Count Your Many Blessings

I hope everyone had a lovely. Our week was good too. I think as far as the amount of lessons and things that we had, this has been one of my lowest weeks in the mission. And so, that might make it seem like this week is just "alright". But, numbers are important, but they are not everything. Last night, during my personal study I was reflecting on the week's activities. I thought about why we had not had as many lessons or any new investigators. Then the thought occurred to me "count your blessings." And, so I did. I wrote down all the miracles that had happened and blessings that we had received this week. My list ended up being very long. Some of the blessings and miracles were more simple than others, but all were gifts from our Heavenly Father. I want to share some of the things that I wrote down:

In one of the three full lessons this week we met with our investigator, Jenny. She accepted a baptismal date and also came to see General Conference.

In another one of these full lessons, our investigator with a baptismal date (pictured at right) shared with us many of her challenges. She also told us that this weekend she would have the opportunity to go to Shenzhen (she loves Shenzhen) and that going there for a few days would make her feel better. We then taught her about the Plan of Salvation. At the end we asked "what do you think?" and she said "I think I need to come to see General Conference this weekend." She skipped going to Shenzhen and came to watch conference instead. When we called her last night she shared with us all of her favorite parts of conference.

Our other full lesson happened on Wednesday evening after English class. After English class was over, Sister Park and I found a classroom and drew some pictures on the board that we wanted to use for our lesson. Then, our investigator called and told us that she did not think she could make it in time (because we would have to leave by about 9:30). While I was on the phone a man walked by and asked if he could borrow my whiteboard marker. I gave him a thumbs up and he said he would bring it back when he was done. After the call Sister Park and I were sad and we started to pack up. I realized that the man still had my marker, but I did not want to be rude and go take it from him right away. We decided to stay in the classroom and do our calls for about 15 minutes and then we would get the marker and go home. After about 10 minutes our investigator called and said the the MTR had taken much less time than she had expected and she was in Kowloon Tong right now. She quickly came to the chapel for our lesson. Afterwards Sister Park made an amazing observation. She said "If that man did not take your marker, we would have left. We would not have been here when she got here." Heavenly Father has all things happen for a reason.

Thursday we were trapped in our apartment all day while the repair man fixed everything. He fixed things that have been broken for months!  When he finally left at 7:45 the apartment looked like a tornado had gone through. Originally we had two lessons scheduled for Thursday. They both cancelled. This allowed us to be available to be in the appartement so that our roommates could go to their lessons.  During this time Sister Park and I did our studies, planning, records, calls and during the companionship invetory portion of weekly planning we were able to discuss the importance of obedience and make new companionship goals to help us become more exactly obedient missionaries.  This has allowed both of us to have more of the Spirit.

Sister Stromberg and I killing the bugs.

We wore tennis shoes with our skirts -

it's such a Hong Kong fashion thing to to do!

This week we also received the blessing of a clean and spirit filled apartment. After Sister Park had lost something we decided to move her desk to see if it had fallen into the crack between the desk and the wall. What we ended up finding is that underneath (and what we later discovered was actually living inside) of Sister Park's desk was a bunch of those gross silverfish bugs. Sister Park is terrified of bugs. She said "Heavenly Father made me lose that so that I would find that I was living with bugs! He knows I hate bugs!" This experience taught me two things. First, the Lord wants us to have clean homes so that we can feel the Spirit. And, so he will let us know when we have a problem that needs to be fixed. And second, the Lord knows us and loves us.

The weather got cooler!

And of course, General Conference was amazing! I am so grateful to be a part of the Lord's true church on the earth. And I am even more grateful to be serving as a representative of Jesus Christ and help bringing people to know of His love.

And so, I think that our week was actually much more than just "alright" - it was actually pretty great :) and in light of General Conference....go watch it! It is sooooo good!!!!!!!