Week 75: Ji JM and Zeng JM were baptized! (January 8, 2017)

Hey you guyssssss,

This week to me was just the epitome of missionary life. We had our highs of meeting some new awesome people, teaching some great spirit-filled, lessons, and got to see two sweet ladies baptized. But there were some good "low" moments of the week too including getting stood up, dropped, lots of rain, and the one that takes the cake this week was a lesson we had with a former that acted super interested, let us teach her the whole first lesson through the Book of Mormon and then stops us and goes...

"Well, now that we are here, I should probably tell you the real reason I am here..."

*Pulls out a BOM from her bag and hits it down on the table*

"I want to give this back to you because I don't believe in what you are saying, I only believe in myself."

*Stands up. Gets her stuff. Leaves.*

Hahaha I love it. Really, the people we meet here are just awesome. So many different kinds of people every day!

This week definitely had two highlights, the first being the baptisms and the second being the new member fireside where our cute 11 year old, Angel, spoke! 

The baptism was so awesome. Unfortunately, it was a cold and rainy day, and despite ALL of our efforts, the water was still cold. Zēng JM almost died in the process haha. But all was well! It was a great service and they shared such sweet testimonies! It was especially great to have their daughters Skype into the service! They were so touched and I just imagined all the thoughts and prayers that these sweet and faithful members have put into their moms, and to see Heavenly Father blessing them because of it. SO AWESOME. They are the sweetest little grandma's and have become best friends. It is all just so cute. 

The next highlight was sweet Angel giving her testimony at the new member fireside last night! So brave! She is 11 and willing to speak in front of so many people! So awesome. She shared her sweet conversion story that now felt all the more tender because her birth mom, (remember...that through a miracle she gave Angel permission to be baptized) passed away this past week. We were so worried for her being so young and having to speak, but she did it so bravely and definitely touched the hearts of many in attendance. She bore powerful testimonies of forever families and the chance her mom has to accept the gospel now. She is so strong. 

Well that is 差不多 my week for ya in a 3 min version. But I LOVE MY MISSION SO MUCH. So sad to be heading out of Yonghe this upcoming week (even 6 months haven't been enough), but excited for what this last transfer has in store for me! Have a wonderful week!

/Sister Richards 

Some pics from the baptism 

-us blow drying zeng jm as she changed to help her get warm haha 

Week 74: 2018! (January 1, 2017)

Happy 2018!

One of the great things about my mission is that it touched three different years. I started this journey in 2016, was able to serve the full year of 2017, and will finish up in 2018. Some of the top questions we get here is "how long are you here?" and "when do you go home?" I have taken great comfort throughout my whole mission in being able to say "oh, I don't go home until next year!" And just leave it at that. That far away future time that I don't have to think about. Well folks... as my companion reminded me, IT'S NOW "NEXT YEAR." I cannot believe it. I remember starting out and feeling like 2018 was SO far away, and now look where we are. That means that my precious time on this little island is ticking, but it also has given me even more drive to make the most of the time I have left. 

This week was a great one, full of lots of miracles and smiles and exchanges and soaking up my last couple of weeks here in YongHe. It's crazy to think that after next week, I'll have been here for 6 months! A third of my mission. Half of a year! Holy cow that's a long time. And I have loved every minute of it! The rapid pace of the city, the crazy amount of people we talk to everyday, and being so a part of all the fun things in our mission! This area is 20 minutes from our mission office and main chapel in Taiwan, so we have front row seats to everything happening in our mission! It has been so fun to serve in Taibei and I'm excited to see where the Lord will send me next! 

We saw a lot of miracles from talking to everyone this week. We met some really incredible people just as we ate or studied or biked. Had a few of those "awkwardly turn around on your bikes to go talk to someone you already passed" moments, but the Lord blessed us so much for our efforts to follow the spirit. 

Amongst all of the great blessings we saw this week, there are two particular lessons that I want to share about. One was with Eva and one with Zeng JM. 

