It's one of those moments that I don't know where to start. This week has been a really spiritual one.
I called my family last Christmas eve. It didn't seem like it would be my last Christmas phone call until they've expressed their excitement on the month of April. I was happy listening to my family members, seeing how much I missed their voices. But I did not break down until I heard my youngest brother's voice asking me if I will be going home in April of 2015. Oh, how I miss that kid.
But I guess the very highlight of my email, and the thought of it just makes my heart swell, is that the Sunday after Christmas - this past Sunday - was one of those moments that I really took note of the lyrics of the sacrament hymn "As Now We Take the Sacrament." This past Christmas week, I have been contemplating really hard on how I can pick back up, to focus and concentrate, to really change and improve. Christmas day, the mission had a wonderful Christmas program focused on the Savior Jesus Christ. Each group of Sisters (60 of us in total) sang songs and invited the Spirit. We received Christmas gifts from the mission and from stakes around Utah (Lindon Stake being one of them), but the best gift that I have received was last Sunday.
Going back to listening to the lyrics of the hymn, a couple of lines stood out to me the most and my testimony about the Savior and His Atonement grew as I have been struggling to forgive myself in some aspects of missionary work. I have thought of how imperfect I am, that I felt I have not progressed ever since coming out from outbound. These lines of the sacrament hymn told me otherwise:
"...For courage to accept thy will, to listen and obey.
We love thee, Lord; our hearts are full. We'll walk thy chosen way.
As now our minds review the past, we know we must repent.
The way to thee is righteousness, the way thy life was spent.
Forgiveness is a gift from thee, we seek with pure intent.
With hands now pledged to do thy work, we take the sacrament."
It really had a huge impact on my day and I had decided that I always want to have that Spirit, that I longed for that Spirit. In fact, after sacrament meeting, I played the "He is the Gift" video and it had such a huge impact that the lines "The First Gift of Christmas... was a gift of love, and life, and peace, and hope given by a Father to all of His children." His Life definitely was the Greatest and Infinite gift that all mankind could ever receive. I am still imperfect, but that does not mean I will give up. I will still seek to improve and to make use of His grace. Dugong Pinay, palaban at hindi sumusuko.
Missionary work - We found two new investigators and they seem pretty prepared. Sister Lau and I have quite been successful and we are hoping and praying that these two friends of ours will progress. One of them is a foreign exchange student from 中國大陸 － 北京 (Beijing, China) whose name is 王心雨 (Vicky). She's a really sweet girl and she learned how to pray because of her host family who are members of the church. How we met her was when we were having a 中文會議 (Mandarin Meeting) and they needed Mandarin Sisters to go up the Square and teach the gospel. I told my companion to go because I can't teach the gospel in Chinese... yet. We taught her a few principles from the first lesson yesterday and she's just amazing! :) Another one is Linda Lush from Nevada. We met her as a referral from mormon.org chat and her sister Donna gave her information. She asked a lot of good questions last night when we called her and we basically followed-up on what the local missionaries shared with her. She's amazing and she said that everything that we shared with her made sense and that she believes about prophets and will be reading the Book of Mormon this week. She said that she will also be going to church. Yeay for Miracles!
Well, those are the updates for today...
新年快樂！
