Sister McKenna Tracy: 7 miracles- March 17, 2014

Nimen to the hao da jia!

This last week was a week full of miracles!

1. We have this 27 year old male investigator named Deng Kai Sheng. He is a walking miracle. He just showed up at the chapel one day and told us God led him to us cuz he needs to make a change in his life. We were like, "Alright, yeah!" So we've been meeting with him a few times every week and he goes to every activity and is super cool! Right now he's in the process of overcoming smoking. He went from smoking 5 sticks to 1 stick in one week!!! We are working so hard with this guy. We even made these colorful fake cigars with gum and scriptures inside. He says praying every day, reading scriptures every day and going to church activities help him not smoke or have that uncomfortable feeling when he doesn't smoke. What a guy! His baptism is this Saturday so we need everyone to pray for him cuz he's gotta go this whole week without smoking. He can do ittttttt!

2. Li Shi Hao is a man who is divorced and he wants to be baptized so bad so that he can be sealed to his family. He also has a smoking problem. His kids have already been baptized. He's been through 6 sets of missionaries. Yesterday we read Mosiah 5 together and told him, YOU CAN DO THIS. We all set a baptism date and a baptism interview date. He's gonna do it! Everyone pray for him too! He needs to go completely off by the 22nd. His date is the 29th.

3. We had stake conference this weekend and the whole east coast gathered in our chapel. Which means we had 10 sisters sleeping in our apartment over the weekend. IT WAS A PARTY. What an awesome bunch of people I will never forget. They made some big changes down here in Hualien. They are getting ready to split the stake and our branch into 3 branches. So we have a new set of people to look after. It really impacted our area. Its like we are opening a new area almost. Lots of work to be done.

A view from our apartment of Hualien.

4. We got to go to a primary activity with our RCs and it was great! We played the game Ooga Booga and the Ninja game. The kids thought it was the funnest thing in the world. They didn't even wanna stop to eat cookies. Sis Johansen and I know how to bring the party.

5. We also went to a YSA activity with Kai Sheng and watched 17 miracles. Best part...it was in English. It was a nice tender mercy to sit back and listen to English for awhile.
6. I've started learning how to read characters. I was able to read a whole page from the Book of Mormon the other day and understand it! Wooooo! this language is the best!

7. This last week Sis Johansen and I went contacting and we saw a man sitting in an alley cutting up a piece of wood with a saw. We went over and invited him to baptism and he was like, "you are brainwashed" and was making fun of us and bashing us and stuff. We took a moment of silence to try and listen to the Spirit to know what to say. I had a thought...give him a picture of Christ. So we pulled one out and I was like, "I know you think we're crazy but just take a second to think about who you are, where you are, and what you are doing. You are a man sitting on a brick cutting up a piece of wood all day. (pointing to Christ) This man knows you're better than that." He sat there in silence for a second and then took the picture and stared at it for a long time. Finally he said, "I think I believe this."

Pray for this guy too. His name is Chen Yue Han.