MERRY CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!!!

Sheng dan jie kuaile!!

I don't have lots of time today, but I wanted to share a little Christmas Miracle with you. 

Every year each zone sets a goal for how many baptisms. Every year for as long as I know, Saipan's goal has been 30. But we have never been able to reach that goal. 

At the beginning of December we were at 24. Then the first week, we had 2 baptisms, but one of them is 8 years old so she is a child of record and her brother is a convert. So we're at 25. As a zone, we had a bunch of people on date to be baptized, but many aren't able to make it due to some complications/not coming to church/etc. So last week in District meeting, we all decided to fast and pray for our friends that they could make it to their baptismal date December 30th. We started our fast that night. Come Sunday, only 4 were going to make it to their baptism. But then, after Sacrament, a member came up to Sister Jenkins and said his little 9 year old brother hasn't been baptized yet. He has been coming to church for years and wanted to be baptized at 6am on Christmas Morning. The problem was he hasn't had the lessons yet. So we called President, and he said it was ok for this little boy to be baptized. When we found out, all of us missionaries were so excited!! Due to many prayers, fasting, and faith, Saipan is going to reach it's yearly goal for the very first time!!!! This morning we went down to the ocean and watched this little boy get baptized. The sun was just rising, and the Spirit was so powerful. I am so grateful to Heavenly Father for this Christmas Miracle!

I hope you all have felt and will feel the Spirit of Christmas this season. I am so grateful for Heavenly Father's gift to me, and to all of us: That of His Divine Son, Jesus Christ. I can't even put into words how grateful I am for His Life, His Sacrifice, His Resurrection, and His Matchless love. "God be thanked for the matchless gift of His Divine Son." Find something you can give back to Heavenly Father this season; something to change, someone to serve, a promise to make. I love you all so much! Merry Christmas!!

Sister Springer

Transfer calls and stuff

I gotta make this email so fast because I am short on time this week.

Transfer calls were Sunday and.... drum roll please.....

Yeah I'm staying on Saipan forever with the best companion in the world speaking Chinese. =p

BUT! We lost two Elders... Elder Ieru and Elder Dodd. Elder Dodd is whitewashing an area on Guam, and he's only 3 transfers out! This is his 4th. He's a super funny Elder. He will do good things on Guam. Elder Ieru is the new Assistant! He is going to do sooo good. He is a very consecrated missionary. That leaves me and Sister Jenkins as the last of the old zone here on Saipan. Makes me really sad, but I know it's where the Lord needs him now.

Just quick note bout some of the pics. Went to the Bensons for making cookies and Brother Benson took our pictures. He's an excellent photographer ^^

Caroled at the Senior Center. Teddy asked for a Book of Mormon for Christmas. My ever-prepared companion gave him one ^^

Zone conference was on Saturday! Excellent. I love President and Sister Poston so much. Very inspired leaders!! It was great talking to President one on one too... Gift of Discernment is real, just sayin =) Also, the Book of Mormon has all the answers!! You just gotta search it's pages, diligently.

 

Sister Springer

Guam Zone Conference with Elder Gei

Ni hao!

This week was pretty rough far as proselyting goes. Me and the other leaders left Saipan at 4am (so at the airport at 2am) on Wednesday morning, then had Zone Conference with Guam most of the day on Wednesday, then MLC for 12 hours on Thursday, then back to Saipan eary Friday morning. Caught up on some sleep then got to see my investigators again finally. Missed them! I guess a bunch of the kids were asking where I was. So cute ^^

But Guam was super good!! Elder Gei of the Seventy was there: He is the Area President for Asia North Missions. It was really cool to see how God is guiding the work is this part of the world. We got to work with him personally and learn how to be better missionaries. He really emphasized the importance of asking inspired questions. We did a couple roleplays with him. Sister Jones did one like he was an investigator. She did a good job, but this investigator was rough (based on a real person). From what we understood, she was a devout Orthodox Christian that did a lot of good. She didn't see why she'd have to change churches when her whole life she'd spent dedicated to following Jesus Christ, and raising her children to do the same. We did the typical, well this is the Priesthood/you need to recieve the Holy Ghost/what is baptism to you routes... But none seemed to work. So then Elder Gei paused the roleplay, and gave us a little more information about his friend. Her husband had recently left her for another woman, and soon after she was diagnosed with an untreatable disease that would kill her slowly and painfully. She was left wondering if God hated her-if He had abandoned her. Then Elder Gei talked to us about the importance of asking our investigators questions, and trying to understand what their real question was. She didn't need to know about the Priesthood right then. She needed to know that God did love her. She needed to know about the Plan of Salvation. But how would we have known that if we just tried to throw what we knew about her? It made me think about how often I do that in lessons. Do I just go through the motions, teaching the lessons. Or do I remember to teach the people, and really listen to them. It was very powerful counsel. I learned a lot and hope and pray I can remember the Spirit I felt and the inspirations I received as I review my notes. Sometimes I wish I could relive moments like those. Hey JD, can you get a hold of a pensive for me? Thanks. 

