WEEK 66

This transfer our Zone has the same goal of an "Aqua Zone" where each companionship in our Zone baptizes someone within this 6 week period. We decided to each give up something that we love as a "sacrifice" for the transfer. The word "sacrifice" can be defined as: Giving up something good for something better.
Let me give you an example of some of the things the missionaries have decided to sacrifice. Our Zone leaders chose to give up rice, beef, and 30 minutes of sleep by waking up 6am every morning to go running. My companion gave up candy and dessert, basically anything sweet =) My other companion gave up cup-noodles. So these are some fun examples....I thought to myself, everyone is giving up some form of food that they just can't live without. But as for me, I love food, but if I don't eat it for 6 weeks, I won't really miss it either...hehe.. so I decided that giving up food is not really a huge sacrifice for me. Well, guess what ended up on my sacrificial alter? My warm fleece blanket, my silver-blue watch, and a picture of the Oakland Temple that is usually hung above my dresser =) So far..I haven't experienced any withdrawels yet..so..hehe...we'll see how this transfer turns out ;-) Well, Sister Leung is definitely missing her sweet food, but she's doing great too =D Our Zone leaders are also loosing a tone of weight, so their "sacrifice" is bringing immediate obvious blessings. It's fun to do little things like this (as a Zone) that brings great meaning. Although it might sound ridiculous and irrelevant, this physical/temporal excercise really helps us physically relate things to other things that are of spiritual significance. I dunno if that sentence I just wrote made any sense at all, but you get what I mean...=P

We also had a Zone Fast on Thursday for our investigators. We did a Zone Fast towards the end of last transfer and many miracles happened in our Zone following that fast. So this transfer, our Zone leaders tried to do things a little smarter this time and held the Zone Fast at the beginning of this transfer so that these miracles can happen early in the transfer to help our investigators progress into the waters of baptism before the transfer ends =) Sounds funny, but it's so true!
One of the miracles that already started to happen was on Saturday following that fast, My companions and I had a pretty bad Saturday morning...some discouraging experices with our investigators that morning. We then served at the Visitors' Center in the afternoon. Within the first hour we served, 5 Chinese people walked in the Visitor's Center. 3 of them were sisters originally from Guang Dong, China. 2 of those sisters live in this bay area and are pretty active Christians - 3rd generation Christians to be exact. By the end of the tour, both sisters wanted to come to our Chinese branch to attend Church the next day (by the way, THAT is a miracle!) After that family left, we were still in a daze at what just happened in that hour with those amazing Chinese people. It is so rare to meet Chinese people at the VC who are willing to take a tour of the Temple grounds, let alone even commit to come to Church with us the next day! They are amazing and yesterday, the younger sister (in her 40's) stayed for all three hours of church and she absolutely loved our branch! So that is one of the miracles that happened over this weekend. I'm glad I get to write this much to you today. I hope you all enjoyed "The Pioneer Miracle" movie as much as I do.

I love you all so much and HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY to mom!!!!