Sister Samantha Haacke: Celebrating Chinese New Year

FAMILY AND FRIENDS!

This week was pretty crazy. Chinese New Year. Sun. Food. More Food. Firecrackers. Even more Food. Sickness...and the list can go on and on.

Chinese New Year: Everything shuts down for the entire week and everyone leaves to go back to their home towns and spends the week with their families. But, with that being said, we ate at a members home everyday for lunch and dinner. Every meal, there was so much food prepared. There is a saying here that during Chinese New Year there has to be leftovers because it means that the home and family will have enough food for this year and they won't go hungry. So, with that being said, 15 lunch/dinner appointments later...we all ate SO much and I am going away from the week about 2.5 kilograms heavier than I was going in :)

Most of this week will be described though all the pictures. Bear with me on all the emails. Sorry in advance.

The week's weather was also absolutely AMAZING!! SO WARM! But, yesterday evening, it started to get colder and a cold front came in with rain :(

Sister Wong had a bug at the beginning of this week so we had to take a few hours inside so that she could rest. It was a good time to get caught up on some things: organizing our area book, contacts, etc. But, despite the sickness, we went a way this week with some neat experiences.

We met with Zhu DiXiong again this week and read 1 Nephi 1 with him. He struggles pretty seriously with depression and coming to church makes him really nervous. He is a great man though and I know the gospel can help him. As we called him this morning, he told us he is really nervous to meet with us and doesn't really want to meet anymore because church gives him too much stress. Please pray for us tonight as we meet with him for possibly the last time that the Spirit can comfort him and know that he is loved.

This past week, we also had the opportunity to meet with a referral. He went on his own to church last week at the chapel next to the temple because he was really curious! We met with him and had a great lesson about the Restoration. He seemed really into it and is really curious about learning more. He also came to church with us yesterday and wants to come to some activities if he has time! He is really great but just doesn't want to sit down and meet with us. We are praying for him in hopes he has the desire to prepare to join the church.

We continue to spend a lot of time on the street building up our investigator pool. It was somewhat more challenging this week with a lot of people being out of the city but there were still many to talk to! On this street, we met a 20 year old girl. She is currently a college student and is super sweet. We talked to her for a while about God's love for her and she was willing to set up for two weeks out when she returns home from her vacation to Malaysia! Right after talking to her, we met a mom with two girls. They were waiting for their dad to come and pick them up. They occasionally attend church. The dad's family is somewhat Christian and the mom isn't at all, we couldn't share too much because their dad got there pretty quickly with the car but we got their phone numbers and they seems like great potentials! I am really looking forward to this next week being able to follow up with a lot of the people we have met before Chinese New Year who told us to call them after the holiday.

Now, just for some laughs. I literally had the most blonde day on my mission this week. To make a long story short, we had a dinner appointment in the town over from SanChong called LuZhou. We were to meet all the missionaries there. Well...we took the wrong road and got extremely lost. We biked for an hour and 10 minutes. I felt so bad for my poor trainee. She was just following me around. We ended up making a HUGE circle around SanChong and then hooked up with the SanChong Elders who were going to be 45 minutes late to dinner due to an appointment and followed them. Then after dinner, the LuZhou elders asked us to set up with an investigator who was at this dinner who doesn't want to meet with Elders and we accidentally set up with their RC instead of the investigator...and many more things occurred...long story short, we went home Saturday night with smiles on our faces excited for a new day ahead of us :)

As I have been pondering this week about the comfort we can receive from our Heavenly Father and Our Savior, Jesus Christ, I came across a scripture found in D&C 68:6. This Scripture was given to some Elders of the church:

"Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you; and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God, that I was, that I am, and that I am to come."

I love this verse. The Lord will constantly be by our side. No matter what! We need not fear. The Lord also has commanded and asked us that we, here on this earth, have the great and sacred calling to teach all people. To bring them unto Him. We are to bear testimony of Him frequently. I know my Savior Lives. I know He sacrificed for you and me. I know He knows us and is aware of our every action. He is there during the happy and the sad times. He is there to lift us up and to carry us. He is also there to rejoice with us in our happy and exciting times during our lives. I am grateful for my Savior. I love my Savior!

I hope you all have a great week! I love you all!!

AND, I totally forgot yesterday was Valentine's Day until our Bishop wished us a Happy Valentine's Day yesterday! SO, Happy Valentine's day! Sure love you all!

Love,

Sister Haacke