Week 9855724 on island

April 29, 2013

Greetings loved ones! This last week was great! Sister Burrows is still in lots of pain, so we spent a little more time at home, but we're going to the hospital right after this to find out if she'll get surgery or not. I'll let you know! She was feeling especially bad last week one night and our Taiwanese roommate, Sister Chen, wanted to give her a "special head massage" to help. She starts BEATING HER HEAD and hitting it like crazy. Then weirdly massaging it. Then she washed her hair in a special way to get all the bad "qi" out. It was so funny, but sadly just made Sister Burrows have a headache afterwards. Everyone here tries to help her so much...but they have very different ideas of what is helpful and have given her tons of weird concoctions to try and heal her. We'll see how it goes. 

I bought a new camera! Mine BROKE 2 weeks ago, and took lousy pictures anyways, but I went and got a nice little camera that was on sale. It was a pretty good deal and turns out is actually a really great camera! I spent most of preparation day playing with it... haha. 

Great things this week: 

We met with Chen JM and shared with her about family history! She was baptized on Christmas last year, so we are helping her get started. It was cool to show her my own family history. I feel awful I didn't do more with that before my mission, but Imma get started when I get back! She was so cute and is so excited to start. 

We also shared with another Chen JM who was baptized on Christmas about Patriachal blessings. She had heard about them, so we shared about what they were and how much they've blessed our lives. We are helping her prepare to get hers soon as well! 

I tried oyster omelets this week. It was so good!

For english I taught about american birthdays and played all the usual games. My companion even drew a girrafe so they could play "pin the tail" I know its normally a donkey, but we didn't know how to draw one and without google, its really hard to come up with it yourself. So giraffe it was! The kids loved it!

Wang JM had a suprise birthday party for her husband on Friday night! It was so much fun. I hid under the table and got to help make cake! 

We met with Vicky on Saturday and shared with her about prayer and a few scriptures on that. Her and her mom said that it was just the message they needed to hear, so we were happy about that. They also fed us really really good pasta. Right after, the bishop also took us out to all you can eat hot pot... I know exactly why I've gained so much weight on my mission! oh well.

THE SHI FAMILY CAME TO VISIT ME! In my first area, Zhanghua, we worked with the elders to help baptize the Shi family. Jenny and her mom came to see me after church on sunday! It was so happy!!! She is preparing to go to the temple in September, along with Liang Mama. I love those people so much :) 

-We met with Eva one of our english students this week! We meet with her once a week to play the ukulele. We taught her How can I be, and talked about all the cool examples of people in the Book of Mormon. She is so great and turns out has been reading the Book of Mormon for a long time now! We didn't even know she had one. She's so great! 

Weird things this week: 

-Sister Burrows tires got slashed! She's been having to ride an old sister missionary's bike that is way too tiny, but we'll get it fixed this week.

-Thursday She was ULTRA sick and slept all day. I went crazy by myself calling phones all day. I thought up music video ideas for all the EFY songs. It was a really weird day haha but I'm glad she got to rest a little bit

-We met a man named Shupanhour who comes to english now! He's so old and cute. 

-One of our mentally handicapped sisters sang hymns the WHOLE time through sacrament meeting on Sunday. It was interesting. Kinda loudly too

-We went to one of our appointments, but when we got there, a different woman answered the door and said "I am a Tibetan nun. My friend is a buddhist. We are eating lunch. Goodbye" It was all in english too!!! The woman called us a few days later apologizing for her friends behavior, so we'll go back this week. haha

-One of our investigators came out to us. We had a feeling she would though, so we have been praying about it a lot. We felt completely directed by the spirit and were able to have a great discussion. She is so great and will continue to meet with us :) 

Big miracle: Remember the family we met last week? The husband came to church!!! He has been praying all week about a certain question, and then after sacrament told me that his prayer was answered in teh first talk on Sunday. He felt the spirit so strongly and is loving all that we share with him! We hope that his changes will help his wife start having more of a desire as well! 

"Do you want to be happy? Forget yourself and get lost in this great cause. Lend your efforts to helping people... Stand higher, lift those with feeble knees, hold up the arms of those that hang down. Live the gospel of Jesus Christ."

I like that quote :) I love all of you and hope your lives are going wonderfully! I pray for you continually.

Love, Ally