“Oh it is Wonderful”

My brain 100% does not think in English anymore haha so I have lost my train of thought so many times will trying to write this email…just feeling like making a disclaimer for the potential poor English composition to come Haha!

This week we finished up Chinese New Year and had transfers. I stayed in 永和 (YongHe), but I have a new companion! She is absolutely hilarious! Sister Christensen is from Blackfoot, Idaho. She was adopted from China as a baby and has been serving her mission for almost a year. The more we get to know each other the more we realize just how similar we are. We joke that we are literally the exact same person haha~it’s been continuous laughter for the past few days.

Despite the Coronavirus making it’s way to Taiwan, missionary work is still progressing. We put our facemasks on and walk out the door and carry on our day as normal. No need to worry about me here, we are actually all super safe, and the few cases of the virus that have been diagnosed have been contained well.

I want to share my two favorite lessons we had this week 🙂

The first was with the Jiang family. We started teaching them some of the commandments. Every commandment we shared elicited the same reaction. “Okay, we will get blessings, I know we will. We will follow this commandment!” This dad and daughter just blow me away! They came to church on Sunday and they honestly already look like they are a part of the ward.

The second was with Tina. I had this super strong feeling that we needed to share about the blessings of the Atonement. When we asked Tina what the Atonement was, she was able to tell us about Christ’s sacrifice, but when I asked if she believed it was true, she said it was just a good story to her. Which my brain immediately goes, ”She hasn’t tried it out so she doesn’t know it’s true.” Well we started sharing about how the Atonement has blessed us in our lives up to this point. People shared about forgiveness of sin which Tina already understood could potentially happen if she wanted to believe it could. But then I started sharing about other blessings of the Atonement. The fact that we have a best friend who 100% completely understands everything that you feel and are going through.  Its power in helping us change bad habits. The Atonement’s ability to help us frankly forgive those who wrong us because some of the time that requires a power greater than we are. When I said that one, she began to cry. We had a very vulnerable lesson where she opened up about some concerns and things she wanted to change in her life. I told her that she had to do an experiment. She had to try God and see if He could help her change one specific thing. The catch was she had to use prayer, the BoM, and the Atonement to do it. I’m truly hoping this helps her see God’s guiding power in her life! After the lesson we went downstairs to Sacrament Meeting. The hymn before the Sacrament was, “I Stand All Amazed”. After singing, Tina sat there rereading the words with tears in her eyes.