Miracles! - Week 15

DA JIA HAOOO

This week had one of the most miraculous days of my mission! I don't like to throw the term miracle around very lightly, but this weekend realy had the most miraculous and crazy day of my mission.

 

I don't have too much time so I will just talk about Saturday! We had a baptims on Saturday with our buddy Tang Yang, it was so great! He was just super excited and nervous and it was so fun to hear his testimony after, such a prepared guy, it was a privelege to teach him. But leading up to that moment was one of the crazier days of my mission. So Elder Ma and I the night before had to go to the Elder's apartment living in Macau Island because the next morning we had to jet boat over to Hong Kong and come back as part of my Visa turn around thing with the government, but we had to make it back to 9:30 church for the international ward because we had told a less active we would meet him. So we stayed in the Macau apartment elders place (super filthy btw haha doesn't phase anymore though) to cut down the time we have to get up, because it's much farther from our apartment on Tai Pa.

Early morning boat ride

Sooo we woke up at about 5 and took a taxi over to the boat place, bought our tickets, and went over to the place when I realized I didn't have my passport! So we had to quickly switch tickets which costed even more money, then rent a taxi to go back to our apartment in Tai Pa, so basically it seemed that I had just wasted like an hour and gave us no reason to have stayed over in Macau and woken up early, you can imagine how mad my comp was haha he was quite grumpy. Also when we finally got back to get on the boat he ripped his suit jacket on a chair and got even more mad, I tried really hard not to laugh at how hilariously unfortunate it was haha. Anyways so we finally got on the boat and headed out, right before we were out of cell range we got a call and helped some people set up a blessing for someone back in Macau, then quickly lost range. We missed church but it was ok, we started preparing for our baptism which was at 12:30. But we didn't have the forms signed by the other Zone leader who had interviewed him becasue our apartment mates had accidentally brought the wrong ones so we had to fill out a new one and we didn't know all the info (Tang Yang had filled them out for us earlier) my companion was furious at the other zone leader haha but we couldn't contact him because he and all the other elders were on the boat back to Hong Kong doing there visa stuff. We were both all rushing around when we realized we had yet to start filling the font up which takes 2 hours, and the baptism was to start in an hour! SO we kinda went into panic mode! Everything else started falling apart, the member who was supposed to baptize him couldn't and everything we set up starte falling through, I was super stressed I was like this is one of the most special days in his life and were ruining it! Then, Elder Ma realized that because we had slept over at the Macau apartment he actually had the extra stuff necessary to baptize him!

Getting ready for Tang Yang's baptism

Big BBQ after the baptism

So that was part one of the miracle. Part two was that we were able to fill up the font in just under an hour whcih was amazing! All of the missionaries and some members all joined in with buckets of water from sinks and somehow managed to fill it it was amazing! We then had a super spiritual baptism and I just felt the power of missionary work and it just touched me to see everyone working together. Then afterwords the other Elders got back and right before my companion could go off on them we heard the biggest miracle which just blew me away. Right before Elder Ma and I got out of cell phone range he got a call from someone in the ward saying one of our recent converts needed a blessing in the hodpital. Our number was the only one she had to call, and thinking not much of it we called the other Elders. The other Elders actually also would've been getting on the boat themselves, but they were stalled because they were freaking out at having brought the wrong papers for us back at the church. And they were stalled just long enough to get our call, turn around from the boat dock and go visit this sister in the hospital. When they got the hospital she was just being wheeled into surgery, they stopped the cart just in time to give this amazing and faithful sister a blessing before she would get open brain surgery. The night before at work she all of a sudden had huge headaches, nose bleeds, and her arm went numb-so scary! She went to the hospital where they told her she needed brain surgery immediatley, when the Elders got to her she had her head shaved and was barely conscvious, but heard their blessing and cried through the whole thing. It was amazing to me to see that all of the mishaps, with the missing passport delaying us, the papers delaying the other elders, which seemed to be wrecking our day, instead were all to answer the faithful prayers of this poor sister in giving her a blessing in her time of need.

The Alayon family dedicate all their time
to the branch! What an amazing family!

      It hit me so hard, the Lord truly truly watches out for us. He cares so much for all of us, and he still ensured that our baptism worked out smoothly in the end. It was an amazing day where I realized I was really just an instrument in God's hands for blesing his children for the whole day, which made it the best day of my mission! The verses in Mosiah 24: 12-14 have never been so true to me before."I the Lord God to visit my people in their afflictions." It is an absolute privelege to be an instrument in his hands, to help all in need. I pray I will always be more aware of how he would use me. I love this work! I love being able to see this gospel bless lives, and seeing our hard work pay off in the blessings of others!

Ryan Still finds a little time to be goofy

Thank you all of the support, I hope that story made sense I didn't have much time to write so it's probably pretty conveluted. Oh well, love you all, and pray for you all!

Ryan and Elder Ma with Brother Ryan

Love,    Elder Woolley

Elder Ma exhausted after a crazy morning!