A Smoking Miracle

  
The Hsiao family has had a good week.  On Monday we met Brother Hsiao and Brookes at a family in the Ward's house for FHE (Sister Hsiao was out of the country on business).   Brother Hsiao tells this story about him smoking. Sister Lethco and I look at each other; he sees our confused looks and says in English, "I am a smoker."  We are sitting there in shock and worry as he tells this story.   

One Friday night, he read in the Gospel Principles book that smoking is against the Word of Wisdom.  (We hadn’t taught them the Word of Wisdom yet).  He then smoked and went to bed. He woke up feeling like his chest was on fire and that the smoke in his chest smelled like feet.  He got up drank six cups of water. When we met with them on Monday he hadn’t smoked since that experience.  When we saw him on Saturday night, he hadn’t smoked in a week.  It was an incredibly huge miracle.   

Sister Lethco and I left the lesson and in the parking lot started laughing out of pure joy that Heavenly Father knew that our investigator had a smoking problem even though we had no idea and helped him quit with no help from us.  We felt stupid for not knowing that he had a problem, but we had seen no signs around their house or smelled anything, and we had just chosen to focus on commandments first that we knew they were having a problem with (the Sabbath day) and hadn't had a chance to get to the Word of Wisdom yet.  It was a huge miracle. 

We had an interesting week with Wu this week.  We found out on Wednesday that she is actually in the other ward which we cover that meets in the afternoon.  I guess they changed the boundaries lately, which no one told the missionaries. It is frustrating because she really had gotten all situated in the other ward and was really committed to coming to church ever week and keeping the Sabbath day holy, which was a big concern at the beginning.  When we first started meeting with her, she and her mom told us that there was no way that she could come to church every week because she has homework.  They would laugh when ever we brought up church, but W really wanted to be baptized.  Through a lot of prayers and specifically catered lessons, she finally was able to see that part of baptism is renewing your covenants each week through the sacrament meeting attendance. She had a really strong testimony of church.   

She was not happy when we told her that she was actually in the other ward.  We have tried to explain why, but I still don't think she really understands.  She came to the afternoon church but told me afterwards that she didn’t like it. Later on the phone, Wu said she can come to the morning ward, but she can't come to the afternoon ward because she has to study.   I just feel worried because I feel like she progressed so much, but now she is back to her old excuses. She isn't using her testimony and her commitments to come to church like she was the last week when she was willing to come for the morning ward even though she has had to sacrifice some things. We are really praying about this.