Saturday, November 22, 2014

Grateful for Corners

Here is Sister Fernley's message from last Sunday, November 16:

Hello everybody!

Hope this week was good. Jemma looks like she is having a blast with friends and in her gymnastics class. I loved those pictures, so cool! She always did love jumping around on things and hanging from bars. Do you think you are going to sign her up for classes after the trial?

Dad mentioned that it finally started getting cold! Is it me or did winter come late this year? It came later here as well, it is finally starting to get a little chilly. I pulled out the heater this morning during Personal study because my feet were cold. The floors everywhere here are tile. I discovered that's why they wear slippers inside all of the time; the floor is always cold which makes your feet cold. I also don't ever trust floors besides our own, I've seen how unsanitary people are here I trust their floors to be much better. 

So...I'm leaving! And as usual we were the last to find out. We had stake conference yesterday so we biked over to Taiping and ended up talking to some of the other sisters after we walked in. They looked at me and said, "you're moving!" I had no idea what they were talking about and told them, yea I probably was moving. Then they proceeded to tell us that apparently the zone leaders had sent out a text the night before that told everyone who was moving so that we could bear our testimonies in church. The sisters forwarded the text (that we didn't get) to us and sure enough my name was on it. We were told that everyone who is moving will be moving on Friday, so our P-day has been changed to Friday. Thankfully they still gave us our email time today. I was really grateful we talked to the sisters, because we were getting ready for P-day and would have gone on as normal. Then I would have really felt guilty. 

Anyway I'll be moving on Friday. We don't know where to yet, but I'm sure we will find out in the next couple of days. I'm excited, sad, nervous...all of the above. But where ever I go and whoever I'm with I'm sure I will learn a lot and see a ton of miracles. Sister Murdock is nervous to lead the area, but I know she will do great. I've been making her lead for the past three weeks and she's been doing just fine. I am completely fine with leaving this area in her hands. She has grown and improved so much in the past few months it's been incredible! Almost everyone who finds out she just finished training doesn't believe it because she seems like she has been here longer than that. She's great and I've learned so much from her. She has been an incredible friend and has supported me so much these past couple of months. She will be an incredible missionary!

This week I am so grateful for corners. For my whole mission I've been saying that "there's another miracles just around the corner." It always helped me keep going and have patience, but it never had so much meaning as it does after my time here in BeiQu. I have never gotten so close to wanting to give up and coming home. Its been hard with so many people around us everyday you would think the investigators would roll in, but they haven't. You would think because the elders who work in the office and only get a few hours a day to proselyte could baptize we could to, but we haven't. You would think that since I've been here for a good chunk of time I would know what I was doing, but honestly...I don't. These have been thoughts that have been running through my head the past three months almost everyday. And honestly if you would have talked to me a week and a half ago I would have told you I was ready to leave BeiQu and wouldn't want to come back.

But thankfully God is merciful and helps us get on the right track. I don't know what the change was this week, but the depression, sadness and lack of confidence slowly faded away this week. I feel like I'm myself again. I feel ready to face the world and could stay here for the rest of my mission if called to do so. This week after three months of not much progress we have seen miracles!

Sister Murdock and I have made a goal to try and make daily contact with our investigators. I had never done that before because I was too afraid of annoying them and being a 'weird' missionary. But the past couple of weeks we have been trying. Most days they don't answer their phones, but we do what we can. Yesterday as we sat down to follow-up with everyone we found out that a lot of our investigators are actually reading and praying! (It's funny how happy such a simple thing can make you.) 

We also got to talk to Sun Yu Hui. She was the referral that we met with last week who really wanted to know for herself if what we were telling her was true. We finally got a hold of her and she said she has been reading and praying. She said she feels like she has and answer and has found what she wants to believe! I will move out before we get to meet with her again, but we are really excited. She even lives in our area!

We set another baptismal goal with Yi Jun this week. We set it for Christmas, hoping that will give her enough time and maybe help her mom be more willing to let her get baptized (Christmas present?). She is a little nervous, but she just needs to take a leap of faith. She is still working on Personal Progress and is loving it. I love riding up to her stand and seeing her face light up when she sees us. It makes everything worth it. She had promised to try and come to church on Sunday to see me off, but unfortunately I will be gone before then. Hopefully she still comes anyway.

We met with Shi Yue again yesterday. We took Alexis with us and invited her to share her experience with feeling the Holy Ghost and receiving an answer. It was perfect. She talked about how she has felt the Holy Ghost so much more after she has been baptized, she also talked about how seeking an answer isn't just a one time thing. God wants us to be patient. Shi Yue started talking about how she believed that was true and that after baptism she would be able to feel more and have more strength to come closer to God. She understands things so well it's incredible. 

Then last night as we were finishing up planning the office elders called us and said, "we just moved your baptismal goal to a week B!" (For those who don't speak missionary that means her goal was moved from Christmas to two weeks away.) The elders are teaching her husband since his schedule is so different than Shi Yue's. Elder Flint is going home next month and has really wanted them to get baptized before he goes home. Apparently they talked about it with them last night and they agreed and set their own date for two weeks away! Sister Murdock and I were both shocked. I'm not sure if they can hit it, but we are going to have faith and pray a lot. It would be great if they did, it will help them so much.

I almost forgot! While we were sitting down with Shi Yue yesterday afternoon Sister Murdock heard some music coming from the other room. She recognized it as one of her favorite mormon messages (Because of Him, it's so good). We called her husband, Wang Dixiong, out and he had downloaded the gospel library onto his i-phone and was looking at the mormon messages. We watched a few together and as we were leaving he had gone onto the hymns section and was playing hymns from his phone. It was pretty great. (By the way the pictures of the lady with the baby was Shi Yue.)

Well that's about it for this week. We broke up with a less active this week. She hasn't progressed at all and we finally got brave enough to tell her we couldn't come back unless she decided to act. I felt just like the prophets in the scriptures calling someone to repentance. It's sad that we have to do it, but sometimes that's what it takes. Hopefully she comes around some day.

As far as a release date, thankfully I haven't received anything. I think they try to keep things pretty low key so we stay focused. It's so crazy that we are already talking about these kinds of things. It makes me excited and sad too. 

I am still planning on going back to BYU-I for the fall, so if you could start that that would be great. Let me know if I need to do anything. It is so crazy that everyone is coming home. It seems like we just left.

Well I'm just about out of time, and am running out of things to say. I hope you all have a good week! Work hard and stay strong. I will try to do the same. By this time next week I will be writing you from somewhere else!

Love you all!

Sister Fernley

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