"Guo nian yihou."
My companion and I have come to fear those words. Next week is Chinese New Year (Guo nian), which is just the biggest shindig in the whole country. We're really excited to see what it will be like, but also nervous. For one thing, everyone either leaves to go be with family, holds big family gatherings at their home, or is too busy cleaning their houses, getting work out of the way, and doing other stuff to get ready for Guo Nian. This is why the words "After Guo Nian" as in, we'll be free to meet after Guo Nian, have become our worst nightmare.
In addition to that, from what I can tell, Guo Nian is a time when people eat a lot. of. food. Well, the Bishop wants us to help strengthen the ward, so he's arranged for them to feed us LUNCH AND DINNER EVERY DAY FOR THE NEXT 20 DAYS. Sister Reeve and I are scared. We are going to get fat. Especially since the diet here consists of a lot of rice, noodles and dumplings. So yeah, pray that we'll be able to find people to teach and that they won't all say GNYihou. And that we will not get too fat. Thanks.
As for this past week....oh, how my companion and I had high hopes. We wanted to be able to meet with all our investigators before Guo Nian. We had so many lessons planned for the week- we were flying high and super excited!!
Then one by one, our lessons began dropping like flies, our hopes popping like bubbles. We found ourselves wondering why this had happened? We had tried extra extra hard to be obedient this week. We were wroking as hard as we could. And yet everything fell through. Why had this happened?
After a while I realized this wasn't the question we should be asking. Instead, we started paying attention to what HAD happened. Our lesson count for the week still ended super high, mostly from lessons we had when we would talk to people on the streets. We got to meet with the most important people, helped strengthen some of the recent converts, and experienced some very BIG miracles. Most importantly, our investigator Hong Dixiong has a baptismal date for Feb 18th!!!!!!!! Pray that he will make it. We are so excited for him! It's been amazing to see the changes the gospel has worked in his life.
I know God is watching out for me all the way out here in Taiwan! Much love to all of you :)
Sister Daynes
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