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Canada: Introducing Falun Dafa at the 2004 Wellness and Spiritual Festival in Saint John (Photos)

Aug. 12, 2004 |   By a Falun Gong practitioner in Atlantic Canada

(Clearwisdom.net) The annual Wellness and Spiritual Festival in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada was held from July 30 to August 1, 2004. Eleven Falun Gong practitioners, including two young practitioners, drove for four hours from Halifax to Saint John to support the activity. Among the other practices represented at the festival were Judo, Taichi, and Yoga.

A western practitioner livng in Saint John was already there when we arrived at the festival site. We set up display boards and a laptop computer to play exercise demonstration and truth-clarification videos.

We put forward our best effort in the exercise and meditation demonstrations, distributing flyers and truth clarification. After a few hours, almost all the people at the festival had learned about Falun Gong. Many were interested in learning it. They were shocked to learn of the brutal persecution of Falun Gong by Jiang's regime, and they condemned it. Staff of the festival also came to visit our displays and told us that they liked our soothing exercise music. The main organizer of the festival also visited with us and told others that Falun Dafa is great. He took the initiative to say he would like to practice Falun Gong also.

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Falun Gong practitioners introduce Falun Dafa and teach the exercises at the Wellness and Spiritual Festival.

A western practitioner continuously explained the facts of Falun Gong to the local Chinese people. He was always patient, peaceful and tireless no matter how others treated him. He said, "We should clarify the truth of Falun Gong at any place and any time, just like the forever rotating Falun. Ever since Teacher gave it to us, it doesn't stop. We can't stop either." To help save the precious Chinese people, some of whom have been deceived by Jiang's lies, he has been showing Chinese movies and truth clarification videos to the local Chinese community. To better spread the Fa, he is also learning Chinese from a local Chinese School. We were deeply moved when we saw him watching Chinese movies with the local Chinese people, even though he doesn't understand much Chinese. He embodies the compassion of a Falun Dafa disciple in the Fa-rectification period.

We cooperated very well together to clarify the truth. Sometimes, one practitioner had to talk to five or six people at the same time. There were some people who had misunderstanding of Dafa. A practitioner said, "We can't be mad at them even if they are mean to us. We can't treat the unkind with unkindness. I would like to leave my compassion with them even if I can't persuade them the first time."

We could tell from people's eager looks that they didn't want to miss any opportunity to learn the truth. One young man learned all five exercises and did the Falun Gong Standing Stance for half an hour. When he learned Falun Gong, he knew this was where he should be.

A little girl of about seven years old became very interested when she saw us meditate. She could cross both legs in the full lotus position the first time she tried it. Her parents were very supportive and exchanged contact information with us. Upon seeing someone sitting in the full lotus position, meditating at another booth, the girl asked her mother what he was doing. Her mother told her they would go find it out in a minute. To our surprise, the girl said, "That's not for me." A Falun Gong practitioner said the girl must be predestined to learn Falun Dafa.

Out of four hundred visitors that stopped by at the festival, more than twenty learned the Falun Gong exercises on the spot. About thirty people left their phone numbers and wanted to learn Falun Gong later. The organizer of the festival said our introduction to Falun Gong was definitely outstanding as to scale and effect. We learned from this activity how much the sentient beings have been looking forward to Dafa. With more and more evil interference being eliminated, more and more people will start to practice Falun Gong and assimilate to the Dafa [the Great Law].