Smaller Numbers

29 weeks left of the clock, and week by week the number gets smaller.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm watching the numbers and I will be happy return to my family and to my life. But I am learning a lot here in Zhubei. Its going to be a challenging transfer of growth, I can tell. I am doing a lot of praying for strength these days.

I'm making a focused effort on talking to our investigators and the members here. By that I mean being out going and friendly. Its my natural instinctive reaction to be the quiet one and let my companion really small talk or chat it up with our investigators or the members. But its a habit that I am trying to break, and its trying to break me right back. Its a really draining change, but I'm giving it my best. Its working, much God given blessings to my own failings. I teach a great portion of the lessons here in this area, and because my companion is a timid type person I am trying to be the friendly one that helps the investigators feel welcomed and loved. It takes a lot of effort. But I think that it will help me a lot in the long run.

My companion Sister Choi is from Korea. She is a very very white personality on the surface but has very sudden red uprisings. We've butted heads a lot this week and I really have had to go very outside my own personality and be the peace maker. Which is also probably good fore me in the long run. It is a relationship with effort, and I hope that this transfer goes smoothly. Its gonna be an interesting ride.

I had a good experience following the spirit last night. We always hear stories as missionaries about other missionaries who were tr-acting or contacting and the followed the spirit and found an amazingly prepared person or had a miracle. Well I decided to try that last night. As we were riding our bikes to an area to go tract I saw a road and had a feeling. At the next stop light I told Sister Choi and we turned around. We headed down the road and then said a prayer for more specific guidance. We both felt like we should go straight. I saw a specific house up ahead and I said we should knock on that door. So we parked our bikes, said another prayer and then knocked. A woman opened the door to the balcony on the second floor then hollered at someone to answer the door. It was an older man, and I thought he was probably going to reject us right off the bat as older people usually do because of the Buddhist tradition. But he said h was christian, and then he was willing to listen to us for 10 minutes. We talked about the blessings of the gospel on families, and about the book of Mormon and briefly about the restoration. We had no idea where we were going, we were just following the spirit. He listened with an almost closed but polite expression on his face, but when we talked about families I thought I saw a flicker of something. He didn't welcome us inside with waving arms or anything, but he was willing to give us his phone number. It was an interesting and unusual experience. I'm not sure I've had one quite like it before on this mission. I don't know if he will accept the gospel from us, but I'm sure he was the reason we were lead down that road.

Anyway, that's my report for the week. I hope that you all are well, in good health and remembering to read your BOM and pray every day. I love you!

Sister Melissa Thiessen
Taiwan Taipei Mission
F4, No.24, Lane 183, Shin Hua St.
106-42 Taipei, TAIWAN

melissa.thiessen@myldsmail.net