BEST WEEK EVER!!!! Wasaiiiii

BEST WEEK EVER!!!! Wasaiiiii. There are about a billion things I'd like to tell you about, so I'll do my best and get started. First, for preparation day we went to Monkey Mountain!!!!!! It's a mountain you can hike with tons of monkeys everywhere. They're not afraid of you, so some of them come up really close. I attached lots o pictures. Sorry for the blurry ones (that's my camera haha, the others are from another sister's camera) We started off by biking to the MRT station, then taking MRT to Xiziwan, then walked to an ice place to eat a HUGE bowl of ice smothered with fruit. It was the best lunch EVER! A cool thing about that place is that you can write on the walls. Sister Xiao is a pro at drawing, especially comics, so she drew us 5 sisters! When I go back to Taiwan, we can go to that ice place again and I'll show you all! And then we can all eat a huge bowl of ice. We then caught a taxi over to the mountain and started our hike. At first there were not many monkeys, but as we hiked higher and higher, we saw more and more. They would come and stare at us, we'd stare at them, and sometimes they'd screetch really loud and freak us out haha. We also saw a tiny tiny baby monkey with its mom!!! It made me want to have a pet monkey, that is, until the dad came and started hawking at us, then I was just content to keep hiking. Hiking reminded me of living in Provo and going up to the mountains all the time. I love being outside!!! After a few hours, we made the trip back home, taxi, MRT, biking and finished out our preparation day. That night we taught English class and had lots of new friends come, so that was fun!

It has been so exciting to watch Wang JM this week! We could not have been luckier! She already knows chinese, which is what I spent a ton of time practicing and working on for lessons when I first got here. We get to focus so much more time on following the spirit and its promptings, teaching according to people's needs, and thinking of loving powerful ways to share our testimony. She was fearless from day one! For example, one day we, as a mission, set a goal to introduce several people to the Book of Mormon and how much it has blessed our lives. As we were riding to eat, I turned back to make sure we were all still together, and I saw Wang JM pulled over with a woman, sharing her testimony and a Book of Mormon. I was so excited!!! Here we are, her 'trainers', but she was the first one to share! After her great example, we all got fired up and saw tons of miracles!!! Several people were curious and willing to start reading the Book of Mormon, even a few families agreed to read it together. There is a power in sharing about the Book of Mormon and all the blessings that it can bring to our lives. It was one of the happiest days on my mission!!! To make this even more special, a few days later we were going to a lesson when we stopped and talked to a woman on the side of the road. She said that she had been given a book by missionaries just like us a few days ago, had started reading it and really liked it! Just two days ago, we talked with some of the people we had given the Book of Mormon to, and a few had started reading! One of them, a 16 year old girl, had read a ton of it, had lots of really great questions and wants to bring her whole family to church! MIRACLES up the wazoo. That night we went over to Huang JM (the woman who hadn't been to church in 2 years but came last week) to help her sand her walls. We were all working when Wang JM started to hum some hymns. We all joined in and had such a great time serving and singing. GEeeeeezzzz I love my life. Huang JM came to church again yesterday and was warmly welcomed by all the sisters :) We are SO HAPPY!

On Friday we had an awesome lesson with Zhang JM! We were able to share more on the plan of salvation with her and how we all can choose to be happy or not. With the hope and peace the gospel brings, we can all face adversity and trials with a brighter perspective. She is really starting to understand how the gospel really relates to her life and how it can help her overcome some ill feelings she has towards her family. She expressed a strong desire to follow Christ and is willing to work towards baptism next month. She is really excited, but will have to overcome some issues, boyfriend fandui & cram school on sunday during church. She is willing to work for it though and we are too! It is incredible how much different she is this time around. I think I've told you before, but we used to meet with her right when I first got to sanmin a few months ago. She wasn't super interested then, and didn't see how any of this could help her. She politely told us she wasn't interested and we said our goodbyes... until a few weeks ago! She met up with one of her Christian friends that she hadn't seen in a really long time and admired how full of confidence and truly happy she was. She called us up and the rest is history. It really helps put into perspective that no effort is wasted, and God has His timing for everyone and everything.

Saturday was focused on FAMILIES!!! Since our message is truly focused on families, our district decided to go to a park together, Dan Jones, and talk to all the families we saw. It was so much fun! Our companionship split up, me with one of our newer members Chen JM, and Xiao JM with Wang JM. The park was huge, the weather was wonderful, and there were so many families there. We went to a bridge overlooking the park and and started to shout our testimonies one by one. It was the neatest feeling as people started to come and listen. At first, Chen JM was too scared to do it, but after some pep talks, we decided to do it together! I started off bearing my testimony about how the gospel blesses families, then looked at Chen JM... She hesitated for a second, but then started sharing a beautiful testimony of how it has affected her own family over the last year. We took turns sharing and inviting all to come and learn more. After a while, we closed and felt exhilarated! Chen JM said she was suprised at how wonderful it felt, even though she was scared. I was so happy that we were able to experience that together and I know it strengthened her own faith! That night we had a missionary fireside, where we shared about how wonderful and important member missionary work is. It went really well! We talked about Elder Holland's talk from last conference about how Christ needs us to feed His sheep. We have a sacred and special calling to go out and help everyone feel God's love for them. Sunday was AMAZING and filled with so many cool miracles. We were able to have 5 friends who haven't been to church in a really long time, come back!!! We also shared with several people how to pray.

This week really was the best! But I am out of time, I love you all so much!!!! More pictures next week!

Love Sister Song