Power Week, Sister Xu, Sister Li, Steve

Guess what? I'm English leader again!  The English unit in Tainan has a ton of potential.
I'm excited to see what can happen with it during these next few weeks.

22 February 2016
Tainan

Fun week! 

Power Week
There's a tradition in our mission:  every year, the week after Chinese New Year, we have a "Power Week". We have tons of crazy challenges to get the missionary work going again after a big slump during the holidays. Our studies and meal times were cut in half this week, so tons and tons of time outside trying to find people. Each day had a different focus, such as a certain number of families to talk to, things to testify about, Book of Mormons to hand out, new investigators, etc. And crazy high goals that we were trying to hit. It was fun to be able to talk to so many people each day--way more than we would normally have time to talk to in one day. We met some really cool people who I'm excited to start working with! 

This week I really touched by a few members.

Sister Xu

The first, Sister Xu. She's frankly just a little bit out there, but boy, she is an awesome missionary. She's the type of person who gets really close to your face when she's talking to you and will grab your arm and tell you everything you're supposed to do. But she's a wonderful example to me of someone who wants everyone to have the gospel and knows that every member is a missionary, the same as us, even though she doesn't wear a tag. 

So we scheduled a time to go proselyting with her and told her she could take the lead. We biked with her to what was sort of like a mini library, a place that rented out cartoon books. She just walked in and started talking to the worker at the front desk, then the boss got nervous and came out so she started talking to the boss. And she never gave up! She talked for probably 40 minutes about God and called these people to repentance! 

By the end, they said they'd be willing to meet with us and gave us their number. I was touched by her willingness to help us and by her burning desire for these people to have the gospel and how determined she was to help them realize why our message was so important and to help them understand why they need it.

Sister Li

Sister Li signed up to take us to lunch last week but at the last minute had to reschedule. So we met her at Pizza Hut on Wednesday. As we sat down with her, she said she had to make a phone call. She called her friend up-- actually her middle school English teacher--and told her to come to lunch with us right away to meet some of her friends. She was able to talk her into it, and her friend joined us 10 minutes later. Sister Li guided the conversation and told us what she wanted to share about with her friend. 

I was so impressed that Sister Li would trust missionaries with one of her oldest friends and that she viewed our lunch as an opportunity for her to share the gospel. Most of us would never even think of doing something like that, and would just feed the missionaries. But it was the perfect way to meet her friend and we were more than happy to get the referral :) 

Fun lunch with 3 of our recent converts.  Neat to see them help each other.
So happy Anika is finally back. She was out of town for a few weeks for New year and we missed her!

Steve

Our Ward Mission Leader, Steve, got released yesterday. Steve has taught me what it means to magnify a calling. You think you know until you meet Steve. He's always watching out for us and does all he can to make our job easier. He knows everything about everyone in the ward and is involved in each investigator that we tell him about. He's made thorough maps for each part of our area and is frequently in touch with us. 

He's a great example to me of someone who has made a huge difference. He hasn't just done his calling because he had to, but someone who became passionate about every detail of this work and someone we can always rely on. 

Excited for the next brother we get to work with, but I'll forever be grateful for Steve and all the countless hours and effort he's spent helping us do missionary work.

And I'm grateful for all of your service too, I assume you're doing great things in your callings and having wonderful missionary opportunities as well. Next time you invite the missionaries over, try inviting a friend to come along too! 

Love,

Sister Hancock