Is That The Laos Ambassador in Our Gym?

Hello, dearest lovely and gorgeous people.

Well, gotta say, that after Dad's "letter" yesterday, I must be motivated to find a more exciting means to write you this week... Really, Dad? Hyphens to fill up character space?! (Just kidding--I had a good, hard laugh, along with my companions. It was hilarious). I hope Mom's out of her funk; I realize this email has a lot weighing on it to be awesome...

So. Thus it is.

Brother Chan is one of our investigators (he's actually the teacher for the other district, along with Sister Masterson, but we teach him as an investigator in Cantonese once a week). He is our hardest investigator--he really makes us think, search for inspiration and work.

From the very beginning, he really wanted to know why it mattered that God is there; how a God would affect his ACTIONS. He can ACT to be a better person, so why there are so many religions and why so much misery in the world?

He considered religion something that could be good and help people become better--but he expressed that he felt religion is much less important than an outward-focused attitude and trying to be a good person. He really reminds me of you, Dad in that way.

As he progressed in a desire to believe, we gave him Alma 32 to read. The next week, he finally agreed to pray. We were really excited and thankful for his progress--but then Thursday's teaching appointment came.

He is an advanced speaker of Cantonese so we may not have known the exact vocab he was saying, but we could tell that he had become bitter, closed, and desperate to reconcile the peace he'd felt before, with the chaotic, pointless examples around and inside him. He'd seen too many religious, obedient, and kind people who have experienced unfair, severe hardship and pain

It reminded me of Moses and the Israelites in Exodus 5:20 where they met Moses and Aaron coming from Pharaoh and the people said, "Moses, You just made the problem worse! Now they are slaying us! Then Moses went back to God and said, Lord, wherefore has thou allowed so evil entreated this people? Why is that thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak thy name he had done evil to this people, neither has thou delivered thy people at all."

Now, thus far, this role-play was feeling very real. When these "investigators" are acting their part, most of them are using true life experience and the challenges they have faced in their own lives. The story is acting, but the emotion is real.

We asked him if he'd pray to feel God's comfort--he said, "Dim yeuhng keih tou?" ("How pray?") I said, "Leih ji dou dim yeuhng keih tou, ma?" (You know how to pray, don't you?) and he said "I don't know if I CAN pray right now." I offered that I'd say the prayer--and challenged him, in halting and inaccurate Cantonese, to "hoi leih ge sam" --Open your heart.

It was an amazing, miraculous experience to pray together for real, needed, urgent, RIGHT NOW supplication to God to give us His Spirit of comfort and mercy and give it to us now. I know from life experience that the Spirit touches, converts and heals like I CANNOT do. AND I FELT THAT AGAIN! After that spiritual confirmation, we were all humbled by the inspiration that came to mind that helped us direct him to answers to resolve his problems.

We touched on the logic of trials--if every faithful person were immediately blessed and had no problems, what would be the point of faith or of living this life? How could we grow in our trust (I whispered to Sister Farr, how do you say trust???) without a time of darkness and trial and worry and fear and pain in between the obeying and the blessing?

I was not expecting to ever get to the point with an "investigator" at the MTC to issue a baptismal invite --but I realized that the only answer to the problems that such an investigator was expressing would be the gift of the Holy Spirit--and that can only happen through baptism and conversion.

I experienced, in that lesson, the miracle of the Spirit's witness of truth--its sanctification of my imperfect Cantonese, imperfect belief, imperfect testimony, imperfect conviction and commitment and covenant keeping, and imperfect living of principles of which I'm trying to witness.

Yet, the Spirit burned within all of our hearts and witnessed that the truths we professed were true as we confessed a lack of faith, (my!) lack of trust, my need to hope and believe and act in a way that showed that I trusted that God would fulfill his promises to me.

When you speak to someone--lookinto their eyes and tell them you know it's hard and you don't understand yourself, but that what you DO know is faith has strengthened you for good, the Spirit offers such an eloquent and profound testament--much more powerful than anything I could say myself, even if I were fluent in Chinese and a lifelong disciple. .

When Brother Chan spoke to the class afterward he asked them --"Did they speak perfect Chinese? No. Did they understand everything I said? NO way. But they spoke the words of Christ--as in the words he would speak if he were here." I didn't expect to get that kind of testament to happen in the MTC. What a beautiful experience and blessing. I'm so grateful I'm here.

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So it's been a rollercoaster of Chinese, because we had that great lesson and Saturday's TRC was the best ever--then the bomb dropped! I think they waited until we were far along in the language introduction before they told us this: Cantonese has THIRTY ending particles. Ahhhhh! I am re-humbled: turns out

Chinese is hard. Good thing we're not learning on our own!

I've tried so hard this week (continued trying, really) to help Sister Farr feel good and capable. It is so hard--especially with my pride and impatience--and she is so, so wonderful. Such a kind person; it breaks my heart when she thinks she's behind or that she can't learn this language. She is SO humble and so close to God's spirit.

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One more miracle: Saturday night I made a goal and mentioned in prayer that I wanted to try out for a musical number this week. I'd been trying for weeks to find a piano player, though, so something was going to just have to drop in my lap--which is exactly what I prayed for. In Relief Society the next day, Sister Norton (a fellow Women's Chorus alum.) walked up to me and asked, "Do you remember enough of 'where can i turn for peace' from Women's Chorus to try out with me on Thursday? Sorry, this is kind of just dropping it in your lap, but I started thinking about it last night..." WOW. I just started giggling. It was hilariously awesome. So, we're trying out Thursday! A-cappella and lovely.

One challenge: Mom, this week, when you fall asleep, count your blessings instead of sheep. You'll wake up smiling! I've never woken up so happy at 5:45 every single day...

And Dad, I need a little caribiner.

LOVE LOVE LOVE

Sister DIA