I LOVE MY NEW AREA!!

I LOVE MY NEW AREA!! Also, I LOVE THAT I'M WITH SISTER ANDERSON!! She was here for one move call before I got here, but this past week was pretty xinku (rough? i don't know how to translate that). This week was a holiday, zhong qiu jie, moon festival! Which meant that no one wanted to meet with us because they were all out doing bbq and what not. We did get invited by some AMAZING investigators to kao rou (bbq) with them. It was delicious. And every night for the past 4 or so days we have had really great seats (from our apartment) to see some cool fireworks, but other than that there was just a lot of people standing us up and a lot of back up to the back up to the back up plans. BUT, Sister Anderson and I sat down and set some goals and made some awesome plans to really improve this area and see some miracles this move call! It's so fun to be with someone who is willing to be motivated and do whatever it takes to build up the kingdom!!

As for my bike and stuff, there are some moving people that we call and they pick it up from my old house and drive it over here. I was without it for a day, but it was pretty quick :) 

As for everything else, I keep learning over and over again that Heavenly Father answers our prayers. That He has a plan for every single one of us. The other day we were looking at our schedule and Sister Anderson had scheduled with a girl she hadn't met yet named Nancy, Wang JM. Turns out its the Same Wang JM that I have been meeting with in Donghai! She works in Donghai during the week and lives in Nantou on the weekend. I called her and needless to say we were both really excited because we thought we had said goodbye for forever. We're meeting with her this weekend. I just don't call that a coincidence. Also, I feel like me and Sister Anderson being together again is for a certain purpose. It's such a rare thing to happen, so we are going to work harder than we ever had to find the people we are sent here to find.

Um...what else. I feel like I went from a really big city to a small town. It's still pretty big, but I can really tell a difference. In Taichung when we stopped at stoplights there were tons of people, here we are lucky to have one or two. I like it though, I'm more of a small town person anyway. Anyway, I can't really think of anything else...thank you for your "gift of tongues" prayers. Can you add on "confidence" to those? My Chinese isn't amazing, but I can speak. I just need to believe in myself. Also, I had a dream in Chinese the other night. I remember you told me to tell you when that happened haha. It did. It was weird. 

The view from my back window. Yeah, be jealous

I think that's all. I love you SO MUCH! Oh! How could I have forgotten, THANK YOU!! I got your package the day after my birthday and I LOVED IT!! The clothes are so so cute and they are comfortable too! Also very needed. So thank you! And the candy is delicious. Unfortunately I have promised not to eat candy so I won't be able to eat it til next move call haha but it will still be good next move call. So thank you thank you thank you. I hope you have a GREAT week mom! Tell everyone I say hello! LOVE YOU!

Baptisms and Birthdays

Thanks for the update about whats going on at home! I love hearing about it :) I can't believe how many tomatoes you guys are pulling from your garden. It sounds like it's just over-flowing! Also, the description of your Sunday dinner sounds amazing. You're such a good cook! I miss your cooking. Although, the food here is preetttty delicious, too.

So basically, my heart is breaking as I am meeting with people here in Xitun for the last time. No one has officially told me I'll be moving yet, but because my companion will be training a new missionary here, it's pretty much decided. I've been here for 6 months and I love the people here with all my heart. It's going to be really sad to leave. But everyone keeps telling me that I still have lots of amazing people to go meet, and they're right. I'm excited and nervous to go all at the same time.

This week was amazing though! XU JIEMEI GOT BAPTIZED!!! It was probably one of the happiest days of my life! I can't even explain how much I love Xu JM. She gave me a heart attack though. We have been meeting with her every day for the past month or so, and then last week she started being really flaky and blowing us off. We only met with her once, and her baptism was on Saturday. We called the two sets of elders in our district, our zone leaders, and our sister training leaders and asked them all to pray for her. They did. And then she met with us. She expressed some fears and worries and we had a nice good long talk. We then invited her to get a priesthood blessing, which she did. And then Saturday came, and everything worked out perfectly. It amazes me how willing and ready Heavenly Father is to answer our prayers. Whether it is asking something big as rescuing a nervous-close-to-baptism-investigator, or praying for the visual part of a Mormon message to work on the Internet so your investigator can feel the spirit (which also happened this week). Heavenly Father loves us all so much and is just waiting for us to ask for the blessings which He has promised to give us.

