Transfer 6: Week 5

family! i'm always so glad to hear from you. thank you for the emails and for keeping me updated of the going ons in las vegas. phoebe and naomi- can we watch high school music three when i get home? if you say no i'll sing the high school musical one soundtrack until you cave... "it's hard to believe i just couldn't see you were always right beside me...this feeling's like no other. i want you to knoooooow."

this last week has been great. this transfer is going by so fast. i'm really going to miss sister stratford. she has taught me a lot and we have tons of fun. lately my mind is swimming with weird thoughts. not weird thoughts. just things i haven't really thought about before. i feel like the more i understand the gospel the more i think and sometimes all that thinking turns into a cloud of questions and comments over my head. something i've thought about this week is how amazing being a missionary is..(edited for content)..missions change lives, many.

updates on our investigators/less-actives/new members...
-the qiu sisters are amazing still. i am always floored by their understanding and by the way they ponder the things we teach. last night we talked about baptism and they both talked about how much they are looking forward to it.
-we have a new investigator that started in pingdong and is now meeting with us here. her name is lai meiying. she's great and told us the first time she met with us that she knows this is god's church. the only problem at this point is that she and her parents are opening a coffee shop and her responsibility is to buy all of the coffee and tea. she has gone to school to train on how to know what coffee is the best quality. so, the word of wisdom is tough. she has faith but it's kind of strange. for example, when she tries her hardest to not try the coffee she is preparing for customers they always tell her that it's delicious. she looks at this as a blessing from heavenly father. sometimes she thinks she doesn't need to obey the commandments because her faith is sufficient. so, we're trying to build her testimony of prophets and the book of mormon being the word of god to help her see that what is written in the scriptures and spoken by the living prophets is heavebly father's will for her without exceptions. any other ideas?
-yesterday we met with hong yixiang for the second time. she's an amazing woman that sister stratford contacted last transfer. during our lesson yesterday the member that was helping us talked a lot about joining the church. yixiang said that at this point she has no interest in being baptized, she's only interested in understanding our doctrines. the member left early and the yixiang asked us about the process that we went through to know the things that we teach. i have never been asked that before. sister stratford and i have similar experiences. we both shared fairly openly about how we know. yixiang then told us that we were different than any other christians she has met. she said that the way we speak about the gospel has a power and conviction that no one else has. she said that there was something different about us, something light and comforting and that when she's with us she feels peace. i wanted to just up and say "shengling!!!!" "the holy ghost!" she said that she wants to have the same qualities. i think that heavenly father puts halos on missionaries that we would have no way of putting on ourselves. i think he turns us into so much more than we could ever be on our own. i wonder if that will go away the day i have to stop wearing my name tag. i hope not.
-on friday during the time that we typically would meet with xia guo mingyue we had her take us to a less-active member's home in the mountains. i have never seen such a good driver. we are on narrow, scary roads and she was always in control. i love seeing recent converts share their testimonies! mingyue is so amazing! she helped the less-active xiong jiemei feel comfortable and loved. i am so blessed to know mingyue and to have been able to watch her grow in the gospel.

on sunday we had a little miracle. a few weeks ago we contacted a girl that gave us her information. the number ended up being out of service and we suspected the address to be false as well but we figured we'd check anyway. if it indeed was not a real address we'd tract in the area then go to another neighborhood and tract some more until we went home for the night. this move we haven't had much success tracting so i questioned our plans a bit. when we learned that our contact had lied about her phone number and address i was discouraged and kind of upset wondering how we were ever going to find new investigators in chaozhou. then heavenly father opened my eyes and blessed us. the first door we knocked on was a woman in her mid-fifties with an ugly dog. she let us in and we taught her a lesson. she set up for tuesday, so we've seen her twice since i last wrote, and she's now a new investigator! after teaching her it was time to go to the next neighborhood. the first door we knocked on the woman let us in and fed us delicious oranges then listened to our message and set up for next sunday. by the time we finished it was time to go home. we had an hour and a half to knock doors. we ended up with two lessons and two new investigators. heavenly father loves us and them!

two things i've been thinking about/learned this week...
-jacob 2:10. jacob is such a good example to me! he did such hard things. he was called to cry repentance unto a wicked wicked people. he was sad that he had to do it but knew he was commanded by god, so he did hard things. he didn't hold back. i think that's how i need to be as a missionary. i cannot be afraid of teach commandments or asking people to change for the better. heavenly father asks us to do difficult things, but never impossible things.
-sacrament meeting is so important! i was studying about the gospel of jesus christ. faith-repentance-baptism-the gift of the holy ghost-endure to the end. i realized that we don't receive forgiveness when we repent. rather, remission of sins comes with baptism. so, if we want to be forgiven after baptism we have to take the sacrament. when we do, it's like being baptized again. we're clean again every week. every week we have the chance to tell heavenly father that we will follow his son and that we will keep the commandments and he reminds us that he will bless us with the spirit. it is foolish for us to think that he will forgive us or guide us through the holy ghost if we aren't keeping up our end of the baptismal covenants including partaking of the sacrament weekly. isn't it cool that we have the chance to be sin-free every sunday! way cool!

time is running out. i love you and miss you all. john taylor is back in las vegas as of yesterday. isn't that weird?! before we know it i will be too. my mission is flying by! i love every minute.

i hope you are all happy and well.

love,
sister jade