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| Cheung Chau |
My email time got a little messed up with the call home today so not much time, but no complaints here!
First off, Happy Mothers Day to everyone!
I love my mom, and am so grateful for her and everything she has done for me. I am so grateful for the mission for helping me learn more about my mother's side of the family. What a wonderful country and culture we come from. I am so happy to be able to speak to her and that side of the family in Chinese. It is just one of the many many blessings of the mission.
I will share a phrase that my mom has told me almost every week of my mission since week 1, talk to everyone as if they want to listen! Simple, but great advice. Also very hard to do, but the days and weeks when I really have just tried my best to talk to everyone as if they really want to listen, I have seen miracles, met amazing people, heard inspiring stories, and come more to love the people we serve amongst. I am grateful for my mother's faith and diligence. There are many great role models in my life and family, many of which I didn't fully appreciate until the mission, but I am grateful for knowledge that families and learning are eternal things.
This week was a great week, super busy! My companion and I got off to a great start to what will be one of the best transfers of my mission! The work is really moving! We are working with a great number of people with good potential. Our greatest challenge- helping those people see and realize their own potential! Sometimes I think that is one of the harder yet more rewarding things of teaching and building people, helping them realize their great and eternal potential, and giving them the confidence to act and change on their faith in Christ. There are a great number of really good people we are working with, they are all progressing well, and within the next month or two I know there will be a solid amount of them joining the fold and building up the wonderful Wan Chai branch! I hope I can see some of it before I leave!
We had International District Conference this week, it was inspiring. Elder Toronto of the seventy was there, I did the translation for the Saturday night session which was fun, if not a little stressful at times with random words like beanie babies that I don't know how to say haha but over all went well! Gift of tongues is real. The Conference was very uplifting, a big focus on the Sabbath day, family learning, and staying actively converted in the gospel. Our District is trying very hard to grow, and there were a lot of great tips given out to help us grow in unity and love as a group, as well as grow personally to rise to the challenge.
Something I particularly liked was what President Holyoak shared about the way we close our prayer. Too often we rattle of a quick in the name of Jesus Christ Amen without pausing to think about the importance of that name, and the communication we are enclosing it with. Without that name, we literally cannot communicate with God. It was a good reminder to me to conclude prayers with more reverence, sincerity, and gratitude for the name of our Savior who makes all things possible.
Elder Zhou and I had a great lesson the other night with a part member family, about the plan of salvation, and getting answers to questions. Elder Zhou gave a great analogy to prayers being answered and parents, its like giving your kids ice cream. You only give them how much is best for them, not what they want, and you give it to them after they eat dinner, all the veggies etc, and when it is 'time'. Answers to prayer are the same, we don't and can't expect to get them when we want it. All is in the time and wisdom of He who knows infinitely more than we do, our Father in Heaven. Simple principle, but very true, and sometimes hard to understand and feel when we are the one waiting on the answer. On that very night, I was on the MTR to the lesson, not many people were around, so I flipped open a book I had with me, and suddenly the answer to a question I had prayed earnestly months ago jumped out the pages at me. I am grateful for the answer, and it strengthened my testimony of God's timing. I had long since acted on what I felt was best, and waited until last week to get a fur sure confirmation that yes it was right and I knew all along that it was. It was a wonderful lesson, we taught as their little kids ran around the house. We involved them as we could and as I looked in their youngest baby boys eyes I really felt again the Spirit confirm to me the truth of our identity. I know that we are children of an all powerful all knowing and loving Heavenly Father. I looked at him and knew, there is no way we are here by accident, only to live, form short relationships, and die. These family relations are eternal. We have a divine inheritance, and the potential to become something so amazing. There is truly a soul residing in that little boy, as well as in all of our bodies, that yearns for us to seek good, do good, and become better. I really know it is true. I am grateful that I know, and hope to help all our investigators continue to realize what they truly are capable of, especially when linked to the redeeming and enabling power of Christ's Atonement.
I love you all, and was so happy to talk to the fam this morning! I can't believe how fast time is going, I wish it would slow down a little bit so I can take a breath before its over, but I will continue to do my best and cherish this little time I have left as a set apart representative of Christ working amongst such wonderful people.
Again Happy Mother Day!
Elder Woolley
胡長老
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| P-day in Cheung Chau |
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