Eva is our newer investigator that we met from English class. When we first set her up, she was a little hesitant and frankly didn't seem like she was super wanting to meet, but was willing and so we gave her a chance! Honesty, we did not have crazy high hopes for her, but boy did she prove us wrong! Our first lesson came and she had kept her commitments and started reading and praying. Though never having prayed before, her prayers were so sincere and so honest. She read the title page and intro to the Book of Mormon, and told us that as she read she had this feeling that this was a book that was worth her time to read . This week we taught her the plan of salvation and she was nearly brought to tears as we shared with her the atonement. We read Alma's depiction of the Savior's sacrifice in Alma 7, and she stopped us after and asked us what it was that she was feeling? She said she felt a sadness that Christ had to suffer all that for her, but also a hope and peace that He did it because He loved us. We were able to teach her right then that that feeling came from the spirit and it would continue to teach her the truth as long as she continued to search for it. In her closing prayer, she thanked God for allowing her to experience what the spirit felt like, and prayed to be able to feel it again to know that this was true. Such a spirit filled lesson as we taught this incredible prepared woman searching for God's hand in her life. It was another testimony to us that this is the work of God and not ours. We thought she was a little 還好 to start out, but through the spirit she became a practically golden investigator! So amazing. 

The next lesson was just one so dear to my heart. It was with one our sweet grandma investigators zeng jiemei who is going to be baptized this week! She is so humble and willing to keep every commitment, but me and zhong jm have just been wondering how deeply she feels the gospel. Does she know it's true? Does she really get it like she says she does? On a lesson with her this last week we were going over the baptism interview questions when she brought up some painful memories of past things in her life. Guilt for committed mistakes and the weight it has been on her in her life, the pain that others have caused her in her life, and just many things that caused my heart to ache for this sweet woman that I have come to love so much. But as she shared these things, we were able to testify to her of the power of the atonement in her life and the fresh start that comes with baptism. We were able to help her truly understand 1-why the atonement is important for her 2- the power of repentance and 3- why she really needs to be baptized. We all felt the spirit so strongly as she received her own personal witness of these eternal truths. Again. This is Gods work not mine.

On my mission, I have truly come to realize that having the spirit is the most important thing one can have. When you have the spirit you are guided, directed, protected, inspired, comforted, healed, and enlightened. You don't need to worry what to do or what to say because you will know. With the start of this new year in our hands and lots of great resolutions and goals to make, I invite all of you to make goals that will help you be more able to have that spirit with you always. Be worthy to have the spirit and keep the spirit! I read a great talk this week called "Of regrets and resolutions" by President Uchtdorf that I LOVED and want to invite all of you to read as well. He talks about some things we can do now to help us make those right resolutions and live a regret free mortality. Go read it. And I invite you all to make some resolutions to help this year of 2018 really be a year of reaching your goals, doing those things you've never done, growing spiritually, and most importantly, living a more Christ-centered life. I love you all dearly and feel so blessed to count all of you as a part of my life. Thank you for your great love and support always. 2017 will always have a special place in my heart as the year I spent entirely in the service of my God. I can't wait to live a life continued in that pattern of sacrifice and service always. Happy new year!

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/of-regrets-and-resolutions?lang=eng

xoxo

Sister Richards

李姐妹

Lǐ Jǐemeì

Sister Micah Richards

Taiwan Taipei Mission

4/F, #24, Lane 183

Jin Hua Street

Taipei, Taiwan 106 

1- my life these days haha. America + taiwan

2- twinning per usual 

3- our sweet ji jm

4- beautiful Taiwan 

5-9 All my favorites all together. We got the news sister Bernhardt was being transferred down to Hualian tomorrow because of some people heading home and such, and so we spent the (probably) last p day together on our missions. Also, gotta love the Koreans that wanted a selfie with us. 

Week 73: Merry Christmas! (December 25, 2017)

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

Feeling so cheery and bright today as we celebrate the birth of our Savior and the happiest day of the year! So happy to be here in Taiwan for another Christmas! Nothing like doing the work that I love most on my favorite day!

Christmas this year was nice and warm, and we felt so loved by out sweet members who spoiled us! Felt a little like we were home!

