Well ya'll my prayers WERE NOT answered and I have left my beautiful paradise of HuaLian ha jokes... (kind of), BUT I got transferred up to YongHe in Taibei to be a Sister Training Leader! So many crazy things about this because...
1- I have never served in Taibei before (which is very rare because more than half of our mission is serving there at a time) and so it's kind of like moving from District 12 to the capital.. SO MANY PEOPLE HERE. ALWAYS. It is awesome. But, with that, I also left behind the beautiful mountains and ocean of the east coast:( (sheds a silent tear) But, I am SO excited for what this next transfer and area have in store.
2- I REPLACED my trainer, Sister Cullen! We always had this dream that I would "kill" her (be her last companion before she goes home), and we were THIS CLOSE. I came to her area and replaced her! hah so funny.
3- I am a new Sister Training Leader! I am so excited for this responsibility and trust of the Lord and my mission president in me! We are over two of the Taibei zones here and I am so excited to start exchanges this week! It will most definitely be crazy because we have to get them done in about the first 2 weeks, and I just moved to this new area so I don't know it well, and I haven't met most of our members and investigators yet, but it'll be great;) hah
It really was so hard leaving Hualian this past week. I have seen SO many miracles there, met some of my best friends, and have had some of the best memories of my whole mission while serving there. It feels like I left a little piece of my heart behind:( I was especially heart broken to leave my sweet companion Sister Birch! I love her so so much. She is such an incredible missionary, and we have learned and grown so much in our time together. She taught me so much and I KNOW that she will continue to kill it taking over our area!
But, the Lord has His perfect timing! He knew it was time for me to come up north to be in the center of it all! My new area in YongHe is the most densely populated area in Taiwan... Quite the difference from sweet HuaLian! There are always people and cars and motorcycles and noise and it is just so fun! So different! It has been a long time since I have served in a city area, and even my first area seems rural compared to this! It is so fun! One thing about serving here is that everything is SO close! Our area is much smaller than anywhere I have served before, so it is all so convenient! We pack each day in with SO much because there is no travel time that we have to account for anymore! It's kind of crazy! ha
My new companion is Sister Reinhard from Orem, Utah! She is an older missionary with only two transfers left on her mission, an incredible artist, and a great companion! We already get along great, and I think we will both compliment each other well this next transfer! Bring on the miracles:)
This past week was a little crazy, and not just because of transfers... We also had a pretty big typhoon hit Taiwan! My first ever typhoon! hah Being in Taibei, it didn't hit us too hard, but the wind and rain were both super strong, and our whole mission had to come in early to make sure we were safe. The sisters we live with had a lesson and so they got back a little later, and one of them LITERALLY got picked up off of her bike and floated into the air because the wind caught under her rain jacket and just shot her up and off her bike!! It is pretty crazy stuff. But with that, most people were shut inside their homes and a lot of lessons and set ups canceled. We were still short of reaching some goals though, so we really put our faith out on the line, and Heavenly Father delivered! We were able to see some incredible miracles and hit our goals!
My favorite little miracle happened on Friday. Every Friday, we have a weekly planning session where we talk about our investigators and what we can do to help them the upcoming week. In WPS that day, we talked about a member's older sister that was a potential investigator and made some plans to somehow contact and meet her and see if she would be interested. Unfortunately, her little sister is a little LA and a little hard to contact, so we weren't sure how were were going to contact her... But we had faith! WELL... that night we had planned to teach this rc member family, and wanted to do a bit of an object lesson with them, so, we stopped in a stationary store kind of place on our way to buy a few of the things we needed. Lots of little miracles happened there, but as we were walking out I just happened to hear someone speaking in English. So, I turn to her to compliment her English and to talk to her, and soon find out SHE IS THAT POTENTIAL. It was CRAZY. We didn't know how we were going to contact her, but the Lord just put her right in our path! We were able to set her up, and will be meeting with her and her LA sister this week! SO amazing.
Well ya'll, life is amazing. Each day is full of so many small miracles and the hand of the Lord is so evident in my life. I am so excited for what this next transfer will bring and all of the miracles to come! I hope you all have a wonderful week! and I invite you all to look for all of those small tender mercies in each day! LOVE YOU ALL!
xoxo
Sister Richards
李姐妹
Lǐ Jǐemeì
Taiwan Taipei Mission
4/F, #24, Lane 183
Jin Hua Street
Taipei, Taiwan 106
1- our fhe snack at a member's house- thin slices of limes and then brown sugar on top...honeslty SO good
2- SHE FINALLY LET ME TWIN WITH HER
3- teary goodbye to my best friends
4- new companion, Sister Reinhard
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