(Clearwisdom.net) I began practicing Falun Dafa in 1996. I am 38 years old. Before I started practicing Falun Dafa, I suffered from rheumatism and I often felt very uncomfortable and even had heart pain. On cloudy and rainy days, I would feel terrible pain in my joints. When it rained, or during periods of high humidity, my skin would develop pimples. So I would stay in bed wrapped in a quilt whenever it rained. This condition had been going on for seven or eight years.
However, when I began practicing Falun Dafa, the rheumatism was cured without any medical treatment.
From July 20, 1999 onward, when the Jiang regime started to brutally persecute Falun Gong, it seemed to me like the whole sky had fallen. I was at a loss about what to do. In the following years I seldom studied the Fa (1) or practiced the exercises and took the excuse of being "busy at work," to absolve myself from my commitment to Dafa study. Work was not the reason, though. However, with the encouragement of my mother, a steadfast Falun Dafa practitioner, I have held Dafa in my heart.
In 2001, because I had given up cultivation practice, the evil took advantage of me and my rheumatism became a hundred times worse than before. I could hardly tolerate it then; it felt like I simply could not stand it for even a few more days. Whichever part of my bones felt pain, the surrounding tissue would be swollen also. My hands and feet swelled so much it is impossible to describe. My skin seemed to be water-logged and like it might break at any minute. I depended on my family members for even the smallest daily needs, including drinking and eating. I felt such pain all over my body that I could not help crying every day. Whenever I could not stand it any longer I would start to cry again. By that time I was so skinny that nobody could recognize me. I had only one thought at that time, "I am a Dafa practitioner; I will get through this and totally eliminate the karma."
This situation continued for almost a month, until my mother came to visit. As soon as she saw my condition she knew that this was persecution by the evil forces from other dimensions and she started to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil elements behind my tribulation.
Once, when my mother sent forth righteous thoughts to rid the evil from around me, my celestial eye opened and I saw the dirty stuff inside my body, horrible and disgusting. When my mom sent forth righteous thoughts, I could see some little bright substances, swastikas [wan symbols] falling down on my body -- many, many of them and very beautiful, of such striking colors such as our human world has never seen. I was so excited! I came to recognize the power of sending forth righteous thoughts, and I understood that I would be well soon.
During that period, mother described the current Fa-rectification situation to me. I then made a vow to Master, that I would definitely become a Dafa practitioner of the Fa-rectification period, and I would do well on the three things that a Fa-rectification period practitioner should do [study the Fa, explain the facts of Dafa and the persecution, and send forth righteous thoughts].
In the following month I continued to study the Fa and do the exercises every day, and even helped fellow practitioners with folding truth clarification materials. Within one month, my illnesses were cured. I stepped out and became a member of the team of practitioners doing the truth clarification work. At first I brought back truth clarification materials from the city; several packages or over ten packages at a time, and shared the materials with fellow practitioners. I went out to distribute the materials every evening as well, trying all different ways I could think of to clarify the truth. By then my health not only recovered, but I continued to get better and better.
In 2003, some practitioners and I set up the first small Falun Dafa materials production site in our county. After that, several other small-scale materials production sites were successively set up in this county.
(1) Fa: Law and principles; the teachings of Falun Dafa.