Well, I am so so happy to have been able to talk to my sweet family this morning! So grateful for eternal families and the joy of being together, even if just over Skype!

This week was pretty busy with Christmas activity after the next. We had performance after performance of mission concerts, firesides, English class spiritual shares, sacrament meeting musical numbers, and more! We have our missionary choir that we sang with and our district is also the little musical group of the century and sings together at everything! It is so fun. We definitely kept busy!

For the sake of time, I'll just share one of my biggest highlights of the week: our two grandmas- Ji jm and Zeng JM. I shared last week (maybe?) that they have become such good little friends, and this week ate lunch together, sat by each other at church, and best of all, picked a baptismal date! They picked January 6th to be baptized, and Zeng jm even asked Heavenly Father to help her have nice weather so she doesn't get a cold (79℉ to be specific haha ), so we are all praying for summer weather in January now! They are so dang cute and are so excited for their baptism. They have been telling everyone about it. It's cute to see them guanxin eachother and welcome each other into the ward. We are excited for them to be baptized in a couple of weeks!

I love this sweet season of giving. As I look back on each Christmas I have ever celebrated, the ones that stand out to me are the ones where I have really tried to reach out to others as Christ would have. I don't remember the presents I have received, or the food I ate, but the service I rendered and the love I expressed. That is the reason of the season I think. Grateful to have another day of serving and continuing to share the love of Christ with everyone! Love you all and merry Christmas!

So sorry for the shorter one this week, but I'll send some pics:)

xoxo

Sister Richards

李姐妹

Lǐ Jǐemeì

Sister Micah Richards

Taiwan Taipei Mission

4/F, #24, Lane 183

Jin Hua Street

Taipei, Taiwan 106 

1-The original district- grown up (16 months later)

2- Our sweet grandma's

3- Bye bye sister cooper

4- My cute twin at our Christmas party

5- Love my sweet fan bam

6- My old comp zeng jm came up to visit.

Lunch, Taiwan style 

Caroling and christmas brunch at the Jergensen's! 

Week 72: The Key to Happiness (December 18, 2017)

Dearest friends and fam bam,

I am FROZEN! Coming to you live wearing three jackets and gloves while typing this email. hahah You would think that I would have been prepared for the winter seeing that I have already had one here in Taiwan, but NOPE. Honestly so so cold. hah Me and Sister Zhong are not ok.

Well, another week has just come and gone like that. This whole time thing is too crazy for me. Somehow, we are already halfway through December, and I just got an email today telling me to register for my plan so I AM NOT OK. (my plan is this thing that missionaries do their last transfer to make plans and goals for the rest of their life haha) My time here has been the most precious thing in the world to me, and it is crazy to me that it is slowly wrapping up. 

This week felt very festive as we started celebrating the holidays with our ward, mission, and stake as we had many activities and performances to kick off Christmas!  We went caroling probably 30 times this week, had lots of ward service activities, and started some of our mission's missionary choir performances, so needless to say we were busayyyyyy. But still saw lots of cool miracles.

This week we were excited to meet with Penny and have a great conversation about some of her concerns. We have been feeling like we are going in circles with her lately, teaching her, her kind of doing things, and nothing really progressing. This week we felt prompted to have her write down a list of things "holding her back from being baptized" and were happy to receive some more direction on where we should go to help her. It was cool to see that, though her concerns were complicated and deep (as everything that Penny thinks is hah), they all came back to needing to receive a testimony of the Restoration of the gospel. It is crazy how everything is so interrelated. I love that, though this gospel has much to be learned and understood, the basics are so simple. We are excited to help her grasp this principle.

Sister Zhong and I had lots of great exchanges this week and saw SO many miracles. From getting new investigators from area book finding (we picked a random potential from years back that had an address and chose to visit her, and she was there, we were able to teach her a lesson, and set up to come again!) To Just talking to everyone and getting some great set ups, sudden chapel tours with people we met right outside of the church, investigators fellowshipping each other at church, and so on so on. 

