Okay, so for the first time I am actually going to be starting this letter FIRST THING so that I can get everything in! The problem is that I won't have long because the branch wants to take us up to go ice-skating (it is a really crazy thing to do here since it doesn't snow and the only ice they have seen is in the Freezer) So they are all super excited and want to go up early. I will try to fit everything in with what little time I have!
So this week really was incredible! We saw a lot of miracles, a lot of disappointments, followed by more miracles, with a few CRAZY things in between! Doesn't that just get you excited to read what is below this .
Alright folks, lets dive into the week of Elders Gish and Anderson!
We start things off pretty normal on P-day, nothing too special. At night we met with one of my favorite (actually by far the favorite) member down here, Allie Cai. She is a SUPER strong member and is always doing anything she can to push the work forward. For example, this Sunday she was little skipping between 4 different seats in Church (Little kids she had to keep quite, our new member, a less active that came, and these two SUPER shy girls). Long story short, she is a sooooper baller. We talked to her about eternal families and the importance of the temple stuff! It was pretty sweet. After we played this game called 三國殺 (Sahn Guo Sha) It is EXACTLY like Bang, but all in Chinese (so obviously I am super good....haha) But it was funny because Allie and I convinced Elder Anderson that Sherry (another player) was his enemy and so he killed her! Then he found out she was his partner and got sooo sad hahaha. It was a funny moment.
But here we go with some crazy:
So we got home and found out that our Elders Quorum President had gotten hurt. So we called him to see what was up and he said that he had broken a few ribs and was in the ICU. At first Elder Anderson and I were like"....okay buddy....come on, a few ribs? And you are in the ICU? Roll up your shirt man. Ribs will heal, you don't need to be in the ICU" (Of course we don't say this over the phone. But we decided to go visit him and share a spiritual message and stuff. So we get there thinking that we can go visit anytime. But we get there and this lady tells us that we can't visit unless it is during the approved hours. Then she asks, wait....are you going to visit Mr.方(fang). and we say yes, then her eyes get a little wide and say, okay, okay come on in. So we go in and see him. First off his wife says, "oh thank goodness you came! I am going to take a small break, see you again in an hour!" Yeah...it was a looooong hour haha. So first off we see him and it doesn't look so bad except for all these crazy tubes going in and out of him and the fact that his right hand looks like an elephants leg! It was wild! So obviously we asked him what happened and he tells us that we had been taking these pills and that it made him faint while going on a walk through this tall building and because of it he fell out of a window SIX STORIES UP! he fell onto a 1 story tin roof and then fell to the ground. He wrecked his wrist and some fingers, cracked a ton of ribs, one of which lacerated a lung, and cracked his head and it started bleeding inside. We were like...WHAT THE HECK! THAT IS WAY MORE THAN A FEW RIBS! Moral of the story don't jump to call someone a wuss before you know the whole story haha. After that though we left and his wife came up to us and asked us some questions. Then she asked if he knew what REALLY happened. We said what we knew and she said....no....Then related to us the true story, which I am sorry to say I probably cannot write about over here...you will have to ask me when I get home....lets just say....A Beautiful Mind...
So that was an interesting day.
