Sister Hendrick's Missionary Blog: The Chinese New Year celebration has commenced!

Giving Yang Ming Fang 紅包 (HongBao: "money wrapped in red as a gift" :) ). We just put a note in it. This is very traditional during Chinese New year to give and accept Hong Bao.

Yang Ming Fang fed us dinner last night! This food was more traditional from China rather than Taiwan. I ate some weird stuff..

I'm so excited. We have members feeding us every day this week for lunch and dinner. The Taiwanese take this holiday very seriously. Most people don't want to meet during this holiday. It's like Christmas but to the extreme and it lasts 7 days and there's fireworks going off all night every night. I love it!

Lunch at MLC with Sister Guan!

Yang Ming Fang is still doing amazing! We taught her the word of wisdom this week. She loves drinking tea, but we kept teaching her and then she committed to follow it before we even invited her, haha. She also loved church yesterday. It was her first very spiritual experience at church. It was fast and testimony meeting and almost our whole Bishopric stood up to share. They all share very sincere and deep testimonies of God and that He lives. She said she loves that at church, she can feel that they are all imperfect people trying to be better in their lives. It was a great experience for her.

Li Chong Wei went to Taipei for Chinese New Year, but we've talked with him on the phone, and yesterday he said he didn't smoke at all!! He said it was mostly because he just didn't have the time to. But it also made him feel very good. He's so awesome!

Traveling to Taipei

So yeah, this week was good. We went up to Taipei again for MLC. We learned a lot about emulating Christ in the work that we do. Specifically in letting the Holy Ghost work through us. It seems so simple, but it makes so much sense. I can become a literal barrier between an investigator and them feeling the Spirit if it isn't able to work through me. Perhaps due to a lack of faith, diligence, obedience, etc. But if I am always emulating Christ in what I do, the Spirit will be able to work through me. It kind of humbled me as I realized that I'm here to represent Christ, but I am so far from emulating His character. As I sat in sacrament meeting yesterday, I thought about how much I need to change to be like Him. A part of me felt a little discouraged, but I was studying in preach my gospel and it promises that we can develop His character because of the Atonement. It's so simple. As I think more about it, it actually gives me more faith that I can actually become more like Him.

Happy New Year!

Sister Hendricks