Sister Hendrick's Missionary Blog: Seven Months Already!?

I think I forgot to send this last week. Super pretty garden where we went English Boarding!

Hello!

Man, weeks already go by so fast, but this week especially since we subtracted a few days. So many good things happened though. Going to the temple was so refreshing. I've really missed going frequently. I don't know what I'd do without the peace we can feel in the temple, which I felt like I really needed that day. But luckily, I get to feel a different kind of joy and peace daily - that I'm in the place I need to be, and even though I'm not perfect by any means, I'm learning and doing my best.

This week we went to a neighborhood that I was thinking about for a long time to go to, but it never fit into our schedule until now. We had our studies, and then we had our weekly planning session, so between then we decided to have lunch and do some finding in that neighborhood. Right after our studies, we headed over there and gave ourselves about an hour with the goal of having two lessons and finding two new investigators. We had a lot of faith and started finding. About 45 minutes passed by, and we had spoken with and gave a few pass-along items to a few people that didn't have any interest and rejected us in one way or another. Eventually the whole hour passed by and we didn't have any lessons or find anyone that had any interest. It was a little strange to me because we both felt prompted to go to that road. Nevertheless, we decided to just say a prayer of gratitude and hope that the people we did talk to would be some sort of seed planted, and someday, someone else can be put in their path. We finished praying, and by then we were pretty hungry, but we saw a lady getting into her house across the street and we started talking to her. She was Buddhist, but listened to us, and found a lot of interest in our Family History program. I felt good after that contact. Then we went back to our bikes and this lady and her son were pulling into the house next to us on their bikes, and we recognized her little 8 or 9 year old son because we saw him and his nanny last week on the street and talked to him and gave him a few pass-along things to give to his family. This time he was with his mom and we started talking to them. His mom said their family was Buddhist and very traditional, but her and her husband are very interested in Christianity. They just fear that their family will disapprove if they change. She said one day she wants to change and raise her children in the Christian faith.

I've learned a lot about how little value immediate gratification has. There are so many tender mercies that the Lord gives us daily. That was just one simple example of continuing in faith and gratitude, despite the fact that we didn't get lunch that day. I don't know what will happen to all the people that we talked to in that time frame, but I hope that something good comes of it.

We hadn't heard from one of our investigators in particular for a while, so we headed over to his work just to see how he's been lately. We talked to him, and not much has changed. He's apparently been a little offended by some of the members which is why he hasn't been coming to church or other activities. We tried to help him see that the gospel has nothing to do with the members. Our relationship with Christ is between us and Him. He said he still wants to be baptized, but he wants to be ready and right now he doesn't feel ready. But we can still be there for him, and encourage him the best we can.

Classic night in Taiwan - except no rain tonight!

After that, we had about an hour of finding and we went to a park across the street from his work and went over to a neighborhood to knock on some doors. We saw this guy and started talking with him, and immediately it started pouring rain - literally out of nowhere. He offered to run inside and get us an umbrella. So we started teaching him, and he actually speaks like perfect English so we were talking in English the whole time, and I'm sad to say that I have retained zero teaching skills from using English. But the spirit was present, which is the most important thing. He's super awesome. He seems to have quite a bit of interest which is awesome! We're meeting with him at a member's house, so we'll see how it goes.

This week went by fast, but also pretty slow. I struggled a bit this week, but we had interviews with the Mission President yesterday and that helped me out a lot. President Day really knows the needs of us missionaries, and he gave me some good advice.

Anyways, all is well on the island of Taiwan.

Love,

Sister Hendricks

Sunday dinner at Wu Ma's! I love these people.

I'm pretty sure we got fed three dinners in a row that night. I don't know how that happened. I love the Taiwanese so much!

We love Wu Ma! We missed her while she was in America for so long, and we've hung out with her on like every Pday since then haha. This was a couple weeks ago I think.