11/17/14 ~ And They Fed Her...And Fed Her...And Fed Her.....

1). Plans for your P-Day?  I think you ought to sort out your stuff and get rid of anything that looks old and ragged and the go out and shop for things you want to bring home. 

  No p-day today.... This Friday is a "move day" since we got new missionaries coming in.  So they took away our p=day.  We are sad. And tired. And out of food... so pretty much we only had one p-day for two weeks....

2). Are the investigators still going strong?  Are they progressing toward their individual baptism goals?

So, we are down to only three goals now, since we dropped two of them.  But I am really feeling like we'll at least have one baptism coming up in the next couple of weeks.  It's Liu JM, she is AWESOME!!!!

3). Anyone feed you this week?  You know, it doesn't sound like Nantun is a great place for yummy food since I have heard much about yummy stuff that you have eaten. 

We got fed sooo much last week.  I don't know why everyone just decided to take us missionaries out last week but I gained like 2-3 lbs... grrrrr.... Normally we struggle just getting 2 or 3 member visits, but this week we had 5, and all of them invited us over, we didn't even have the chance to ask around to see who we could visit.

4). What is your greatest area of growth while you have been in Nantun?  What is the reason The Lord had President BliAnkenstaff place you there?

I just feel like this is the place I needed to be, especially for my Companion.  I love her so much!  I think I have tried my best to make her a stronger missionary.  I may not have been able to trained, but she says that she learned more from me than she did from her trainer.

5). What should We include in our prayers for you beside for the progression of your investigators?

That's about it.  We are doing good... Oh, pray that my next companion and I will have a great relationship as well....

Dearest Mum, Regan and Loved Ones,

Well, I've reached the scary moment when I realize I only have a month left here...  For some reason, the transition from going to 5 weeks left to 4 weeks left seems so big... Probably because everyone keeps telling me that I only have 4 weeks left... I received my envelope of things that I need to prepare and do before I leave... And then, the rest of these four weeks all have big activities and changes that is going to make the time go by even faster...

So, I counted, and this move call is going to have 4 move days.  The first one was on the first Monday of the move call, where only a hand full of people moved or went home.  The second is coming up this Friday, because tomorrow, a group of 18 missionaries will be getting on island and we all need to switch around to make room for them.  And then the week after on Wednesday we are expecting another group of 18 missionaries to come on island so there will probably be another move day so those missionaries will have places to go.  And then, a week before the move call ends, on Dec 15 (Mon) there will have to be another move day, since that's when my group leaves.  This is the most messed up transfer that I've encountered in my mission as of yet.

Anyways, so this week, Sister Thao will be leaving to go somewhere else... they haven't told us where yet.  We are so sad.  We don't want her to leave.  I wanted her to "kill" me (be my last companion as I end my mission.).  There are so many things we wanted to do with each other, but didn't have the chance.  And now, since today isn't p-day for us we don't even get to have a last fun day together...  Here is another lesson of never waiting to do things... just do them when you have the chance!  Anyways, every companionship in our district will be changing, since we will all have missionaries moving.

So last week was interesting.  We kept being "qinged" out by members who wanted us to eat with them.  We first ate with Wang JM, who is amazing! I absolutely love her, but she is going to China for a bit, so I am going to miss her.  She took us out because it was her birthday.  Cuz that makes sense, we should have been the ones "qing-ing" her out... ah well.. We did get her yummy chocolates. :)  But then she gave us this Essential Oil from Doterra (everyone here uses that brand, which was actually created by a member from our church and is based in SLC).  The oil is supposed to keep us from getting sick.  But I just like it because it smells like Christmas.  It's cinnamon based.  So yummy smelling!  And then we also met with Lin JM who pretty much shared her spiritual thought with us, and gave us very yummy red bean soup.  And then we met with Cai JM who wanted to go and eat Vietnamese food with her, and then she got really excited about the options that she ordered WAY too much food...  She's a ward missionary, and she is so awesome.  Then a You JM was having a bad day... so she did what made sense to her and invited us sisters to go and eat with her.  She loves the missionaries, and honestly, she is a lifesaver for us! She is a great pei ke and she often times can give us rides to stake activities (such as conference and such).  And then, last, but not least, Chen Family invited us over for dinner on Sunday.  They all made sooooo much food! And kept making us eat more! It was like a Chinese thanksgiving, since while we were eating, us missionaries gave a spiritual thought on gratitude and everyone shared what they were grateful for.  So yes, the members here do love us.  They are just busy.  I don't know what happened this week, but hopefully we'll be able to have more chances to meet with members next week.  We just need to tell them they don't have to feed us... we are getting fat... :P

Oh! And then I forgot that we got fed by this investigator named Xu Bao Zhen.  She's a funny lady.  Not to be confused with the other Xu that has a baptismal date.  We don't know why she keeps wanting to come over.  She doesn't really listen to what we have to share with her... Or so we thought... She just gives us tea (flower tea or fruit tea) and makes us eat food... a lot of food...  She also wants us to help her translate for the people that she randomly finds on the internet and strikes up conversations with.... she's lonely... Anyways, we asked her what religion she considers herself having, and she's like, well, I'm Mormon of course, like you!  And we just laughed, because she doesn't really know anything about the church.  Then the conversation turned to the matter of Tea, since she sells tea and other health things, and I asked her what kind of tea she has been drinking.  And she replied that she has been only drinking flower and fruit tea, because she knows that our church doesn't drink tea leaf tea or coffee.  So apparently, out of everything we've had the chance to share with her despite her rambling, she has learned the Word of Wisdom, and decided to start keeping it.  So cute! We were thinking about dropping her... but maybe we'll give her another chance..... Not really sure, she kind of confuses us...

We also met with Wei JM, another investigator who is pretty much golden.  Just busy... Sigh... She progresses, but she can only meet once every two weeks.  She is studying public health and sanitation laws, and has pretty much shut everything fun out of her life until her test which is next month.  But every time we teach the gospel to her, she just gets it, and she is keeping commitments except for church, which we are trying to work on... her mom just gets mad at her every time she comes or is about to come...

What else happened this week... hmm... Oh, it's cooler and it has started raining....  So winter is finally here!

We've met some cool people on the roads lately, so hopefully something will come of that...

We also had stake conference!  They talked about tithing and true conversion.  It was kind of hard to keep up with everything everyone was saying, but I did enjoy a few talks given by a few youth about tithing.  There was also a story shared about a woman who told her bishop that not only does she pay her tithing, but so does her nonmember husband.  The bishop asked her how was it possible that her husband would be willing to pay, seeing as he doesn't have to.  She replied that when he was sleeping she would help him pay it by taking money from his pockets.  She said that she was helping him receive the blessings from tithing....  Not sure that it works that way, but it was a funny story.  They had a member from the 70 there.  I don't know his name in English...  He was Taiwanese though.

Well, that's about it I think.  Sister Thao and I are planning on making this the best week ever, since it's our last.  So sad...  But I know that she'll do great wherever she goes.

I love you all, hope you have a good week!  Until next time!

Love, Sister Nicholle Peng