Monday, July 20, 2015

So this week was filled with a lot of bundiren...aka a lot of Taiwanese companions.  3 exchanges this week and I realize that my Chinese still needs a lot of work.  A lot.

We had interviews this week with president Jergensen and he took sister Jenkins and I aside and told us we are one of the leaders in our mission and told us to set an example.  Not that we were doing anything bad, but he told us as we hit the standards of excellence the sisters in our zones would do the same.  So...we raised our vision. And now Xinzhu is on fire.  YES! On fire with the gospel and with the spirit.  Why is God so great?!

Funny story. Our patio flooded because the hose that connects to the washer broke...so water all over the floor.   I spent the rest of my P day mopping that up.  I also broke down and got Cheerios at the store.  Glorious sweet mother of goodness.  Cereal. I don't know how they do without it here. 

Something that was shared in district meeting this week was that we are all a family.  God is our father.  But we are a pretty broken family. Our job as missionaries is to gather and restore the broken and scattered family of Adam.  And if you read in the Bible Dictionary it says that Ephraim's responsibility is to preach the gospel to mend the bond between Ephraim and Judah.  So literally speaking our missionary efforts are healing the bonds of brotherhood that binds us all together.  Cool right?

So we actually got a member referral.  She's only meeting with us because her parents are meeting with us but we're working on it, so hopefully, we can change that. Afterward lunch we were coming out of the family mart and I saw this lady sitting on this chair and felt like talking to her.  So we went up and talked to her and shared #becauseHeLives and taught her prayer.  She said she had this really weird feeling in her heart like not a hot feeling but really warm...guess who? It's an amazing experience to help someone do their first prayer. so amazing! And guess what?! We gave her a baptism date!

It really is interesting how unhappy people get when they don't have something to do and a lot of people don't realize it.  Working hands are happy hands.  But it's so hard to get up and actually do something sometimes because our natural man gets in the way and we want to be lazy.

It really is interesting how unhappy people get when they don't have something to do and a lot of people don't realize it.  Working hands are happy hands.  But it's so hard to get up and actually do something sometimes because our natural man gets in the way and we want to be lazy. 

I emailed Seth last week and he hasn't emailed me.  Yet.

I think it's crazy I only have 6 months left. I feel like I'm going to be so out of place when I get home. No worries I'll be excited to come home and see you, but I would have just spent a year and a half devoted to the Lord.  Every minute every second planned activity to bring about the salvation of souls. I'm don't know how to balance it with real life. how do you make that change from full-time missionary to member missionary? They seriously need an MTC for returning missionaries (member training center). Maybe just one day to get us prepared to be fully active members of society.  I don't know...got any thoughts? 

God is amazing! so incredible and awe-inspiring!
Love you all!
Yu Jie mei

Companion lunch

Flooded patio

Me and Sister Jenkins