I forgot to write down in my planner the
notable things that happened this week to remind me what to write about,
so this letter might not be very long. But we did have a few really
cool things happen this week.
So our branch here in Macau has a lot of
less-actives, including a lot of Young Women-aged less-actives. We've
been brainstorming on how we can help these girls, some of who seem to
have no desire to come back, to want to come back to church. A few days
ago we went to the Young Women's President's house for dinner, and
shared with her a paragraph from Elder Christofferson's conference talk
this last October where he talked about how Priesthood quorums in Young
Men's would go visit less actives. Our YW President was totally on
board, and now we're starting a Less-active visiting program! Each month
the young women will focus on one less-active girl, and everyone will
go visit that girl together and let them know that they want them to
come back to church. It's even more cool b/c we only have 2 active young
women, and they're not even super active themselves, so it will help
them get more active and the less-actives feel like they'll have friends
at church--- it's a win-win!
Speaking of less-active success, we visited the
family we helped move a couple of weeks ago at their new apartment, and
it went SO WELL. We were talking to the dad, and he said (and I'm not
exaggerating at all), "You two helping us move changed our lives." We
were like "what are you talking about?" and he says "You helped me
realize that my daughter's been strong by going to church by herself,
and that this gospel is what I want for her. I want her to go on a
mission, to get married in the temple, to have the blessings the gospel
bring. I want this for my daughter and my son. I want the gospel for my
family. Thank you so much. You changed our lives." We were blown away.
We were like "all we did was help you move?" We're excited to work with
their family and help them work up the courage to come back to church.
SO COOL. Then he gave us these thank-you gifts from this place in
Mainland that apparently is on the top of a high mountain and has
paintings of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and he said the writing
on the rocks there makes him think that Christ visited that place after
He was resurrected. I want to go there! It was the coolest, best
less-active lesson of my entire mission, hands-down. I felt really
privileged that I could be a tool in the Lord's hand to help this man
realize that he needs to turn his life around just by helping him move.
It was also really cool because the day we moved them, we originally had
3 or 4 lessons scheduled, but everyone cancelled last minute, and our
schedule just cleared so that we could help them. Now I know why! It was
super neat.
Sister Cook went back to Macau on Saturday,
which I was sad about since she's so awesome, but I'm excited about my
new companion, Sister Lau! She was born in Hong Kong but grew up in
England, so obviously her Cantonese is pretty much perfect, which I'm
excited about. She started her mission 3 weeks after me, but came to
Hong Kong the move before I did, since she didn't have to learn
Cantonese, so we consider ourselves the same mission-age. I've gone
senior companion this move, which I'm pretty sure is just because I know
the area better, because Sister Lau is a really great missionary and
has already trained. I feel like she's already helping me a lot more
than I'm helping her. And since she has Hong Kong citizenship, she can
stay in Macau as long as she wants, so she can stay here for quite some
time and give the branch more stability. I really feel like she's what
this branch needs-- a really hard-working Chinese missionary that can
stay there for quite some time. She's awesome.
As far as our investigators with baptismal dates,
A-Ji is as awesome as ever! She's so golden, it's ridiculous. She hung
out at the church on Saturday for 5 hours, because she had a piano
lesson with Sister Welling, the senior sister here, at 3, then stayed
for the piano recital she held at 6, then ate dinner with us afterward.
She's so sweet and so cute, and one of the most Christlike people I've
ever met. I'm not worthy! haha. Ivy, unfortunately, dropped her
baptismal date, which honestly didn't surprise me because she never
really seemed to accept it. I don't think her gospel interest is that
big, but that she really liked Sister Cook, so she'd come. Joey is
stagnating at the moment a bit, but we're hoping to help her stop being
so stubborn about everything by just giving her a good, happy lesson
where we read the Book of Mormon with her this week. She came to the
primary activity on Saturday though, and still loves hanging around at
the church with her friends to play games and ping-pong and stuff. We're
going to see if we can meet her family and get them on board to help
her.
My birthday was good as well! I kept forgetting it
was my birthday. We have an investigator Shelley who also has the same
birthday, so she came to sacrament meeting yesterday and we wished each
other happy birthday, which was fun. The other sisters in our apartment
bought me a little cake on Saturday (probably), which was a fun
surprise. Then on Saturday I got mom's package plus letters from both
Alyssa and Alisse, who I hadn't heard from in awhile, so that was a
really good birthday present.
Macau's an awesome place. I glad I have the opportunity to serve here longer!
Love you all!
Sister Heaton
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