Birthday on the Mission

FAMILY AND FRIENDS!!

Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes! I can't believe I am 20 years old today! It is crazy! Time literally flies!

Also, Mom and dad, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! I hope you did something fun to celebrate! Sure love you both and am so grateful for your examples in my life! It looks like the family had fun together this week! When is the Eastern Idaho State Fair? Who is Marissa opening for? That is so cool she is going to have a full 50 minutes! She's growing up waaayyyy to fast! Lachlan is so tall and those pads are huge!! Alexa, it's so fun you learned how to play the ukulele! Y'all are growing up way too fast!!

Bryan, loved the email about your week last week! Like dad said, I also loved the detail. It was fun reading through it.

I don't even know where to begin! This week was INCREDIBLE! MY first full week in YuLi.

Last Monday, we went to a beach! And It was gorgeous! Shi-Ti-Ping is it's name in pinyin. I'll send lots of pics.
 

 

So many miracles happened this week! I don't even know where to begin!

Our most progressing investigator, Zhu JieMei is still working on giving up her drinking and chewing bettle nut. She tried cutting cold turkey and last Monday she was throwing up and was so sick all day long. She has gone down a lot but is still working on completely getting rid of it. Her scheduled interview is this Saturday because her baptism is hopefully going to be next Saturday. We have faith she will be able to make it but it all depends on if she starts completely following the Word of Wisdom.

Her daughter is also one of our investigators and has had several baptismal dates before. We set another one with her but her dad keeps telling her he hasn't seen a big enough change in her yet for him to allow her to get baptized. It has kind of put a damper on her faith but hopefully she can continue reading and praying and it will show her dad her desire.

We were able to meet so many prepared people on the street this week. Since YuLi is really small, we don't go street contacting but when we are going from place to place when we feel like we need to, we stop by someone on our bikes who is walking on the side of the road. We were able to have so many lessons right on the side of the road-this week was the most lessons I have ever had in my entire mission! We were able to give out 21 Books of Mormon. Sadly, most of the prepared people we talked to were visiting YuLi (YuLi is a very touristy area) and so we got their phone numbers and sent them to the missionaries Hualian, TaiDong, and other areas where they were from. But, it is all the same work-all helping people come unto Christ. One of the neatest miracles occurred just last night as we were on our way to check on an investigator. There was a lady walking for exercise. We stopped and started talking to her. She told us she was Catholic but she believed everything we were teaching her. She didn't know how to pray and was extremely excited when we shared the Book of Mormon with her after explained was it was. We set up an appointment for tonight to start reading the Book of Mormon with her and introduce our Church more! I am so excited!!

Last night, I also met a new investigator Sister Wright met a couple weeks ago for the first time. AND he plays tennis!! He has played almost every day since he was in Junior High School! 王弟兄 is also Catholic but stopped going to church when he graduated from High School. He is married, but his wife isn't very nice to us, and has two kids. We taught him the Message of the Restoration last night and he had so many questions about Joseph Smith. He really has a desire to learn and seems really interested!

FUNNIEST STORY OF THE WEEK: So, one of our investigators is the wife of a man who owns a fruit stand so all day every day she has to be at this fruit stand working. When we have lessons with 馬姐妹 we go to her shop and when customers are ready to pay we stop and wait and then keep going. Well, this last week, we were teaching her about God. This man comes in and is waiting by the counter while 馬姐妹 is getting his order. We start talking to him and asking him how he is doing and everything. All of a sudden, he says, "Kiss Me." in perfect English and then starts talking to 馬姐妹 like nothing just happened. I turned to Sister Wright and asked, "Did he just say kiss me?" We kept in our laughs but she heard exactly what I heard. As we were laughing about it later, we figured someone thought it would be funny to teach him the phrase, "Kiss Me" and he probably thinks the meaning is something completely different than the actual meaning.

I love what I am doing. It is honestly the best. I learn everyday. I love preaching the gospel. I love helping others come unto Christ. This work is honestly the best! I know I say this about every week but it is so true! I love this Gospel. I know The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true church on the earth today. It is the same church Jesus Christ established when he was on the earth over 2000 years ago!

I love you all!! You are all amazing!

I hope you have a great week!!

LOVE,

Sister Haacke

 The Tropic of Cancer passes right through Taiwan!  All the pictures of Sister Wright and I together are on her camera. I will get them from her and send some more next week.

 These two adorable little boys followed Sister Wright and I around for and hour and a half while we contacted this last week. When we would be invited into peoples homes, they would wait outside for us to come back. The children here are absolutely adorable.

 Oh, and we were bosses of a fruit stand for about 5 minutes! haha I love serving!