* Micaela sent a picture of her eating "chicken butt". Sadly, I do not know how to post pictures yet. Sometime I will try to get someone to help me. Unfortunately, her editor is a techno-idiot.
Hi family. The subject essentially means good morning brothers and
sisters. That's what people say at the beginning of talks. After they say it
then everyone in the congregation responds by saying "zao" which
means morning, but really is like good morning. It's cool. I'll definitely
teach the ward during my homecoming talk in a million years.
Something I missed the other day a lot was family naptime. I told
Sister Daye about it. She laughed.
Also, conference for us is not next week. It will be broadcasted
here the second week in April.. So no spoilers!
We had a baptism this week. SJM. She's so great. She was a
former that just showed up. We set a baptismal date with her for 4/27 but after
teaching (reviewing ) a few lessons that she'd already been taught we realized
that she was ready. Last Saturday we met with her and she moved her date up to
the next Saturday (two days ago). It was awesome. After her baptism we had a
ward activity. The ward just welcomed her with open arms. We also had a few
other investigators/potentials at the ward party. We have the best ward for
missionary work here in Xin Zhuang!
While at the ward activity I told PJM about how mom put me
in a circus class. Then I juggled paper towels for her. You would be surprised.
Juggling paper towels is very hard. I will practice. I want to learn to juggle
balls. Wow. I am quite the odd cookie.
Last Tuesday we had a zone conference. While we were having a
workshop, I was taking notes. I wrote this at the top of my page (good thing to
because I forgot about it until I re-read it last night. "Please note:
there was an earthquake in Taiwan March 27, 2012 at 10:03 am during zone
conference."
Lol.
It was a REALLY shaky earthquake. Not like my first one. Much
stronger. I do appreciate the fact once again that I was not sitting on the
toilet during it. That would have been stressful.
Oh yesterday we went to an investigators house where she fed us
stinky tofu. This time my companion told me it was good stinky tofu. Last time
it had gotten cold and I didn't eat it with anything. I tried one bite. It was
definitely much better than last time. I don't love it though. It's just tolerable.
Now I can refuse it next time i'm offered. The whole zoo thing really disturbs
me though.
Also. I FINALLY PASSED OF PHASE ONE! Thank heavens! It was super
hard. But now I can work on phase two. I have about 2000 words to memorize. It
will really help my language improve a lot I think.
I was feeling really down the other day-- and unappreciated. I read
a talk by Elder Holland that I came across. "Because of your faith"
It really helped a lot. You should read it.
Also it made me realize that I don't thank you all enough.
Especially mom and dad. Thank you so much for paying for my mission. And for
everything else you do. It really means a lot to me.
Okay miracle time:
We've had some really neat miracles this week that I want to share.
On our way home from Zone conference we took a taxi from the MRT station to our
apartment. We've made a practice of teaching lessons to our taxi drivers.
And actually we decided to take a taxi that day simple because we haven't had a
taxi lesson recently and we wanted to have one. Well the desires of our hearts
were answered. While we were talking I asked how business was. It lead to a
conversation about how he does not enjoy his job. He used to be a bus driver
and he really doesn't enjoy that either. I asked him if he wanted a new job. He
said yes, but there aren't any available. Then we told him that he ought to try
praying about it. We taught him all about what prayer was and told him he could
even ask God questions. He can ask God where to look for a job, what type of
job would suit him, etc. He lit up like a child at the candy store. He had
never known this before. We testified powerfully together that He can pray at
anytime and taught him how to recognize answers to his prayers. He told us he
definitely will start to pray. It was neat to see him learn that prayer is more
than a chance to ask for blessings, but rather a chance to discuss things with
a Heavenly Father. We gave him a few tracts and asked if we could get his
number for the elders. He didn't want to give out his number but he said he'd
read the tracts and we gave him our number. I think he's one step closer to
where he needs to be.
A few days ago my companion was feeling really sick. After talking
to Sister Day we concluded to take her to the doctor. After she met with the
doctor we started talking to him a little about where we are from. He said he
had an uncle who lived in Utah for a little bit who is a Mormon like us. He
went on to talk about how he and that uncle are very close. When his family
(the doctors family) moved to California, the uncle was really helpful in
getting their young family settled and comfortable. He was always willing
to lend a hand. Needless to say, his relationship with his uncle was very deep
and very meaningful to him. He told us that his uncle passed away just a
few days ago from cancer. He also said that the funeral was today (as in the
day that we were talking with him). It was obvious that he was in a lot of pain
from missing his uncle. He mentioned that he is traditional buddhist and that
his wife is Christian so they didn't really know much about their uncle's
beliefs, but they are pretty sure that he's probably in a happy place. We asked
if he was willing to let us share exactly what his uncle believes about life
and the plan of salvation. He said of course. We taught him (and his wife who
was listening from the door way) about the plan of salvation. The spirit was so
strong and they were so touched. We talked a lot about the spirit world and
read a scripture about what it's like up there from the Book of Mormon. We also
talked a little about eternal families and the role of the temple in that. By
the end he thanked us a lot for being there for him. He told us that it really
was nice to have someone who understood what he and his wife were grieving
about to share that with them. His wife eagerly took a Book of Mormon and they
committed to checking out mormon.org. The lesson was
one of the most powerful I've been in. I really like teaching the Plan of
Salvation to people. It answers a lot of questions. We will go back to check on
them sometime for sure.
The other day we had another miracle. We have an awesome
investigator (J.). She is solid. She knows this is the true church and
we've had a lot of amazing spiritual experiences with her. Plus she receives
personal revelation all the time. She reads the gospel principles manual at
work... so she has a really good doctrinal foundation. It's the craziest thing.
She is so solid and she is so determined to get baptized on 4/20. Anyway we had
a lesson with her last week. Something crazy happened and it's obvious that it
was all anpai'd by God. Her lesson started late, but two other investigators
(who are about her age) came while we were still talking with J. We just
followed the spirit and taught them all together. Our peike had to leave part
way through and what happened is the J. totally jumped into the role of the
peike. She shared experiences and taught correct doctrine and really had a powerful
influence on these other two girls. It was the most insane thing ever. I
couldn't have arranged it myself. Those girls really needed J. in their
lesson to answer their questions and help ease any of their concerns. Cool cool
cool!
Oh and also this week I ate a chicken butt. So hilarious. Americans
don't like chicken butt. Taiwan gets a lot of chicken butt from America. I took
a video. I'll send it if it's not to big.
Love you all.
-Micaela
Ps. I learned a lesson this week about being nice to people. Our
words really have a big impact on people. Be nice!
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