Wednesday January 29, 2014

Wednesday January 29, 2014

Dear family,

Last week in church (1/19/2014) we set up a meeting with a member, Zhao DX, and his wife. When we talked to them in church, we were focusing on setting up an appointment with them because we didn't know who they were and wanted to get to know another member of our ward better. We thought maybe they were LA's that were coming back. When we talked to him though, he told us that his wife was not a member. We were excited!!  However, going into the lesson we weren't sure what their expectations were. We were hoping to focus on his wife, and start meeting with her as an investigator, but if that wasn't their expectations, we knew it might be a difficult and awkward appointment. But when we met (on exchanges, so it was me with Sister Gruwell, a Sister Training Leader), Zhao DX more or less said that his purpose was to bring his wife to the gospel. We had a good lesson and set a baptismal date. I was amazed!  We made a tiny effort at church to figure out who this member was, and Heavenly Father dropped an amazing and very prepared new investigator into our laps.

We keep meeting with Angel, and she comes to church every week. Last week when we met with her, we followed up on an invite we had given her to spend that week praying about baptism, and setting a new baptismal date. She came back and told us a really cool experience. One night (or perhaps morning), just before she woke up, she had a voice tell her, "You will get baptized." It wasn't frightening or nerve-wracking; it was simply a statement of fact. So cool! And she wore a skirt for the first time to church on Sunday. Which may not sound like a miracle, but it took a lot of coercing on the part of Yang JM (our bishop's wife, who is AWESOME) to get her to come in a skirt, and she complained the whole time (which just kept me laughing). But she is coming along :) slowly, but surely. She reset her baptismal date for 2/28/2014.

The Zhang family DID come to church!! They didn't come until the very end of Sacrament meeting, but they stayed for all the rest of the block. During Sunday School Zhang JM shared the coolest experience with us. She and her husband said prayers together one night (which is something they do every night....yeah!!!).  After her husband and little girl had fallen asleep, she was lying in bed unable to fall asleep. So she decided to do what we had invited her to do. She asked God if all of this stuff was true. Their bedroom has a window, and often the cars driving past will cause the curtain to light up for a few seconds because of the car lights, and then, when the car passes, go back to darkness. After saying her prayer, the curtain, and the room gradually became really light. But then rather than going dark, it stayed bright for a long time, and Zhang JM was filled with a really shufu feeling (which we would probably say a really "good and calm" feeling, although the literal translation is "comfortable"). Then the light got gradually dark again, and she went to sleep. She felt the experience was an answer to her prayer. When we met with them last night, I could feel the difference in her. I could feel her increase in faith, her greater understanding, and her receptiveness. It was an amazing experience.

We finally caught up with Bambi this past week. She is only 16, and because of problems with peike's cancelling last minute, it's been hard meeting with her. We have to have an 18+ year old peike accompany us or else we can't visit her. We finally met on Monday, and it was amazing! She committed to every challenge, including baptism, and committed happily!  Bambi has a good friend from YW, which is, I think, how we got her name.

Saturday night we found out that Monday wouldn't be our P-day because we were going to the temple today.  So Monday we had a day full of empty time . . . it was awesome! By the end of the day we had four new investigators.  Not having P-day on Monday is the best!

This week we start Chinese New Year!! I am SO excited. I expect that we will be seeing tons of miracles. I love you!!

Sister Rachel Caroline Edwards/Du Jiemei

Pictures that Rachel sent with no explanation.  Sister George her companion at Christmas is her companion so they are from sometime last month.