Aloha to my beautiful family and friends and poppets!
I chose to title my blog post this week Fake it Til you Make it, because it reminded me a lot of my dad. And believe it or not, Dad, I thought a lot about you this week, during my personal studies, during training, during my lessons with investigators...and etc. You're the topic of my week! Seriously! Weird huh? haha
For those who don't know much about my dad, he's a Super hero. A quiet one though that has worked and labored for decades to serve and provide for my family. On top of that, he's saved hundreds of lives outside of his immediate family. He's a doctor who's days revolve around serving others. Evidently from all these descriptions of him, you can imagine all his super powers.
Despite all these things, what makes him my dad is also the fact that he is still human, and one that makes mistakes. I know for a fact that when he was first investigating the church, he didn't understand his true potentials yet, as a father, as a patriarch of the home, as one that holds the Priesthood authority of God. I judged him, and was not all that patient and humble in helping him find his true potentials. But over the years, I have seen his powers grow, and his faith strengthened, and his true, fathering side.
He has taught me to be the person I am today. Through example I guess. I am fearless and willing to explore and try new things all the time because of him. He has taught me the advantages of being quiet and not always needing to express every feeling that I have. My favorite quote that he spoke of during my farewell talk before I left on the mission was: "Sometimes you really don't know what you're doing, but you simply keep doing it until you know more." He basically summed up the first step of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. His example and personal experience of investigating the church have shown me the truth of having faith.
And these are the experiences that I share with my investigators all the time. So thanks dad for being the example that you are to me each and everyday!
I was reminded of these quotes because during my New Missionary Training this past Wednesday, my president's wife, Sister Clements shared the quote about "Fake it Til You make it" Evolved to "Faith It Til you make it." Having that true faith is to have hope in things that you cannot see. I cannot physically see myself as a person that has the ability to not be TONGUE TIED while trying to teach my investigators yet, however, i have the faith that i can keep trying until I know what I am doing. No matter what it is that we are dealing with in our lives, it really is simply "all about our faith and our attitude."
This past week, Sister Smith and I had the chance to attend a baptism! Not one of our very owns, yet, but the fruits of the hard work by our zone leaders in DinkyTown. Elder Roberts and Laga. These two girls are sisters from China FuJian and are absolutely adorable.
Danting and DanYan (Diane) are so very sweet. The night before their baptism, I got a voice message from Diane asking for Sister Pao's help with something. I was sooo nervous and thought the worst instantly. I thought that I had to be the one to spill it to the zone leaders about how their two investigators did not want to be baptized anymore. For afterall, they aren't in until they've been dunked, but even after that, there's still so much more! I got a little ahead of myself and thought the worst, but foolish me, that was not the case. THANKFULLY!
I called Diane back and found out that all she needed from me were some church clothing. I was so glad and happy, and overjoyed, and ecstatic, that I could help them out with their troubles, and to be able to even take part in even a little aspect of preparing them for their special day. She definitely came to the right person, because who else would have more skirts and Sunday clothing than the Sister missionaries. Sister Smith and I were so excited to be able to plan out what they could FIT IN (right i forgot to mention that they are tiny!) and to basically mother them a little. haha It was the most that we could do, and it was the best favor anyone could ever ask of us.
Sunday morning rolls around and we help them try on the different outfits that we had for them. Unfortunately, we didn't think clearly and brought a few pencil skirts which obviously would not fit them well enough. So in the end, I had to actually take off my stretchy long skirt that I was wearing that day and switch them for a pencil skirt. Luckily, I can actually fit into Sister Smith's skirts, otherwise...things could have gotten interesting! haha So with that, re-occurring theme, "Fake it Til you Make it!"
OKAY! now exciting things about our very own investigators! Sister Smith and I have been receiving sooo many investigators these days. We have quite a lot of people on our hands now so we are busy busy busy!
A miracle for us was that sisters from another area actually passed on an investigator to us, and she is absolutely GOLDEN i tell you!
Her name is Kala Walcheski, and basically during our first meeting with her, she came in and said, "I have decided, I WANT TO BE BAPTIZED DEC. 7TH" crazy huh? I barely even knew her name and she wanted to be baptized already! We were so blessed that she simply was looking and was prepared by the Lord. Now, Sister Smith and I just need to prepare her by helping her know the members of the YSA ward, and by keeping her in check. She is amazing and I can simply see so many of her potentials.
One of my favorite things about being here in Dinkytown with all the new Chinese converts is that, I get to see the bigger picture of it all. I have come in contact with so many Chinese people/converts, amazing convert stories and experiences of the influences of Chinese converts in my life, that I simply KNOW with all my heart that some of these new converts will be doing amazing things in building up the kingdom of God in China, when time allows. I am so blessed and lucky to be seeing all the PIONEERING events that will lead to so many greater things in the future. The Lord truly is hastening his work, and I can't wait to see what will come of it.
WeiHua Li from Shanghai and Tuan Pham from Thailand are two of my favorite new converts. I wasn't there to witness their baptism but I got to see them receive the Aaronic Priesthood, start passing the sacrament, and then even baptize Diane and Danting within the 3 weeks that I have been here. It's been magnificent seeing how the Priesthood authority is already playing such a huge part of their life, and I can't wait to see and hear how it blesses their future families.
With that, Know that the Lord is Good and that he loves us all!
I love you all so very much and I can't wait to share with you more of my experiences!
Love always,
Sister Pao
