Sister Sinclaire Hancock: Exchanges, spoiled by how much people appreciate missionaries, flower pot, miracle: this is God's work, Elder & Sister Wong

Exchanges

16 November 2015
Jiayi

Good week!

Exchanges Went on 2 exchanges [where we swap teaching companions for a day] which were super fun.

Reunited on exchanges with Sister Proffit from my MTC district!

Spoiled by how much people appreciate missionaries
Went to a fancy Thai restaurant with a member in our ward who is a pediatrician and it was the best food I've eaten my whole mission! The red curry was to die for! And they even took us out to Coldstone's after wards too :)

Treated to a fancy Thai restaurant by a member in our ward

Best food I've eaten my whole mission! The red curry was to die for!

It's awesome how spoiled we are and seeing how much people appreciate missionaries here. Especially because most people are converts here, they really love missionaries.

Flower pot
Another member took us out to an all you can eat pizza place on Friday which was pretty dangerous.

Funny story! We had an hour slot, so we ate tons and tons of food because she told us to keep eating. Taiwan loves dessert pizzas, they have all sorts: mochi, fruit, peanut butter, cinnamon and apples, marshmallows, etc. They had 2 really yummy dessert pizzas, one with pumpkin and oreo on top, and another with apple and taro.

Taro is probably my favorite thing about Taiwan. I love it to death! So naturally, I kept getting back and going for more and more pieces. Eventually I got to piece number 8 and realized I had practically eaten the entire pizza. And we had eaten tons of other stuff besides that too.

Somehow my stomach was okay, but my companion was having a hard time. She just laid out on the bench and rested for a few minutes before we finally decided to try and bike home. It was the slowest we had ever biked because we had never tried biking so full before!

But we were cruising along very slowly when I went to make the last turn before the street our apartment is on, and when I checked behind me, I couldn't see my companion. So I pulled over and stopped when finally she comes into view and I ask her what happened and she said she accidentally went over a bump in the road and that it was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back. After hitting that bump, her stomach couldn't handle it, so she stopped biking and threw up into the nearest thing she could find, which was a flower pot 4 feet in front of her bike. I just about died when she told me that!

The Family Home Evening group -- every Monday

Miracle: this is God's work

I wanted to share one quick miracle from this week's exchanges :)

I was at lunch with Sister Porter and we randomly got talking about how tiny decisions affect the course of our entire life.... It's fun to think about and we both kind of sat there in awe for a second just thinking about how interesting life is.

After that we went to a park to contact, still conversing about this a little bit as we walked around contacting different people. There's been a big mosquito problem lately so people are still pretty paranoid and avoid the parks, so there weren't a ton of people to talk to. We contacted all the possible options and started walking to our bikes to go somewhere else when we saw 2 people who weren't Taiwanese. We're always curious when we see other foreigners in Taiwan and want to know what they're doing here, so we sort of laughed to each other and asked "Should we go ask them why they're in Taiwan?" and we decided to go for it.

Our recent convert, Lu JieMei

Turns out they are from Morocco but both live here and have lived here for 10 years and are even married, but we had a great conversation with them and then walked to our bikes to leave again.

But as we were walking back, we saw a lady sitting with 2 dogs who hadn't been there 5 minutes ago. We decided to try her before we left, and we ended up talking with her for an hour! She was really nice and she was hilarious, we were all cracking up and she loved hearing our message. She's willing to keep learning and she's coming to the chapel on Tuesday!

It was awesome to see how when we were being obedient and trying to follow the Spirit that we were able to have success. It was especially cool to see how small decisions actually turn into big ones because we had just been talking about that. If we hadn't decided to talk to those 2 guys, we would have never met her and would have been contacting in a different spot and would have missed each other.

This is God's work!

Elder and Sister Wong

Here are some photos from our special training by Elder and Sister Wong of the Quorum of Seventy that I wrote about last week. They were visiting from Hong Kong where they serve in the Asia Area Presidency. Do you remember him speaking in Cantonese at the October 2014 General Conference? He talked about Jesus healing the man with palsy to teach about "Rescue in Unity":

"In order to assist the Savior, we have to work together in unity and in harmony. Everyone, every position, and every calling is important....

We can all help one another. We should always be anxiously engaged in seeking to rescue those in need....

I testify that Jesus Christ is a God of miracles. Jesus Christ loves us all and has the power to save and heal, both physically and spiritually. When we assist Him in His mission of saving souls, we too will be rescued in the process."

November 5, 2015 Jiayi Zone Conference training led by Elder and Sister Wong:
: goal to help establish stake in Jiayi

Jiayi Zone Conference lunch

Elder and Sister Wong Mission Tour in Jiayi: November 5, 2015
Leadership meeting with zone leaders, district leaders and sister training leaders prior to conference

Hope everyone has a great week :)

Love,
Sister Hancock

P.S. More photos to catch up on