Sister McKenna Tracy: Let your light so shine... September 8, 2014

This last week was interesting because a lot of bad things happened but a lot of good things came out of it...

1. So we were anticipating 34 new missionaries to come in but because VISA problems are super annoying they won’t be coming for a few weeks or even a few months...yikes. So transfer meeting has been postponed...But on the plus side this means I get one more week with my bendi (my native companion)! We are going to party!

2. Sister Zhao admitted to drinking coffee after she passed her interview...NOOOOOOOOOOOO but its actually okay. She’s going to get baptized this weekend and we spent this entire past week going over every single commandment ESPECIALLY the Word of Wisdom. As she's been living the commandments and been getting more clear explanations from us and the members she's been seeing lots of blessings. Her family situation has been better, her health is better, she's overall a lot happier. God wanted her to wait another week.

3. Samantha's lessons were really tightly taught together but in the end she passed her baptismal interview!!! She and Sister Zhao are going to get baptized together next week. :)

When we face trials we need to KNOW that everything is going to be okay in the end.We need more eternal perspective.We also need to know that “The Lord is involved in the details of the details of the details of our lives.” Elder Sam C.H. Wong (Asia Area Presidency)

I made a goal with God this week that I would nonstop talk to everyone around me. I told Him that if I did this I would hope to find a really prepared person who would be ready to be baptized next month. At first it was REALLY HARD. I would get tired really easily and I’d find my Chinese suffering because I was tired plus we were biking up and down hills a lot and it was over 100 degrees. I’d get a few numbers and maybe a few lessons here and there but no one was really "interested."

These are the hills we bike on!

As we were biking to visit an LA (and we were biking fast because we were really late), we pulled up to a stoplight and I glanced at this man in his 50s next to me. I didn't want to say anything. I wanted to just keep going. But i remembered that promise I made and I felt I needed to “woman up” and just say something. So I turned to him and said “hi.” I told him who I was--Sister Tracy, a missionary. I told him my purpose--To invite others to come unto Christ. I bore quick testimony--This gospel has forever changed my life. Then I noticed the stoplight was about to change so I quickly invited him to pull over and let us talk to him for 1 minute. To my complete surprise he said, "Okay." We pulled over and 1 minute turned into 2 minutes which turned into 15. We ended up having a lesson and setting up an appointment. We met with him the next night at a 7/11. His name is Mr. Lee and he is a really smart guy who went to Oxford and got his masters in English. He is very humble and listened to everything we had to say. I asked him, "Why were you willing to pull over to listen to sweaty, young girls on bikes talk about Jesus?" He said, "Because I felt your light." I told him that light wasn’t from us, it was from God. I asked, "Do you want that light too?" He said, "More than anything in the world." He ended up setting a date for 10/11.

My companion and I together contacted 250 people on the street last week...1 was ready. I like to think of contacting as a treasure hunt. You search and you search and then you find the gold! And boy is it the best feeling ever.

GOD PREPARES PEOPLE FOR US!