6/13/2016
大家好！
I hope all of you had an awesome week! I know that we did here in
Eastvale!
We had our zone meeting this week, which is fun as always!
This Thursday was a pretty crazy day! There's a member (Aaron) in another
ward in our stake who just submitted his mission papers and wanted to spend a
whole day with the missionaries to get a taste of what it's like. He spent the
morning with the elders in his ward, then we picked him up around 12:00, took him to a
few appointments, dropped him off at home for dinner, and then picked him up
again at 7:00! That night we had three appointments all at the same time,
so thankfully we had three of us so we could go to all of them! I went with
Brother Miao to our Stake Missionary Coordination Meeting, Elder Merriman took
Aaron to go see Q out in Riverside, and Elder Dyer went to go teach an
investigator at a members home. It was pretty crazy!
Also on Thursday, we met with Harry to make sure he could come to
church this Sunday to get confirmed, because he wasn't able to come last week
after his baptism. We sat down and start talking to him, and when we remind him
about church on Sunday, he said that he leaves to go to San Francisco on Friday and then goes to
China after that! We were a little shocked, but President Mullen said that we
could confirm him outside of sacrament meeting with the bishop. Thankfully we
were having dinner with the bishop that same night! We brought Harry with us
and he was confirmed in Bishop's living room! Haha it was definitely a crazy
day!
Friday was Q's baptism interview! Since he doesn't speak any English, we
had to go pick up Elder Zeng from Lake Elsinore to come out and do the
interview at 10:30! Harry texted us during the interview asking if we could
meet at the institute building at11:00 before he leaves for San Francisco.
After the interview, we took Elder Zeng to go with us and see Harry real quick.
He gave me and Elder Merriman a lion statue thing from China that's really
cool! I'll have to send a picture of it next week. He said he didn't bring one
for Elder Dyer or Elder Zeng because they were both from China and probably
have a bunch of stuff like it back home! By that time we were all ready for
lunch, so we went to this really good Chinese restaurant in Riverside! I felt
like we had literally stepped into China! Everybody in there was speaking
Chinese, and kept giving us weird looks because we were speaking in Chinese,
too! It was really funny!
Wednesday morning we had to run to Target to buy something (I don't remember what it
was..) and we hear someone shout "Elders!". So we turn around and
talk to this lady who tells us she's in town from Missouri to visit her parents
who are going through the temple this weekend. After we talk to her for a
little bit, we figured out that her parents are the Ostlers! I was so excited
to hear that they were going through the temple! I called another missionary
who had taught them to let him know, and then he called the Ostlers to see if
we could go to the temple with them. They invited us to their sealing on Saturday, and it
was an amazing experience! They were sealed together, and then sealed to their
two children. Afterwards, Brother Ostler was sealed to his parents. It was such
a spiritual experience that I was so glad to have been a part of! I was
thinking if we hadn't been in that one specific aisle at that very moment, I
would have never found out about the Ostlers, and then wouldn't have seen their
sealing! The Lord works in strange ways sometimes!
On Saturday, after I got back from the temple, we went to teach
one of our newer investigators, Gloria. Her mom was a very strong Christian,
but Gloria never really believed in it. When her mom passed away, she decided
to study what her mom believed and was baptized into a church in China. We met
her at the party our Chinese group had a week or so ago and she told us she
really wants to learn more about our church. As we were teaching her, we
invited her to be baptized. She paused for a second and said she knows that
baptism is for all of God's children and that it's a good thing, but hadn't she
already been baptized? We explained about how the priesthood authority has been
restored to the earth and with it the authority to baptize, which made a lot of
sense to her. Later on in the lesson, we asked her if she would prepare to be
baptized on July 17th. I was a little worried, because she was already
baptized, and I wasn't sure what she was going to say. Her answer was quite
surprising! She said: "Of course I'll prepare to be baptized then."
Then when we explained that how she can prepare by reading the Book of Mormon,
praying every day, and coming to church every week, she said: "That's it?"
In the prayer she gave at the end of the lesson, she asked for Heavenly Father
to help her prepare for her "actual" baptism. It's amazing to see how
the Lord is preparing people a long time before they meet with missionaries to
receive the gospel!
This week, I wanted to share the word for mercy in Chinese, which
is 慈悲. (cí bēi)
慈 means kind, loving, gentle,
compassionate
悲 means sadness, sorrow, anguish
At first, it doesn't seem like the two words go together at all.
Love and anguish? They seem like opposites, but as I thought more about what
allows us to have mercy, the Atonement, it made much more sense to me. Because
Christ has felt our sorrows, has carried our pains and our griefs, He can feel
love and compassion for us. He understands our individual circumstances and knows how to help us. When we sin
we feel sorrow and anguish, but through His mercy we can feel love. He can take
away our pains and burdens if we allow Him to. If we open our hearts and yield
our will to His. Then our grief, sadness and anger can be replaces with peace,
hope and joy. I'm so incredibly grateful for the Atonement and ability that we
have to repent. I pray that we all will remember our Savior as we go about our
daily lives, and do all within our power to follow Him!
I love you all and miss you lots!
Love,
Elder Wu
吴长老
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