“God never forgets us”

Hello!

I’m never quite sure how to start these, but we had a really good week!

Some good ol’ missionary experiences:

1. We have been working with a less active, part-member family in trying to teach them the gospel and get them back to church. The catch is we’ve only been able to work with the kids and not the parents and have had a few super unsuccessful attempts at talking to the parents. Well one night as we were biking through the pouring rain we had a thought to stop at their sister’s house right next door who is an active member. After a short conversation with her she offered up the idea to hold a family home evening and invite them and us over. So that’s in the works, and I’m super excited for that!

2. One day we were calling through some former (families we were teaching), and one decided she wanted to try meeting with us again. So the next day we went over to her house, and she is by definition what every missionary would call “golden”. Sadly she is going to China next week for 2 months! Ahh we were so sad, but her time will come eventually.

3. On Saturday we biked about 20 miles up a hill to go have a member visit. We got lost a little bit, but eventually figured it out. We called the member 5 minutes before the lesson was supposed to start and tell her we were almost there, when she flat out just cancelled on us. WHAT?! I was so angry haha. So we decided to go track down [other persons.] One house we knocked on, the lady wasn’t there. But her daughter was! And her daughter is 18 but isn’t baptized yet. We shared some scriptures with her and she said we could totally come back and share more! I guess we were supposed to be in that neighborhood for a reason.

4. After church on Sunday we went to the Seven across the street. As we walk in we start contacting a lady. When we introduced ourselves as missionaries, she goes, “I know, I’m a member”. We find out that she has been living in Taidong for 8 years. She got married and moved down here and hasn’t been to church since. It truly is God’s hands that put her at that Seven, at that time. God never forgets us.

Spiritual Thought of the Week:

This week I’ve been studying a lot about Christ performing miracles and how we can put our full faith and trust in God and Christ. Evidently, I think this is something everyone struggles with at some point in their life. Whether they are in the midst of a trial or not, sometimes having patience or the courage to turn to Christ isn’t easy. However, the miracle from scriptures that stuck out the most to me this week can be found in the end of Mark 4 in the New Testament. So this is when Christ calms the tempest on the waters. His disciples are freaking out in the middle of this storm and find Christ asleep in the ship. They wake Him up and say, “Master, carest thou not that we perish?”

When approached with the challenges of life, we often ask, “Why me?” Or “If you love me, why does it feel like you’ve abandoned me?”

Verse 39 goes on to say:
“And He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm”

Similar to this story when Christ gets up and calms the storm, Christ has the power to bring peace amidst the storms in our lives.

Christ then goes on to ask them two questions:
1. Why are ye so fearful?
2. How is it that ye have no faith?

Christ invites us so many times to “be not afraid, only believe”. He has the power. We don’t need to fear. “Perfect love casteth out all fear”. Christ is that perfect love. Faith in Him brings the peace and calming we all want.

So what do we do when we are in the middle of a storm?

We act like my friend Hé JM (何姐妹). She is a Cambodian sister that I’m pretty sure I talked about last week. When we went to visit her this week, she started bearing testimony to us. She said something along the lines of, “No matter how crazy life gets, there is always something that can remind you of God’s love for you.” She continued to talk about being a child of God. It was a precious moment as we watched someone, who a few weeks ago told us she had no testimony, bear the strongest testimony of God’s love and watchful eye I’ve ever heard.

In the midst of those struggles, always look for the ways God is showing you He still cares.

I encourage you all to go read the lyrics of hymn #105, “Master, the Tempest is Raging”.

Funny Things that Happened:

1. Last pday we got up at 3:30am and biked out to the ocean to watch the sunrise. It was gorgeous! Haha I guess there wasn’t anything that funny about it, it was just really pretty, and I wanted to tell you.

2. I got chased by some dogs this week Haha not gonna lie, I thought I was gonna die!

3. There’s a member in our ward who actually has pretty good English and is trying to learn American culture. So when someone sneezes, every American would respond and say “bless you”. Mind you in Taiwan, they don’t acknowledge any bodily functions. SO…I sneezed one day around this member and without thinking, he looks at me and goes “curse you”! Hahaha when he realized he made a mistake, he proceeded to apologize profusely! It was so funny!! Haha

4. In Taiwan by law, you are only allowed to sell sunscreen as high as SPF 50…so they all say 50+…well when you pull back the sticker they say 75 or 100 or something excessive. Haha 

Sorry this got kind of long…

I hope you all have a great week!

I love you all so so so much!!!

安姐妹