mom. it has been three weeks since i've heard from you. are you okay? what is
going on?!
so, two songs going in my head this week... "do they know it's halloween?"
(family, i hope you have taken advantage of october and spent the month
listening to this.) and one of the tracks on the nightmare before christmas
soundtrack. i hope your trip to disneyland is wonderful. please send pictures
soon! the only pictures i've seen of the ozawas since i entered the mtc were
sent to me by wyatt.
chaozhou is interesting. this move is already really different than all of my
other transfers. i've already learned a lot and i'm sure i'm going to learn
more. sister stratford is wonderful. we have a lot in common, and it's so nice
to have conversations in english. this is the first companionship in which i
feel everything is truly 50/50, which is really nice. we're both working really
hard and i think we'll see success.
sister stratford got sick on sunday night so we ended up spending monday morning
at the doctor's office. it was an interesting experience. i decided that when i
come home and have no friends i'm going to start hanging out at clinics and
public health offices. i think there i will be able to meet the most interesting
people las vegas and salt lake city have to offer me. after coming home,
studying and eating lunch i asked sister stratford how she was feeling and
whether the medication they gave her was working. after replying she asked how i
was. i said, "fine. i feel great." she said, "i can tell you're discouraged." i
didn't know how to explain myself. all i could say at first was, "you can tell?"
(her gift of discernment is amazing.) i'm not at all discouraged by the
companionship or the city or the branch. this move will be difficult in
different ways than usual. i've never had so few investigators and so many
less-actives. we only have two progressing investigators and about three others.
and we have a seven page list of sisters living in the area; about six and a
half pages is inactives. i feel like i left tainan without doing much. i look at
chaozhou and know there is a lot to be done, knowing where to start is the
problem. it's overwhelming.
i really feel that if we work hard to figure out the situations of the many many
less-active sisters here, we will be blessed with opportunities to find new
investigators. so, sister stratford and i have started working through the list.
we are identifying those who have moved, those who are lost, those we don't
know, etc. and we're calling all of them systematically then going to the homes
of those we can't get a hold of. we only spend a certain amount of time each day
doing the paperwork part and phone calls, then the rest of the time (because we
don't really have lessons) we spend contacting or looking for less-actives and
tracting in their neighborhood. so far, i think we're seeing success. we've been
able to contact quite a few sisters that haven't been to church in years, and
have set up appointments with some. we've knocked a lot of neighborhoods and
contacted a lot of people on the street. we're working on sifting through the
phone numbers we've gotten and think some of them will turn out to be pretty
good investigators. i've only been here for ten days, but already i'm learning a
lot about patience and trusting heavenly father, as well as improving my
contacting skills. so, these discouraging spots are proving to be blessings in
disguise. i'm grateful.
our best investigators are sisters qiu yaping and qiu yaling. they are a little
bit crazy, but also really great. i've never met people so receptive to the
spirit so quickly. they have strong strong testimonies of prayer and the
scriptures. it's so amazing to watch them change in the gospel. yaling had a
really cool experience last week that prompted them to set baptismal dates...
their parents and grandparents are very against them meeting with us and are
very abusive. last week we heard stories about their grandfather throwing them
by their hair because he wanted them to leave the room, their grandmother
telling their mom to give yaling to someone that wants her when they found out
she was a daughter and not a son, their mom locking them out overnight, and
their dad yelling and hitting them for little reason. hearing these things
through their tears made me so grateful for the loving family that i have, so
grateful for the healing power of the atonement, and so grateful for the
knowledge of our heavenly father who loves us all the time no matter what. our
ward mission coordinator (chen dixiong)'s dad knows yaping and yaling's parents.
chen dixiong said that he thinks the only way the sisters will be able to get
baptized is if his father (also a member) goes and talks to them. we hadn't told
the sisters this yet when yaling came up to us at english class and told us
about a dream she had the night prior. in her dream chen dixiong's dad came to
their house and talked to her mom and dad about the church. her parents received
his visit well. she was really confused by the dream and wanted to know what we
thought it meant. when we told her what chen dixiong had said about his dad
visiting them she smiled widely and said heavenly father is answering her
prayers. i love teaching them. they are always ready for the things we share.
the only problem is that they have so many experiences having to do with
christ's teachings that we have a hard time teaching more than a few principles
each time we see them.
on my first friday here we met with guo mingyue (the investigator from pingdong
that was baptized a few weeks ago). it was fantastic to see her. she's so cute
and adds so much to the branch here. after reviewing the restoration with her,
she started talking about how happy she was so see me and how grateful she is to
be in chaozhou. she wouldn't quit holding my hand and then said the sweetest
prayer thanking heavenly father for reuniting us. every day spent serving the
lord feels good, but seeing her and knowing she missed me was beyond good. i
love her and i'm so happy that she's still growing in the gospel. before we
left, huang jiemei, the member that helped us teach the lesson started sharing
the ways mingyue has touched her life and blessed her. we all knew at that time
that mingyue is where she needs to be. heavenly father needs her here in
chaozhou.
on sunday we had district conference, in PINGDONG! i cannot tell you how happy i
was to go back and see all of the members i miss so much. rick, the elders
investigator from my english class, was baptized a few weeks ago. joelle is
active and goes to church every week. lethe is still amazing. i love her so
much! i'm sure we'll stay friends. one of the coolest parts of being there was
seeing sister jiang. i really worried about how it would be. when i was in
tainan i tried to write her and see how she was but the reply she sent was brief
and without much information. i worried that seeing her would bring back hard
feelings from our tough move together. but, the opposite happened. i was filled
with so much love for her. as she told me about the investigators we had been
working with and their current situations i knew that they are in good hands.
i'm excited to get to see her again at zone conference next week and to be
friends!
there's more that i could write. next week i'll have to include a list of the
crazy moments we've had this move so far. life in taiwan is interesting and
good, i don't know how else to explain it. the church is true, zhen de!
i love you and miss you,
sister jlo
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