All because of a prayer- April 27, 2014

So not a lot of time to email this week because we are taking an epic PDay trip down to Taroko Gorge. But here are a few thoughts/updates I have for the week: 
  
1. CONGRATS TO STEPHEN AND TIFFANY!!!!!!!!!!!!! BABY BECKHAM IS ADORABLE! 
  
2. WE HAD A BAPTISM!!!!!!!!!! Sweet Xing Rou got baptized and confirmed this weekend. Tons of folks showed up and it was AWESOME. She is a miracle. We met her on the street like 3 weeks ago. She said in her baptismal testimony: "It is a miracle that these sisters found me. Especially at a time when my heart has been so low because my mom just died." Our jaws dropped. Xing Rou never told us that her mom died. Wow, all because of a prayer, the gospel changed her life. 

Xing Rou got baptized!  

3. We found a family that is going to get baptized on Mother's Day! It is soooo awesome. Their dad is so faithful! He is going to make a wonderful priesthood holder. 
  
4. Shout out to Kate Lepp...I am touched that you thought of me during the MI missionaries' prayer. I testify that whatever you felt during that prayer was the love of God. I invite you yourself to pray everyday to continue to feel that love. You can change peoples' lives with prayer including your own :) 
  

I FOUND THIS GIRL IN JILONG ON MY 3RD TRANSFER. SHE FINALLY GOT BAPTIZED YEAAAAAHHH!!!!!

5. I love this mission with all of my heart. We have a lot of folks were working with this week. Man, this work is rough. But I never want to leave. 

P.s. everyone please please please pray for Li Shi Hao. He is going down to smoking 1 cigarette this week and next week he's going down to 0. HE IS SO CLOSE TO BAPTISM. Please pray for him!!!!! 
  
I LOVE YOU ALL 
sorry for the short email 
Sister Tracy 

Easter- April 20, 2014

Cool things: 
  
~Xuan Yu and Yu Mama (my Recent converts from JiLong) totally took a road trip down to Hualien to visit me! They surprised me! It was sooo awesome! They showed up at a ward party we were having and brought me all this guava and my favorite candies and pictures and cards and stuff. It was so awesome. I felt real bad that I couldn't really hang out with them but they came to Church with me and they are both really strong in the Gospel. They are doing super well. Xuan Yu is going to go through the temple soon. I am hoping she will let me go with her. That would be so cool :) 
  

My RCs from JiLong  came and visited! 

~Xing Rou is getting baptized this week!!!! This Tuesday is her interview and Saturday is her baptism! She is doing so well. That girl is a prepared soul.
  

~We set up a lot of May baptismal dates with some awesome people. :)
 
~Our new investigator's dad sells mochi and they give us free mochi every time we come over (God knows me).
  

Xie Jia ting..and LA family we are reactivating!

~OH SUPER COOL THING: Elder Wilson from the Quorum of the 70 ( a general authority in our Church) came down to Hualien with his wife. They are doing a mission tour. We had this really awesome training about the power of the Book of Mormon, They really want us to focus on getting investigators, RCs, LAs, like..everyone reading the Book of Mormon more. It's an important tool for conversion. I've been learning more and more about that every day. It's true. I look back at all of the people I have helped bring to  the step of baptism...all of them were reading the Book of Mormon daily and had a testimony about it. SOOOO that's our big focus. Their training was really inspiring.
 
~ALSO SUPER COOL. Elder Wilson wanted to interview 5 missionaries based off of random inspiration and guess who was chosen....me + 4 others. It was a really cool interview. I showed Elder Wilson all of my family photos and he was really interested in our story (I shared about Ryan and Michelle and everyone) He asked me what he could do to help me. I didn't expect him to ask that. I thought for a second and I said, "I want to be wise. I want to know the scriptures better so I can help people with their problems like King Solomon." He gave me a bunch of cool tips for making a scripture memory bank and retaining scriptures. He challenged me to memorize a scripture a day and keep a list somewhere. He said he was going to do it too. So that was neat. 

Sophies baptism! 

 
This next week will be really eventful. We got Pday today (we might go hiking up to a cave so I'm stokeddddd) then tomorrow and Wednesday we have exchanges. Thursday and Friday we'll be in Taipei for a trainer follow-up meeting. And thennnnn Saturday we have a baptism!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and then Sunday I am going to celebrate Easter because by then I'll have my package and I can eat chocolate (there's not a lot of focus on Easter in Taiwan, unfortunately). YAYYYYYY HAPPY EASTER! 

We found a banana tree while contacting!

ALSO I AM SO STOKED FOR MY BABY NEPHEW TO BE BORN!!! SHOUT OUT TO STEPHEN AND TIFF. MAIL ME PICS IMMEDIATELY
 
Love,
Sister Tracy

lotsastuff- April 14, 2014

Nimen hao! 
  
This week was bomb. 
  
A few updates about people we love: 
  
~Our 13 year old investigator Xing Rou is gonna get baptized next week! We found her on the streets like 2 weeks ago and she is seriously so ready! Her dad really likes us missionaries and I'm trying to get him hooked up with the elders. He really likes to smoke and drink... man man lai...but he gave Xing Rou permission to get baptized! They both came to conference! and he reads the Book of Mormon! Xing Rou was a little sad when we taught her Word of Wisdom because milk tea is her favorite drink. But she's got it :) 
  
~We also have an awesome investigator named Wayne. He is a referral from English class and he came to conference. I asked him "Do you believe what they are saying is true" "Yeah" "Do you believe that they are called of God?" He paused for awhile then looked at me and said, "I believe." He will hopefully get baptized in the next next week! 
  
~Also met these miracle girls named Anne and Laura. They already have such a strong testimony in the Book of Mormon. They read it everyday. Their barrier right now is work; they cannot come on Sundays to church. But we are praying extra hard for them and as their faith grows they will figure it out. 
  

