Dearest family,
Good morning! It has been a CRAZY week this week: two companionship exchanges, my trainee getting lost for about 45 minutes, a specialized training meeting, my first time ever being sick enough to agree to staying at home for a little bit, and of course all other normal missionary craziness, to name a few. But life goes on! And I'm still "adding the oil," as the Taiwanese would say. So let's hear some stories!
A lot of the good stories this week came from exchanges. I went to Jilong ("Keelung" if you use the English spelling) and a new place called Danshui ("Tamsui" in English, apparently) this week and a lot of great things happened. So my companion in Jilong was my very good friend Sister Mao. We had the same trainer, so that makes us "sisters" on the mission. We also have the added bond of having been in the same zone for most of my mission, so of course it was delightful to be companions with her. We got to Jilong and it was warm and sunny and we said, "Let's contact!" and then got to work. We went to Jilong's harbor and talked with the people sitting there and enjoying the sunshine. The first few people weren't very interested, but then I felt like we should go back to a certain spot and talk with a certain girl. Her name was Miss Simple (no, I am not making fun of her), and she said she was already Christian. Anyway, we started chatting with her and ended up saying a prayer with her. When I invited her to start praying every day, she was extremely reluctant and didn't answer. I was honestly pretty surprised - it's prayer, after all! And she's Christian, for crying out loud! She could at least say that she'd try or something... but no. She just faltered under my steady look and said, "Sorry." Well, I found out afterwards why she was that way. Apparently she'd met with missionaries before. And they really scared her when they invited her to baptism - I guess they didn't explain it well and also asked her to be baptized only a few weeks after they'd met her. Anyway, because of that, she'd had a prejudice in her mind against the church and missionaries. It was awesome to see Sister Mao apologize that the missionaries had scared her before but still defend baptism and why missionaries invite people to be baptized. Miss Simple didn't end up giving us her phone number, but I know that God knew that she still had a bitter taste in her mouth about the Church and that we needed to help her. When we left she seemed a lot more friendly and warm towards the Church - she'll accept it someday! There was another great moment at the harbor where somebody contacted ME. And he wasn't crazy! Not too crazy, at any rate. Anyway, this guy came up and touched me on the arm and said (in English): "How are you?" When he found out that I spoke Chinese, he was so impressed and had me meet his parents. Apparently this boy (well, I guess he's my age) has an older brother who's a music superstar or something like that? Anyway, he loves Christianity and was so eager to meet with the missionaries. The mom was pretty excited, too. The dad, on the other hand, was not. It was pretty hilarious, actually - the son and wife would say something like, "We should invite them to dinner! Let's invite them to dinner!" or "Let's do a tour of their church!" or "Let's meet with them and learn more about their church!" and the dad would have this pained expression on his face and mumble something like "Let's go home" or "Aren't all of those Jehovah's Witnesses enough?" or "Don't make me." It kind of reminded me of that hilarious son-in-law who has the over-enthusiastic mother-in-law and wife in Sense & Sensibility... you know who I'm talking about. Anyway, we didn't meet with them but we got their information and Sister Mao called me two days ago to say that they're going to church! I'm glad my "golden hair" could help her out - YES. Last fun story from Jilong - we went to visit this investigator grandma. She's super-tired all of the time from watching her grandkids every day. When we got there, she was just putting the baby down for a nap. But of course the baby woke up in the middle of the lesson. She (the baby) was pretty inconsolable for a while, so I suggested that we sing a hymn. We sang "Teach Me To Walk in the Light," and as soon as we sang the first note, the baby stopped. It was pretty powerful. By the time we left they had already gotten on the church website so they could download the hymns onto the phone to help the baby get to sleep in the future!
There was also an awesome miracle in Danshui. There probably would've been more, but I was throwing up and in bed for the other half of the exchange (Funny/slightly gross side note: right before I lost my breakfast I read 3 Nephi 7:8. Look it up.). Anyway, our great miracle had to do with a less-active member that lives there. Sister Ruan, my companion, had been trying to set up members with very little success. So she just decided to flip through the ward roster and randomly call people to set them up if a name popped out. This is how she'd set up the Sister Lin whom we met with that night. As soon as Sister Lin came out to meet us, Sister Ruan said, "Oh! She's less-active." We politely asked Sister Lin how she was doing, and she promptly replied, "Very bad." Not necessarily an orthodox reply, but we found out why when we sat down in her home. Sister Lin had gotten a divorce. Not because she didn't love her husband, but because her mother's family had a rather large debt, and her mother-in-law didn't want her family to be "tainted" by the association. So she told her son to divorce his wife and he agreed (don't even get me started on evil Taiwanese parents-in-law). Sister Lin, of course, was absolutely heartbroken - she'd lost her husband and her three children (aged 8, 5, and 3) in only a manner of a few days. She told us that soon after her divorce had happened, she had gotten in touch with the elder who'd baptized her. He told her that she needed to get back in contact with the church, whether it was through the bishop or the missionaries or what. Well, not too long after that, Sister Ruan had called to set up to meet. The Spirit was so powerful - it was so clear that we were God's servants and were there to help His daughter when she needed Him. Thankfully I had just watched a movie on mormon.org about why bad things happen (we're now allowed to get on mormon.org for one hour during each week) and it ended up being perfect for the situation. I still haven't followed up to see if she was able to make it to church on Sunday, but I know she's back on the path!
Can I just say that I love being on the Lord's rescue squad? It's the best. Lately Cindy (Daniel's recent convert) hasn't been coming to church... and hasn't been answering my calls. We randomly visited her a couple of weeks ago and she promised to come to church, but still nothing. So after reporting it to the ward mission leader, the Relief Society President got in contact with me last night to see what we could do. Then I got in touch with a girl Cindy's age... who got in touch with another girl. They've been trying to see what's been going on. No success on that front, but we're going with her to Cindy's house this week to go "to the rescue" - please pray for us! There's another girl named Rosie that I've been trying to get back to church for a while. She made it to church yesterday but then left early because she had to go to work. Before she went, she left me a note that talked about how she remembered a time where I'd told her, "I want to tell you that we haven't forgotten about you." She said that she was sorry that she was so weak but asked me not to give up on her. When I read that note I was once again blown away by how much God trusts His missionaries. Being a missionary has helped me understand more than ever that "the worth of souls is great in the sight of God."
Last miracle and then I'm gone - we've been praying for an investigator, Annie, to be able to come to church. She'd agreed two weeks ago, but then stood us up. Last week I put my bold face on and said, "Annie, I'm a representative of Jesus Christ. I'm like the doctor, and going to church is the medecine that I'm prescribing. Will you come to church?" She agreed. And yesterday, she came! And she loved it! I was so relieved - she's been having some hard times lately and I was praying so hard that the speakers at church would answer her prayers. As I talked to her about it afterwards she said that she felt like there were so many things that spoke to her. God knows us! He answers our prayers!
Speaking of prayers, please pray for our Sister Liu. She's preparing to be baptized, but is also scared about some things. She needs our prayers!
Well, I love being a missionary, and I love you. Thank you for your prayers! Keep them coming.
Love,
Sister Winters
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