EB Mission Blog: I love my Saviour. He is truly my best friend.

Dear Family and Friends,

WELCOME to my weekly email, feat. Quotes from none other than...SISTER CHEN!

🏻

"You! Devil!" - sis Chen (pointing at me as I say I am super excited for the 100 hour work week)

"We put this above door so the monster won't eat us" - sister Chen (talking about the character for spring in Chinese)

"You sneaky girl!" - me

*panicked look* "what do you say about me? What is that word mean???" - sister Chen

"Bless Sister Beazer that she won't be so excited, and bless me that I won't die" - sister Chen (in her prayer whilst planning for the 100 hour week)

So basically...this week has been....a weird one. It's been a tough week, and also a fantastic week. Basically every day was a roller coaster. I'm going to roll with bullet points again cause why not?

still teaching Xavier, he is still awesome. His entire family committed to go to the temple this year as a family, which is amazing!!! And they are so excited to go. Miracles. And some of their extended family are praying and stuff at his baptism on the 5th (and they are less active members) so that is so cool. AND we have a dinner appointment with them after church tomorrow so we get Jamaican food. I flippen love Jamaican food. Oh happy days
Helena is also awesome. One more lesson to go and she is prepared for her baptism date :) MIRACLES. And she is so excited for it! So we are just praying she can make it to church a couple times so she can make her date.
Pretty much all the rest of our investigators got "busy" this week and so that was sad. And everyone on the street didn't want to talk to us...But we tried!
Oh and the district got a stomach bug because the elders were violently ill for a couple days and still came to district meeting...and got us violently ill. Not pretty. But we survived it and are now more ready for next week haha.
One of the members gave us a referral who is amazing, her name is Dana and she is awesome and we are going to start teaching her this week :) she came to sports night and we just invited her to church AND SHE IS COMING. Miracles.
Sister smith left us but it's ok cause she will still be in the zone. But we are no longer living the trio life. Goodbye member splits....
I was able to call the sisters in Coventry and see how all the people I love are doing....and it was probably the happiest phone call of my life. Everyone is doing so good. I love Coventry and all my lovely people there. I felt so blessed that nightI was literally so happy I couldn't sleep haha.
Oh oh we had a worldwide missionary broadcast and some crazy stuff changed like our daily schedule!!! WHAT. It doesn't really apply to us for a week or so though as we are doing this crazy week but it's still cool, we get an extra 2 hours of pday for one, AND more time at night and in the morning to prepare for the day and to write in journals and stuff so that is wonderful. It'll be so good for all the missionaries I think (I won't really get to fully experience it but that's ok ). And we just learned a TON from the broadcast, it was amazing. I love the gospel, and it is just so true.
It is Chinese New Year TODAY and last night I sang sister Chen Chinese New Year songs. My pronunciation was horrendous because the song was so fast and my Chinese isn't all that great but it was fun
Oh our district won challenge week so today the zone leaders took us all out to eat

That's all I can think of at the moment....but this week has been good. It has been one of the hardest weeks of my mission emotional-wise but..it's been so good. I love learning and growing and trials help us learn and grow and I am so grateful for that. And when we help others through their trials, we learn and grow so much. I'm grateful that God allows us to help others....even if it's hard for us.

This morning I was reading in the Book of Mormon, in 1 Nephi and I read a verse that I just love... it's 1 Nephi 21:16

"Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands..."

It is linked to a verse in Zechariah, that reads,

"And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends."

I then linked this to one of my favourite verses from the New Testament, John 15:13-14

"greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you"

Our saviour, Jesus Christ cannot forget us. He has a permanent reminder of us graven into his hands....and the reason that he suffered and died for us, is because he loves us. He loves us SO MUCH! He was bruised for our iniquities, wounded for our transgressions, and he did it all because he loved us. And He considers us his friends, as we do our best to follow Him. That's all we have to do! I am so grateful that I am not required to bear the burdens of all my mistakes for eternity. Because of him, they can be forgotten. And I am so grateful for that. I love my saviour. He is truly my best friend and I hope that as I do my best, I can be his friend.

Love you all! If you could, send your prayers this way (especially for sister Chen, she is a trooper but she is super nervous) as we do the 100 hour work week next week. It's going to be insane. But so wonderful :) I'm also kind of hoping it will make time go by slower since we are awake longer haha...but that wish probably won't come true. Have a beautiful week! Life is good, the mission is awesome.

~ Sister Emma Beazer