Well folks, I did it! I have officially been a missionary for 18 months! Still got one more though, and boy am I grateful for that! I cannot believe how fast my time as a missionary has flown! I have loved every second of it!
It was another miracle filled week down here in beautiful TaiDong! I love it down here. Being surrounded by the mountains and the ocean, clean air, very kind and loving people, and just the feeling of the slower paced life style down here. It is a nice breath of fresh air (literally ha) after serving in the heart of it all for half of a year. This week was just incredible. We saw some of the coolest miracles, some bigger and some smaller! I'll share a few with you all.
Each week, us missionaries will send in key indicators as a way to check the progress of our area and the conversion of the people we are teaching. This includes how many people you had baptized that week, how many investigators you have with a baptismal date, how many investigators you had attend church, and how many new investigators you were able to find that week. We have different "standards of excellence" for these different categories, and work our tails off week after week to hit them to the best of our ability! Obviously, there are times where we fall short, and there are times that we exceed them as well! But we always work hard to hit these standards and help our areas continue to grow. We report our key indicators each Sunday night to the mission office. This week, we worked hard to teach our current progressing investigators and looked for new investigators along the way. But, Friday night came around and we realized we had only found one new investigator so far in the week, and had no other potentials set up for the next two days.. We were a little worried about where the other three people we needed to find to hit our goal would come from.. BUT we had faith!
Saturday came along and after a good morning of studies and getting stood up by the only potential we had set up for the weekend, we decided to go and get lunch. We had originally planned to go to this one yummy restaurant, but for the first time ever, it didn't sound good to us! We decided to stay close and go to a little Vietnamese place that we frequently eat at because it is right by the church! We walk in, and are SHOCKED to see this potential investigator that we had been contacting and trying to set up lately eating there! So was he! hah His name is Sean, and he is someone I talked to last week while we were studying! I started talking to him while we were on our way out, and didn't have a lot of time to chat, but we got his contact info, and had been trying to set up a time to meet. and then BAM. Heavenly Father just makes it 100x easier and sticks him right in our path! Better yet, he was with a friend, Melissa, and so we were able to set BOTH of them up.. for that night! We taught them that night, and had a great simple little introduction lesson with them! There were two of our 3 investigators we still needed:) But wait....it gets better.
After meeting with Sean and Melissa that night, we headed over to this little night market in our area to advertise our English class and find some new investigators! Taidong, unlike Taibei, is not bumping at night, and frankly most people go to bed at like 8pm. hah BUT there are these cute little night markets every once in a while that make all of the people come out of their homes to look around and buy little snacks and things and what not. SO, we thought we would take advantage of that opportunity. After being there for a little while and realizing most people were foreigners there, we decided to go over to the nearby Starbucks to do a little bit of daily contact before heading home for the night. We were only there for like 10 min, but decided to get that last gospel conversation in for the night. We started talking to this teenage girl next to us, and shared about how coming to church has blessed our lives. It was a quick one, but quick is all you need! She liked what we shared, set up to come to church the next day, and did end up coming! Better yet, she brought her friend too! These two students came to sacrament meeting, loved it, set up to meet with us that night, did meet, and became our new investigators:) By Heavenly Father's loving hand, our hard work and faith, we were not only able to hit the key indicators for the week, but exceed them! Sister Hurst and I were so happy to see those great fruits of our efforts!
BUT, though those were such awesome little miracles this week, the NUMBER 1 miracle we saw this week was with our girl Amber.
Amber is the girl I shared about two weeks ago that we met on the street, ate lunch with, and did basically the exact contact we had just role played in companionship study. Long story short, she is amazinggggggggggg. Like so prepared holy cow. We met with her every single day this past week and she came to all 3 hours of church on Sunday for her first time, even though she lives about 30 minutes away! She's so cool. We had some amazing lessons with her this past week, and made a special effort to precede each one with a good role play. I mean, it worked pretty nicely for us the first time, so why not try again! As we did that, I was amazed time and time again how things just kept happening EXACTLY as we had practiced them! so cool.
For the sake of all of your sanity and for the few people that have actually made it reading this far, I'll keep it brief. But Amber is just amazing. In our second lesson with her (three days after the first lesson), we followed up with her on reading 2 Nephi 31 that we had invited her to read before meeting with us again. She said she had, and we asked what her favorite part was and she pulled out her Book of Mormon and showed us a scripture she marked in 2 Nephi 2:13. We were a little confused and asked if she just randomly flipped open to that scripture or how she found that or whatnot. Just to find out that not only had she read the chapter we had invited her to read, but she had read FROM THE BEGINNING to 2 Nephi 31!!! We were completely shocked. We didn't even know how to respond to that. haha I was tempted to literally ask her questions about what she had read, just to make sure she actually read it! But she definitely has, as she retold us the stories of Nephi and Lehi and their family! She is amazing. She loves reading the Book of Mormon and is already receiving witnesses of its truthfulness. She is feeling the Holy Ghost answer her prayers! It is amazing.
As the week went on, she sent us thank you texts for sharing the gospel with her after lessons, has sent US scriptures and videos that she liked and has read or seen from our gospel library app, and bears her growing testimony to us frequently. It is incredible to see her testimony growing right before our eyes! She is so humble and willing to learn and rely on God. At one point during the week, we asked her why she's so willing to meet with us everyday and study so deeply into this gospel, and she told us that every time she does, she feels the Spirit and God's love for her. She told us that learning about this gospel is the best experience she's ever had before and it's already completely changed her into a much happier person! I'm so amazed by this girl. She has such a genuine desire to know truth and to develop a relationship with her Savior. I feel so blessed that God trusted me enough to help her in her conversion process! We are now just praying for parental consent to help her be baptized, because unfortunately in Taiwan, 19 doesn't count as an adult. She still has to get her parent's permission in order to be baptized, which she is worried about. Please keep her and her parents in your prayers. We know she can do it!
Well, 40 years later I am finished. hah I could go on and on because the miracles are endless. But, I truly am just so grateful to be a missionary here in the most wonderful place in the world. I am so overwhelmed every day by Heavenly Father's love for me and for all of His children. I know He is there. I see His influence in my life every single day. I am so grateful for this great training opportunity for the rest of my life! My plan said it best. Your mission is the MTC of your life. As I am getting to the close of my mission, I am so grateful for the great experiences I have had, and at the same time cannot wait to start applying all the things I have learned to the rest of my life. God is good.
I love you all and wish you all the best week! Happy February:)
xoxo
Sister Richards
李姐妹
Lǐ Jǐemeì
Taiwan Taipei Mission
4/F, #24, Lane 183
Jin Hua Street
Taipei, Taiwan 106
1- Views of Taidong
2- my sweet companion
3-10- our morning exercises this week- running in the most beautiful place, our area
11- member family
12- Amber
13- Taidong
14- nametag plus the pink classic sandals that everyone gives you when you come into their homes hah
15- Cai mama
16- Investigators
17-18- Taidong, morning hike with the roomies
19- Sean and Melissa
20-21: comp
22: screen shot with Sister B.
