Wo qinai de jiating he pengyou....zao aaaaaan!!!!!!!!!

I have many stories to tell you, and I'm going to try to be fast cause we want to get out of here to go meet up with some other sisters to go to a magical place called monkey mountain....Sister Cai, a fabulous lady who we have been visiting lately who reminds me of Grandma Helen and Val Sperrer all rolled into one fabulous Taiwanese lady, might come with us too. She is a hoot. The other week we bumped into her on the road and she was riding her brand new electric bicycle which does not require any pedaling!!

So there's one story I started telling you like 3 weeks ago but keep forgetting to finish. It was in my list of top 10 when I was talking about dogs I think...a while ago we were teaching an invesitgator named Sister Qiu. We found her when we were calling through our dead stack (we have a huge box of contacting cards in our apartment...you give them to people and they fill out their information and then you call them because they supposedly have interest...so she probably met the missionaries once years ago and totally forgot about us) and we met her for the first time when she agreed to come to church one Sunday.

Sundays are always a little crazy because we are so anxious about the well being of our investigators and just frantically trying to explain everything to them, introduce them to members, get them to class, and help them have an uplifting experience. Sister Qiu showed up late and called during the sacramente (don't worry our phone was on silent!), so I ran out afterwards and tried to give her directions to the church (yikes). She finally got there, and at this point I was so panicked and stressed that I was not thinking very clearly...at all. Seriously, my brain went into a mode of hyper hysteria, and so I beg you not to judge me for what happened next, because no harm was done. In Sister Qiu's arms was clasped a funny little white dog. I looked at the dog and then I looked at her and she said "Is it going to be a problem if I bring him in?" I told her it would be better if she just left him outside. I said, “Won't he be ok for 2 hours?” She laughed and shook her head, then wiggled right past me into the church.

Before I knew it, the 3 of us were headed upstairs to the chapel. I was trying to explain the organization of our church meetings and she just kept telling me how pretty I was and how white my skin is.....she was not listening to me at all, and I didn't know what to do. The dog was in the purse at this point...and there were only about 20 minutes left of sacrament meeting. In my extremely deranged state of mind I thought "It's probably fine if the dog comes in, no one will even notice." So I swung the doors open and in we went,
down we sat, and out came the dog onto Sister Qiu's lap. Instead of reacting like a normal person and saying something like "Could you please stuff that thing back into your purse?" I frantically flipped through the hymn book so Sister Qiu could start singing and hopefully feel the spirit.

All the little kids started to notice this dog, and out of the corner of my eye I could see my companion looking over. I guess another sister made a really loud comment like "OH my GOSH someone brought a DOG in here" and so my companion, being wise and level-headed, came over and said the simplest sentence I could not seem to come up with "Bu hao yisi, yinggai bu xing" (sorry, this isn't really ok), and just like that we were back on our way out. I sat with Sister Qiu for a while outside the chapel talking to her and trying to figure out her background and tell her a little about the church, but she was just admiring me....it was all rather funny and later we tried to meet with her again (this time sans the dog) but she just kept being like "Are we almost done?" and then when she left, I went in to give her a hug but she wasn't ready and instead awkwardly patted my face, but her palm really just slid down my cheek. We haven't seen her since.

Lately I've been thinking about whether or not Heavenly Father and Jesus are pleased with the work I've been doing. I've been on my mission for over 5 months, and I keep thinking about how I've never wanted more to succeed and fulfill what is expected of me. I got several answers to prayer. One came from a quote in Preach My Gospel that says "You can feel certain that the Lord is pleased when you feel the Spirit working through you." I saw this happen in so many ways this week, but I'll just mention two.

Sometimes my companion and I play this game called red light green light. Basically it means one person sits at the corner at a 7-11 or something and calls phones (deadstack, investigators, less actives, etc) trying to set up appointments, and the other person just goes around the intersection talking to people. Every time the light changes you cross the street and talk to the people who are waiting at another red light. I was talking to a lot of people, and I was having very little success...people drive away from you, ignore you completely, sometimes you accidentally start contacting an active member of the church (that happened this week! haha. It's hard to recognize people cause they have huge helmets on and sometimes wear a mask over their nose and mouth...I even have a hard time sometimes telling if people are girls or boys!)

