My mission now has a mission blog! it is taiwantaipeimission.com
This week has been a great week. It has honestly been a life changing week!*
A lot happened this week so I hope I can sum it up :)
First,
mom and dad! Tell Lindsay Loveland hi from me! I love her! She has
always been such an amazing example to me! And now she lives in our home
ward! Aw so cool! Also, tell Tyler congratulations and I am so excited
for him to enter the field! What a neat experience he is going to have.
As
for my week, we started Monday night by visiting a less active and his
family and shared the plan of salvation! It was a great lesson--the kids
especially loved it! We have these fun circles for every step in the
plan and they had fun moving their body and spirit along the path. We
hope as we continue meeting with them, Wang DX can remember the feelings
he had at church and have a desire for his family to also one day join. They are the family who Wang DX wife's parents oppose to the church.
Monday night we also met with our most progressing investigators, Zhang
DX and Jiang JM. When we first got there, Zhang DX told us he looked our
church up online--so he had several questions about the things the
internet says. We promised him that if he prayed, he could know for
himself what things are true and what things said are false. He was very
open and really wants to know for himself what is true and what is
false. We taught the message of the Restoration Monday night and focused
mostly about Christ and his earthly ministry.
Monday night
was also a really sad night. Similar to what Bryan experienced a couple
weeks ago. One of our investigators, Huang Qian Wen sent us a text while
we were on our way to Zhang DX and Jiang JM's home informing us that
she was very grateful for the time we were able to meet with her but
that she no longer can meet with us. We called her to see if we could
meet with her just one more time to say goodbye. She accepted and we met
Wednesday afternoon. We were very confused because we had confirmed
with her 2 hours before she sent us that text for our appointment with
her on Wednesday. But when we met with her on Wednesday, we couldn't
even go to her home. We met at a bakery and she wasn't very open like she
normally is. We shared Moroni 10:32 with her and invited her to continue
coming unto Christ. She didn't tell us why but we believe her husband
has now opposed to her taking the lessons even though he was very
excited about it in the beginning. It was a hard goodbye but knowing
that this is God's plan for her, I hope and pray she will have an
opportunity in her future to accept the Gospel.
Tuesday
we had a great zone meeting and practice teaching in Zhunan which took
the majority of the day. Tuesday night, we met with Lai Ming Jin. He is
continuing to struggle finding a job but is hopeful God can and will
help him. The Gospel has really changed his life and I am so grateful I
have been able to be apart in him coming to know our Savior and His
teachings.
Wednesday--other than meeting for
the last time with Huang Qian Wen, we met with a member in the
morning-Chen Ping Rong-and our investigator from China in the afternoon.
Chen Ping Rong was baptized a couple years ago and her daughter was
baptized a couple weeks ago (she just turned 8). Chen JM has a huge
testimony of the Gospel. It is so powerful. She is a huge example to me.
Zhang Li Mei is continuing to progress. She comes to church every week
and loves it. However, she is 7 months pregnant and is probably going to
have to wait until after she has her baby boy to get baptized. Her
husband returns at the beginning of August from working in China so we
are really hopeful we can start teaching him here in a few weeks.
Wednesday
started our search of Less Actives. This week we really spent a lot of
time going to the less actives homes that live in our area. There are a
lot! Our ward list is about 8 pages long--about 450-500 people and
about 60-70 of them or less are active. We came to realize our ward list
is very very outdated...individuals are on there that moved 10+ years
ago. But, this was a great finding tool. Since we went knocking with a
name to find, so many people--mostly family of the individual let us in
and we were able to have a short lesson with most of them about Christ.
Although most of them didn't want to set up a return appointment, we
were able to plant another seed for the future.
Wednesday
night, we have our English class. Lai Ming Jin's son who lives with his
aunt has been coming for a couple weeks and we gave him an English name
tonight! We gave him a couple choices, and he chose Bryan! haha So, I
told his dad we named his son after my younger brother :). Hopefully Lai
Wen Yi as cool as Bryan is :)
Wednesday night, Fan Zhu Song
also told me he is preparing to go to the temple on July 18th!! He will
be able to go to baptisms for the dead! It brought music to my ears! I
am so so so excited for him. The temple brings so many blessings. Fan
Zhu Song just graduated from college so he will be returning home to
TaoYuan in the next month to start his required military service.
Thursday-Thursday
night we met with Lai Ming Jin and Chen Wen Xun our two recent
converts. They are both doing well. Tuesday night, Lai DX told us he is
worried Chen DX has started smoking again. It was cute, because Thursday
night, Lai DX like drilled the word of wisdom at Chen DX. So Sister Cardon and I just sat there and Lai DX was a great teacher :).