One of my favorite little miracles this week was with our two sweet grandma investigators, ji jiemei and zeng jiemei. Oh my. Those two KILL me. They are the sassiest old ladies I have ever met and are the SAME. Both old, both have a Christian background, both have daughters that are members in the states, both have suffered through cancer, both are learning about the gospel. They sat by each other at church on Sunday and started talking and we're LOVIN it. They chatted for a while between classes and decided they wanted to be friends. Even better, they decided that they want to be baptized on the same day! Haha we still don't know when that will be, but zeng jiemei goes back to America at the beginning of February so sometime before then! We were so pumped. Haha...Love it when investigators fellowship themselves! 

One thought that I have pondered about a lot this week is that of happiness. When we live the gospel we are truly happy. Not just happy because you ate a yummy treat or saw an old friend or even got a good grade on a test, because that happiness is fleeting and will come and go. The gospel brings lasting happiness. The kind of happiness that fills you. A joy that propels you to do better and be better. A joy that will last eternally and will carry you through the hardest of times. That is the joy that comes from living the gospel of Jesus Christ. Not just going through the motions. Not just talking the talk. But from living it. Writing the gospel into our lives. Allowing it to become a part of you. Allowing it to change you. I think the key to being happy, whether that is as a member or missionary, is just simply that. Live the gospel. Preach the gospel. If you aren't living it or spreading it, of course you won't be happy! The gospel is simple. The truths are eternal. And the key to happiness and salvation is in our hands. We just need to take it. 

I love you all and wish you the happiest week as you spend time with loved ones this Christmas season. Have a wonderful week! 

xoxo

Sister Richards

李姐妹

Lǐ Jǐemeì

Sister Micah Richards

Taiwan Taipei Mission

4/F, #24, Lane 183

Jin Hua Street

Taipei, Taiwan 106

Some p day adventures as of late...

 Just happy to be here...

Our members have been giving us so so much dongxi it is crazy. Hah Merry Christmas!

Week 71: Small and simple things (December 11, 2017)

Hello hello hello

This week was such a fast one holy cow. The weeks are just getting faster and faster which is so scary. 

There was nothing especially big that happened this week. We had MLC, some good meetings, went on exchanges, taught some powerful lessons. But the biggest thing that stands out to me overall are all the many little miracles that we saw.  This week was FULL of them. It really is the small things that make up the big things of a mission. 

I'll share a few. One big thing was really getting to the bottom of a lot of investigators concerns this week. Penny, ji jm, zeng jm, etc... We learned the real reasons holding many of our investigators back from being baptized and that was a huge miracle for us! We now have much more direction to know what to teach, how to teach, and how to get them rolling towards baptism.

Aside from seeing some cool miracles with our current progressing investigators, we also saw some cool miracles of finding some new people to teach! There a couple that stand out to me. The first was going area book finding the other day. As we have been digitizing our area books, we are finding a lot of old referrals that have come to us over the last few years. Many of which have not been contacted. The other night with a little bit of free time, we decided to go and visit an old referral from years ago. Just finding her house was hard enough! We got there and it looked almost like a jail cell. A big fence gate in front of this hallway full of doors. After ringing the only doorbell that worked on the whole floor, a man came and answered the door. We proceeded to explain to him why we were there and that the person we were looking for did not know we were coming and he was very confused. But he agreed to knocking on her door for us. Still not letting us in lol. But she was there, and did let us in! We were confused to hear that she had never met missionaries before, because how else would we have her referral? But, after talking to her for a bit, we learned that she has a daughter who is a member in the states! Ha our third investigator like that! Old lady with a member daughter living in America. Who knew there were so many? But anyways, super cool miracle to find her, be able to teach her, and to get a new investigator out of it!

Other cool miracles and new investigators came from really just talking with everyone. On the MRT, on the street, while eating, while going into a 7 to go to the bathroom, etc. There are so many prepared people everywhere!

