(Minghui.org) Words cannot express how lucky I feel to be a Falun Gong practitioner. I don't know if I would still be here today if it weren't for Dafa.
My mother died when I was three, so I was brought up by my stepmother. She beat me and swore at me, and didn't give me enough to eat. I didn't know the meaning of life or why people had to suffer so much.
After my children were born, I developed many health problems such as heart disease, hemorrhoids, rheumatism, and severe headaches. My joints felt like they were covered with ice.
My husband died when I was in my 50s. I had no income after his death, as I was a housewife and didn't work. It was like my world had collapsed. My youngest son was in high school at the time, and I needed to pay for his tuition and my hospital bills.
One day I went to see my friends, who were Buddhists. I was also a Buddhist. I told them that I was going to a temple to become a nun and wanted to eventually die there. I thought that if I did, I wouldn’t become a burden on my children.
One of my friends said, “I heard that Falun Gong is amazing when it comes to curing illnesses. Some people with late stage cancer have been cured. Maybe you can try it out.”
That person lent me the book Zhuan Falun, but I couldn't read it, as I am of Korean origin and didn't know much Chinese. At first I could only recognize a few words.
I asked my granddaughter to help me. She did, but soon became impatient. She handed me a dictionary to learn on my own, but I couldn't even use the dictionary.
I listened to Master's lectures for two days without doing the exercises, but Master still began to purify my body. My illnesses soon disappeared.
I fell down one day and broke my wrist. I didn't go get it treated and just carried on doing my exercises. A few days later it had healed on its own. Some of my neighbors saw what happened, and they wanted to practice Falun Gong, too.
When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, the local police came to harass me frequently. I was arrested for not giving up my belief and taken to the local detention center.
We were only allowed to use tap water outside the room to wash. It was winter, and the temperature was minus 30. I washed my hair in icy cold water. The guards laughed at me, but I didn't feel unwell or catch a cold. I was in my 60s at the time, and they were amazed.
I don't know how many tears I shed because I was not able to read much of the Fa. I learned to recite some of Master's poems from a practitioner when I was in the detention center. The practitioner read one sentence, and then I repeated it. But I couldn't understand what it meant. The practitioner had to explain dozens of times before I could remember.
I can now recite Master's books Hong Yin and Essentials for Further Advancement.
Later on, I started learning to write. I just looked at the words and copied the Chinese characters.
To help more people know about the persecution and Falun Gong, I wrote letters and gave them to people. One person commented, “How can this old woman write so beautifully?” I just smiled. In fact, I didn’t write it, I drew it. It took me hours or days to finish a single letter, where it would probably take others more more than 30 minutes.
I was arrested nine times in total due to the persecution. I was put in a forced labor camp and sentenced to five years in prison for telling people about Dafa and the persecution.
I hope that I can help more people understand the truth about the persecution and not be deceived by the CCP's lies and propaganda. I also want the Chinese regime to restore the reputation of my teacher, Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong.