Our District:
Hey family, what's up? Nothing much here, just livin in ASIA and speaking CHINESE on a daily basis. Sometimes I have this realization and it kind of surprises me..... and I stop and think, "What the heck?" Well, this week has been great, a lot of contacting and calling and more contacting and biking, so goes life. This week was fantasic, we saw a ton of miracles. First, our awesome Filipino recent convert received the Aaronic priesthood yesterday! He's excited to go to the temple and we're gonna get him started on family history in the next few weeks, as soon as he has a membership number. And we had some great time to contact, when we found a couple of new investigators and some almost new investigators.... we'll be calling them this week to follow up. We were safe this week too. I'm so grateful for all the angels Heavenly Father sends to protect us! Another cool miracle, we were in McDonalds after meeting with a new investigator (we meet at Mos Burger or Family Mart or McDonald's with investigators a lot) we were talking to our peike, waiting for our other investigator to arrive and started talking to a filipina. She was super cute, and had a mormon friend back in the Philippines. And GUESS WHAT? That day we had actually just brought a Tagalog BoM with us so we ran to our bikes and gave it to her. When tshe adn her friend saw it they got excited that it was in Tagalog and started flipping through it. She goes back to the Phillipines next month but she said she'd look at it. So cool huh??!? We have been thinking a lot about our new sisters (we just had transfer meeting, Sister Miller and I are still together), and have welcomed them all, I think it's going to be so great! It's been cool to see a change since the beginning of last month, not a change in sisters, but to see their perspectives change. When we first started in February calling and asking what | Family Home Evening: Acting out the story of Ammon miracles they saw in the day at first they'd say, "oh, not really any," and we'd walk through their day and help them find miracles. But now, when we ask they go right in to telling the miracles, and I'm know Heavenly Father is pouring down blessings, but I think in looking for them they have been able to recognize more. It's been so cool to see. Sister Miller and I are excited to stay together another transfer, and we plan to keep working hard, and smarter. We've both just really loved the Book of Mormon lately and we are so excited to give them to everyone! To flood Taoyuan with it! Anyway, this week we'll start doing exchanges again , we were sad to see both Sister Xiao and Sister Guo go, but the new elders are awesome and so fired up. I'm so happy to see my bed at the end of the day and to thank Heavenly Father for allowing us to see so so many miracles, and I don't want to leave, though I know when it comes it'll be time for me to start the next chapter of life's adventures. Lately I've restarted Alma (I was reading from the beginning of the book but I got distracted when I got to the middle of 2 Nephi so I just skipped to one of my favorite books, Alma :D) I LLOOVVVEEEEEEEE Alma. He is amazing!!!!!!!!! That's just a small portion of how I feel towards the Book of Mormon. I used to just read it because I know I should, but now I LOVE it. Love every chapter, and I love reading it.... it may sound crazy, but I am so excited every day to start personal study and read. Love it! WEll, that's my life, Check out the pictures and there are a few AWESOME stories just in those emails. Love ya! Love, Sister Smith |
Our English class had a party. It was great, Disney themed, but the BEST part was the Spiritual thought. I felt the spirit through the while thing. So we wanted to help our students better understand Christ's Atonement (how do you explain that to a group of people with varying degrees of understand of who Christ is?) And how Christ is our best friend and sacrificed his life because He loves us. So through brainstorming elder Bennion (the one doing the pushups) told us a story some apostle or something told to teach about Christ. We decided to, instead of tell the story, just act it out, and hopefully bring our students into the situation that they could better understand for themselves. So, we plan, assign everyone parts, and pray that everything goes smoothly. Here's how the evening went:
Sister Guo told the story of footprints in the sand (a man walking next to Christ but when he looked back during all the hard times in life he only saw one pair of footprints, he asked Christ why He left him and Christ said He carried him). THen we explained we had a small activity. Everyone was going to get a piece of candy. Sister Miller yelled, who wants candy? And the missionaries led out but eventually everyone had their hand raised that they wanted some. So Sister Guo explained, everyone will get a piece of candy, but for every piece, Elder Bennion has to do 5 pushups. And whether you wnt the piece of candy or not, he'll do the pushups so you have the option to accept or not. So we start. I hold one piece out to a little kid and Elder Bennion does 5 pushups, then I hand the piece to the little kid. Next, he does 5 more. and 5 more, and 5 more. by the time 9 people had candy, you could see he was getting tired, but he still did it. Then the 11th person, we got to a mom and her son and the mom asked, Do we have to take it? We don't really want any, he looks really tired. (This was the EXACT point we wanted someone to say) so I reminded her, whether you want it or not, he will still do the pushups, you can choose to accept it though. So he does 5 more and 5 more for her son. By now, he looked tired, and the pushups were slower in between. So we asked, who still wants candy? A girl raised her hand and everyone else shook their heads... another little girl in particular shook her head adamantly, and ask Elder Bennion started to do 5 more for a girl thisother girl gave her a piece I'd given her earlier, but he still had to "pay the price". No one wanted candy and I just felt the Spirit so trong becasue it really brought it real for me too, that someone suffered physical pain so we could have the sweetest gift of eternal life. So we talked a little about this, how Christ suffered for us and his Atonement is offered to everyone, you can choose, but He's already paid for it. them a member spoke a bit on how Chirst affected his life and I sang "I Stand All Amazed" (Heavenly Father really blesed me) and the Spirit was so strong in that gym. It was amazing, then we had the Elder's RC say a closing prayer. I won't be forgetting that spiritual thought soon. I love my life!
Love, Sister Smith
Sister Guo told the story of footprints in the sand (a man walking next to Christ but when he looked back during all the hard times in life he only saw one pair of footprints, he asked Christ why He left him and Christ said He carried him). THen we explained we had a small activity. Everyone was going to get a piece of candy. Sister Miller yelled, who wants candy? And the missionaries led out but eventually everyone had their hand raised that they wanted some. So Sister Guo explained, everyone will get a piece of candy, but for every piece, Elder Bennion has to do 5 pushups. And whether you wnt the piece of candy or not, he'll do the pushups so you have the option to accept or not. So we start. I hold one piece out to a little kid and Elder Bennion does 5 pushups, then I hand the piece to the little kid. Next, he does 5 more. and 5 more, and 5 more. by the time 9 people had candy, you could see he was getting tired, but he still did it. Then the 11th person, we got to a mom and her son and the mom asked, Do we have to take it? We don't really want any, he looks really tired. (This was the EXACT point we wanted someone to say) so I reminded her, whether you want it or not, he will still do the pushups, you can choose to accept it though. So he does 5 more and 5 more for her son. By now, he looked tired, and the pushups were slower in between. So we asked, who still wants candy? A girl raised her hand and everyone else shook their heads... another little girl in particular shook her head adamantly, and ask Elder Bennion started to do 5 more for a girl thisother girl gave her a piece I'd given her earlier, but he still had to "pay the price". No one wanted candy and I just felt the Spirit so trong becasue it really brought it real for me too, that someone suffered physical pain so we could have the sweetest gift of eternal life. So we talked a little about this, how Christ suffered for us and his Atonement is offered to everyone, you can choose, but He's already paid for it. them a member spoke a bit on how Chirst affected his life and I sang "I Stand All Amazed" (Heavenly Father really blesed me) and the Spirit was so strong in that gym. It was amazing, then we had the Elder's RC say a closing prayer. I won't be forgetting that spiritual thought soon. I love my life!
Love, Sister Smith