Another cool miracle was getting to meet with our RC/LA Zeng JM this week. We were finally able to get a hold of her and in touch with her, and she agreed to meet with us again. As we talked, she still made it clear that she was attending this other church, but she was willing to meet and read the BoM and that is already amazing. We could still see that light in her eyes as she spoke with us, and though she is still in the dark a bit, we know as she continues to walk forward, she will see and more importantly feel the light again. Pray for her. 

Another fast miracle, there was a day last week that we were able to teach 8 lessons in one day! 5 in person, and 3 online over video chat! It was so cool to use our new tools to help us increase our vision of teaching, and making that vision a reality. Super super awesome things. 

An overwhelming thought that has come to me this week is that this gospel is truly happiness. It brings us eternal blessings and peace. It is so simple yet so powerful. I love in 2 Nephi 5 when simply stated , "27 And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness." Nephi and his family weren't living the high life here... They had left their home and riches and friends and comforts to move into the wilderness. And that was just the beginning. We all know the stories of the hardships Nephi and his family faced, but yet amongst all of it, they "lived after a manner of happiness." This gospel is a message of joy. It is one of lifting, changing, and becoming. This gospel has made my life full of so much happiness, and I know that as I continue to live it, I will be able to enjoy eternal joy in the life to come. 

With the Christmas season started, and holiday festivities going on for most of you, I invite all of you to take a moment to ponder about the true reason for the season. Celebrating our Savior Jesus Christ. I invite you to think about the blessings of the gospel in your own lives. How has the gospel impacted your life? How are you different because you know of Jesus Christ? How can you emulate the Savior more in your life? 

I know as you ponder these things, the Holy Ghost will help open your eyes to let you see all that the Lord has truly done for you. I love you all and wish you a happy week!

xoxo

Sister Richards

李姐妹

Lǐ Jǐemeì

Sister Micah Richards

Taiwan Taipei Mission

4/F, #24, Lane 183

Jin Hua Street

Taipei, Taiwan 106

1-2 today's hike

3 our new homie Betty - twinning is winning

4 I love this place 

5 ji jm's lesson at the fanciest mcdonald's ha

Week 70: Eternally in the City of Eternal Peace (YongHe) (December 3, 2017)

Happy December! 

I cannot believe it is DECEMBER AGAIN. Oh man. Time is frightening.

First of all, a late birthday shoutout to my dear best friend Hermana Healy, and an early birthday shoutout to my sweetest dad! Love you both so much!!

Well peeps, I am happy to report, I STAYED IN YONGHE! Going four transfers here! Me and Sister Zhong practically cried of joy when we found out. I am so so happy about it! I have never stayed in an area for four transfers before, although I have definitely wanted to! I am so excited for the chance to keep on helping these people I have come to love so much!

This week.. SO much happened this week, that it almost felt like a month. Ha! From still working hard to get our area book digitized, to transfer madness, to zone meetings, and ward parties, and the new member fireside, we were BOOKED. But we still saw many many miracles. 

One thing that really stood out to me from this past week was what a blessing it is to now have technology as a big part of our work. TBH we haven't been trained at all on how to really use these phones and so sometimes it just feels like a more glorified version of our old Nokia phones hah. BUT this week, President had us all take some time to do some of the online training where we watch all these videos on how to really use this tool to further the work. And oh my goodness. IT IS INCREDIBLE. Facetiming lessons with investigators, constant messaging with investigators to keep in good contact, sending videos, pamphlets, audio recordings on line, facetiming in members to help us teach, and SO MUCH MORE. It has opened our eyes so much more to the possibilities technology is bringing us to our work. I feel like we have only really started dipping our toes in the water there, but we have already tried some facetime lessons and sending many things via social media, and have already seen a great impact on our work! I feel so blessed to be a part of this modern missionary age. 

