So Much to be Thankful For

I really do have a lot to be thankful for in my life.  Today's post will be dedicated to the blessings I have observed recently in my life.

1. I have the best family.  No, but really.  They are so wonderful and supportive of the choices I have made, especially the one to serve a mission. (Plus, I have an awesome sister who runs this blog for me.  Thank you, Annie.) [Editor’s note: I did not write that one, folks. It was from Sister Beer—I swear.]

2. Right now, I am full-time sharing my deepest beliefs with people and seeing the wonderful effect the gospel has on their lives.  It's awesome.

3. Not only do I get to do missionary work, but I get to do it in New York City, which is possibly one of the coolest places in the world.

4. I have a second chance to learn Mandarin.  Not many people get that.  And it's getting better!  Yesterday I translated an entire lesson for our senior couple.  We were teaching a recent convert and the Blairs came along to meet her, but since they don't speak any Mandarin, I was the bridge between them and the sister we were talking to.  It was pretty cool to be able to help them understand her needs and concerns, and to help her understand what they wanted to do to help.

5. This week I left my mission for the second time since coming here.  Now, most missionaries don't ever leave their mission boundaries while they are out, but this week we had the awesome opportunity to go to the New York South mission and help clean up and provide relief from Hurricane Sandy.  While I was there, I also got to see Elder Liston (who was one of my Bio 100 students at BYU) and Elder Steadman (who was in my district at the MTC) who were both helping with the project that day.  The South missionaries have been serving almost nonstop since the hurricane hit, and the people of Long Island are thankful for it.

6. I am part of a church that, when a disaster like Hurricane Sandy hits, organizes relief efforts quickly and quietly.  We serve where we can and hope that the people benefit from it.  I love it.

7. This week, after a long contacting drought, we got four numbers in one night, and three of them were former investigators from years ago!  It was a huge miracle for us.  We have recently had a difficult time finding people who are interested in our message, but these people seem prepared and ready to listen and learn about the gospel.

8. I am a part of the best district and zone in the New York North mission.  My fellow missionaries are obedient, diligent workers and I love it.  They set such a good example for me and for other missionaries in the mission.

9. Because I serve in Chinatown on Manhattan, I get some of the best food ever.

10.  My companion is wonderful.  She is loving, compassionate, patient, and loves what she is teaching.

The list goes on, but I'll stop there.  I am also so grateful for all of you and the support you have given me and other missionaries around the world.  I appreciate the contact that I have had with many of you over the past four months.  Thank you so much for your love and prayers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sister Beer

Back to normal?

大家好,

Post-hurricane life is... cold.  As with many storms, this one has left a chilly aftermath, including a Nor'easterner coming in tonight.  There is already snow falling from the sky, which I have mixed feelings about, and I am beginning to wish that Sisters could wear pants.

The work, however, is doing great.  One of our investigators is preparing for baptism, and he's fantastic!  We taught him lesson 3 yesterday, all about the Doctrine of Christ.  The Doctrine of Christ includes five steps:

1. Faith on Jesus Christ and His Atonement

2. Repentance

3. Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins

4. Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost

5. Enduring to the End

As we were teaching him about these principles, he just understood.  There is no other way to describe it.  The hardest one to teach in my opinion is the last step, about enduring to the end.  Often people look at baptism as a thing that finishes the conversion process.  On the contrary, baptism is only the beginning our discipleship to Christ and is a gateway to the path leading us back to our Heavenly Father.  When we asked our investigator his opinion about if we need to continue building faith after baptism, he looked at us and said (I'm translating) "Of course!  We need to continue to learn more."  I was SO happy to hear that.  He gets it!  As he takes these steps to grow closer to Heavenly Father, he is only going to see more blessings in his life.  That's true for all of us, by the way.  As we continuously try to better ourselves and become more like Jesus Christ, we see more blessings and experience more happiness in our lives.

Now that I have talked about that for a bit, let me inform you about how the hurricane affects my mission and our work here.