I finally said a prayer, desperately pleading with Heavenly Father to help me know what to say and to be able to communicate clearly. As I was biking to the next light, I saw a woman who was smoking and chewing bin lang at the same time (quick side note: bin lang is this weird plant that people chew and then they spit out red stuff in the street. It smells awful and apparently it actually cuts the inside of your mouth a little bit so some of the red stuff you spit out is your own blood) and I decided I would go talk to her. I didn't know what the game plan was, but as I scooted my bicycle up next to her, a question popped into my mind. I smiled at her and said hello. Then I said, "Qing wen, ni
shibushi kuaile?" (I want to ask you a question, are you happy?) The woman looked at me with tired eyes and told me no, she wasn't very happy at all. I started talking to her and learned she was divorced and had 2 adult children. I told her about Heavenly Father and how much He loves her and knows her perfectly. He wants to bless her and guide her and give her great happiness in this life. She was really interested and wrote down her information but then I was devastated to find out she doesn't live in our area!!! NOOOOOOO~~!!!!!!!!1 I told her I'd refer her to the sister missionaries in her area, and before she left, she said "You'll tell them to call me, right?" It was so cool.

When I told my companion, I almost started crying because I was so grateful Heavenly Father answered my prayer and that I was able to find Sister Chen, my sister who is wandering and looking for happiness. I might not ever know how her story ends in this life, but I'm grateful our paths could cross and that I could receive a witness of so many truths: the Spirit will tell us what to say when we are earnestly seeking to help bless and lift others, you cannot judge by the outward appearance: "in the quiet heart is hidden sorrows that the eye can't see,” and this gospel is for EVERYONE.

Another really cool experience I had this week happened when we went to visit Sister Xie, a less active member in our ward. In our past lessons with her, it has been really challenging for me and my companion to connect to her and help her be interested in the message we are trying to share. She always seems extremely bored and like she can't wait for us to leave. Earlier that morning, I had been desperately trying to think of something to do to shake it up, like some kind of awesome object lesson, but I couldn't come up with anything. Right before we left, I called another member in our ward who lives in the same building as Sister Xie and asked her to come with us. Then I grabbed this random treat out of our cupboard and put it in my pocket (one of my skirts has pockets. it's the greatest thing ever) thinking that I could somehow use it as an object lesson.

We talked to Sister Xie about a talk Elder Bednar gave in October 2010 General Conference about actively receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. I accidentally dropped the treat on the ground as we were sitting there, then, very embarrassed, I folded it up in my skirt and tried to pay attention while simultaneously thinking of a way to integrate the sweet, deep fried noodle cluster with raisins into the lesson. Sister Lu, the member we had called very last minute, suddenly made the perfect comment that could help me seguey (segway. that's what I'm trying to spell. Go with it) into an object lesson. I whipped the treat out very excitedly, not thinking at all beforehand what I would say, so what I said was frightfully ineloquent. BUT the food caught Sister Xie's attention. Thankfully Sister Lu is amazing and served a mission before, so she explained it beautifully: "Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost is kind of like the example Sister Ke (me) just made. It's like she handed you this treat and told you how delicious it was and how it would make you so happy, and then she gave it to you, but you never ate it..." and so on. Sister Xie was more involved than she ever has been, and I felt like my heart was on fire, and like I wanted to run all around because the flow of the Spirit and unity among
all of us was so tangible!! I don't know if we'll see any major changes in Sister Xie, but as we were leaving, we saw that she and Sister Lu (who is old enough to be her mom) were strolling around the courtyard of the apartment complex together. It was a beautiful sight :)

During one of my personal study sessions this week, I read Mormon 8....I have so much respect for Moroni. The circumstances in which he finds himself are pretty dire to say the least. He is alone, his father has been killed and he has no friends or family left. He does not know if the Lamanites will find him and kill him, but he has COMPLETE trust in the Lord's timing and plan for him. Moroni is so humble in that he has totally submitted to Heavenly Father's instructions to him....
"how long the Lord will suffer that I may live I know not."
"I [...] do finish the record of my father, [...] which things I have been commanded by my father."

He doesn't know the entire plan, but he knows enough. He knows what he has been called to do, that God will help him do it, and that at the end of it all (no matter how it ends on earth), if he is truly following Christ and faithfully striving to do what has been asked, he will find rest and be received by his caring Heavenly Father and loving Savior.

....This is what I want my perspective to be as a missionary. No matter where I go, no matter what happens, I choose God. I'll do all I can to do what He has asked of me because He has suffered me to come to this little island in the sea for a wise purpose in Him....to help my brothers and sisters understand and see how to find peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come!!! It is glorious to be a missionary :) I'm happy everyday even when I'm tired and it's hard and hot and things don't always go the way I think they will.

Love you all.
Sister Coco Mack
Ke JieMei

Happy Halloween!