Wow! Today's my 3 Week mark in GA! It's kind of flown by... but also it's been some of the longest weeks/days of my life. Time is so weird on the mission.
Anyways. This week was much much better than last week!
One of the best parts was getting to go up to Atlanta to go to the temple on Tuesday! It recharged me for the week. I was able to get a lot of revelation and just feel Heavenly Father's love and care for me there. It truly is the House of the Lord and there is so much peace and joy to be felt there. I've gained a huge testimony of temples already on my mission. I'm already trying to figure out how I can go to the temple once a week when I get home! ;)
I'm getting used to the planning and work and routines of real life missionary work. We're getting a bigger teaching pool, and have lots of appointments tomorrow and some later in the week! We finally have "work" to do. I mean we've been working the whole time, but just A LOT of store contacting and old fashioned knocking on doors! So we've got a bunch of lessons lined up this week, and lots of meetings with members. So I'm excited for the week ahead!
The thing that scares me though is that now that I'm getting in the groove a little bit and we're finally getting investigators, I'm gonna get my visa and I'll have to start all over again... in a FOREIGN COUNTRY!! ....so yeah. that's been on my mind a bit! But it'll be okay. "Gird up your loins, fresh courage take. Our God will NEVER us forsake!" Easy to sing. Hard to remember. ;) Oh. By the way. We still haven't heard much on our visas. BUT I got 2 emails from President Day, the Taiwan Taipei Mission president, today! One of them was just to us visa waiters and it said,
"Dear Elders and Sisters:
I know that it can be a little unsettling as you continue to wait on your visas.
I want you to know that here in Taiwan we are working very hard to try and iron out all of the wrinkles that are keeping you from getting here. Compiling the additional paperwork is now in the hands of the Missionary Department.
One of the newly required missionary visa documents is a Ministerial Certificate in English. If you have not already received your new one in English, you should have it any day. Please sign it and get it back to the Missionary Department/Missionary Travel per their instructions as quickly as possible. Your visa is waiting on this document and a couple more that the Missionary Department is trying to get together for you.
Please, please, don’t lose hope. Know that you have hundreds of missionaries in Taiwan praying for your visas to be approved quickly. Sister Day and I are also daily praying for your prompt arrival. Kindest regards,
President David Day"
So that was a VERY comforting email to get! I went in and signed my English Ministerial Certificate on Thursday. So I really think that's a good sign! It also sounds like we could leave at anytime, not just on a transfer date. This week is transfers for the GAM and Taipei Mission, so we were thinking we'd leave this week. But apparently not. It's all good though! He also sent us a copy of the weekly email he sends out to the missionaries. Two of my favorite parts were, "I am sending a copy of this email to all our visa-waiting missionaries so that they will continue to realize they are not forgotten and that we are doing everything we can on this end to get them here." and "Continue praying that the wheels of government will be greased and grind smoothly as we seek to have our visa-waiting missionaries arrive soon!" So that was really nice to hear as well! :)
Well that's enough about our dumb visas. You wanna hear about the work going on in Georgia! Here's my miracle for the week.
So. We've had this certain neighborhood that we've always felt good about when we tract it. So on Saturday we went to that neighborhood to knock some doors and say some prayers. We went to a few houses, but it didn't feel right. Neither Sister Smith or I felt like we really needed to be in that particular neighborhood at that time. We had no idea where we were supposed to go though! We went back to the car and looked at our map. We prayed for inspiration to know where the Lord needed us to go. I looked over the map and felt really good about this specific road, but it was all the way on the other side of our area! But we both felt like it was the best place to go. So we did a 1 Ne. 3:7 and went and did! Right when we turned the corner to go down that road it felt like the sun was shining brighter and the world had no darkness. :) We both felt the spirit SO strong. It was such a different feeling driving down that street than we'd had earlier in the other neighborhood. I think Alma 19:6 sums up the feeling we had pretty well.
"Now, this was what Ammon desired, for he knew that King Lamoni was under the power of God; he knew that the dark veil of unbelief was being cast away from his mind, andthe light which did light up his mind, which was the light of the glory of God, which was a marvelous light of his goodness—yea, this light had infused such joy into his soul,the cloud of darkness having been dispelled, and that the light of everlasting life was lit up in his soul..."
We KNEW without a doubt that we were supposed to be on that street. We found some pretty good success on that street. We were able to say 4-5 prayers with people, got some referrals, and we even found a new investigator! The crazy thing is she is from Pakistan and she and her family is Muslim! She is married with four kids, the oldest is 19 and is up at Georgia State, and her mom also lives with her, but doesn't speak English. We were so grateful to have found her and to have been able to pray with her. We have another appointment set up with her on Saturday, so we'll see what happens with that! It was a huge miracle day. We learned a lesson in following the spirit and knowing what it feels like to be led and guided by the spirit. We were supposed to go to that neighborhood. Maybe to meet the Muslim family, maybe to leave a blessing with another family. We never know the impact we'll have on these people, whether they get baptized or not. We just have confidence and faith that we did the will of Heavenly Father and that's all you need! He will take care of the rest when we do our part. :)
I testify that Heavenly Father is aware of YOU. He knows your life. He knows what you're going through and how to help you get through it. He only wants us to be happy. He cares about each of us on a very personal and deep level. He wants us to use the Atonement every day, every hour that we need it. This church is true!
Wo zhidao zhe ge jiaohui shi zhenshi de!! Gotta get my Mandarin in whenever I can. :)
-Ou Jie Mei
-Sister Oviatt
