Sister Hendrick's Missionary Blog: Week 5 in Taiwan!

"And now the cause of these our embarrassments, or the cause why they did not send more strength unto us, we knew not; therefore we were grieved and also filled with fear, lest by any means the judgments of God should come upon our land, to our overthrow and utter destruction.

Therefore we did pour out our souls in prayer to God,that he would strengthen us and deliver us out of the hands of our enemies, yea, and also give us strength that we might retain our cities, and our lands, and our possessions, for the support of our people.

Yea, and it came to pass that the Lord our God did visit us with assurances that he would deliver us; yea,insomuch that he did speak peace to our souls, and did grant unto us great faith, and did cause us that we should hope for our deliverance in him.

And we did take courage with our small force which we had received, and were fixed with a determination to conquer our enemies, and to maintain our lands, and our possessions, and our wives, and our children, and the cause of our liberty."

~Alma 58:9-12

These verses were very helpful to me this week. I've learned that the only way to overcome my weaknesses or the things I've been struggling with, then I need to put my trust in the Lord. I need to give him everything - my time, my thoughts, wants... everything. All I needed to do was experiment on His promises, and I have been blessed with so much comfort, as well as confidence in myself, in our area, in my companion, and true happiness. He has given me assurance, and spoke peace to my soul, and my faith has definitely grown. I've learned the importance of seeing things from an eternal perspective. God really does have a plan laid out for us.

I loved this week! Again, I am just shocked at how fast time has flown by. I used to mark off each day on the calender on my wall, and I glanced over at it this morning and realized that I hadn't touched it for two weeks. Things are looking up!

English Boarding! Passing out english class flyers, and showing people 'Because He Lives'

We've put so much effort into finding new investigators, since we still only have Samantha and Vincent. We do have like 5 others, but they are hard to get a hold of, and I haven't met them yet. It's not like Georgia at all, where you could get a new investigator every day. But I do believe that the people we do talk to are uplifted in one way or another regardless of whether we get a return appointment with them or not. We taught about 12 other lessons this week which was really amazing, and obviously had nothing to do with us but rather the Lord guiding us. Our average per week has been about 3 or 4 other lessons, so we felt really good about that. And even though we only got one new investigator from the process, we know that the others felt something, and will come around in their own time.

As for Vincent and Samantha, they're doing great! They're both on date for baptism. They've been investigators for a long time. I've noticed that here in Taiwan, that people will investigate the church for months, even years before being baptized. Another thing I've noticed, is that people here don't necessarily believe there's "one truth". We'll teach them about Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon, and they'll believe us, but then they still claim that Buddhism is correct. It's interesting. But anyways, So we planned on inviting Samantha do be baptized at the end of April, but she said she's done waiting and she knows she needs to be baptized now, so she committed to April 5th. She's so awesome, it's been hard getting her on board, because she's always late to church and to our meetings, and has bailed a lot since I've been here. But we finally met with her last week and she voiced some personal issues she's had, and she's overcoming them. She's definitely ready, and we're so excited for her! Vincent is doing well, too. He's still working towards baptism as well.