Dear best family in the world,
Good morning! It's great to hear that things are wonderful in Georgia. I'm also very happy here and I'm excited to share about some miracles that happened this week.
So what with moving this week and a two-day leadership meeting that I'll talk about in a second, you can probably guess that this week was pretty crazy. And numbers were a definite all-time low. But "crazy" weeks like that just make the really good ones even better, right? So I'm excited for a really amazing week this week. And something that someone wrote me this past week had me thinking - he said that by following the promptings of the Spirit, I was sure to be blessed. Well, we've been trying harder than ever to follow the Spirit - it's becoming more natural. And I mean yeah, that makes me happy to follow the Spirit because it means that I'm doing what God wants me to do, but honestly, I'd kind of forgotten that when we follow the Spirit it brings a lot of blessings. Well, I knew that, I just wasn't focusing on it.
Does that make sense?
Point of the story is that I'm excited to see the blessings that will come from listening to the Spirit. Actually, we've seen some amazing ones already. Let me tell you all about it!
I think the coolest story was the other night when we were riding back from gathering up the last stuff from our apartment. We were riding back and I saw this lady taking a picture with a nice camera. I felt like we should go back and talk to her, since we'd at least have the connection of photography to get us started. The only problem was that Sister O'Brien was leading the way up ahead and sometimes she has a habit of losing me if she's not careful. :) So I quickly caught up with her, told her what was happening, and then we turned back. Well, we kept riding, and there was no sign at all of the woman whom I'd seen earlier. That was a little disappointing, but we decided we'd turn around and head home again. That's when I heard a voice say, "Hello! Sister missionaries!" I turned around and saw a member from Taizhong who had visited our ward a few weeks ago. We chatted for a bit and then she introduced us to her sister who lives in Shilin but is not a member of our church. She just had a baby (#5 in her family! That's unheard of here) and seemed very sweet. And then she agreed to give us her phone number! It was a miracle - I know that's why the Spirit prompted me to go back. Then at church yesterday I saw the member again and she told me how thrilled she was that we had asked for her sister's contact information and that she was willing to give it to us. This Taizhong sister said that she's prayed for her sister to get in contact with the church for a long long long long time and has put her name on the prayer roll and everything. It was really cool to see that Heavenly Father used us to answer this woman's prayers.
We also had some miracle people that have been given to us through other missionaries. The plan for this week's training meeting was for Sister O'Brien to be on exchanges with my friend Sister Daye while I was in the meeting. Well, during our weekly planning, I remembered that Sister Daye had served here in Tianmu during her first two transfers and had a distinct prompting to tell Sister O'Brien to ask Sister Daye for ideas of whom she taught earlier that she felt were ripe for the Gospel. Well, when Sister O'Brien came back from exchanges, she had a huge list of people with stories and background about them that we should contact. I've already gotten a hold of one of them and she's meeting dinner with us tonight. I'm really really excited to see what happens from it and from contacting the other names that were given to us. A few other miracles happened last night when two missionaries called us and said that their investigator lives in our area and they wanted us to start teaching them. This area is turning into the "promised land," just like the East Coast!
Actually, that was one thing I was thinking about yesterday. I've gotten used to serving in the city by now, but I've kind of subconsciously been thinking of this place as somewhere that just won't compare to Taidong. All of the missionaries talk about the East Coast (Taidong and Hualian) as the best areas ever, as places where miracles happen. Since I've kind of "grown up" mission-wise with that mindset, I think I've been viewing Taipei as a sort of Sodom and Gomorrah, if you will. Or Mordor. Either way, you get my point. Anyway, the point of this story is that yesterday during my personal study I realized that it shouldn't be that way. I should look at every area as the promised land, as a place of miracles. Because miracles will happen, no matter where you are! So that's my epiphany. I hope that I can keep that attitude burning bright for these next few months.
Alright, the training meeting. Last weekend we had our first semi-annual mission leadership training meeting. It was awesome - all of the district leaders, zone leaders, and coordinating sisters had a chance to participate. The meeting went for two days straight from 9 in the morning until 6 at night - it was intense. But somehow after it was all over I left feeling rejuvenated and more excited about the work than exhausted and drained from 30 hours of meetings. One of my favorite parts of the meeting was doing some training myself - with none other than my favorite MTC companion, Sister Christensen from Hualian. Together we trained the mission leaders on "Teach People, Not Lessons"... and it was great. A little "pat myself on the back" moment was to see an object lesson that I thought of work out perfectly. So for this last birthday, my grandparents bought me a cute pink blazer. I stood in front of everyone wearing my blazer and said, "This blazer represents the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I feel so warm and happy because I have this Gospel. So now since I'm a missionary, I want to share it with everyone! Elder Braithwaite, can you come up, please?" And this 6'7" tall red-headed elder came to the front. "Elder Braithwaite, I want to share the Gospel with you. Can you take of your suit coat?" So Elder Braithwaite took of his coat and started putting on the "Gospel." It was SO FUNNY. Everyone was cracking up, and of course Sister Christensen with her great fashion sense said, "You look great! Who said red and pink don't go well together?" Anyway, we had a great time, and I think (I hope) everyone learned something from it. I know I did.
Another highlight from the meeting was going on exchanges on that Friday night. I was paired up with Sister Muhelstein and Sister Christensen, two sisters who were in the MTC with me. It was so much fun to go out with them and proselyte - I love training, but it was so refreshing to not have to worry about trying to have companionship unity or helping them understand what was going on. That night we went knocking on doors and I prayed to find a family. Then as we got out and knocked we talked about how none of us had ever had much success from knocking but knew that great people came because of it. So we knocked and tried to follow the Spirit to know where to go. In about 10 minutes or so, we rang the doorbell of this one house. And I rang it again after nobody answered. And then Sister Muhelsten knocked on the same door when nobody answered after that (we're turning Taiwanese, I know). And then this little grandma came out and said, "Oh! I thought you were my grandchildren. They should be getting home soon." Sure enough, as we looked down the street there were some kids with their mom and their grandpa. They saw us and were so excited to let us in and to feed us fruit - we had found a family! The funniest part was probably the grandpa - apparently his specialty is cutting people's silhouettes out of paper? So he made us stare straight ahead, stuck a flower in our hair, and started his scissors. I'll try and take a picture so I can show it to you next week - it doesn't really look like me much, but it's a great souvenir for a great memory. The family didn't end up setting up again, but I know where they live (in a non-creepy sort of way) and I still know that God gave us a miracle that night by teaching a family.
Okay, my time is up, but I love you all! Thank you for being so fantastic. You're in my prayers - have a wonderful week!
Love,
Sister Winters
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