Missionaries as Chopsticks

Hello everybody!
Dreams, Analogies, and Funnies.

My brain is not wanting to cooperate into writing an email, so I’m going to do my best. The news of white-wash training is official, and I’m a little freaked out with a lot to do today Haha so don’t get mad if this weeks is a little shorter…

Dreams:

People here in TaiDong take dreams very very seriously. Also I may add that people here have very very very interesting dreams. And often we hear about them. They are kind of crazy. Taiwanese also like to interpret their dreams and sometimes their interpretations are also very interesting and probably not too accurate…

Anywho! This dream is actually pretty special to me. When we first met our friend Wu Pei Ling, I contacted her off the street at a red light. She set up and actually showed up to her lesson (which is honestly pretty rare). Then, when we met with her, we invited her to pray and ask God if we were true messengers sent to deliver a true message. When we followed up the next day or so, she tells us she had a dream, different from any other dream she’d ever had.

In this dream she saw herself amongst a bunch of people she had never met. But she was happy, brave, and communicating freely which was a shock to her because she is usually shy, reserved, and not openly happy.

I’m not sure how my brain did this, but it decided to tell her that through Jesus Christ, we can change, and He can give us a lot of courage.

Fast forward now to this week. She is keeping every commandment we have taught her, has been to church, and we are sharing one of the last few lessons with her. We bring up the principle of doing missionary work by sharing our testimony with others. When you realize something is bringing you joy, you typically want to share that joy with others. She began to vigorously nod her head “yes”! She told us about how her friends at work had noticed something “different” about her. When we asked her what was different she said she was happier, went out of her way to talk to people, and felt more confident at work.

I immediately recalled the dream she shared with us. God sometimes works in mysterious ways, but this one was pretty clear. The Gospel helps us change, and it 100% brings us joy.

Analogies:

Sister Concardas loves using analogies, and I was feeling pretty clever yesterday. So, at dinner with the Bishop’s family we decided to share this analogy/object lesson.

Start~
Make kids use chopsticks to get M&Ms from one bowl to another.
Plot twist~
They can only use one chopstick.

So because they are pretty clever little boys, they still find some success with just one chopstick. Sets up the analogy even better.

Our hand represents the hand of God. One chopstick is missionaries. The other chopstick is members. God needs both missionaries and members to be the tools in His hand to bring the blessings of the Gospel to everyone. If He only had one of us, it’s just not as productive.

Shares Mosiah 23:10 about being an instrument in the hands of God. Everyone becomes impressed by your analogy skills.

Funnies:

1. Sister Concardas went to buy soft serve ice cream at a Family Mart this week. We have a less active member who works there almost every day. As Sister Concardas asked for this cone of ice cream, the LA goes, “You can’t have that. It has beer.” Two things…1…who the heck puts beer in ice cream to make that a flavor…2…at least our LA remembers the word of Wisdom haha

2. I got self contacted in a Starbucks bathroom by someone who wanted to study English. Caught me so off guard Haha but hey new English students are good!

3. We got to the chapel for church yesterday, and the first thing I saw was a giant spider the size of my hand. The next thing was Bishop’s oldest son down the hallway who’s obsessed with spiders. Next thing I know, this kid has this spider cupped inside his hands and is looking for a container. Ew. Ew. Ew.

Next week’s letter will be better…I promise!

I love you all so so so much!!!

安姐妹