MLC was also really good. We didn't intend to be in the meeting for 12 hours, but President is doing this really cool thing. He is letting us come together and counsel about how we can do better and ways we can help our islands. It's been really neat, and helps us bring together all that "scattered revelation" God gives us. 

Something Elder Gay and President Poston really stressed in MLC was the need for us to work with the potential Melchezidek Priesthood holders and their families. The First Presidency is stressing this too. There are so many blessings God wants to give His children, but those blessings can only be received through the temple. On the islands, especially like Pohnpei and Chuuk, the women and children are active, but their husbands are not. The blessings of eternal families can only be received through temple ordinances, and keeping your covenants after you have gone through. Basically, a question he asked stood out to me, that I wanted to pass on to you all to ponder: Are you unlocking those blessings for your family?

Ok last thing before I go. Saipan has been having some bad luck with cars recently. The Kagman Elders and Dandan Sisters cars broke down. Then we were taking Dandan home after sports night on Friday, and smoke started coming out the vents. So I pulled over and the Elders came and picked us up. Luckily Kagman fixed their car... but we are down to 3 cars. And the Assistants are here. So it'll be a walking area for China for a bit! It's ok, gotta walk all this extra food off from the holidays somehow ;)

Yesterday there was a fireside and we watched the Christmas Broadcast. It was super good! I loved President Uchtdorf's talk especially. Afterwards I was talking to Brother Benson, and he was talking about the importance of understanding, especially when it comes to cultural differences. Don't have time to go into it, but it is SO important to understand peoples culture and why they do what they do. So many problems from miscommunication and judgment and lots of other things can be avoided if you just take the time to understand. 

This weekend is Zone Conference. It'll be good to see President and Sister Poston again so soon!

I hope you all have a super great week! Love you all! Bu jian bu san!

Sister Springer

Finally, it's finished!

Ni men hao!!

This week has been super good. Don't know how to sum it all up but I'll do my best. 

Last Monday we got special permission to watch Love, Kennedy cuz the girl who plays the girl whose family gets baptized cuz of Kennedy was from Saipan! So cool! Elder Ieru and Elder Taan got to meet her too =) But it's gotten us all fired up out here to work harder. Saipan is the best!!

Stake Conference was this Sunday. Since the Stake is based in Guam, we did it over video chat. Which meant it was kinda hard to hear and the internet kept cutting out.. so we missed lots of it. But we did get that we have a new Stake Presidency, and one of the councilors is Brother Sablan, from Saipan. He's so cool! He will do great. He is an amazing man. 

At one point, the internet had cut out for awhile so Brother Eddy, in the bishopric, stood up and said we were just gonna start our goodbye party for Sister Ami. He started praying then midprayer the video came back... so he paused and then just sat down. It was so funny. Then there was about 15 minutes left and the internet died again. So we sat there for a bit, then they just turned it off and Brother Eddy stood up and said, "Finally! It's done!!" Hahahaha so funny. I love this ward!!