One of the biggest miracles this week was with our resurrected investigator Zhong JM! I shared a little about her last week, but this week we had the chance to meet with her a couple of times, and man..she is so prepared. She is so ready to accept the gospel this time around. She knows it is not going to be easy, but is so willing to go forward in faith. She also told us this week that she heard a member talking about the word of wisdom in their talk last Sunday, and though she didn't really know what it was, just started living it because she knew if she wanted to become a member she needed to start living like one! hahah As she meets more members and hears more about our church, her desire to learn just grows. She comes to each of our lessons with many questions and always just asks us when we are going to teach her about all these different things. hah Patience my friend. She set a baptismal date this week, and we are so excited to help her progress towards that day. We know it won't be easy because she will need to get her husband's permission, but the Lord will provide a way! He has done it many many times before. She came to a ward activity this week and was just overwhelmed by a sense of love, joy, and peace being there and feeling welcomed into the ward family. We are so excited for the miracles to come with her!

Our other investigators continue to progress well. Ji JM has decided she wants to be baptized, but keeps the date unknown to us for some reason... she said "when it's comin up, I'll tell ya." haha She is the sassiest grandma I have ever met. Penny is also making great leaps and bounds in progression as she really reads and ponders about the Book of Mormon. She is understanding things like never before, and is gaining a real testimony. We just have to help her overcome her concerns and help her recognize the answer that is right in front of her! Some of our young students are progressing well also. We are just waiting on a lot of parent/ spousal permission right now.... But we have faith that it will all work out.

Lately, we have had some investigators going through different trials. Whether it be with family opposition, starting a new job, health issues, or more. And so this week I took some time to study and ponder about trials. I thought about the questions, Why does the Lord allow us to have trials? and how should we look at the trials we are given? I love what Lehi teaches us in 2 Nephi 2:2. He said "thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain." As I pondered these questions, I found great comfort in this line of scripture. The Lord knows us. He knows what we can handle. And He gives us these trials to help us grow, to help us learn and help us to become like Him. I forgot to bring my study notebook today where I wrote down some cool stuff I found, but I'll share more about this next week. SO I want to invite you all to ponder those two questions, and share with me what you find! I'll share more of my thoughts next week as well.

I am so grateful for this gospel and for a loving Father in Heaven who loves us enough to allow us to be a little uncomfortable sometimes. He wants us to grow and to fulfill our mortal purpose, and so He gives us opportunities to do so. I love this work and I love you all. Have a wonderful week!

xoxo

Sister Richards

李姐妹

Lǐ Jǐemeì

Sister Micah Richards

Taiwan Taipei Mission

4/F, #24, Lane 183

Jin Hua Street

Taipei, Taiwan 106

1- the sassiest grandma ji jm

2- cutest Zhong JM and her daughter

3- pre zone mtg lunch- thank you Yo

4- all my favorite girlies

5- my old comp sister ZANG came up and visited us at the fireside yesterday!!!

6- (part of)the old mtc district. over a year later and goin strong. hah 

7-8- just another day in the life. hahah please enjoy

Week 69: Hank and Yun Zhen Were Baptized! (November 27, 2017)

Dear family and friends,

Happy Thanksgiving! I am so grateful for all of you!!

If I could describe this week into three words, I would say: Miracles, Baptisms, and Curry. 

This week was just incredible. And incredibly busy. But what's new?:)

I loved this week. Honestly, one of the best weeks of my mission. We saw so many miracles, and I want to share with you all a bit of the joy that comes with being a missionary, and seeing the hand of the Lord in our work every single day!

A huge miracle this week just came from being able to use technology! With everyone's busy lives and schedules, we had many investigators not able to meet with us this week. But, because of technology, we were able to Facetime with them instead! It was such a huge blessing! We are able to keep much better daily contact with these people, and help them progress even when we are not with them!

It also allowed me to be able to talk to one of my investigators, Hank, from HuaLian who got baptized this last week! Hank is the little brother of Xiang Ting that we baptized a little while ago. He is adorable, and has such a sweet testimony of this gospel! I loved teaching him and his family when I was there, and they are still doing so well!

I have three more miracles I want to share. This week the Lord really showed me that He is in the details of this work, and all He needs us to do is have faith.

