Faith - a Principle of Power

Hey!
I feel like this week has been more like a month. It's rained like nobody's business, so that's been so fun. We're building back up our teaching pool, and we're always so busy meeting with less actives. This last Sunday, 2 of our less actives became active! And.....Ayuh got baptized!! It was a miracle. She is so straightfoward and sure in what she knows, and it was such an incredible thing to watch her bear her testimony after the baptism. She doesn't smile or cry or show emotion very often, but she did all three and constantly just said how grateful she was to Heavenly Father for blessing her so much. So humble and proud of her decision. I felt so happy for her and so much love for her. It really is somethinig I haven't experienced before. But it was a difficult working up to that point, and I've learned so much through this. This week especially, I've learned that faith really is a principle of power. I've always just considered faith to be things we believe in that we can't see, and my interest and understanding for the most part stopped at that. But with this 65 in July goal we have going on, President Hawks has really been calling on our faith, and I've been wondering how I can contribute more. And especially with the detours Ayuh's been encountering, I've been wanting to give or do more to help, but I wasn't sure how. So I've been praying. And I've been praying alot. And I'm working on making my prayers more honest and sincere, but that's for another time. But President Hawks gave us some exceprts from the book "Drawing from the Powers of Heaven," so I've been studying those along with scriptures and trying to apply it. One of them says,"Do not confuse the preoccupation of worry and anxiety with the preoccupation involved in exercising faith. Thinking negatively does not require any effort; maintaining a believing frame of mind, however, requires an exerted effort over a sustained period of time" And then Joseph Smith said,"When a man works by faith he works by mental exertion instead of by physical force." And I don't know - these just helped me understand how faith really is power from heaven, and and how we can give our own effort in exerting faith. So I did what I could to focus my thoughts and desires of faith toward Ayuh and her baptism, and for the goal. But how can having faith in something affect a decision of somebody else's personal agency? It's Ayuh's decision. My having faith can't make her get baptized. I'm still not really sure the answer to this, but I was reading in Alma 19:23 that says, "Now we see that Ammon could not be slain, for the Lord had said unto Mosiah, his father: I will spare him, and it shall be unto him according to thy faith - therefore, Mosiah trusted him unto the Lord." And I realized that my faith can affect others. It is Ayuh's decision, but I can have faith that the Lord will help her remember her feelings when she prayed about accepting baptism. The Lord can help me know what to say or ask in a lesson to help her feel the Spirit. There are so many influences that can help Ayuh with this decision. So that's what I prayed for. And it's been so neat to see and experience that Heavenly Father answers our prayers. He knows Ayuh and knows what she needs, out of these millions of people in Hong Kong, she matters to him, and I learned that this week. Ayuh put off her interview until Friday. She was feeling sick and wasn't sure she would go through with it. But she showed up half an hour late on Friday. And our bishop happened to stop by the church for another investigator's interview, but he was fonged (stood up). So he sat in with us. Miracle. I had been praying all morning to help me and my companion have the spirit in our lesson and help us know what to say and what questions to ask. In the lesson, for the first 20 minutes she had essentially made her decision not to go through with it. Sister Simpson was trying to figure out what she wanted from us then from that point on. She's had all the lessons twice now. And then I had the thought to ask her if she would say a prayer with us about her decision. I put it off, because I thought we were past the point to ask, but I had the thought again, so I asked it, feeling kind of silly because the bishop thinks I just dont understand anything that's going on, and I thought he would think I was oblivious to what had happend up till that point. But I asked anyway, and she was quiet for a while, and then nodded her head and said she already prayed about it and got her answer. And she knows she needs to get baptized. She's prayed about it alot, and distinctly got her answer before, and agreed to fill out the paperwork and start her interview with the District Leader. Miracle! Honestly, so many miracles led up to her baptism. And it's been humbling to see Heavenly Father love me and bless me enough to have these learning experiences. I know my faith or desire or whatever wasn't enough to make that change or call on these miracles, but we're trying, and I think Heavenly Father knows we were trying our best and blessed us anyway. It's really just been a week full of feeling his love for us, and helping us learn and grow.
On a side note, another cool thing that happened was during finding. 95% of our finding takes place just walking the streets and parks and trying to stop people to talk to. Which is hard haha. But there aren't a lot of other options. But I thinking that I've been studying missionary examples from the scriptures alot, like Ammon or Alma. But I haven't really spent time thinking about the Savior's example of missionary work. which made me feel silly, in all honesty. So I read about how the Savior "went about doing good" and preaching His gospel and establishing His church. And that made me think that I could do more "good" around me. Service is a hard thing here. They removed the 1 hour of service requirement here because it's hard to find. People are so busy and nobody has yards to help with and we can't really go visit people in their homes, so it's tough. But I started praying for more service opportunities and ways to recognize when I can go about and do something good. And it's been neat to see those prayers answered. This week I got to help a Popo push her cart up a hill. She wouldn't listen to us afterwards, but hey - service! I was so excited haha. And then we were out finding, and we came across a woman and started talking to her. She asked, "So you go around visiting people and talking to them?" "Ya, sort of. We share...." Great! do you have ten minutes? My husband is at home and I would love if you could talk to him." Her husband has cancer. I'm not sure what exactly, but it's up through his face. He's been bed ridden for two years, and they don't have any friends since they moved to Hong Kong those two years ago. She just wanted people to talk to him. So we did, and we're going back next week. And the ward had a service project yesterday out of the blue. And a less active who hasn't been to church in over a year called us. She has a colonoscopy today, and needs someone to pick her up from the hospital. All her friends work and she didn't know who else to ask, so she called us. And we're going to get her coming back to church. I dont know, it's just kind of been a cool week of service opportunities, and made me realize how prayers really are heard and answered. And they make a difference and open people to listening to our message. It's just neat. Sorry, this is a novel. but it's just been a neat week.
Alright, please edit out what you need. I love you mom. I feel gross. My hair is pretty darn frizzy here. And my skin is weird. And I need to cut back on peanut butter - we just haven't had much time to eat, so that's been my go to. But I think I'll try to eat out more on the street. maybe it won't make me quite as blubbery. Oh well. Things are great. Hard, but great. Well, I love you. I'll send more pictures next time. I got the computer that doesn't work with pictures today. We're at this little Philippino shop and it's super cramped, and we're rocking out to Fergie....dont mess with heart or funk? or something? haha. Makes me smile. And miss Haydn :) Alright, until next time!


Love Hannah