Ya'll, HuaLian is the best place ever! I'm tellin ya. IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL... EVERY MORNING I WANT TO CRY.
Sister Micah Richards
This week was so good. I'm sitting here just mind blown that it is already Monday again.. I don't know what it is about this transfer, but it has absolutely FLOWN by. Man time is so weird on the mission.
Anyways, this week started on the best foot as we hiked through the BEAUTIFUL JUNGLE MOUNTAINS of this crazy country. We hiked to a place called shui yuan di and it was pretty much just climbing over rocks right along a river plus waterfall so we were pleased. This place. And in just a sec, we are heading to see more of what HuaLian has to offer. Life is so good.
But aside from all of the beauty around me, the real beauty of the week came from the miracles we saw and the people we got to meet and teach. Hualian is truly on fire and we feel so lucky to be apart of it! This week was full of lots of truly magical experiences from meeting golden investigators on the street, to jamming in our apartment with all of our ukes and guitars, to dancing through real life fire flies, and seeing people we love so dearly gain a testimony right before our eyes. I truly wish I could just bring you all here and let you experience it for yourselves. Nothing I can say can even come close to giving you all a real picture of what it is like!
As part of all the great things that happened this week, we had a wonderful zone conference with our amazing mission President and his wife! I always love seeing them and really we all just aspire to be them. hah But one thing that was cool was an announcement that the first presidency of the church would like us to now start focusing on teaching and baptizing students! People from about mid-teens to late twenties! Super cool. Their thought process was that these are the builders of the kingdom. These are the people that are searching for truth, for meaning, and are not too set in any ways yet. They are open to change and so receptive to truth. These are the people that will get baptized and then proceed to go on missions and get married in the temple and truly build God's kingdom! SO so cool. It was cool to think back on many of my RC's that fit right into this age group! I feel so lucky to have met so many of these future leaders of the church!
This week some of our coolest experiences were with our student investigators. One named Cindy and another named Cai Xing Yu.
Cindy is an awesome investigator we have that we have been meeting with for a bit. She is someone who totally fits into this "seeking for truth" category. She loves learning about the gospel and really just wants to know personally if it is true. This week in preparing for her lesson, we had a feeling that we should pause from teaching her the outlined lessons in PMG and talk about the receiving answers to prayers. We both studied for her, and it turned out to be the perfect lesson. She even asked us how we knew she had been needing to hear this! Spirit man. It has always got your back. So we had a super powerful lesson with her about sincerely praying, and helped her to recognize that God really is trying to answer her prayers, she just needs to know what to look for.
But the REAL highlight of the week was with our girl Xing Yu (shing ew - for all of my friends that still think Chinese sounds like an alien language hah). Xing Yu is our 17 year old investigator that was given to us by a member! She is a member's girlfriend, and this young boy started bringing her to church with him and we met her! She is golden. She keeps all commitments, loves the BOM so much she brings it to school to read during her breaks, and loves praying. Plus, she told us she wants to go on a mission... so yep. Our lessons with her are always awesome, but this week was special. We met with her to teach her about the doctrine of Christ- faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, and endure to the end. It was all going well and was really just a good lesson. She was super open to sharing her thoughts, very open with us, and totally understood what we were teaching her. As we were teaching her, we started to tell that she was really feeling it. Then we went on to share with her the "Because of Him" video and, if you are anything like me, it'll REALLY getcha. And it sure got her. The video ended and there was just silence that was filled with the Spirit. She looked up at us with tears in her eyes and started bearing to us her testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ. After she finished, we promised her some very tender blessings specific to her and she just started bawling. BAWLING. We just held her hands and let her cry. FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER she is still crying, and we invite her to say the closing prayer for us when she is ready. ANOTHER FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER she closes with such a beautiful and simple prayer telling Heavenly Father that she knows this is true and this is the church she should join. After she closed her prayer, she just looked at us and said "I'm so sorry, I am so emotional, I don't know why!" When we asked her how she felt, she said she felt so warm, and peaceful, and like Jesus was there hugging her- like the the picture of Him holding the lamb on the front cover of the lesson 1 pamphlet. She recognized that those feelings were feelings of the Spirit and they were answering the questions of her heart. It was so incredible. Her baptismal date is set for the 29th of this month, and we are so confident that she will make it! The church is true people.
It was incredible that after a week of seeing some of the most beautiful places on this island and literally running through a field of REAL fireflies (ward activity that we brought our investigators too), the most magical part of my week was 30 minutes sitting in a 7/11 with a 17 year old girl. Not speaking any words, just listening to her silently sob while we just held her. In NO OTHER SITUATION would this be true. Like I mean it's FIREFLIES?! In my imagination hiking through the jungle and seeing hundreds of little fireflies would seem to be more magical. But nothing compares to the magic of seeing and feeling the light of the gospel. It is so true. I come to know that more and more every single day.
To all my dear friends and family that get to enjoy the blessings of the gospel every day, don't take it for granted. We have the best gift, the best light, and the most magic that is out there. We have it within each of us! We know who we are. We know where we come from and we know where we are going. Do we realize what a blessing that is? My challenge to you all this week is to really take a moment and think about all of the blessings that this gospel has brought into your life. Ok maybe not all, but some big ones. Write them down even. And then go and show the Lord how grateful you are for them by the way you live your life. Live the light of the gospel.
To my friends that have never seen the light or who have let their lights grow dim, I challenge you all to seek for that light. Remember what it felt like when it was there, and change whatever it is in your life that is keeping you in the dark. Keeping you from feeling the magic of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Friends and family I love you all dearly and I want you to know how much I love this gospel. I cannot express my love for my Savior. I know that He lives. I know that He loves us. and I know that more than anything He wants us to return home. He misses us. Take His hand. Let Him guide you home. Happy Easter and have a happy week<3
xoxo
Sister Richards
李姐妹
Lǐ Jǐemeì
Taiwan Taipei Mission
4/F, #24, Lane 183
Jin Hua Street
Taipei, Taiwan 106
1- hike last week- sorry more pics to come
2- firefly activity
3- view from our window
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