I'm also learning how important it is to do my part as I ask for these blessings, though. This whole move call I have been working on being more charitable. I have been studying it, praying for it, learning all I can about it. I have been praying for patience and charity harder than I think I have ever prayed for anything in my life. This week was my companions birthday, so I made her breakfast and put it on her desk with a card while she was in the shower. She was more than thrilled. She made me take several pictures for her, wiping away tears from her eyes between each shot. It was then that I felt the spirit tell me that this whole time I have been praying for charity and patience with my companion, but I hadn't DONE anything to earn that patience or charity. There is nothing more true than when the scriptures and prophets tell us that as we serve others, we learn to love.

Today, Xu JM put together a birthday/going away party for me and Zhu JM. She called some people from the ward and one of our investigators and we all went to an Italian place to eat a bunch of food. It was a lot of fun. Our investigator, Zhuang JM, brought Zhu JM and I flowers. There was even cake and ice cream and they sang happy birthday for us. I can't believe I am blessed enough to be surrounded by such amazing people. Goodness, how did I get so lucky? Heavenly Father loves me a lot :)

Well, that's about all. We are working hard and praying even harder. We see Heavenly Father's hand in our work every single day. We are seeing so many blessings and miracles left and right, and there is no way for me to ever deny that this church is true. I know who my Father is, and I am so thankful He allows me to feel a portion of His love for His children here in Taiwan.

I LOVE YOU MOM!! Tell Dad I love him lots, too. And don't forget cooper ;) Have a good week!

Heavenly Father's Angels

Well, things in Taiwan are going GREAT! This Saturday Xu JM is getting baptized!! Ahhh! I love her so much! She is so amazing. It's actually a pretty cool miracle that we even met. We met on the very first day of this move-call. That day I was kind of bummed because I thought I was going to move and then I didn't. I was trying to figure out why Heavenly Father wanted me to stay here for a 4th move-call (that's a long time-6 months). Then we met Xu JM. Xu JM lives in Australia, her soon to be ex-husband kicked her out of their house, so she came back to Taiwan. She doesn't usually go outside, but that day she decided to go out with her mom. Then she saw me on the street. She walked past me, and then had a feeling to go back and talk to me. And then we have met with her every day since then, teaching her about the gospel and how to pray and find answers to her questions. And now on Saturday she is getting baptized! The timing of it all gets even crazier, though. Zhu JM will be training a new missionary in this area next move-call which means I will be moving somewhere new on the 16th of September. And on the 20th of September Xu JM will be moving back to Australia. We literally had less than a 2 month period to meet and within that amount of time she has developed a relationship with her Heavenly Father and taken the first step to return to Him. AMAZING!! The other day we were at her house and I was playing the piano getting ready to sing the opening song. Xu JM was talking to my companion and told her that she thought that I was her angel Heavenly Father sent to her to help her find the church. I don't think she thought I would understand because she was speaking in Chinese, but I did. And then tears started coming to my eyes. I don't think I've been more humbled in my life. We are already  making arrangements for her to come to our house next Christmas (2014) and new years-she has never had a white Christmas. I hope that's ok :)

Um...what else. I can't think of anything else because I'm too excited about Xu JM haha. But we are working hard and I am learning lots. I think my Chinese is slowly slowly coming along (finally). I am still loving every second. Is it too soon to be excited for General Conference? Because I am. haha. I love this gospel so much. I feel so blessed to be here and to be able to give 100% of myself to building the kingdom of God. I know that He loves each of us more than we can even describe or imagine. I know that He has a plan for each of us, and that if we let Him, He will guide and direct us, helping us to live up to the potential that He created us to become. 

Have a good week :)