never ceasing miracles

Hi family! 

This was a good week in Kowloon City. We met with a couple of our investigators and they are doing well. Gigi, our little eight year old friend, is excited about being a missionary. We gave her a little missionary tag to wear and she was so proud. When we teach her she loves to answer questions and be like the missionaries. It's pretty adorable.

 We were also able to meet with an investigator who was just turned over to us from some other missionaries named Betty. She learns slowly, but has the purest heart I've ever seen. She's just so sweet. She also has a bit of speech impediment as do I so our phone conversations are very fun as you can imagine. We  taught her the Restoration this week and her desire to know truth is so pure and sweet. 

I also want to share some thoughts with you that I've had this week. Last night particularly I was thinking about atonement. Sometimes when I do dumb things and then repent it feels like no big deal. You know, some days I know I did things that weren't perfect but I tried my best and so I know that I'm forgiven and it doesn't feel like a big deal. But then there are some times where it wasn't that I just fell a little short after all I could do. Sometimes I know exactly what I should do but I choose not  to do it. Sometimes I know that God is telling me I should say I'm sorry or have a better attitude and I purposely do not do it because I just don't want to. And I'm a missionary, I really should be doing these things as soon as I am prompted to. Anyways, the other night I was thinking about Christ performing the atonement and I thought about all these things that bring me pain and other people pain that I have done purposefully and knowing full well what I was doing. I felt so sad at the thought. How could I do that to Him? How could I, someone who knows better, someone who preaches this same thing to people every single day, cause my Savior that kind of pain simply because I'm selfish or lazy? It hurt my heart so much. I wanted to hide myself from God. Then this morning as I was reading the scriptures I came across a scripture that touched my heart. 

Romans 3:22-24

"Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." 

All have sinned and come short. All. I know that that's true but then sometimes for whatever reason I just want to be perfect and think maybe just maybe, today I could not fall short. Today my sins could be minor and I could be exempt of this all people are sinners thing. But that just isn't the way it works. God already knows that every single person will sin every single day. He is well aware that they all will fall short. So He sent His son to pay the price, and the price has already been paid. Why would it matter to God the size or significance of your sins if the price has already been paid? Why on Earth would He measure whether your sin was an allowable sin, a righteous person sin, a good missionary sin, or a big one, a shameful sin, a bad person sin? I came to realize that sin is not being unaware of what is wrong and accidentally messing up. Sin is knowing right from wrong and choosing wrong anyways. Sin is purposeful. I kind of hate this. The scriptures tell us time after time that we are all sinners but I think to be honest I always ignored that. I never wanted to be a sinner. Being a sinner just feels too shameful. But this is what fills my heart with love for our Savior. He just doesn't care. He felt our shame, He knows the parts of us we don't want anyone else to know. He knew from the moment He created us that we would be sinners, this doesn't faze Him. Our sin is not something that surprises Him or disgusts Him. He saw it coming before we even did. All we have to do is accept Him and all is well. We are forgiven.  Not half forgiven, or almost forgiven, or forgiven but still pretty rotten. No, we are completely healed and completely justified through His blood. 

 I have a final story to tell you that you will not believe and I think this is worthy of being printed off and read out loud or something because it really is huge.

On Saturday  Sister Ng and I were ready on our way to go visit a former investigator named Caroline. She is 17 years old and started investigating the church a few months ago but she doesn't have much focus and is more interested in being friends with the missionaries so they stopped teaching her. But we still see her sometimes just to check on her. So anyways, we had our appointment to visit her home on Saturday afternoon when Sister Ng dropped the bomb. She has TWO CATS. I told her well we cannot do that then and she told me we can do that and we have to do that. So we got on the bus and found Carolines house and I never stopped praying the whole time. then we got to Carolines house and there was no sign of any cats. I thought I was safe. We were talking with Caroline and having fun and she was even speaking in English and it was a dream.  First it was Kenny and William shortly followed and I thought I was dead. Caroline noticed that I was uneasy so her sweet little heart made sure that her cats didn't cross her so that they wouldn't touch me. So then I began so share our spiritual message with her. As I was talking about the scripture we would share William (the big cat) COMES AND SITS RIGHT NEXT TO ME. RIGHT NEXT TO MY STOOL. HE WAS PRACTICALLY TOUCHING MY LEGS. AND GUESS WHAT I DID? I, Emma Frances Terry, kept on talking. I looked Caroline in the eyes and I smiled and in my awful cantonese I told her that God wants to hear her prayers and that He loves her. I didn't even look away from her the entire time. I did it. I was terrified and yes, being afraid of cats is probably the most insane thing in the world and most definitely the most humiliating thing, but it is quite a cross to bear and I DID IT. So if any of you are wondering if God exists I think I have officially solved the question , but God gave me strength beyond my own to be able to share my testimony with our friend. 

So I just want to tell you that it doesn't matter how little, or HUGE, or embarrassing, or shameful, or unique, or difficult your problem is. Heavenly Father does not with hold his help. He cannot judge us for our problems because He gave them to us. And I have many. And wow Hong Kong is awesome but it kind of has a lot of promblems too. I'm beyond thankful for a Father in Heaven and Savior who understand every human being perfectly and know exactly how to help them have the best life possible.  Love you guys.