First of all, this week a typhoon came close to Taiwan which for us meant TORRENTIAL rain all week. Literally, days and days of so much rain and wind and just being absolutely soaked. All the time. We apologize to our door man every night for the river that we track into our building every time we come in. hah Fun times!
Well, for starters, EMILY YANG GOT BAPTIZED. Oh man oh man. This has been SO many miracles in the making. And, a long time coming. I'll tell you a little about her story.
I met Emily a little over 2 months ago. Her husband is a member of our bishopric and the sweetest man alive. They are newly weds of 3 months, and only dated for 3 months before getting married! Emily told us that on their very first date, Xue DX (her husband) told her about his beliefs and the big standards he keeps- aka tithing, Word of wisdom, Law of Chastity, Sabbath, etc, and she was only impressed! What a stud haha. But that really began it all! Xue DX often shared with her about the church and bore his testimony, and sparked her interest in learning more.
When I first met Emily, she was very interested to understand the gospel, but was not looking at it from an eye of faith, but of a curiousity standpoint. She was willing to learn and to try, but always had a hard time committing to baptism and the thought of being "all in." Over the past two months, I have seen her change drastically as she started to learn this gospel not only for her husband and the sake of understanding him more, but for herself. While bearing her testimony at her baptism, she shared that she is not quite sure when the switch between the two mind sets was made, but one day she realized how good this gospel really was and how much she wanted it to not only be her husband's thing, but also her thing. Their thing. She sincerely searched for her answer, and because of that, had many spiritual experiences and received those answers. Now, they didn't come all at once, but they came as she opened her heart. They weren't huge things, but just little things here and there, confirming the truthfulness of these things. She struggled with the Word of Wisdom because she has always loved coffee but she really felt the Lord helping her to overcome that too and saw some miracles herself. Any other problems she had with commandments eventually resolved themselves. After having a personal repentance experience, her desire for baptism also increased.
She has been so ready for the past few weeks, but still not willing to commit to baptism for reasons of feeling not ready, worried she wouldn't be able to do it or "endure to the end", etc. But we have had some incredible lessons with her lately that just turned that all around. Two weeks ago, we invited Emily to be baptized on 10/14. After that, she fasted for it and still felt unprepared. But with patience and faith, we kept encouraging her to prepare for baptism, whenever that may be. We had a great lesson with her reminding her of the blessings of baptism, and after, her and her husband went on a little trip with this amazing family in our ward, the Luo's (Yo's family). The Luo family (Yo's family) has done a fantastic job of taking care of her and helping her answer questions. While on their trip to Jilong, they stayed up all night talking about the gospel. They told her "We were talking about you in ward council and everyone was wondering why you aren't baptized yet!" Everyone knew she was ready to be baptized but she herself just didn't feel ready. She attended general conference and because she was sick she was only able to attend one session. But in that session she heard one line that stood out to her, "You don't know everything, but you know enough."
After that long talk and continuing to talk with her husband, she came into our lesson this week and said "I want to be baptized. I decided I want to be baptized on 11/5." WOOO.
As we were discussing arrangements for her baptismal interview, she said, "It doesn't really matter when I get baptized. November 5th was just a random date." And we said "Well... you could just get baptized this weekend and then Sister Weaver could attend!" And she said, "Oh.. yeah, okay. Let's do this weekend then." And we said "Okay, fantastic."
(side note-Kind of crazy because Emily from the beginning told us that she wouldn't set a date until she knew it was true, but once she did she would be baptized, and that came to pass! We never had the chance to count her as a baptismal date investigator! She was just automatically baptized! haha so cool.)
Two days later, we taught her the last lesson which talks about temples and eternal families, and it was such a special experience to talk about eternal marriage and temple sealings as she sat right next to her husband, a faithful and worthy priesthood holder. We are so excited for them to get sealed next year!!
Her baptism was one of the most spirit filled baptisms I have had on my mission. SO many people there loving her and supporting her. Luo mama even recruited us to help her and some relief society ladies make some cookies for the baptism. (people don't make cookies here in Taiwan so it was the funniest experience ever hahahah stay tuned for pictures) Everyone just came together to make this the most special day for Emily. When she was sharing her testimony at her baptism, she expressed that she had two main reasons for wanting to be baptized. 1- was to have the gift of the Holy Ghost, (she said she has felt its influence and always wants to have it with her! In her own words she said "Life is hard enough. I need the Spirit to make the right decisions!") 2- to have an eternal family. Her favorite scripture is in Mosiah 18:21 that reads " And he commanded them that there should be no contention one with another, but that they should look forward with one eye, having one faith and one baptism, having their hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another."She said, "this is everything I want in my life." So, yep that is the story of how my heart melted into one hundred pieces and I can now die happy. We were blessed to have three of our most progressing baptismal date investigators also attend the baptism, and there was this moment sitting there at the baptism, when I was listening to our new RC bear her testimony, surrounded by people I love that are well on their way to being there too, where I just thought, "Man, I have got to be the most blessed person in the whole world." I love this work!
I think the funniest part of this was two weeks ago we invited her to be baptized on October 14th and we were like, "We think you will be ready by then," and she was like "Woah woah woah, that is way too fast." But here we are! Miracles!
Well in other news, this week's miracles didn't only happen for Emily.
Our investigator, Zheng Ying Mei, progressed so much. She is the "special" one from last week. Well, update on her- she has now attended all 3 hours of church, a baptism, committed to a date, and the law of tithing? Funny story. We learned this week that she used to meet with sisters like 10 years ago, and got really far in the lessons. When we invited her to baptism last week, she goes "I can't, because I can't pay my tithing." ehh what?? hah that was definitely not what we were expecting to come out of her mouth. haha She explained that she works, but all the income goes to her mom and she has no control what happens to the money. She was wondering if she still had to pay it even though it wasn't her income. She was really worried about it, but our peike came up with a great solution. Zheng Jm said that her mom gives her a small allowance everyday to buy food, and our member said she could just pay tithing on that allowance! I wish I could've taken a picture of her reaction. She was THRILLED. She was so excited at the aspect of being able to keep this commandment. I wish we could all be that excited to pay tithing! ha! (side note- she has now finished Alma and Helaman in the Book of Mormon)
Our other investigators are doing well. We have some great progressing investigators right now, and feel so so blessed!
Well, there is so much more I could add, but I will save that for another week! I love you all so much and remember MIRACLES HAVE NOT CEASED. We can all see miracles if we have the faith. Have a wonderful week!
xoxo
Sister Richards
李姐妹
Lǐ Jǐemeì
Taiwan Taipei Mission
4/F, #24, Lane 183
Jin Hua Street
Taipei, Taiwan 106
1-me in my natural element
2-3 baking cookies with Luo mama;)
3-4: Emily's baptism
our three top investigators right now:
5-my best friend ji jm
6-zheng jm
7-nora
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