BEST MAIL EVER!!!!!

Dear Family, Friends, 

A Great Day In The Morning!  I received the mail and in it was a note from my dear Sister Cook, who wrote on the outside, "Happy Mother's Day!" and included just one thing: a picture of J's baptism!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was just overcome and pretty much just sat right down on the empty floor of the new senior missionary couple's apartment (I love them, they're the "Wellings" and the mom reminds me of Margaret Young) and cried. It even had a photo of S in it--in a gorgeous pink dress! She doesn't wear dresses--she was always too shy so she'd wear her school uniform (her baptism date is for mother's day!!! and she HAS PERMISSSION!). They looked so beautiful, I almost couldn't believe it. It was like mail straight from heaven. 

J MADE HER DATE that we set with her almost 2 months ago. I'm so sad I didn't get to see it, but I'm so grateful, so grateful. On TOP of that, J's DAD was in the picture... I can't even explain. They've had such a hard family life--Which MAKES for Strong People!  I have a testimony that hard lives make us STRONGER.  Yuen Long District is doing amazing.

Macau is doing amazing, too! We've seen so many miracles and tender mercies. OH, and it's my one year mark in China TODAY! One year of water filters, three-hole British plugs, sleeping in the same room as an Asian, not a taste of bread but daily sharing the bread of life with these beloved people. I can't believe it and at the same time I can't believe it's only been a YEAR! I feel so at home here.  And I've learned I Can Do Hard Things. 

This Week's "E" Miracle--was amazing.  Let me tell you the story.  

First, we ended up at TWO BBQ's here in Macau in the last week! Chinese and Phillapina flavors, and both were at "Black Sand Beach" up on Taipa (or maybe down? My directions are all mixed up). The first was maybe just a warm up for the second-- although we DID have an amazing miracle--no rain on a thunderstorm warning Saturday. The zone prayed together in the morning because it was POURING when we woke up. Then, at 9, nothing. NO RAIN!   No rain, that is, until EVERYTHING was totally packed up and the bus was pulling up to take everyone home! PERFECT!

Anyway, the second bbq was even more eventful. We met four referrals and pulled together a ton of beach games and ate until we died and met less actives and new members and probably had more than 100 people we were NOT PLANNING ON there.

AND I got sunburned AND  stung by a bee the size of an eagle on my hand and when I was done screaming CRAP (in front of the entire branch... great....) and flapping my hand around the stinger was still attached to its HUMOUNGEOUS EAGLE SIZED behind anyway. 

It hurt really bad, but the awesome part is that I had to leave to go bandage the throbbing crater in my now hotdog sized index finger (I may be exaggerating just a tad) and we saw E-Gem--who hasn't been answering our calls because her phone's out of money but must be the sweetest, goldenest Phillippina ever. Miracle!

this picture is from when I was Sis Cheung's companion and was
 taken on Chinese New Year

Actually, all our investigators are pretty sweet and SHINY GOLDEN because we had two other amazing experiences this week-- one where the person was just standing outside the church, I opened my mouth and she (said later in the lesson) felt like her feet were PULLING her inside.

I'll end with the other (named E. hence the title of the miracle week) who started bawling and threw her arms around me when I casually pulled her aside and gave her a Book of Mormon after the activity Saturday night and for pretty much no reason opened up to 1 Nephi 1:1 and testified that she, too, could teach her family about God even though her four kids were so far away in the Philippines and now she has a baptismal date and (later found out) she was a hard-core 7th Day Adventist before. Wow.

God's Work is so amazing! Thanks family and friends for your support.

I found a Mandarin hymnbook this week so now I'm forcing Sister Wong to sing in Mand, Canto and English every day... gotta love it :D

Love ya'll,

Sister D