Before his visit to the Brethren, Brother Nee had two conferences. He called these conferences "victory conferences." One was in 1928, and the other was in 1931 when the Brethren came to Shanghai. In 1934 he had the third victory conference. In that ten-day conference, he gave messages on the centrality and universality of Christ. I was in that entire conference. Brother Nee asked me to give a message on the Lord's Day to all the visitors as an introduction to the conference. I was also responsible for keeping a record of all these messages by longhand notes. I received a deep impression from this conference and the greatest help. That was a real turn in my Christian life and church life. In that year, 1934, Brother Nee entrusted more to me in the work. When he went away from Shanghai, he put his work upon my shoulders.
In October of 1934, he held a conference in Hangchow, a city beside the West Lake, and he spoke on God's overcomers. At the end of the conference, he got married, and he asked me to be his best man.
In 1935 he had the burden to go to London to visit Brother T. Austin-Sparks. Before leaving for Europe, he first made arrangements in the summer to stay in my home in Chefoo. Eventually, he and Sister Nee stayed in my home. He had a conference there that brought in a deeper revival among us by speaking concerning Christ as the overcoming life. Then he canceled his scheduled trip to Europe. He returned to Shanghai to give a conference there. That was a great turn of the church life among us in 1935. Through the Lord's move at this time, the church life spread to other cities. In 1937 Brother Nee began to see that the co-workers needed to travel from one city to another to establish local churches. He then gave a series of messages firstly in January of 1937 in Shanghai to a small number of co-workers, among whom I was one. Then he repeated the same messages in October 1937 in Hankow. These were later put into the book entitled The Normal Christian Church Life. Then the war between China and Japan began, and he went out of the country to visit Europe in 1938 and 1939. He stayed in London about a year and a half, and he also visited the Scandinavian countries.