Friday I hit a very important milestone: I have officially been on a mission for 18 months. That day we had several hours without any appointments, so we felt like we should bike out to this little town on the edge of our area nestled up against the mountains. The hour bike ride was beautiful, through rice fields and little forest-y areas. Of course, we had to stop and take a picture.
When we got to the little town, we ate dinner and then we only had about 20 minutes to contact before we had to head back to make it back to an appointment in Xinying. We were really excited, because we felt like we had really been prompted to come to this town. Our first contact was amazingly awkward. Our second contact was too busy playing Pokemon Go to talk to us for very long. We didn't find anyone else to talk to before it was time to head back. We were both kind of disappointed because we'd biked a really long way, and nothing had really come of it. We made better time coming back than we thought we would, so we had a few minutes before we had to go to our appointment. We decided to stop real quick at a little park and stretch because we were super sore from riding 18 miles. As we waited across the street from the park for the light to turn green, a man on a bicycle rode past us, stopped, and asked 'how can I get in touch with you?' We stopped and talked to him, and he said he is really interested in coming and understanding our church. We gave him our contact information and invited him to the Ward Christmas party, then headed off to our appointment. We realized that if we had not been coming back into Xinying, there is no way we would have been on that side of that particular intersection. We got sent on an 18 mile bike trip to find someone 2 minutes away from our house. But it was a really cool miracle!
So I need to brag for a second, this week I figured out how to tie a tie all by myself. I'm not sure if I did it right, but it looks like a tie, and the skinny part slides up and down like it's supposed to, so I'm pretty proud of myself.
I don't know if you remember when I told you all about our guacamole making party a week or two ago. He had been meeting with the missionaries for a while, but he kind of stopped right before we got there, and he thought Sisters were awkward. But then after a lot of prayers on our part, he suddenly asked us to teach him to make guacamole. This week we called him, and he said he could meet with us. We set up a time, and his wife, who is a recent convert to our church was also there. We shared about the blessings of eternal families, and how big and amazing those are, and we explained that we really love his family, and would like to help them be sealed. We asked if he would be willing to start meeting again and keep learning, and he said yes! Then his whole family came to Stake Conference yesterday, which was awesome! It's been so cool to see how Heavenly Father has been working to give us opportunities to keep working with him. We're super excited to help him come closer to Christ and receive of His blessings.
As I mentioned earlier, we had Stake Conference this Sunday. Our ward took a bus up together because it's pretty far away. We even had two people we are teaching come! We met in a rented auditorium because our stake doesn't have a stake center. There were some really good talks. Our mission President gave an awesome talk completely in Chinese about the circumstances that prepared their family to come to Taiwan. His wife also gave a really sweet talk and bore her testimony in Chinese. They haven't been here very long, but she already speaks pretty well, which is amazing. The gift of tongues is real! We also got to hear from the temple president and his wife, who used to live in our ward. They are some of the most Christlike people I have met, and it was wonderful to hear them talk powerfully about the blessings of the temple. The blessings of the temple are so real!
After we got back, we went to a park called Swan Lake to contact. While there, we talked to a ton of people, and also got to admire this beautiful black swan:
Next week will be the last week I send out a group email as a missionary. Thank you all so much for supporting me through the last year and a half. Serving a mission in Taiwan has been an amazing experience, and I'm so glad I got to share some of the highlights with you!
Have a great week!
Sister Hull
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