house) but he said he didn't have time to go to our church because he had to go to his. Well, I told him that God obviously wanted him to come to church because we had randomly found his niece, who took us over to his house! So he said he would come to church and bring his niece!

It was a crazy but very cool experience. I don't really like just tracting because it often turns into a very non-productive activity in Taiwan, but experiences like this let me know that the Lord truly is guiding this work (even if you have to go through devil street first!).

And then finally, we went to an investigator's house yesterday and the three children ran up to us holding boxes of huge bugs and a lizard that they had caught in the mountains. It was weird and the bugs were creepy looking--but they are such a cute family and the parents helped them catch them so they could observe their life, what they eat, etc. Anyway, I don't know why I put this story in but maybe it was for my little brother--I think he would have loved to see them! The bugs really were creepy looking, Bronson!

And finally, one of my friends just emailed me and said she is in Tel Aviv for the summer--do you want to email me your address, Gini? Then I can write to you. And congratulations! And my other friend enters the MTC today. Good luck, Becca! I love you!

I hope the rest of you are doing well. Never forget what marvelous blessings you have because of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Sister White

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