[Editor's note: Rebecca is coming home on April 27th!! She is speaking in our church meeting at 1pm on Sunday, May 5th and all are welcome to attend. The address is 5995 Spalding Drive, Norcross. She has even promised to take me to the Asian market where we will buy food and she will prepare Taiwanese food for any and all who would like to come to our house after our block of meetings. I promise no jellyfish, squid, or octopus will be served.]
Dear family,
Zaaaaoooo! I'll miss not saying "zao" or "zao-an" to people in the States - it's so much more fun to say than "morning" or "good morning." Maybe I'll just say it to people anyway and deal with others' weird looks.
Anyway, good morning! Thank you for your fantastic, fabulous, fun emails. This week's been a good one - not any baptisms (yet), but they're coming! Soon. But more about that later.
This week's supply of funny stories is a little lower this week, but it's still been great - a lot of miracles. First let's start out on this week's Chinese BofM study highlights:
Mosiah 4:9 "Believe in God...." in Chinese it actually just says "Believe God." I really like that subtle difference. The Chinese are very detached in their beliefs - "oh, if you believe in that god then he exists, but if you don't believe, then he doesn't exist..." etc. This scripture just says for us to believe God - there's no choice on whether or not to actually believein Him, because He already exists, regardless of your choices. Just believe Him and follow Him and you'll be happy.
Mosiah 14:2 "...there is no beauty that we should desire him." I've always thought that the wording on that is interesting. The word desire in Chinese is translated into "xianmu," which means to envy or admire. Makes a lot more sense in my mind.
Favorite - Mosiah 15:18 "O how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings..." In Chinese the word for "bringeth good tidings" is "baojiayin," which is also the word for "to carol," or "to Christmas carol." O how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the Christmas carollers! So fun. I love Chinese.
This week I celebrated my Taidong one-year anniversary. It's crazy to think that it's already been a year since I was transferred to a place that I love so much. I actually found out some news about Taidong this past week from some people - three people that I taught down there are getting baptized in the next two weeks! It made me so happy to hear that. The sister who told me said, "Yeah, you're still famous down there - every person we talked with was like 'Wei Jiemei this' or 'Wei Jiemei that.'" I'm not worried about being famous in Taidong, but I'm happy to hear that people I love and care about still remember me. I had a miracle with Becky this week as well. No, she's not baptized yet, but I'm still confident she will be someday. Anyway, she's been writing me ever since I left and she's never seemed very happy, which of course has been worrisome for me... especially since I can't do very much about it while I'm in another area - I've just been praying that she'll be alright. This past week I had three missed calls from a number I didn't recognize. When I called back there was no answer, but then I got called by it again a few hours later. I answered, and a voice said, "Is this Wei Jiemei? ...This is Becky." We're not supposed to call investigators from other areas unless we have special permission, so I was so surprised! But it was so good to hear her voice and talk to her for a bit. I know that her calling me was an answer to prayer - she was able to be reassured that I still love her and care about her, and I was reassured that she'll be okay, even if I'm not in Taidong still. I know that God answers our prayers.
Even though I loved Taidong and Hualian, I do feel that I love Shilin and Tianmu as well. This past week in church I just felt a surge of love for the members and investigators that I have here. I finally feel like the members are giving me referrals and are familiar with who I am and what I'm doing. And we're moving forward! Yesterday Sister O'Brien and I had a fun time in one of the ward's YW's class - we'd brought investigators to their class the past two weeks and the girls were AWFUL. Cold, unfriendly, and unwelcoming - even after we cajolled them to at least sit with our investigators. A week before yesterday I went straight up to the YW leader right after class and asked if Sister O'Brien and I could share a "special message" with the YW the following week. So yesterday was the day of our "smackdown message," as Sister O'Brien and I called it. We opened up 3 Nephi 27:27 and talked about how we need to be like the Savior. Then Sister O'Brien and I did a series of role plays as the investigator and the member - one where the member was super-cold, one where the member was way too friendly in a fake sort of way, and one where the member did a great job. I was the member and Sister O'Brien was the investigator, and between my over-exaggerated acting and Sister O'Brien's perfect responses, we had the whole class roaring in laughter. And I felt the Spirit confirm to me that I think they got the point, which is the best part.
As far as our investigators go, the ones that we're planning on with March 30 hopefully (their baptismal date is actually the week after that, but I have faith we can move faster) are Annie and Oprah. Oprah's actually scheduled for the day I leave, but I still have faith that she can get baptized sooner than that. Sister O'Brien and I don't want to rush anything, but we do want to help our investigators as quickly as possible! I'm positive that as we have faith and move foward with the Spirit then we'll see miracles. We saw one with You Jiemei this week - we'd been praying for her to have spiritual experiences, and this past week at the end of her lesson she started to cry as she pleaded with Heavenly Father to give her time to go to church so she can be baptized and go to the temple with her family. God's working miracles on this small island!
I love you all so much. Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Sister Winters
Becca watching Jacob open his mission call (she was sitting in the mission president's chair):
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