Sister Hendrick's Missionary Blog: 中秋節快樂 !

I Hungry , , , Just Do Eat!

Happy Mid-Autumn festival! Taiwan's special holiday :) Lots of 月餅 moon cakes, 柚子 oriental grapefruits, and 烤肉 barbecue. It was Sister Haupt's birthday and so fun to celebrate! Poor Taiwan got a lot of rain though, so outdoor barbecue was a bit of a challenge. It certainly didn't stop them from enjoying the holiday though. I love this culture!

So plot twist... transfers were pushed back a week because most of the new missionaries were waiting on visas. But they're arriving this week and transfers will be Thursday! I'm pretty sure we're going to break a record of the longest tripanionship together in the mission. 7 weeks haha. I'm actually super grateful we have been given one more week together. It would have been a bummer ending the transfer after being sick with the flu for a whole week. I definitely wasn't my best self, so I'm really grateful we were able to have a good week together. And now that the flu has passed me by, and I went to the doctor for the last time this week, I feel so much better. I really learned a lot from this experience. I realized that this set back really affected me for the worse. But now that it's over, I can see how all it took was patience, perseverance, and faith. I can see that God gave me this small trial for my benefit. It's given me a new perspective to keep my chin up when things are hard

This week was seriously so awesome. I loved every day! We went on splits with members almost every day to double the work, and really take advantage of being in a trio while we can. We also had such an incredible opportunity to go to the temple with Zhui JieMei for her first time!! She is so incredible. It was a really cool experience watching someone enter into the temple for the first time. The elders in our ward are still teaching her husband and he just passed his baptismal interview yesterday and will be baptized on Saturday! Ah, I'm so so happy for their family.

I learned a really cool lesson this week. We were finding one day this week and we had so much hope to find new investigators. After about 2 1/2 hours, we couldn't get a single person to even give us their phone number, let alone share our testimonies with them. We didn't let it discourage us, as we were really looking forward to finding new people to teach. The next day, we went on splits with a member and I was with Sister Luo. We met this college student, Chen, and at first he didn't seem to have any interest in talking with us, but he was at least willing to listen, and then eventually we were able to teach him how to pray, and we heard him say his first prayer. After the prayer, he said he wanted to know more. He lives in Taichong, so we referred him to the missionaries there.

I was talking with my companions afterwards, and we decided that having a small spiritual experience (no matter whether or not it will actually "count" as a key indicator) really outweighs every rejection we've ever faced. The thing is, it was so simple. In fact, I've had similar experiences throughout my entire mission. But that night it was a different feeling because I recognized it as a miracle. No matter how simple the contact was, we were able to hear someone sincerely speak with God for the first time. Having just one experience of testifying to someone about God, and really helping them to feel that He lives... it makes it all worth it. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything.

I am so grateful to be a missionary. It really does have it's ups and downs, but it's really taught me to never give up. And I don't ever want to leave this area, but I know I need to be okay with where ever I get sent and whoever I'm with because God knows what we need to learn more than we do.

Sister Hendricks