Hello wonderful people!
I hope everyone is having a great start to their Christmas season, and everyone already has their tree up and is listening to a lot of Michael Buble, Frank Sinatra, J Biebs (of course), and all those other good jams!
It was another great week here in Zhongli! The more I am in this new area, the more grateful I am! The people here are so so prepared, and the members are incredible! They are definitely my makeshift family while here! This past week, Sister Cullen and I had someone feed us every single day, and sometimes multiple times. hah They are so cute to us and we are so thankful!
This week we hit some bumps with a lot of investigators having parent objections to them getting baptized. We had the miracle of meeting a lot of amazing people this week and finding some awesome investigators. Unfortunately, the parents of three of the investigators who want to get baptized won't give their approval. It is definitely a big trial for many of them because 1- many of our investigators are young and need their parent's permission and 2- they want their support or at least approval. One of these is our sweet Sun Ti who progressed so much last week. In excitement for her baptism, she called her mom to tell her about this amazing thing in her life. In that phone call, her mom expressed to her how much she didn't want her to be meeting with us, and how she absolutely cannot be baptized. Sun Ti is 21, and can choose for herself, but being baptized would mean going against her mom and probably losing some family relations. She is really struggling and trying hard to keep the faith. We are praying and fasting hard for her, and have so much faith that her mom can soften her heart and see the happiness the gospel is bringing her daughter. Crossing our fingers for some good things to come this week.
This week we really felt the Lord's hand in our work. We saw a lot of miracles with getting new investigators, receiving specific revelation for our investigators, and reaching our goals. Sister Cullen and I have some big goals for the work here, and sometimes all we have is faith to go off of, but the Lord provides. Yesterday, for example... We had a goal of having 3 investigators at church. Saturday night, we had SEVEN people commit to coming. By Sunday morning, we had five of them call us and say they couldn't come. Talk about a smack to the face. We didn't know what to do, but we went forward with faith. Sacrament meeting started and we only had one investigator there.This was Ye Jiemei and she is super awesome and progressing perfectly toward her baptism on the 17th of this month. But, that was all. About ten minutes into the meeting, we all of a sudden see these two girls walk in. Being pretty new to the ward, we still don't know all the members and weren't sure if they were investigators or members, but one of the members by the door motioned to us that they were investigators! hah sweet people. They came and sat by us, and stayed with us for the rest of church! The Lord answered our prayers, and not only helped us get three people at church, but two more investigators:) Set big goals people, do your best to accomplish it, and then leave the rest to the Lord.
This week my thoughts were turned a lot to purpose. As missionaries we have a very clear purpose, and one that we literally say out loud every single day! "invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end." There is no way we can forget it! ha Everything we do as missionaries is geared toward that purpose of ours, and if something won't help us fulfill it, we won't do it.
As children of God, we all have a purpose too. We know that the purpose of this life is to learn, gain experience, and become like our Father in Heaven. We are preparing to return back to live with Him someday. This is our purpose. Though we may not have it all written out or say it out loud every day, it is just as important to know as us missionaries know our purpose. Everything we do should be helping us fulfill our purpose, and help the Father fulfill his. In Moses 1:39 we learn that our Father's purpose is to help us all receive eternal life and exaltation. I invite you to all think about your lives, and the things that you do from day to day. Are you doing things to help you learn, become like your Father in Heaven, and become like Him? Are you on your path back to eternal life? This week take some time to think of this, and make some changes if necessary. We are so blessed to know our purpose, and have direction in this life. I know that as we all strive to align our lives with God's plan for us, we will not only have more success, but more happiness, peace, and strength to do it!
I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week! Keep up the faith and rely on your Savior! He loves you so much.
Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! Everyone give Papa John some love this week on December 10th! You're the best dad and the best example! Someone give him a hug for me!
xoxo
Sister Richards
李姐妹
Lǐ Jiéměi
Taiwan Taipei Mission
4/F, #24, Lane 183
Jin Hua Street
Taipei, Taiwan 106
1- our homie ruby
2- sweet comp
3/4- just some food for ya'll
No comments:
Post a Comment