Joys and Sadness in Taiwan

Huang is doing great.  Her husband blessed their baby in sacrament meeting yesterday, and they have been working on having family scripture study and prayer.  She is really committed to change.  We have noticed that with all of our investigators who really progress they are willing to keep commitments from the get go.  Those who struggle to keep commitments, not that you should give up on them, but they often stop investigating the church.  I guess that is the most obvious statement ever but it just goes to show how important scripture study, prayer, and church attendance (the basics) are in lasting conversion.  

  
Jenny is our other really progressing investigator.  She has a strong desire to get baptized, but she has cancer.  Her goal was the 12^th, but she goes in for chemo on Wednesday.  She is not sure when her body will be ready.  Our goal right now is to get her into a baptismal interview on Tuesday so whenever her body permits, she can be baptized without delay. We are especially concerned because her cancer is getting worse.  She is such a sweet funny lady.  She really does have a lot of faith, but she also loves to question everything.  I always get a little nervous when we extend a commitment because she normally then goes into a long discourse on something not really related to our previous question.  We have struggled with that in teaching her (helping her to stay on topic).  She has a desire to keep the commandments, but because her desire is so strong, there are always a handful of random, really specific, what if scenarios.  For example, when we taught her about the Sabbath day she was very concerned that  if her sister came from America she would need to be with her sister and she could not leave her sister to go to church.  To her this meant that there was no way she could keep this commandment (this what if scenario would probably happen once a year at most).  We taught her a lesson this week on praying and using our own judgment and then asking the Lord if it is right in those more slightly gray areas of keeping the commandments.   

Now for the sad news.  Rose  is the investigator who didn't show up to our appointment last Tuesday.  Later that day we called her from the house phone, not trying to be sneaky – just trying to get a hold of her.  She answered and told my companion that she hadn't recognized the number and that is why she had answered.  She told her husband about her desire to be baptized, and he was VERY opposed. He said she wasn't even allowed to talk to us on the phone.  She had texted us to tell us that she couldn't come and what had happened, but our phones do not receive text messages.  We expressed as much love and encouragement as we could.  She was very sad as she really loves the gospel and felt it truly blessed her life.  We of course just feel heartsick.