Taiwan Taipei Mission: The week of wind and good weather

This week it was so WINDY. Like I'm talking we are biking and it just blows at you, but the weather wasn't as hot as it usually was so that was a plus.

Let's talk about the awesome things that happened this week:

We have been meeting with the 白家庭 (Bai family) for a while. The mom and past missionaries had told me that the older sister wasn't ready yet and that she would take a while to progress, but Sister Eyring and I were ready to put it to the test. Her mom went out of the room and we got down to the real information. We figured out she wasn't too interested in the gospel because no one had ever really explained to her what it is! She explained how it was more of her sister and mom's thing and that no one ever taught her, so we immediately told her that was our purpose and she was more than willing to listen and so we are really excited for her progression!! (she even came to our ward board game activity which before she was pretty against coming to it!!!)

Joan is also doing amazing!!! I have to tell you the coolest thing about this girl, so she was the girl who had called us up because she wanted to know more about our church and set a baptismal date so fast. She progressed really fast and was willing to keep our commitments, but the biggest problem was she was scared to talk to her mom. In Taiwan you have to be 20 years old in order to be counted as an adult and so since she was 19, she needed a legal guardian or parent to sign it. She was originally going to wait a whole year to be baptized because she was scared to talk to her mom. She lives with her grandma right now and hasn't seen her mom in two years, so we were thinking of ways to help her. We taught her fasting right before she left for the Philippines with her friends and were hoping to ask her to fast when she got back but we never got the chance. After days of no contact and her baptism date coming up fast, Sister Eyring and I were praying and praying that a miracle would happen. She accidentally slept in through our lesson and so my companion and I were a little antsy but then a couple days later she called us and she was like, "I have something to tell you..." At this point my companion and I are like

and then Joan goes: I fasted yesterday and it worked. I talked to my mom again, and it went....really well. She said yes!!!! GUYS SHE IS GOING TO GET BAPTIZED. (We still don't know exactly what date because she wants her mom to come) but she said she really wants to be baptized!!

We also met this really cool girl last week who kept cancelling on us, her name is Chloe and we had met her when we did a Book of Mormon stand and asked her questions on who she thought God was. We gave her a Book of Mormon and set up with her but she wasn't able to meet. This past week I called her again and she set up for the next day in the afternoon. One of my proudest missionary moments was when Joanna (The one who got baptized last week) 陳佳茵 (Sister Chen) helped us teach her lesson!! It made me so proud to see her after getting baptized to testify of the things she knew were true. Anyways, Chloe was talking about how she was really interested in learning more about who God was and she was really wanting to go to church, but she has recently been facing some family health problems and so we are really trying to help her and so we are excited to see how that goes!

We met this mom 張姐妹 (Sister Chang) while back and her biggest struggle was coming to church. We had finished all the lessons but still hadn't come to church and so we were really frustrated on how to help her. We decided we needed to do a "do or die" lesson, in which case we would tell her we had no way to help her progress unless she came to church. At first it seemed like we might have to drop her, but then when we asked her questions about what she was willing to sacrifice to come to church and be baptized and she looked us in the eyes and said "I am willing to sacrifice anything...but my husband won't let me." The Spirit told Sister Eyring and I super strongly that we can't drop this lady. She wants this so badly, she is willing to do everything we ask her (minus church) and more. She has read from the beginning of the Book of Mormon to Mosiah 24 (which coolest thing is, we were planning on sharing that the next time we met with her if we didn't drop her but she read it anyways and was like I really like how God was able to help these people and lift their burdens.) She said she would keep praying for a way to come to church and that if she could go she would go. On Saturday, the Elders had a baptism and she said that she was going to try and come, but the baptism started and she still wasn't there. We were a bit sad, but as we walk into the baptism room area I saw a glimpse of this lady that looked like our investigator and so I excitedly tell my companion and we go look and it is her!! She got to see the baptism ordinance and stay a little afterwards to mingle with the ward and eat!

There are so many miracles but I don't want to bore you all too much!!

Nonspiritual thoughts:

So back to this whole wind thing. So it's already hard enough to bike, but add wind to it and it's a whole other level. It constantly felt like the wind was blowing right against us and I'm like HOW? IS? THIS? POSSIBLE? WHEN? WE? CHANGE? DIRECTIONS? AND? THE? WIND? IS? SOME? HOW? STILL? BLOWING? AGAINST? US? It literally boggles my mind how it could constantly blow against us even when we turned or went a different direction.

My favorite is when people see you sweating cause it's hot and you just biked for 20 minutes and they're like do you need a tissue? You're sweating like crazy and then me and my companion just look at each other like

and in our minds we are like...we just biked in the heat of course we are sweaty have you seen outside.