Sister Cecily Roberts: Week 37: Expect Success!

Hello!

So holy smokes this week 1:went super fast. 2: I just learned a lot.

I don't even know where to start...

Monday: we went up to Gui Shan and went on a little hike. Then came home and went to chuan the jiao. :) Do missionary work. Didn't have any special experiences but this old man in a white beeter flexed for us haha. I told him he was awesome and he flexed silly silly haha.

Tuesday: So... our house flooded. Haha just kidding. But our porch flooded and they still haven't moved us out of this apartment.. I'll send pictures. Basically...no actually I don't even know what to say. We heard weird noises all morning and I went to go grab water or something and I see water splashing from somewhere and am like.....SISTER DEWITT COME HERE. She goes "Is it a bug?" Cause she kills the bugs and I clean them up. I say NO JUST COME HERE. And we find the flooded porch and run downstairs, and call the bu. It eventually stopped and nothing got in the house but it was a good 6 inches of water, up to about my ankle....

Then we went to a funeral. Kind of interesting. Nothing special or weird because it was an LDS funeral but I'm just so grateful for the gospel. Then later I had the best burger I have ever had. It was just a tiny little place. This guy only sells like 20 patties a day but it is the best burger I have ever had in my entire life. It's called the Mexican burger and holy smokes... but the best thing is that he gave me the recipe. So if anyone ever wants the best burger ever come to my house. :) Sometime next year haha.

Wednesday: We had zone conference with President and Sister Jergensen!!! So awesome! I learned three main things and they have basically changed my mission. 1: Pride. pride is the gateway sin and everyone has pride because pride is the comparison sin. I don't know how to explain all that I learned but just go watch the talk by President Uchtdorf about pride. 2: Negative thinking. One of the new senior couple missionaries is a mental counselor and he talked about positive thinking and it was just exactly what I needed. 3: Doctrine is the most important thing we can teach our investigators but analogies, scriptures, and personal experiences are all things we need to use to enhance our teaching and make the doctrine more clear. This is something I've known but for the first time it clicked, and I was able to apply those things in my teaching and it was just awesome. I'm so grateful for President and everything he does. I love that man so so much. I know he's called of God. Oh another funny story, this happened on Thursday, but we get a call from President on Thursday and he's like "How's Jeremy doing" (one of our investigators) and we are like "good? we haven't gotten to meet with him this week, so yea." And president then says that he was thinking about him and shared a scripture with us to share with him. WHAT? President was thinking about OUR investigator? Woah. Sweet. That's basically all I have to say. haha

I got two packages!!! One from my family and the other from the Weddles!!!! Thank you so so so much! I'm not opening them though until my birthday haha...cause I wanna have something to look forward to for my birthday. I realized mission birthdays are kinda weird... just like non eventful haha.

Thursday: We met with this really funny investigator of ours that was a miracle. We were riding to a place, and this guy starts riding next to me on his motor scooter and starts talking to me. We were out in the rice fields so we stop and talk to him. Hou lai he sets up and we met with him twice this week and he came to church. But he's an interesting guy. Wang DX. He's really confused by our Chinese and has every word of wisdom problem basically. But he has great questions and just is great. I wish I could explain him better but just know that's he's funny :) Oh and Guo Mama and Baba have helped us with him. They're already good friends. If I haven't explain who Guo Mama and Baba are, just know that they are the most amazing people you will ever meet. They are so dedicated to missionary work and haven't even been baptized a year. But they are going to the temple in August!!!!!!!!! YAYAYAYAYAY!!!!! I love them so much. Like I can't explain how much I love them.

Friday Saturday and Sunday. Miracle days. We met with this investigator Peng DX who is an eternal investiator and he's kinda hard to work with. He's willing to do things but only when they are convenient. He's so awesome though and I Just wanna help him so bad, but it's hard when he isn't willing you know?

We also had a lot of lessons cancel on us this week. 6 lessons to be exact. But mei guan xi. This work still moves forward. I had a cool experience on Saturday. We were finding, and talking to this girl, and she wasn't really interested, but I pulled out one of our tracts that leads to the Because of Him video on the church website. We watched it with her, and hou lai she completely changed and set up with us and became a new investigator!!! :D So sweet. I also had another cool experience the other day. One of our (half) investigators in one of our lessons was like "I don't know if prayer has helped me" SIster DeWitt and I both look at each other and we're like "How do we address this" Well we sit in silence for a second and I thought to share a personal experience. I just shared about how when I moved back to WI it was hard. I prayed but didn't really feel God's help. But then I met my best friend Kayleigh, and that because I met her I knew that God was watching out for me and that He cared. I learned to rely on God and trust in Him. I don't think that the experience really helped the investigator Lin JM but it helped me to realize how personal experiences can work. So yea good things happened haha.

This week was a lot better in terms of numbers and President shared some things about how you can't be 100% focused on numbers and you can't be 100% focused on just loving the people. You have to find a higher middle, and I think that's what I did this week. We worked really hard to get the numbers but of course focused on loving the people and teaching to their needs and it was just really great. I learned a lot and am so grateful for this gospel and for President and for God. I know He is leading this work.

Have a great week!!!!

Love,

Sister Luo