Week 20 ...1/27/2020

Week 19 The "baptism glow" 1/20/2020

Our friend Annie is officially a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!! There is no greater joy than seeing someone have this happiness for themselves!!!! This has been such a crazy journey, and it is truly a miracle. Starting my mission, I thought that there would be no way I would be able to see someone's whole entire journey (finding them, teach them the lessons from start to finish, and them see them get baptized and confirmed, but I did!!! In the 3 short weeks our friend was here, we got the priviledge of doing that!!

Annie is a true miracle. She is the friend I talked about the last time I emailed. Everything that we've taught her is so new, yet she absorbed all of it. This last week, we were planning on teaching her all the commandments. We planned to teach a new commandment every single day. Crazy. That week, we also wanted to take her to the visitors center. So many miracles happened with getting her there, and it ended up happening! After the visitor's center, we were going to teach her a commandment, but we ended up teaching all of them because she just wanted to learn all of them!! 

On Saturday she was baptized, and just yesterday she was confirmed!! And today she leaves to go back home 😭😭😭 Annie truly is so amazing. With her 3 weeks she was visiting, she had planned to go other places in California, be with her friends, go to New York, but she canceled all of her plans and stayed in Los Angeles with us so she could learn the gospel. She's given up many things to follow Jesus Christ and follow the commandments, and I just love her!!! When we went to the visitor's center, we walked around the temple too and explained some of the things that take place in the temple, and she told us she wanted to go before she leaves. Also, she said she wanted to serve a mission!!! (,: She just has this glow around her, which I like to refer to as "the baptism glow" and she is just so happy. 

Home Centered Church:

One of the wonderful members in our ward took Annie in for a couple days, and she loved it!!! She was able to see how the gospel works in the home and it increased her desire to know the truth. I know that home centered church is divinely inspired, so take advantage of it! Remember that "Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ." (The Family: A Proclamation to the World, 1995)

I am so proud of Annie for starting this covenant path, she really knows what it means to be a disciple and enduring to the end. We are so sad that she is leaving and that now we will not teach her anymore, but we will see her again!!

Funny story:

Sister Shay taught me a new word, and we know that every time I learn a new Chinese word, it's a funny story. So 榨 means to squeeze, like squeeze juice from fruit. 炸 means to deep fry, but you say these 2 words exactly the same. Sister Shay always says, "you're so cute I want to squeeze you!!" So I said this sentence in Chinese, and it sounded like I was saying, "you're so cute I want to fry you" and also, that is not even how you used this kind of "squeeze" in a sentence. We were on the floor dying of laughter in no time. 

Remember, home centered church, and nothing is more important than the salvation of the people, including yours!!!!! Love you all!!!

Week 18... 1/13/2020

Week 17 On the Lord's Errand 1/6/2020

OUR FRIEND IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!

A member in our ward told me and Sis. Shay that the church's "best kept secret" is the mission. Truth. Because it's hard to know what something is like on a mission until you actually experience it. I want to talk about our friend who is getting baptized. But truly, it is so hard describe everything that's happened and how happy we all feel, but my dad told me when I share mission experiences, that's part of missionary work. So I present to you, "Mission life with Sister Chou. Today's episode: On the Lord's errand."

Last Saturday (12/28): *phone rings* *a member is on the other line* hey I have a friend from China over who's only visiting for a couple weeks. Could you guys come teach her the gospel?
So me and Sis. Shay head over, and we share about the how God is our loving Heavenly Father.

Over the next 2 days, we taught her the Restoration, and the Plan of Salvation and while we were preparing for our Plan of Salvation lesson, me and Sister Shay were like, we feel like we can invite her to be baptized. Then we were like this is crazy. But we prayed to ask Heavenly Father if it was right, and then that lesson, she said yes and then we set a baptismal date for January 18th!!!!!!! We've been meeting with her every single day almost to teach her about this gospel and it's truly been amazing. Here is a little "highlight reel" of this past week with her.

-we taught her about fasting 2 days ago and then she fasted with us on Sunday!! Then during fast and testimony meeting she bore her testimony about how coming here and meeting the missionaries was truly part of God's plan, that reading the Book of Mormon helps her feel close to God, and she invited everyone to her baptism. She's pretty much the best.
-taught her about obedience and that we were going to teach her the commandments, and then she said she would be willing to follow them, even though we hadn't taught her all of them yet.
-told us that this past week, she's really felt her life change and that she always wants to be this happy
-one night we called her and asked her if she believed that the Book of Mormon, if she believed that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ, and if she believed in living prophets. She said yes to all 3
-it's so amazing to teach her because everything is new and she just absorbs it

I don't even know how to explain it, but being able to see true signs of conversion in other people's lives seriously just makes me so happy. I just didn't ever think that seeing Christ change people's lives could make me THIS HAPPY. And it's not even that me and Sister Shay taught someone and are helping them get baptized, but that we get to bring lasting change into someone's life. I think the greatest joys in this life include seeing other people's lives change and being able to witness the happiness they feel. I could literally explode with happiness. As missionaries, yes we commit people to baptism and help them be baptized, but it's a lot more than that. It's helping people find lasting joy through Jesus Christ.

A thought:
These last couple of weeks I have really learned about faith and prayer. I used to think that if I didn't follow every promoting, the Lord wouldn't bless me. Wrong. If you strive to do what the Lord asks of you, He will give you blessings. I've realized that when I pray, I can actually ask Him specific things, and then if I exercise faith, the Lord will deliver the exact thing I asked if it was a righteous desire. (I know, crazy that I'm just figuring this out.) This week, I asked God if He could actually bless me with specific things that I asked if I exercised faith. Then I read the scriptures and guess what I read? I read about how Nephi desired to know about Christ and his father's dream about the tree of life, and the he was shown these things. It's that simple. But you have to have to have to exercise faith.

Now tying the thought and my exploding happiness together:
For those who feel like they don't have missionary opportunities, pray for them. It's hard to explain, but I promise you that when you ask for those experiences, the Lord will give them to you and you will have so much joy it will exhaust your strength like Alma says. I love each and every single one of you, and because I do, I want you all to have this joy!! So look for opportunities to share the gospel!!! Go be on the Lord's errand. And if that's not motivation enough with all my exclamation points, here is a talk:

Spiritual Capacity
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2019/10/15craig

Some yellow emojis because I'm super happy
🌞🌟💛🐤🏵⭐🌻🌞🌟💛🐤🏵⭐🌻

Week 16 Happy New Year 1/1/2020