Another week trundling by, and it brings us to the beginning of the holiday season already. Thanksgiving is only days away. My zone had a lovely thanksgiving meal last p-day in preparation. We and some of the more considerate elders spent most of the morning and day in the kitchen preparing our feast. It was actually pretty legit. We (sister Holm and I) went with the zone leaders to Costco (the home of American foods in Taiwan) two weeks ago to buy food in preparation. It was an amusing bustle of energy as we all bounced around the kitchen in the muddled blunder of children trying to figure out how mom does it. Most directing was done by either Sister Holm or I and the Zone leaders. One of the zone leaders, Elder Harr (the tallest Elder in the mission, he is 6'8") grew up the oldest in a family of 10, so he had some skills, and he was the main organizer. We blundered our way through making roast chicken (turkey was too expensive for our poor missionary wallets) with carrots and onions, home made gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, Costco rolls, corn, Sister Holm and I managed to make some pretty good stuffing from scratch, candied carrots, and to top it all off at the end we had real pumpkin pie! It was a great turn out. The Elders were even all gentlemen and let S. Holm and I get food first.
The week itself passed just as swiftly as it ever does. We had exchanges and a special training meeting this week which helped it to speed by. I got to have a really good experience on Saturday. The day started off not so good. It was dumping both Saturday and Friday. I don't know if you have ever ridden a bike in the pouring rain in a skirt in Taiwan traffic before, but it is not my favorite thing to do in the world. It is really quite miserable actually. We had a full day of lessons all set up and ready to go, and new investigators waiting to be met with. Then every single lesson we had that day, even the regular investigators, either canceled or stood us up. It was kind of miserable, and I was sort of having a really bummer day, but there were a couple of instances that brought the sunshine out in my personal gloom. My companion wanted to go eat pasta, our special happy food here in Taiwan, and I didn't really have the money for it. Expenses are tight this month, and I was very hesitant but she really wanted to go. So we went, and when we were getting ready to leave after some excellent pumpkin pasta (it was so good) she had already paid for me. Then there was a baptism that night but since it was in the neighboring city of Zhubei we couldn't go unless we found an investigator to go with us. Sister Holm was a trooper and called every single investigator and potential in our phone while I was doing paper work. It looked like no one was going to go until that night we suddenly got a call from one of our most luke-warm investigators saying that she could go. So we went.
Now this baptism was important because it was the baptism of someone I personally contacted and started teaching when I was serving in Zhubei. Sister Choi and I were in a park one night contacting and it was a really bad situation because there was a concert going on in the amphitheater in the park and it was really noisy and loud. We rounded a corner around a wall and I saw two girls getting on scooters, and I immediately got the feeling that I should go talk to them, so I did, and pretty much right off the start we got into prayer and they agreed to come to church the next day and start meeting with us. They were sisters, the little sister got too busy to keep meeting, but the older sister Peng Lanxuan got baptized on Saturday night. It was a really really good baptism and she was totally prepared. She was glowing with happiness and I was so very happy to go. She was happy to see me, I wasn't sure if I'd made much of an impression on her but in her testimony after baptism (which was beautiful) she used an example that I had used with her the very first night that I met her. I'd told her that we are all seeking happiness in this life, but the happiness the world could give us was like eating an ice cream cone. You eat it and its delicious, creamy and good, but then its all gone and so is your happiness. I told her that this gospel would give her a happiness that the world couldn't take away. She said that I was right and that she'd indeed found it, and looking at her face you knew that it was true. She was so happy. After the baptism I was reflecting on the experience. Maybe its a more regular thing for a missionary to see the people they personally contact get baptized but I've never had it happen before, due to my transfer by transfer moving trend. But even though I moved this time too, I was so grateful to be able to attend. To think that she made this change in her life that will have eternal consequences because I followed a simple prompting is an awesome and overwhelming thing. She is only 20 years old. She has her whole life ahead of her. Because she talked to me that night she will start a life in the gospel, maybe serve a mission (that would not be out of the question in taiwan really) have a chance to marry a worthy priesthood holder in the temple, raise children in the church, and have them grow up through young mens/womens and maybe serve missions of their own and get married for time and all eternity. This has changed her whole future and brought it to a completely different and eternal track course from that which it would have taken.
I'm grateful that I got the chance to watch that. It was very inspiring. In light of thanksgiving let me just say that there are a lot of things that I have to be thankful for. The more I see in Taiwan with the broken families, the stress and the constant social and economical pressures I realize exactly how very much I am blessed to be from where I am from, in the family that I belong so happily too and privileged with so many things and experiences. I am truly humbled and grateful that my heavenly father has watched over me so closely and given me the opportunity to better appreciate what I have. Take a look around you this week my friends and see everything that you have, from the carpet on your floor to the car that you drive and the people that love you. And be thankful for it dang it. Cause I can tell you from experience, life just ain't the same or as sweet without that carpet.
Have a good week my friends. Next week is my birthday! I will be 23. I'm so old! >.<
Sister Melissa Thiessen
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