Wednesday, August 24, 2011

June 6, 2011

Dear Friends and Family,

First off, I would just like to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM! You are the most wonderful mom in the world, and I thank God every day for the angel he sent to raise me as a child and to inspire me as an adult. I could never do enough to repay you for all the sacrifices you have made for me and the love you have given me, but I promise I will spend the rest of my life trying. I love you, Mom.

This week was a great one with a couple of HUGE miracles! First off, we went on companion exchanges up in Hualian this wek and it was great becasue I got to see some of the members there that I helped teach a bit before they got baptized. What a great experience to see them again right before I head home. I love the Hualian Zone - it is full of nothing but miracles!



Also, we saw a really huge miracle onthe train ride back to Taidong. I want to first tell you a little bit of the circumstances behind the story.

At first, we were going to go on exchanges from Friday to Saturday, but then the Elders had a baptism on Saturday and we needed to attend so we changed exchanges from thursday to Friday. We even had to get permission from the president to change to Thursday becasue normally Thursday is weekly planning session. While I was on exchanges, poor Sister Braedy was really sick so we spent most of the afternoon in the chapel doing things that needed to get done and making phone calls. Neither of us really like to be in the chapel, and at the time I remember thinking, "man, I wish we could go outside." But it is all in the hands of the Lord, that is for sure. I made a lot of phone calls to a lot of people who didn't answer the phone.

Well, on the train ride home the train was super crowded and we didn't have time to buy tickets ahead of time so we had no seats. We started off by standing the the space between cars, but slowly moved our was to the center of car 1 where there is a small place to stand.

Now the mission has a rule - every Friday is spak English day so that the native missionaries can develope their language skills. So sister Wu and I stood in the crowded train and talked in English about what we learned durring exchanges and how we can improve. Then the phone rang. It was someone who I had called that afternoon that didn't answer. I answered the phone and talked to the person, and the girl next to Sister Wu turned to her and asked, "how is your English so good?"

Well, it turns out Na ZhongLing (The girls name) is a christian but has felt distanced from God lately and has been praying for God to help her come back to Him. She heard us speaking English and was interested because she studied English for a while. When she saw our name tags said "Jesus Christ" on the she thought, "Oh my goodness, God has sent his messengers to me! they are standing right nest to me aon the train!" and When I answered the phone she immediately started talking to Sister Wu because she knew she was Native and could speak Chinese.
Are you seeing how much God prepared the exact right people and the exact right time and the exact right place all for this one girl?! It had to be english day, it had to be exchanges, it had to be Sister Wu and I - it was just too perfect!
We shared with her the first vision and she actually laughed when she was reading Joseph's own words. We asked her what she felt, and she said, "i am laughing because I also saw two personages - you two - in answer to my prayer." You should have seen the way her eyes sparkled when we gave her the Book of Mormon. This last picture I am sending today is us on the train together before she got off. She doesn't live in our area, but she is definately going to meet with the missionaries in her area and be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God. It was a HUGE MIRACLE!!!

OK, huge huge miracle #2 - the Wu family. They are a referral from some of the branch members, and they are just searching for God so bad. The mother father and child all med with us and all agreed to pray every night. A lot of people make commitments, but you could just feel their sincerity and desire to pray together as a family. in the lesson I bore my testimony of how Dad and Mom's prayers blessed my life and they were so touched, so than kyou , mom and Dad, for being such a great example. The entire family came to chruch on Sunday, and it was fantastic.
I love you all and hope all is well. Keep praying and al things will wirk out!

Love,
Sister Collyer

No comments:

Post a Comment