Called to Serve the Lord; Assigned to the Taiwan Taipei Mission: Smile Bigger

Hi Mommy,

This past week we had the Memorial Service for Elder Thredgold and Elder Xiong. What a marvelous opportunity to hear of their stories and to learn more of what kind of people and missionaries they were. Elder Thredgold's mother always told him to "smile bigger" and he was always willing to help someone in need. Elder Xiong was so bold and always brightened everyone's day. They both remind me of the type of missionary that I want to be. I need to talk to more people, love more, and smile bigger!

Here is a portion of my email to President Day about my investigators:

One of our investigators, Luna, is progressing so well! She came to FHE at our WML's house. She's slowly reading the BOM and as she reads, she likes to ponder. She has also been praying. When we followed up on her thoughts of the Plan of Salvation, she said that it's very abstract, and she was very respectful about it. She has a baptismal date for 9/20 and we are so excited for her. Although right now, she just feels "content" about her baptism, we want her to feel prepared and ready!
Another investigator, Huang DX, is also slowly progressing. Scheduling with him is not a problem. In fact, we've been consistently meeting with him twice a week for the past 3 weeks now. However, his work schedule is a problem for him coming to church. He only has two days off in a month. He was a devout Christian and he hasn't been to church in a while because of work. But each time we meet we know that he wants to follow Christ. He was even touched to tears when he heard about the service of missionaries and how he wishes he could serve the Lord like that. We talked about church attendance in our last lesson and we'll keep encouraging him to really make an effort to come to church.

After thinking would never meet with her again, a miracle happened. We were able to have a peike with Wang XiaoJie! We were so happy that even though her husband opposes, she still allowed us to come over to her house. We didn't have much time, but we sang a hymn for her and it seemed like she developed a small friendship with our peike who also spoke Taiyu.

It's a new month and time is just going by so quickly. I want to share something from my personal studies this week. This is from a conference talk entitled, "Drawing Closer to God" by Elder Terence M. Vinson

"...rather than solve the problem Himself, the Lord wants us to develop the faith that will help us rely upon Him in solving our problems and trust Him."

"For us to be like Him is His goal."

"Our Savior wants us to really love Him to the point that we want to align our will with His. We can then feel His love and know His glory. Then He can bless us as He wants to."

Each and every day, my love for missionary work grows. It's become my life right now. The thought of people around me who don't know of Jesus Christ and His love just saddens me and it pushes me to talk to more people. Missionary work is so hard, but if we know that He is our strength, we can do anything.

Love you!

Sister Sagisi