Wednesday we hop on Facebook to do our thang. I look in my inbox and see the message that I have been waiting for since I started being a facebook missionary! It was a Lady named Ruby, I have never met her, never talked to her, nothing. Shortly stated the message said, "Hi, I know you don't know me and I wish I had told you earlier but here is why I am writing this to you. I was going through a hard time and was looking for comfort, I was on facebook one day and saw a friend liked something you posted, read it, got really interested and read all your posts. That lead me to your blog and to the mission blog. Because of it I started meeting with missionaries and got baptized!" I was like...AHHH!!!! I was not a big fan of Facebook....then BAM! I get that and I am ALL FOR IT! It was a HUGE miracle! ONE MORE face book miracle. I was teaching this girl a LONG time ago in 小港 named Caroline. Well..I found her on facebook, started chatting for a bit and found out she was still interested but the missionaries awhile ago had dropped her. I re-referred her to the proper missionaries....they just called me yesterday and said that Caroline has agreed to get baptized and wanted me to come down to preform it! I was SUPER honored. So hopefully I can send pics of that soon. We never know who is watching or what they are looking for...we need to constantly be that light of Christ that shines so bright that it draws others in! Just like my little brother Gage! I remember so clearly that when he smiled or laughed, so did everyone else! He was and is a true example of shining the light of Christ! We can all 'make the difference, be the difference.' :)
THURSDAY comes around the corner. A member calls us and tells us that a super old grandma that we had talked to once before (that is his neighbor) just passed away cause she had a stroke. He asked us to go visit the family. So we head over thinking that we are going to stop by and say hello and just pay our respects and stuff with the member there, since we don't know much about Taiwanese culture when it comes to funerals and such. But...that wasn't the case. We got there and he wasn't there so we call him and he says, "no no no, you just go, I can't make it. You just go and teach them a lesson. It will be okay." "Did you tell them we were coming over?" "No." "ummm...." "I gotta go, goodluck" hahaha. So we rolled up our sleeves and strutted into that blue tent (where they do the funeral proceedings.) Introduced ourselves and said that we knew her from a long time ago and wanted to come pay our respects and such. So what do they do? Grab to big incense sticks and give them to us and have us do these weird bow up and down things while holding the sticks and one of the people there say a prayer in Taiwanese....which I didn't understand. The whole time in my heart I am praying SUPER hard to God just saying, sorry if this is wrong, we just want to help this family, please soften their hearts! FINALLY it is over and we walk over to the family. They invite us to sit down and we have a pretty cool lesson with them because they started asking us questions! The Lord totally heard my prayers! It was super awesome but totally crazy that we 拜拜'd!!! (Bai bai).
On Friday...it was a pretty normal day actually....yeah...boring...I know...just full of normal missionary stuff! I am super grateful for my companion! I wrote about companions on facebook. I don't know if you all have a chance to get on and check it out, but if you do...I would love your support on Facebook! :)
Saturday....I went to hell and back! Literally! The day was super great and fun and everything until about 6 at night. We finally got to stop for Dinner. We got to this Noodle shop and ordered this meal that the shop called Hell Noodles. We thought, heck we are missionaries, hell doesn't stand a chance! So we started putting down these CRAZY hot noodle! I felt like I had a hole in my throat...it was wild! But with about 3 more bites and a good bit of soup to still drink I feel SUPER full. Then Elder Anderson finishes his and starts calling me a girl for not finishing mine...I am NOT havin' that haha. So I put it all down like a man!...but soon I feel a little sick so I am like, hey man lets get out of here! So we start walking to our bikes and I walk right past our bikes and say, "whhoaa I need to go for a small walk man." This walks leads me into an ally, and ally that has a drain, that is now FILLED with my vomit haha. It was pretty violent crazy vomit too! NOT GOOD! My eyes like blew up too! My head and everything hurt so bad! I felt bad contacting people after cause I looked like a vampire or something with bloodshot eyes and those huge black/red rings around my eyes from all the bursted blood vessels! hahaha...my eyes are still in a good bit of pain and there are still small rings around them. (It was pretty embarrassing going to church like that haha).
Then Sunday no one shows up to church and we were SUPER disappointed! And we go around contacting and what not and again...SUPER nothing haha. But we got to go down to see these Dragon Boat Races with Allie and her less active son. It was really neat and we got to get in with the son so that was finally good! And at night, when we seemed to have nothing going for us we wrote a fast note, got on our bikes, and biked about an hour out to an investigators house! We gave him the note and prayed with him and then had to leave because of our curfew. But in his prayer he talked about how loved he felt and how he wanted to change! #LeadMeGuideMe
I love this area and this ward so much! I hope that everyone this week can go out and talk to the missionaries! Member or not, just talk to them. It will make them feel good and I KNOW you will feel good after :).
Love you all!
SHINE BRIGHT!!!
Pics are of, after puking experience, a dragon boat, my comp and I after spending some time on a roof at night during a small typhoon/lightning storm (SUPER COOL TO WATCH!) (The pants wet like that cause I had them rolled up).
-
Ge Sheng Long ZhangLao
葛勝龍長老