Thursday
nights we also meet with Zhang DX and Jiang JM. Tonight we taught the
3rd lesson and invited them to baptism. They loved the lesson, had so
many questions, and were willing to be baptized if they come to know the
church is true but they don't want to set a date yet. I love how open
Zhang DX and Jiang JM are. They ask the questions they truly are
thinking--they asked about baby baptisms (they loved the fact we don't
get baptized till we are 8). about worshiping ancestors and cleaning
graves (here in Taiwan, when they go clean the graves of they ancestors,
he believe it is part of the worshiping part when they go to worship
them. We we explained how the States has a holiday for us to visit and
clean the graves of our ancestors they were shocked. They only thing we
do that is different is that we don't ask for blessings from our
ancestors. They seemed to not have a problem stopping the worshiping
part from ancestors! ) It is also really cute-every time we go, they are
always so nice to have fruit or drinks for us and they always ask
before they give it to us if it is okay for us to have. They are very
aware of Word of Wisdom and don't want us to 'break it'.
Friday
we went to ZhuBei and met the Jergensens! Presdient and Sister
Jergensen, our new mission president and his wife are AMAZING! As I was
talking to Sis. Jergensen at the beginning, I asked if she by chance
knew Tonya and John Brenchley and she did! They said they have been good
friends with them forever! It is such a small world!!! They also have
15 year old twin boys who will be here with them and a 19 year old
daughter will be here during her breaks from college at BYU. They have 3
older kids who are married. They have info about themselves on the new
blog you can read :)
Saturday was another great
day. We had a lot of less active finding time and we also met with Lu
Pei Ling. We haven't been able to meet with her in about a month. We
really feel like giving her another week or so before we stop making
contact with her. She seems to be doing really well and the only two big
issues we need to solve with her is her desire to give up tea and how
far away the church is from her home. She just needs to build her faith
and then she'll be good :)
In the afternoon, we met with Gan
JM and had a really good lesson on 2 Nephi 31-33. She finally told us
the full truth as to why she isn't coming to our church**. She told us
how much she loves the doctrines of the gospel. She believes they are
pure and simple. Hopefully her issue can be solved so that she can start
attending church.
Saturday night, we visited a less active
and it was a correct address!! Zeng XS is an active Christian in another
church that meets in XinZhu. We were able to talk with him and give him
a new Book of Mormon since his got destroyed in the last typhoon I
think a couple years ago. He got baptized in his current church last September but is willing to meet with us. We have a return appointment
with him this coming week.
Sunday was a great
day! Church was great. Sacrament meeting was all based on homosexual
relationships and mostly they talked about how America legalized gay
marriage and they talked all about the American government but other
than that, it was great! Zhang DX CAME TO CHURCH! It was his first time
and the members welcomed him in and talked to him every second they
could! He asked great questions in Gospel Principles and was really
involved! A member, Lin Zhi Qiang, came and talked to us after church
and told us how in priesthood he got to know him and thought how great
of a man he is and that he really has interest in the church and the
church's teachings. It is great how the members are seeing his potential
and almost all of them invited him to invite his wife and bring his
daughter next week! I can't wait to see what happens with them!!
During
our less active finding on Sunday, we went to go visit Liu Qiu Yi. She
wasn't home but her mom was SO excited when she saw us standing outside
her door! She let us in and fed us pizza that had been sitting on the
counter for who knows how long and told us how much she loved when then
Elders used to come over to her house. She talked about Liu Qiu Yi who
is about 34 years old and is not yet married she said that her daughter doesn't think she can get married because she is fat--so a self
confidence thing. Liu MaMa was so excited when we asked if we could come
back a later time to meet her daughter! She told us how much she liked
when her daughter was going to church--so at least we have the family
supporting us?!
Well, congrats to whoever made it through all of this!! Sorry its so long!
Overall
we had a great week. And like I said up top. It was a life changing
week for me. I realized how happy I really am on my mission. Yeah, it is
sometimes hard that I have been serving in the same area my entire time
since I came to Taiwan but I love this area and learned more this week
that it doesn't matter where you serve, just that you serve. I love the
opportunity I have to serve my Heavenly Father and my Savior, Jesus
Christ. It is such a blessing. So hard. But So good!
I love you all so much!!
Love,
Sister Haacke
Sister Cardon and I way out in the country contacting a referral.
Funny Story: We went and ate at Hope Noodle this week and
We had the option between small or big bowls. They big bowls were only
10 kuai more so I thought why not? Yeah, it was a HUGE bowl of beef noodle soup! But, I ate it all and enjoyed every bit :)
Huang Qian Wen and I.
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