Prayers, Park, and Popos

It was a lovely week!

Sister Park and I had the miracle of meeting four new investigators this week. Agnes and Bonnie are a set of friends in college who are really excited to be learning about Jesus Christ. When we told them that Christ is our older brother they were so happy. Agnes said that since they both grew up as the only child they never had the experience of having an older sibling and so they are so happy to learn that they really do have a loving older brother.

We also met Anna and her grandson, Luis. They are also really excited to be learning about Jesus Christ. It is such a special blessing that we get to share the gospel with these people. Anna is a retired Beijing opera singer. Their apartment is covered of pictures of her in her fancy Beijing opera clothes. If you haven't heard Beijing opera, go listen to it!

My companion is awesome. Sister Park is learning and growing so much. She has so much charity and really loves the investigators and basically just anyone we meet. I am so grateful for what she has taught me.  One thing in particular that we have both come to understand is the importance and power of prayer and also trusting that the Lord will guide us. Just a small example - one evening we were doing our daily planning for the next day and we had a spot for finding. We wanted to make sure that we would go where the Lord wanted us to go and so we decided to pause and say a prayer and ask where we should go. After we concluded the prayer we discussed it for a moment and still did not know where we should go. But, then the phone rang and the Elders called and asked if we could do the Welcome Center the next day. It was perfect! The Lord told us exactly where He needed us to be. I know that it will not always happen as instantly and perfectly as that time, but I know that the Lord always answers our prayers.

Speaking of Sister Park, I gave her an English name this week! I love that in China/Hong Kong/all of Asia people can pick their English name. Sometimes they are really funny. My favorite ones that I heard this week were Left and Fish. Haha! And both of them were really cute college girls. Oh, and the name I gave Sister park is Eloise :) But, right now she is Sister Park (Piao Jiemei)

This week I also learned the importance of ALWAYS "being an example of the believers," even during our early morning exercises. Every morning we go to a little park for workout time. The park is always full of popos (old people). They do tai chi and what we call "popo exercises" (basically you bobble up and down while also shaking your arms and hands and then occasionally swinging your arms really wide). It's so cute and funny to watch them. I always run in the morning and on Monday morning a cute little old couple came up to me and said that they like watching me run every morning because I'm "fast" (I'm sooooooooooooo slow now...but I'm definitely faster than the popos who walk around ... haha). They talked to me and I ended up being able to share about us missionaries and a bit about what we do and our church. It was great! And I have seen them every morning since then and they always say hi or talk to me for a few minutes.  :)

Super yummy dinner a member fed us!