We have been working with this family in our English area recently. I think I mentioned them last week... They were a referral from a member. We have been working mostly with the kids, but the parents are very open to their kids learning, and they sometimes sit in on lessons too. Almost the whole family has problems with Betel nut. Even the kids. A bunch of them are on date for the 30th of December, and we felt like they needed to be taught the Word of Wisdom soon, so they would have time to overcome the addiction. We had just finished Lesson One, and had started on lesson. 2. We couldn't figure out how to weave in the Word of Wisdom. We decided to teach them when we taught our life on earth in a couple days. On Friday, we had planned to teach them the Creation and Agency. But before we went to the house, Sister Jenkins had the strong impression that we needed to teach them the Word of Wisdom. We weren't sure how, but we decided to listen to the Spirit. We went there and sang Silent Night (AJ's favorite song) and started the lesson. We followed up with what we taught last time. Then out of the blue, AJ(11) said, "Did God create betel nut?" There couldn't have been a more perfect question. We told him God did create it. He asked us why. We told him that God wanted to give us a choice, and that we were going to talk about it today. Despite kids running around, and random comments little kids tend to make, the lesson was so powerful. The Spirit was there. AJ and Boboy want to stop chewing. AJ said, "but I don't know how." And so we talked about Christ, and how he can help us change. We helped them find ways to stop chewing (Prayer, scriptures, pictures of Jesus). Saturday we went back, but they were busy so we couldn't follow up completely, but Boboy told us "we sinned." On Sunday, the parents invited us to join them for a big BBQ for Boboy's birthday. When we went, the dinner wasn't quite ready so AJ asked if we could have a lesson. We said of course, and talked more about ways to avoid Betel nut and replace it with good things. AJ remembered that we talked about looking in the pamphlet at the pictures of Jesus. I am going to cut out a couple smaller pictures of Jesus and give those to them so they always have one close. We role-played with them ways to avoid betel nut. They thought that was really fun. Basically, I love this family with my whole heart, and it's so amazing to be an instrument in the Lord's hands in helping them to repent and change. 

I'll be in Guam this week again. Someone from the 70 is there, and will be at the Guam Zone conference. President is flying us in sooner to tell them how Saipan is doing with bringing the church out of obscurity. We'll tell them about the Ammon Project, and all the service projects we've been doing. We made a slideshow for it =) Hopefully it'll go well. 

I love you all and am so excited for Christmas! Join in the Light the World movement! You never know how much good you can do!!

Sister Springer

Delicious food, excellent ward, and Charity again

Ni hao!!!

Thanksgiving was excellent! I hope you all enjoyed yours!! We had district meeting, then went to dinner (really lunch) at the Conner's. Had super delicious food, deviled eggs and smoked turkey included!! Smoked turkey is seriously the best turkey I have ever had!! sooooooo goooooood!! I made brownie bottom pie for pie night too. It turned out pretty good, considering the boxed milk and whipping cream I had to use haha. After we went and saw Anbby. She's so sweet... I love her so much. She loves little Miaomiao with her whole heart. 

We also tried to see a new family we are teaching, but they weren't home. We talked to one of the kids, Romeo. He's pretty cool. He's 14 but looks like he's more like 18. Crazy. We went to pie night, and did studies. A lot of people drink here one Thanksgiving, so the proselyting aspect of Thanksgiving was a little hard. 

Friday was super fun!! Our Zone is doing this thing we call the Ammon Project. We are trying to get the church out of obscurity, and this is one of the things we started doing. Basically, just like Ammon, we are just looking for as many ways to serve the people as possible. Friday we did a free car wash. It was a hit!! Sooooo many people came, and it was hard to keep up. But lots of people really appreciated it. Next time we'll get the youth more involved and it'll be even bigger!!

Saturday morning we helped Ana, the Elder's Chinese landlord, clean her house. She was in China visiting family and came back to a house full of rat poop =/ ick! We helped her sweep and mop her floor and clean her counters. Then we helped set up for the Elders and Sisters baptism!!! This one was in the ocean. So beautiful, both the ocean and especially the ordinance. Both were from part member families. It's beautiful to see families get closer and closer to going to the temple.

Church was really good. Tiana, a youth, talked about temptation. She said: avoid it, don't get bored; resist it, don't give in; and pray for help, turn back to God. Sister Ami's(a Philipino) talk was very good too. She leaves to move to Texas next week. Going to miss her, but she's excited to be with her family. She talked about not judging. Basically, "Stop it! Stop. Just stop it! Stop it!.... Don't judge, sing a hymn, love. Just love. And Pray. Pray hard, pray pray pray!!"

Last thing before I go. Just a little more about Charity, coming from Relief Society where we talked about Elder Uchtdorf's talk about the three sisters sad, mad, and glad, in the Women's session of conference. Sometimes when the people we love the most, and who are supposed to love us, hurt us, it's the hardest to forgive. Pray. Pray for you, for them. Pray until you love them again, and don't stop. If Jesus Christ loved the weakest and worst of us to suffer for our sins, I promise you He can help you love them too. 

I love you all lots! Don't forget to read the Book of Mormon!

Sister Springer