I am a Western practitioner that attends a University in Canada.

Recently, there have been many touching Hong Fa experiences happening at my school and I'd like to share them with you.

After Christmas break, upon returning to school, I went into my school's Student Union office to apply to have a University Falun Dafa Club on campus and to ask for the Student Union's help in reaching students and professors. The Vice President and one other member were eager to help me. They said, "We know that you're not a club yet, but tomorrow and the day after are "club days". Why don't you set up a booth in the main hallway with other clubs and get people to sign your petition?" So I did. These past two days were very successful. I am the only practitioner at my school and there is only one other practitioner in my city, but he works during the day, so I was on my own. I set up a booth with a display board and lots of materials. I had classes so I had to leave my booth unattended at times. I walked around getting people to sign my petition- nearly every single person signed it -- nothing seems to be interfering with people now. One young man at a booth next to me became very interested and wants to practice now. Later, I realized that he is in one of my lecture classes, we became friends and now he wants to join the club when it is started.

One lady that signed the petition came to find me again. She told me that she is part of a club at our school called OPIRG (Ontario Public Interest Research Group). They are sort of like a social justice club. She told me to post my petition on their board outside of their office. I left my booth and went right away. While trying to find room to pin it up another lady came out of their office and asked if she could help me. I explained what I was doing; she wanted to help too. Also, another lady from inside the office started to call out to me, "Are you talking about that Canadian in the labor camp in China?" I went into their office. One of the Student Union members had told them all about it already. They also wanted to help and one of the girls wanted to start practicing herself. They asked me to prepare a package for them and to give a presentation at their Amnesty International awareness meeting in Feb. and, also, they are currently setting up a presentation/demonstration for Falun Dafa in order to create awareness and to spread the word. One of the ladies there also introduced me to a school reporter in order to do an article for the school newspaper for the following week, about the current situation in China. This week when I went to visit them again, the first lady said that she and her husband were debating about whether the practice was called Falun Dafa or Falun Gong. I laughed and explained what the two names mean. It made me so happy that she was even talking about Dafa to her husband.

The Student Union members also invited me to give a presentation at their council meeting last Friday. I prepared a speech and brought Falun Dafa calendars to give out. There were about 30 people there- including a representative from each faculty. At the end of my speech I explained that I was just a first year student and I needed their help and suggestions on the best way to appeal to students and professors. This way they had to think of ways to help Dafa, which was good for them. The President offered to help me by working through him. It was really great. Normally I would feel a little nervous before giving a presentation like this, but I decided to get passed this feeling and do it anyway. However, this time I felt very calm.

At the end of one of my lectures today I went and spoke to my professor about Falun Dafa. I asked her to sign "An Appeal for Peace" card to help the practitioners in China. Immediately she opened her eyes wide, nodded her head and said, "Of course, is this something that you would like me to ask the students to do also?". I thanked her and told her that that would be wonderful. Previously when I had asked a different professor if I could speak to his class about the situation in China, he told me that it was against the school policy to take class time for something like that. But today this professor offered to speak to her class herself without me even asking. My class is very big; she will be introducing Dafa to hundreds of students. Deep in her heart she wants help.

The other practitioner in my city and I were recently on TV at our City Council Meeting. We accepted two awards on behalf of Falun Dafa for having the best float in the City Christmas parade. Then they let us give a presentation. We introduced Dafa to them and told them about the situation in China. We donated Dafa books and an exercise video to the city library.

Also, the other practitioner in my city, contacted Zehrs (the grocery store) to see if we could set up a booth and collect signatures. They said that it was Head Office's policy that they could not do something like that. He contacted another Zehrs in a large mall anyway. They said, "Yes, for sure you can". The manager was so supportive. He said that we could even approach the customers ourselves- what ever would help us get more signatures. He signed the petition and took lots of information for himself.

My understanding from these experiences is that we can't waste time. If we think of something that we can do, we should just do it. Everything we do is for others and for future generations.

Your comments are welcome!