Hi Everyone!
A couple of weeks ago when we were serving at the adorable old folks' community center, a group of people came to do a presentation. They're from an organization called '爱的力量' , or 'The Power of Love'. They started a farm here in Daya as a sort of a rehab place for disabled people. We went and asked if they needed any help, and they responded with an enthusiastic yes! We set up to visit them this Friday. When the Tanzi elders heard we were gonna go farming, they got really excited and asked if they could come too. So, on Friday morning, all six of us rolled in to help farm.
We didn't end up doing much farming. Instead, we did introductions, and learned more about the vision of the farm. It's a really cool place. All the plants are in planter boxes raised about 3 feet from the ground so that they're easily accessible from a wheelchair. There's a huge variety of produce, mostly of the lettuce and cabbage persuasion. I only recognized arugula and basil. After introductions and a tour, the son of the guy who runs the farm took us to a nearby field they own to pick collard greens (we think that's what they are). Since we were taking home all the leaves we picked, we only picked a little bit, and then spent the rest of the time taking pictures in the midst of the gorgeous field. It turns out that flowers are the yummiest part of collard greens (if that's what they are), and the flowers were abundant. It was delightful! We will now be going back every Tuesday.
We're still adjusting to the new technology that just came to our mission. One of the best parts of having smartphones is the ability to have lessons over video chat. One of our investigators is currently going to school in Taibei, so we've been using video chat abundantly to keep in touch and answer his questions about the Book of Mormon. We had a lesson scheduled on Saturday, and just before we ran into our Young Men's president, Pan Dixiong. We asked if he would like to accompany us and help with the lesson. He agreed, but then we ran into a roadblock. As two sisters, we weren't allowed to lock ourselves away in a classroom with him to have this lesson. So we had the lesson in the foyer of the church. Sister Wu has a small tripod that we set up, then we crowded onto the couch. It turned out that that was the night our ward was cleaning the church, so there were people sweeping and mopping the whole time. We had to lift the tripod several times so someone could mop underneath it. The lesson went pretty well though, and the church got cleaned, so I think it was all right. We're still figuring out how to best make this tech thing happen.
One more miracle for the week, this week Linda came to church! Linda's been an on again, off again investigator since before I got here. As long as I've known her, she's never come to church. We've tried everything we could think of to help her want to come, and she'd say that she wanted to come, say that she was coming, but she'd never show up. I think a big part of it was just that she was nervous to come to this unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. She doesn't like crowds. Lately though, she's had some big challenges in her life. Last week we visited her, and I asked if she could come to church this week. She said yes, so I told her, ok, we'd be outside her house a half hour before church started, and we would go together. That way, she would have someone to go with and she wouldn't be alone. It was raining on Sunday, and when we got to her house her brother in law said she'd taken her daughters to lunch. We waited in the rain for 20 minutes, and then she finally came back. She was happy to see us, and we waited for her and her two daughters to get ready, then went to church! She only stayed for Sacrament meeting, but we could tell that she was really touched by the music and testimonies. As she left, she said she felt like she'd been given much more strength to help her deal with the challenges she'll face this week. I'm so, so glad that she was finally able to come and to feel the wonderful spirit that comes from attending church and partaking of the sacrament.
Hope you all have a wonderful week! Love you!
Sister Hull
Sister Hull
Pics:
1-2: Our wildflower farming adventure. In the second picture, the photographer is the man who owns the farm's son, Tim. Going right from Tim is Elder Geary, Sister Wu, me, Elder Peterson, Elder Andersen, and Elder Li.
3: Pan Dixiong and us following our church foyer video chat lesson. For some reason it's upside down right now as I'm sending this. Hopefully it'll fix itself when I send this.