~Baptism this week! Super amazing girl named Sophie! I AM SO STOKED. I love this girl to pieces. Such a humble heart and solid testimony in Jesus Christ. Her baptism is scheduled for after English class so everyone is going to go over and watch right after. Yayayay :)
 
Funny things:
 
~We met a man that was barbecuing possums. They still had their fur, and when we asked him if he was going to skin them, he just said "no" and then he pulled out a blowtorch and started burning it off.
 
~Walked into a mochi store to buy a treat (mochi is this famous hualien dessert) and the lady loved us so much that she gave us 3 bags full of mochi. That's like 100s and 100s of kuai!!!!! And she is going to come to English class this week! Super duper tender mercy from the Lord.
 
~An old man that we contacted really wanted to give me a hug. I didn't know how to communicate that it's a rule that I cannot hug men for a year and a half so basically it resulted in me being chased by him down the street. I literally ran away from a hug...weird feeling. 

Does anyone know what this fruit is?????

Cool things:
 
~Temple sisters came down from Taipei to go on an exchange with us. I got to go on an exchange with my trainer!!!!!!! SISTER BARDEN! It was so cool! Last time I ever did mish work with her was way back when I could barely speak to people. I was the one leading out now and idk, it was wonderful. We invited a family to baptism and got free food. It was so cool. I love love love Sister Barden. Eternal friends for sure.
  

It was so good to see these friends again!

Me and Sister Barden!

Spiritual stuff:
 
~Conference was awesome. I got to watch it in English thank goodness. I think my favorite talk was Elder Uchtdorf's talk on gratitude. Not being grateful FOR things but rather being grateful IN things. I like that perspective. Probably because it reminds me a lot of Viktor Frankel's ideas of being happy no matter what situation you are in. I am going to focus a lot of my studies on gratitude in the coming week. I invite everyone to read that talk when it comes out.  I also like Elder Scott's talk. And Elder Holland is always a boss...
 
I am falling more and more in love with this work every day. I love these people so much. Don't make me leave in a few months. 

On Top of our Building looking down at the town

I Love this place!

Love you all
Sister Tracy 

There really is a God - April 7, 2014

Hey Hey Hey 
  
How goes it? 
  
P.s. I got that awesome surprise package from the MI young women this week. THANK YOU! such an awesome surprise :) 
  
Wow what a stellar week! Here's what I have to report... 
  
Deng Kai Sheng is a rockstar! We met with him last week to talk about the priesthood (since were trying to build up a stake we gotta get him on that). So we planned out this lesson and were gonna invite him to meet with our Branch president and read certain scriptures about the priesthood and everything. We met with him and he already had the Aaronic priesthood! He was like, "The night after I got baptized I went over to President's house for an interview" oh and he already read all of the exact scriptures we were gonna ask him to read. What a man! Also he's been helping out a lot of the other missionaries by pei ke-ing (being the member present) and apparently he is like the best peike ever. Watch out everyone--Kai Sheng is going to be the next prophet! 
  
Sister Williams and I had a lot of contacting time this past weekend. We picked a road the night before and prayed really hard that we would be able to find people. Well we found 4 new investigators!!! All willing to set a date! 

-A man named Yang Di Xiong...at first he completely shut us down. He was like "There is no God" We told him about the Book of Mormon and how he can know who God is though reading it. He took the Book of Mormon in his hand and was like, "really?" it took me back for a sec. I was like, "uhh, yeah." Then he said, "Hm..I will try it." It was awesome! 

-The other was this young girl named Wu Xing Rong. Shes about 14 years-old and she is adorable. We had a lesson with her at her doorstep. Her mom pulled up on a scooter and [to us] said, "Don't waste your time on her. She's too young and doesn't understand what you are saying." Xing Rong started to cry and we shared a scripture about how "even a child can understand" and how God wants us to humble ourselves "like children." She was really touched by those words. I have a lot of faith in her. The mission is really teaching me a lot of what kind of parent I want to be. I do not want to be the parent who says my child cannot understand God. 

-We ran into a father and his daughter on the way to play basketball. We invited them to church and yesterday--THEY CAME! :) So excited! Turns out the daughter's classmate is in our ward. Super cool. And her dad loves our church too. He wants her to keep going to church with us. He told us yesterday, "I want her to go because I want her to be like you two." I told him, "I think you mean you want her to be like Christ." He was like, "Hmm, yeah I guess so." You guessed right my friend. 
  

Lastly, I would like the share a special experience I had this last week. Probably the most tender experience I have had on my mission so far. We were biking to an appointment on Friday night. It was one of those nights where I was the classic exhausted, wet missionary. Not in the mood to talk to anyone but knew I needed to. We were at a stop light and I saw this small, 40 yr old lady next to me. I put on smile and said, "Hello" She looked at me and nodded and half smiled. I said "How is your day going?" Expecting her to say what EVERYONE SAYS "Not bad" or "Good." She looked at me for a few seconds in silence then said "Actually, today is bad." She started crying and I was like..whoooooosh! suddenly my problems did not mater whatsoever and it felt like the only thing that mattered was this woman. Sis. Williams and I pulled over and talk to her. She said that her older sister had to get emergency surgery that night and that she was terrified. I offered to say a prayer for her and her sister. Afterward I pulled out a pamphlet and pointed to a picture of Christ and told her "His Gospel will fix everything." She took the pamphlet and said, "I want to meet with you girls. I feel like I need this." So cool. There really is a God. 

Sister Williams and I shopping 

I ate some stinky Tofu!  It was awful!

This is where we live!  So pretty!

Awesome week. More awesomeness to come right? RIGHT! I love you all 
  
Sister Tracy