Sister Cecily Roberts: Week 64 - Happy New Year & Sister Yee

Hello beautiful friends and family,

My dreams were shattered the other day.....haha not really. But new years eve, they had the fireworks off of 101 and I just decided that it's my dream to see the 101 fireworks on new years eve. And because I'm an obedient missionary, I didn't see them...or hear them. Oh well. Some other time ba.

The area is doing incredible right now. My heart not so much haha. Sister Tinsley left me to go do amazing things. She's training again and opening a new area in XinZhu. She's a killer missionary. Me, I'm still here in YongHe with a cute new companion. She's from Hawaii and her name is Sister Yee. She's super smart and super cool. She goes to Stanford and is also super fit and I love her. I really did get attatched to Sister Tinsley and she's super excited to be off and doing great things and I'm just still here missing her haha. Oh well. Love her and really excited for this new transfer.

Just in these past couple days, I've seen how hard working Sister Yee is and I'm so grateful. I have so much to learn from her. She's been on island for about 9 months. But she visa waited for one transfer. We aren't actually sure how old she is on the mission. Like she's not sure either haha. Oh well.

This last week we saw some great miracles. Sunday, we realized that we still needed 3 pei ke's (and we only had 1 lesson set up), we needed 1 new investigator, and 1 baptismal date. Well we showed our faith and set those goals. Which the possibility of it happening (in realistic eyes) was pretty slim. But guess what happened? The elders set up someone for us after church and we got a pei ke, new investigator, and baptismal date. She's soooo golden. Her name is Dai JM. And then we had another pei ke after church (which we had 4 people at church) The standard of excellence is 3. Yay :) And then we had a member set up her friend after the fireside so we got another pei ke. WHAT?? How incredible is that????? SOOOOOOOO awesome. And I mean it's just one of those small things that's like "Well you can't say it's coincidence" you know? God is so great.

We also met with this incredible girl, Liao JM. She's so so golden too. We found her on the streets during exchanges. And when we prayed for her on the street she was like "I'm so moved" and then she met with us and she said a closing prayer and she cried. Because she was so gan dong (Moved) and then we met with her again this week and she came to Yo's nephew's baptism afterwards and she cried when singing "I am a Child of God." She's sooooo awesome. She completely understands repentance and I feel like she' going to get baptized so fast! I love her!!!!!

This work is real. I don't know what else to say other than I'm so so grateful that God has blessed us with so many incredible people. We went to MLC on Friday and it was so awesome. I really felt this sense of urgency to do the work. We watched some trainings from President Oaks to the mission presidents, and it was incredible. I felt how important this work was. And it was kinda cool, they talked about the culture of our mission, what it was, what we hoped it would be and President Oaks said something about how "You mission president's and wives, think you own the culture of your mission, but you don't . Your zone leaders and sister trainers do." Then President went on to explain how we are the one's that set the example, and help the other missionaries to have the faith, skills and necessary things to baptize. We want the culture of our mission to be one of faith, focus, energy, and skills. We want our mission to be obedient, be a PMG mission, and we want our mission to TEACH REPENTANCE AND BAPTIZE CONVERTS. I've learned a lot about repentance recently and I feel like that's what I've been trying to focus on more. I've been hearing a lot of members share their testimony and the theme is the same. I feel like the members who are the most converted are the ones who sincerely repent. I hope that all made sense.

I know this work is real, I know that God is guiding our lives. And I know that as we repent and change, that we will come closer to God. We will feel His presence in our lives. As we are humble, and have faith in Him, He can work miracles through us. I love you all so much.

Love,

Sister Roberts