The first happened on exchanges with sweet Sister Eyring! We had a busy night scheduled, but the first investigator of the night happened to be SO late! We were stressed because we didn't have wiggle room to move things around... But, we went forward with faith, quickly moving around what we could, and keeping lessons very brief and to the point. First miracle of the night was that that very late investigator happened to bring her mom to our meeting, so we were able to get two new investigators instead of one! HUGE miracle because we were lacking on our new investigator goal for the week, and this helped us reach it! But it didn't stop there... As I said, we had to move a lot of things back that night, but we had scheduled to visit a member family, that we weren't able to get a hold of. We were late getting to their home and were worried if they would even be there because we weren't able to get in touch with them the day prior either, so they might've forgotten. We got there, and sure enough, they weren't home. But right after turning away to walk back to our bikes, I saw a cute girl and just said "Hello!" This girl then proceeded to pull out her earphones, say hello back, and walk over to US to start talking to us! We started talking to her and learned she was a student, had gone to church (not ours) before, but hadn't been a while and was interested in coming back and learning more. She was SO prepared and exchanged just about every contact with us she could. hah We are excited to meet with her next week! But this was SO cool to me. We stuck to our plan, went forward with faith, and literally met the most prepared girl on the doorstep of our "failed attempt" to visit our member. THIS IS THE LORD'S WORK NOT OURS. He is putting those prepared people in our path, we literally just have to open our mouths and say hello.

Miracle #2. Stake Conference. On Saturday night we got a random text from an unknown number saying, "Hey, I'll be coming to church tomorrow!" We had no idea who it was, but after looking around the congregation, we realized it was an old investigator, ZHong JM! Zhong JM is a super cool mom who has a member family in America, and I met with her about 2 months ago. She was progressing well, but ran into some family opposition and kind of fell away. But this week, she decided to reappear! She did indeed come to church, and this week happened to be stake conference! She loved the messages shared, feelings she felt, and shared something really cool with me. She said, "Over these past two months, I have been reading the Book of Mormon and praying almost every day. I talk to my cousin often about the church, and Heavenly Father somehow keeps leading me back here. I keep running into your church members or church things, and I believe that is God telling me it might be my time. I told my husband I was coming here today, and he wasn't happy. But I believe if I trust God, God will help me change, and once my husband sees that, he will be supportive and want to learn himself. I think it is my time." SO COOL. I promised her that God would help her along this journey, and she agreed to start meeting with us again! SO AMAZING. I love that Heavenly Father keeps on preparing is people, even when we aren't in the picture! SO COOL. 

Last but not least, the biggest miracle of all. YUN ZHEN. On Wednesday night we had a lesson with Yun Zhen, and it was then that we realized that our original scheduled baptismal date for her was coming up a week from then. But, we still had no news from her mom. I don't remember how much I have shared about Yun Zhen, but long story short, she is a foster child living with a member of our ward. She is 11 years old and the cutest little girl ever. She has such a great desire to be baptized and to follow gospel teachings. But she had always been waiting for her birth mom's permission to be able to get baptized. She's asked her grandparents before, trying to avoid having to ask her mom, but they said no. So, this time around, we knew it would be really hard for her to be able to be baptized. But, we had faith! So our lesson on Wednesday

 came, and we decided to act. We acted on faith and called her mom. I have never seen anyone have so much faith. This little 11 year old had so much faith that her mom would let her be baptized that she didn't doubt for a second. She had more faith than even I had in that moment! But like Enos promises us in Enos 1:12, the Lord blessed her according to her desire, because of her faith. Her mom said yes and Yun Zhen was baptized this past week! Such cool miracles.

I never cease to be amazed at the great work of the Lord. I am reminded everyday that it is not my work, but His. And how lucky am I to be a part of it. Transfers end this week, and Sister Zhong and I are PRAYING to stay together. Hopefully I'll be talking to ya'll next week from sweet Yonghe. I love you all! have a great week!

xoxo

Sister Richards

李姐妹

Lǐ Jǐemeì

Sister Micah Richards

Taiwan Taipei Mission

4/F, #24, Lane 183

Jin Hua Street

Taipei, Taiwan 106

1- the power of technology haha - sneaking a pic while she was reading scriptures

2-6- Yun ZHen's baptism!