Our Destiny Is Determined...

Hi Mommy,

I went on exchanges with Sister Lee this week and I feel that her Spirit and missionary service is exactly what Guishan needed. She brought a change to Guishan that has changed the way Sister Koch and I do missionary work here. Let's see, right when Sister Lee and I got to Guishan, we already had two street lessons. One was with a young girl, Gao JM, who is a Christian. I noticed her when I was biking and I just biked right past her. However, Sis. Lee stopped to talk to her. Funny story actually. I turned around to see where Sis. Lee was and I saw her talking to the student who I passed. But right where I stopped, I met this man, Huang DX, who is a Christian. After introducing myself, I told him that I'll be right back with my companion. Well, there were our first two lessons! And they became two new investigators! We never know who is willing and ready to hear the gospel of Christ. Sis. Lee taught me to talk to everyone, literally.

When we got to our next lesson with two students, everything just seemed so hectic in the beginning. While getting settled, people were calling us on the phone. But as our taught them that God is our loving Heavenly Father, I could feel the Spirit join us. We taught with unity, taking time to pause, think, then talk. It just felt really natural teaching with her.

Later that night, we went to our WML's house, Lu DX because he had to give us some lists. While we were there, we asked him for some good contacting places and he gave us a list of parks. We, together with him, prayed for inspiration in which park to go. We felt one specific park felt right. On our way there, we had one lesson. And when we got to the park, we talked to the first person we saw. She was smoking a cigarette but as we were just having small talk, she explained that she didn't think we'd talk to her because she was smoking. Well, we asked if she had 5 minutes of her time to share something. She immediately put out her cigarette and we had a wonderful, Spirit-filled lesson. We scheduled for another lesson, gave her a Book of Mormon, and the next day she even came to English class!

I learned so much from Sis. Lee. I learned to not be afraid to just say "hello" to people. I also learned to be direct in sharing something I feel prompted to share. I also learned to bust out the Book of Mormon, share scriptures, and just use, use, use, the Book of Mormon!

I don't even know what or how but I can't even explain what has happened these past few days! Just that we've been blessed with so much success! This week, we went from having 1 investigator with a baptismal date to having 6! We've also found great success in teaching. The Lord has also been blessing us with finding peikes.

Although we set 5 new baptismal dates, our 1 investigator with a baptismal date 'died.' We met with him one last time. We talked about his beliefs once more before he decided not to meet with us anymore. One of his greatest challenges was believe that there's a God. We shared the 'Earthly Father, Heavenly Father' video in hopes that it might have an effect on him. However, just when we thought he felt the Spirit, he still didn't believe. He said that he liked the video effects (because for his business he makes and shoots videos) and he also liked the comparison of an earthly father to a god. But still no change. As he shared how he doesn't believe in a God and how he only believes that  we make our own choices to get success and it's all based on faith in ourselves, I realized that he hasn't changed since we started meeting with him. And that's when I realized it wasn't his time right now. He explained how sorry and grateful he was to have met us. Before he left, I had some time to say a few words to him and I just explained how I, too, was grateful to meet him and I understand that now may not be his time but maybe in the future. And he agreed. He said yes, maybe in a few years he might believe. But I won't lose faith. I know that the Lord has a special plan for him.

Our investigator, Luna, came to church! Although she didn't partake of the sacrament, she stayed for the last half hour of sacrament meeting to the very end of Relief Society. The ward is already guanxin-ing her (I don't know how to say it in English, haha but it's like being her friend and talking to her and stuff) and they think that she's amazing!

We have 2 investigators scheduled to be baptized on the 20th of Sept, Vicky and Luna. And we have 2 on the 27th of Sept, Huang DX and Guo DX. Then on the 6th of Sept. we have our dear Jeff. We are working with the zone leaders because right now he's living in Taoyuan because of work. But when school starts, he'll be back in Guishan. He is golden! He loves the Book of Mormon. And he really wants to shoot for his baptismal date.

Guishan is doing so great! I love this place, the members, and the people here so much!!!

Chinglish Moment: There is a car sales business called SAVE. 'SAVE' stands for Sinjuang (I think it's the name of the company/business) Automobile Value Evaluation. It makes me laugh each time I pass by.

Spiritual Share: "...our destiny is not determined by the number of times we stumble but by the number of times we rise up, dust ourselves off, and move forward." -President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Love,

Sister Sagisi

We call this Love Park. Actually, I think it's the name of the park anyway. Haha.

This dog...I wanna say it's doing a "Filipino/Taiwanese Squat."

Hu Family. They took us to go eat really good street food!!!

Sister Miller's 20th birthday!!!

The Elders in our ward had two baptisms! :) We are so happy for them. Sister Luo and Sister Cai.

​I forgot to explain this picture! So this is Crismon Lewis and his wife. Crismon was my co-worker back at BYU and we'd spend our lunch breaks talking about his wife and me going on a mission. Well, I can't believe of all places we re-unite in Taiwan and I finally met his wife! He's studying at the University in Taipei. I think it was a tender mercy that I ran into them here!!!