Sprint to the finish 🏃‍♀️🏁

Hello everyone! Hope you had a great week :) before I get too far into this, just wanted to mention that I will be returning home on April 29 and my homecoming will be on the 30th! If you would like the info, ask my mom because I don't know haha. Also, Taiwan doesn't get General Conference for another 2 weeks so DON'T SPOIL IT!!

Monday was good! We went to a pretty lake and saw lilacs and saw lots of Monkeys! Tuesday was busy, we did some service for a friend we are teaching, then went and did an English service for a lady who wants to teach English, and then later that night we biked the long way to our friend 文娟's house! She had to leave but we taught her quickly and she was able to set a baptismal date!!! YAY 文娟！ Afterward we taught another family, the 戴 family, and they are just the cutest! They have a little 6-year-old who gives the most inspired answers! After that we had to stop at a park on the way home because we had our coordination call, and then we had a DLC call and then we had a sister call. Busy night. 

Wednesday was kind of crazy too, we had a lunch with a less active member who made us cute little leather elephants! Afterward we biked the long hilly way to a friend's house named Wu Xiansheng. We had a pass of lesson with the Elders there. Afterward we were knocking some doors there and had an encounter with a lady who wanted us to call the police for her because of something her son did or something, I did not understand the majority of the conversation haha. But it was a fun experience. Afterward we went back and taught our friend 小木！ It was good! She had read the Book of Mormon and had lots of questions about it. After that we had ECG! We weren't expecting anyone because we hadn't had people come for the last like four weeks in a row, but then a mom and her daughter ended up coming (45 min late haha) which was fun!! That was about it for the day :) 

Thursday we had zone conference! Also, a little rule change, I can actually use messenger to contact friends from home now on P-days. It doesn't really change much for most of you I don't think, but let it be known that if you want to shoot me a message, I can now respond. I was able to sing at zone conference and shared my departing testimony which was sad. Afterward we had left and then we got a call from the Elders asking if we just wanted to do our interviews then. So, we did! President told me to sprint to the finish! So let it be written, so let it be done, or whatever the phrase is, haha. Then we went to dinner with President! After that we did some paper gray dot calling for a bit! That's about it! 

Friday was good! That morning we had a lesson with a family and so they will be new friends as soon as we set up another time!! And they totally got us coffee which was kind of nice of them/awkward haha. Other than that, the day was mostly planning and messaging! Saturday was also pretty much planning, messaging, and organizing things so not much happened worth mentioning! 

Sunday we had like 8 hours’ worth of meetings. That's about it. Sundays in this area absolutely destroy me. Chinese is so dangerously easy to tune out. But on the plus side, we have a new program we want to try to get more referrals so I will let you know how it goes in the coming weeks :) 

Today was good, we went shopping and I bought clothes for after I'm home, and then I cried cause I'm sad, and that's all! Oh, we also had a member visit!

Spiritual thought for the week: This week I feel like I've encountered several people who are just holding anger in their hearts. I find it so sad, because they tell us the things going on in their lives and from the outside perspective of a missionary I can see that the Savior can free them if they allow Him too. These things that happen are not their faults, and I think forgiveness isn't just saying "It's okay" and moving on. Forgiveness doesn't mean ignoring the problem. Forgiveness is depending on the Savior and His perfect judgment. Forgiveness is trusting that Jesus Christ's Atonement is enough to someday replace your lack with substance and your pain with joy. Forgiveness is letting Him carry your pain, because He already has. You don't need to hold that anymore. Recently I learned that the meaning of the word "Hosanna" is "Save Us." How fitting that is.