Let me first give you some background, our phones in our mission are old. like the nokia brick, but it is cool because we have this referral system that works for all of taiwan.... and we send and receive referrals.... very convenient..... ok so going through the referral system on the phone here in jilong.... there are so many that haven't been contacted! and so slowly and slowly.... we have been contacting them.....until there was one left.
it was just an address and a name. kinda sounded a little questionable........it was a recent convert's mother, saying that we could go visit her. We asked our bishop to look it up on the smart phone to see where it was.... it wasn't on the map...... come to find out it is about a couple hours away.... still counts as our ward boundary.... but very. very. very. far.
the first logical thing that came into my mind was.... well we can't go there. there is no way. why would we do that? there is no logical explanation....i was going to mark it uncontactable.... and call it good... .but we thought to ask our sister training leaders..... and being great sister training leaders, they got us all the information and the answer they gave us was....... pray about it. and if God says to go, then all we needed to do was call the assistants and we could go.
......
and so we prayed. and pondered. and read..... and then we went to church, and right there at church i felt like i received an answer to my prayer...... a member was talking in relief society about how she had met missionaries through her son when he was young... just one day brought them home... haha, they told her that in a month sister missionaries would come to her door and share with her the gospel, and just a month and a week later. there they were. this member is one of the most committed i have ever seen. she studies her scriptures 2 hours a day and has such a strong testimony and relationship with God. it is amazing to see.
what if our referral was her. what if she was just praying for missionaries to come? i know that while we need to use our reason and logic and brain power. sometimes God doesn't work like that..... His ways are amazing. and understandable sometimes. but through the Holy Ghost we can come to understand them. Through the peace and happiness in our heart. that good feel like when you make a good decision. it is just right. and so i said.... ok. lets do it.
of course, i am not the only one in this companionship.... sister tate was praying and pondering too. that next day we got to discuss it. and we decided that even if we go... and 1. can't find her 2. she isn't home..... or any variation of that story.... then we were meant to go there. for some reason. even if that reason was unknown. there was a reason that referral was sent to us. we must do all we can to contact it. we had to do our part. and let other's agency effect their part.
So, this past Saturday, we scheduled our time out.... we had about a 4 hour block marked out..... 3 in the afternoon to the elder's baptismal service at 7 that night....... we went and got our train tickets.... thats right! train.... tickets.... it was that far. we talked to everyone we could on that train.... waiting for the train.... walking around....everything. making calls, getting in contact with as many people as we could so that our time would be as effective as possible.
well, 3 oclock..... came..... we accidentally missed the train..... so we had to wait till 3:30...... got the train.... met a cute family, a student, an old guy..... went to stops.... and we had to transfer trains..... so we get to the next train... have to wait another 30 minutes until it comes........ but we meet these 2 awesome ladies! they were immediately our new friends. got to share our testimony with them. and invite them to go to the church in their area....... sadly the train came and we didn't get to get their numbers.... but i know the experience left a mark on them.
we get on the next train... going... waiting until the intercom thing says our stop...... we keep listening..... looking out the train at the beautiful taiwan scenery. it was beautiful.
all this time, i feel anxious. i know how far we are going.
but we just keep talking to people, meet them, pray with them, invite them.
finally the stop comes... we get off. and i feel like we have just come to the middle of no where land. the station is tiny! we get out. and there is no city, no taxi, no bus.
we talk to the little mom and pop convenient store across the road.... and they go into the back to use the phone and call us a car...... yup, the person down the road, has a car. haha. and we give him the address and we get in the car. by the way... this guy is so old. kinda scared for my life. but not. because there isn't anyone on the road anyway.
we get to the street and we start asking people from the car....do they know where the house is..... we get to the end of the road.... and the house isn't there. or we can't tell because the houses don't have that number thing... the address plate on the outside of the house..... so there are all these old people just hanging out outside on the corner... we pull over.... and im just like, i need to get out of this car! we start talking to them.... sadly, they don't speak chinese.... just taiwanese... so we have got about 7 old people speaking in taiwanese, looking around all confused..... so sister tate and i start walking around....can't find it. don't know where it is. anything.