We are still waiting to hear about when we can go to help the New York, New York South and New Jersey, Morristown Missions.  At this point there is not enough of an organized effort for missionaries to go down to help right now.  There are many areas of the city that are still not open to civilians and many still without power.  Luckily we in our mission have power (the only on who doesn't right now is the mission president, and that's because of all the trees down around his house) and we have been able to return to proselyting work until we are called to serve other places.  We also have been actively looking for service opportunities in our area and have had a few chances to work distributing food and water, as well as helping people fill out forms for replenishing food stamps.  They were very grateful to have some Chinese speakers around to help!

Ah!  I almost forgot.  Today was transfers, and we lost two of our district.  Elder Huang and Sister Gao have returned home, bringing the Chinatown district down to 12 missionaries.  Because Sister Gao left, Sister Chueh has now switched over and is Sister Khong's new companion.  She will finish training Sister Khong, and Sister Liu will finish training me!  I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be trained by Sister Liu.  She is so happy and such a good missionary!  I also am hoping that my Mandarin will improve lots over the next six weeks, since SIster Liu doesn't speak much English and we need to communicate somehow!  We use her electronic dictionary a lot to translate things, and so far, it has been pretty great.

To start off our cycle, we went to the National Museum of Natural History and checked out the Dinosaur Exhibit!  It was pretty awesome.  I like dinosaurs. :)

That's all the time I have for today.  The Blairs have invited us over for dinner, so we have to get going.  I love you all!

Love,

Sister Beer

P.S.  I got to go stay for a couple days up in Harlem (while we didn't have power in Chinatown) with some sisters there, and it was super fun!  Also, I can say now that I have been to Harlem, which is pretty cool.  While I was there, I was looking at pictures on the wall and who should be smiling back but one Kirt Davis!  It makes sense, he was an Assistant to the President (AP) in this mission for a while, but I forgot that people here knew him.  Kirt, you are still remembered and loved by many here in New York!

My Date With Sandy

Hello, all. 

I am happy to inform you that we did not blow away in the storm!  And by storm, I mean hurricane.  Who knew New York got hurricanes?  (Actually, I heard they had one last year, but it's not really a place that you think of getting hurricanes!)  We did, however, lose power, so I am actually writing this post from the mission home in Scarsdale.  We have been having a good few days in our apartment in Chinatown, but since we have been without power for a couple days and there was no way to write home, they had us come up here so we could communicate with you all.  I will say that I am now very familiar with our area book, and I have learned how to light a gas stove without an automatic starter.  Good skills to know, I think.  The one thing is that since we have been in the apartment, we haven't been able to meet with many investigators this week, so that has been a little frustrating, and our plans for a hot-pot and pumpkin pie night for our departing Sister Gao have been cancelled.

In other news, we have new missionaries in our district!  The Blairs are a senior missionary couple (that's just what it sounds like, an older couple who chose to go on a mission) that have been assigned to our little branch.  Neither of them speak Mandarin, but Elder Blair spent ten months of his mission in the South East Asia mission in Hong Kong.  They live in our building, right next to one of the companionships of elders downstairs.  We love them already and know that they will be an excellent contribution to our district and our branch.  One good about this hurricane is it has given us more of an opportunity to get to know them.  On Monday they and the elders came up to our apartment to help us put up our blinds.  Afterwards, since we couldn't leave our apartments, we ordered a couple of pizzas, went to the Blairs' apartment, and had a little family night. 

This whole hurricane deal has really reminded me how wonderful it is to be prepared.  The Church encourages all of its members to prepare food and water in case of emergencies, as well as any other supplies they may need.  The same goes for missionaries, and before the storm hit we were reminded to get everything we need.  We then were given the excellent opportunity to serve our ward, especially our recent converts and less active members.  We called all of them to remind them to prepare themselves, and to tell them how much we and the Branch Presidency loved them.  Many of them were grateful for the information and to hear that we wanted them to be safe.  We will follow up with them soon (once cell phones are working a little better) and see how they weathered the storm.

I am grateful for a mission home that still has power and internet, a mission president that thinks to send updates to my family, and for an awesome district that is so willing to serve each other.  it has been a pretty great couple of days, all things considering.

We'll see how this next week goes - I have a feeling we are going to be helping out a bit with cleanup.  I'll let you know.

Love you!

Sister Beer