Hello Jiating!
How is everyone? Happy Birthday Danny! I hope everyone is having fun and getting ready for the summer!! I bet everyone is so excited!
Here's the latest from Pooh. By the way, I hope my emails aren't really pointless and boring. If they are, please tell me and I'll try to shake it up or something:
*I found out that I have an unpleasant sun allergy. I know Rachel and Jessica do as well, and I thought I did before too, but as I've always had the Madam Mim approach to the outdoors ("I hate horrible wholesome sunshine. HATE HATE HATE!!!) I never really knew my skin was this sensitive. Last week the sun came out really bright and my forearms are in the direct light as I ride my bike all day. At first they just itched like crazy then I started developing a rash with little white blistery bubble things. So now every morning I put on a lot of sunscreen and every night I put on a lot of Aloe Vera. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I tan so well (even if the tan is only from my sleeve to my wrists...) but every Chinese person (even mid-lesson) points to my arms and says "tsk tsk, Hei hei!" Or "black black!" Every sunny day my companion says "I hate being black!"
*We went to a ward activity on Saturday at the beach. It was so windy the sand stung our skin so bad! We cleaned the beach of all the garbage and junk. It was kind of gross and scary because there were sick stuff like syringes and drug paraphernalia all over the place. The Relief Society President, Dai Jiemei that I told you about last email, was SO funny!! She was afraid of getting black in the sun, so she wore some sort of flowery head covering that resembled a ski mask with only a rectangle opening for her eyes. She looked like a ninja. Then the wind was so strong it kept blowing her shirt up. She's really the funniest, most wonderful women. I really look up to her. After we cleaned the beach, we played volleyball and relay games. It was so much fun!! That ward is so good. Us missionaries obviously couldn't go anywhere near the water (which was fine, it wasn't that warm plus the foam that kept washing up was some frothy puke color) but it was still awesome! The waves were really pretty since it was so windy.
*We knocked some doors last night before going in. It was pouring rain and we were both soaked so no one let us in. We spoke to a man through his intercom and he said he was Christian already so he wasn't interested. We didn't have a BOM to leave, so we put a whole gospel principles book in his mailbox. Haha. We had it left over because we'd donated a few of them to the local library. We'll see what happens with that!
*The other day we were teaching Li Pei Qi, a 27 year old girl who is the daughter of a woman I met at a stoplight. Mid lesson she looked at me and said "I don't want to ruin your lesson, but you have a little spider on your head." Haha. Our member who came with us, Jessica, who is REALLY funny, grabbed a tissue and instead of flicking the spider off, squished it on my head! Haha!
*Early last week Sister Weng and I were going around in the evening and contacting people on the street. That specific day I just felt especially afraid of contacting and speaking in Chinese. In my mind I just prayed and said "Ugh, I just can't do this. My Chinese isn't good enough and it's just too hard." I then had a thought come strongly in my mind that said something to the effect of "Do you actually think I'd let you do My work alone?" That was a big moment for me. It really taught me something important about God. I have often had the thought that I am doing missionary work and Heavenly Father is looking down on my like this is some big test and if I don't do it just so, then I'll fail and He'll be disappointed or someone won't get baptized or something. But at that moment I just realized that Heavenly Father isn't scrutinizing our performance with a clipboard but that He's always in the action with us--as if He's contacting as well, if you will. And the reason He wants us to be obedient, to work hard, to talk to everyone, etc. isn't because "if we don't he'll be REALLY REALLY ANGRY!!" but because if we do those things, we'll be eligible for blessings according to the laws He's already established. So He's always encouraging us to do better and be better so He can bless us because that's all He really wants to do. Bless us and help us bless other people He loves. He's a lot like the sweet Chinese fathers I see around Taiwan, taking their little toddlers out on their little tricycles or with their little toys, holding their hand or pushing them along. Heavenly Father is always there helping us like we're just little kids. But sometimes, we're like the little kids who have delicious candy in a hard to open wrapper and we "just wanna do it ourselves" and we struggle and struggle and whine that we can't eat the candy. Then finally we say "fine, Dad, will you open it for me?" I'm still working on that part. Sometimes you walk into a lesson, then walk out and realize that you taught that whole thing depending totally on yourself. And you know that that's why the Spirit wasn't quite there, or your Chinese wasn't all that understandable. But then there are the occasional lessons where you feel like you can't do it, and pray your face off as you bike to the appointment and the lesson just works out because you gave it to the Lord.
*As far as learning Chinese goes, that ALSO has taught me a big lesson. 1) That despite the fact that I'm NOT good at studying, I really have learned alot. That alone has taught me another thing about Heavenly Father. That He sometimes blesses us even if we don't necessarily deserve it. He just does it because He loves us and cuts us some slack. 2) If you're grateful for what you HAVE learned, you'll see that you HAVE learned! 3) Sometimes it takes a while to learn something not because Heavenly Father is thinking "I just want to humble you for a little while so just figure it out by yourself, bye!" But sometimes it takes a while because again, He has to operate by His own laws and sometimes He just needs something to work with. If I pray every day that I will learn "a lot of new words today!" but then don't choose the words I want to learn and provide a way for it to happen, then Heavenly Father's "got nuttin' " to work with. He won't just magically plant 30 new chinese words in our memories every day. I'm sure if we were brain damaged and it was His will to do so He could. But really He just wants us to learn how to learn and He'll expedite the process. Anyway. It's been a good week. I think I've learned this lesson about God's merciful character dozens of times, and I will still keep learning it over and over again. I think it's the hardest thing for me to learn and have faith in so I'm really grateful that He's patient enough to keep teaching me.
I love you all!! The church is true!! Joseph Smith was a prophet!! The other day in a lesson we watched the "Restoration" DVD and I remembered my trip to Nauvoo with Mom, Dad and Michael and was really touched by the Spirit. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet and restored the full and living gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth. Love you all!!! I love every one of you!! MUAH!!!
Coley
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