sister tate is such a good companion. she just says, we need to say a prayer... and i look at her.... i know. so we sit down. and pray. and i just have this thought... if only we could find some young person with a smart phone. and we look down the road...... there are all these tongxues.....(students) i think they were middle school age.... coming down the road...we just wait for them by the old people.... and they start giggling.... i don't know what it is here.... but they love foreigners... we ask them if they can help us find an address, and all these smart phones come out of their pockets.... and they help us find it. we walk straight to it... and look who is standing out on the porch... sister wu!!
of course, we got a picture with the tongxues..... a selfie. they were so impressed (:(: haha!
.jpg)
and we say, hello sister wu. we have come to find you and talk with you. haha, she looked so surprised! she goes back into the house... and starts sweeping....
i could not feel the spirit more than as we sat in that house and testified to her. i felt so obedient following preach my gospel. we got to know her. and started the first lesson. first principle. God is our loving Heavenly Father. We promised blessings, shared testimony, she said her concerns, and we were understanding.she said how hard working she has been because 20 years ago her husband died in a car accident, we sang for her, families can be together forever, and I am a child of God.
i felt like all we were saying to her was completely foreign. it was. and it was hard for her to accept... she pointed at the giant altar behind her. she said, "i can't be christian. "
we thought to ask about her daughter.... as she has recently joined the church..... apparently that is also a tender situation. their relationship isn't good. we testified that the greatest gift is the gospel that her daughter wanted to share with her..... sister wu just got more upset to the point where she whipped out her phone, and called the daughter right up.... i spoke to her. i said, hello, i am sister wang...... and we are here visiting your mother. she said, "that is amazing" and sounded completely shocked, i said, please share your testimony with your mother. she said, i will tell you and you can tell her. as the daughter bore simple testimony of everything we had just taught her mom, and as i relayed the message to her mom, you could see the hardened hearts, and the hurt, I know for certain at that moment sister wu was asking herself. if this was true. why we were doing there, if God really existed. If Christ was her savior, if she would be with her husband again. It was a time I know there was some inner questions, thoughts, ideas, from her upbringing and religion, with something that didn't match with what we bore testimony of.
i just can't even. the moments were so intense. i was on the brink of tears. as i looked back and saw a hurting family relationship, but also completely calm and peaceful that whatever happened was meant to happen.
by the end sister wu prayed with us, we gave her a book of mormon and she was inviting us to come back and visit her, that there was a lot of places to go play in the area. she thanked us for our love and kindness and support. but i could see this visit was a start to something that is much deeper than we could ever understand.
i think that at least it was the start to a chain effect that will help their family, sister wu, her daughter and will lead them to repair damages through Jesus Christ.
I know that Jesus Christ is God's son. I know that He loves us, and died for us. Because of Him we can overcome death. We can heal family relationships.
We finished up our lesson, invited her to come to church if she was going to Jilong any time soon. and called our car guy. At this point it was about 7:30 at night, we went around and talked to neighbors until he came..... we jumped in the car and went. realizing we had not even eated dinner......
he drove us to the station, and all we had time to do was buy our ticket and wait for the train that came at 8, we sat and talk to the only other person waiting for a train......... we had a good time. that experience was amazing.....
.jpg)
we got on the train and started off....
we met so many people, and right at the end before we pulled into the jilong station we met a family, who recently moved to jilong, and said they would be interested. we got there number and walked as fast as we could home!
stopped really fast at the ok mart... a convenient store, and grabbed some random food. walked home, and walked into the door right at 9:30. saved.
and there it is.
and that is the story.
life goes on. God loves us.
I am so happy to be in Taiwan. I am so happy for my life. I am so happy for the gospel. I am so happy for my companion, for my experiences. For being safe. For my testimony.
I encourage all of you to talk with God, have experiences with Him. You will see His hand in your life.
LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(:
Sister Walker :)
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment