October 18, 2010 - Miracles

Hello My Beautiful Family,

Wow, what a day. Today we went hiking in the mountains with my District and some members jia ming and wei ru. It was really fun but now I am really tired. At the top it was super pretty. A lot of fog though kind of hard to see in the pic. Sorry, I hope you are sound asleep and not up waiting for me. If you are tell me how much you love me! lol. I have a good letter for the blog!

Let me paint a miracle.

Last Friday during our weekly planning session we were tidying up a few things in the office. We went through our area book which looked a little dismal, because we're in a new area. For some reason we started organizing all the Liahona's into piles, and lo and behold we find a stack of old records that had been there for who knows how long. So we spent the rest of the day calling through them all, and we ended up adding about 7 week C's, which looks amazing on the numbers. I'm sure there are many more miracles to come from that little find but I want to focus on one specifically. Her name is dong. We rode out to meet with her on Saturday morning. During the meeting we found out her whole history, and taught her faith out of Ether 12. Basically, around 4 years ago she was progressing in the gospel really well, she even passed a baptismal interview! But before her baptism her parents died, and she lost a lot of faith, and has been depressed ever since. I asked her where her faith was now and she said it was less and less. Anyway, the discussion went alright, but she didn't commit to church or anything so I wasn't too excited about it. But then the next day, Sunday, she came to church. She told us that she felt like riding her bike so she rode about 20 minutes or so just to come to church. Keep in mind that she is a 50 year old lady, with severe depression, who rarely sleeps, riding twenty minutes in the hot sun to come to church, miracle. She agreed with us the day before that if she could feel the spirit again like how she had before, that she would get baptized. We said the way to do that is to come to church. But it gets deeper. 4 years ago she became really good friends with a member at church. This member, sun jie mei, went less active, and hadn't been to church in 4 years. I had never met her until yesterday. But by some coincidence dong's best friend sun, who hadn't been to church in YEARS, came back to church on the same day she did just by a feeling that she NEEDED to come to church. they were so excited to see each other, almost not believing that it happened the way that it did, and they set up a dinner appointment with us for that night at 7 at sun's house. So the time comes and we ride over to her house with the Branch President. We conversed while eating dinner, and then put in the finding faith in Christ video. Everyone was still talking for a minute or two but all of a sudden (actually as Jesus calmed the seas) everyone was completely focused on the movie, including the 19 year old son who's a little huai. It was amazing with complete silence for 30 minutes. After wards the spirit was so strong in the room, the movie ended and we kept it silent for about a minute not saying anything. Then my companion and I broke out testifying. We testified of Christ, using the scriptures and through the power of the spirit, we had the whole room in tears. Sun Jie mei broke out, and through her tears said that she had been a bad mother, and hadn't raised her kids in the church as she should have, and that she'd been a bad wife. She wanted to repent, she had the "mighty change of heart". I’ve never seen a person in so much torment. We testified that she could change. She agree to come to church, read and pray as a family, before we even finished EXTENDING the commitment. After wards I couldn't believe what had happened. dong jie mei said that she felt it, and wanted to get baptized. Why are we so blessed with such good investigators. Why have I seen so many miracles here? I can't help but lose a tear or two just in writing this. I can't explain this in words.

As an update our Filipinos are getting their priesthood interviews tonight. Jimmy, JR, and Nido brought a bunch of their friends to church yesterday. 9 in total. Things are coming a long great. Jimmy gave an outstanding talk on Sunday about his baptism, and about his conversion, and it made me cry. He spoke with the power of the spirit and did a great job. I translated for him and several members came up to me afterwards telling me about how moved they were by his talk. Jimmy is either at work, or reading his scriptures. He sometimes calls me and asks me where a verse is in the bible or book of Mormon. He’s amazing. I thought he couldn't be beat. Until Aladdin opens his mouth to talk in a lesson yesterday. Jimmy asked if the commandments could be found in the book of Mormon, and as I was about to say Mosiah 13, Aladdin beat me to the punch. I was shocked. Aladdin has come to church off and on (twice now for sacrament), but he always has an earphone in, and never says much. But now he is unfolding the scriptures to his friends, and he's not even BAPTIZED! Amazing. Jimmy wants to share the gospel these days with everyone. He's called his parents and told them to go to church, and he always helps us teach his friends. I'm getting him a tagalog preach my gospel to study.

Also, our investigator Chen jing yan, didn't come to church. But he brought all the members a good vegetarian lunch which was delicious!

Love, Elder Christensen