This church is just so amazing!

Hi Mom!

Thanks for the pictures! You look super cute with that scarf! I love the colors, so cute! Kristen is good at picking out outfits. Is it a church outfit? Or just a whenever. It looks like it could be for either. It's weird to think you are wearing scarfs over there, it's still super hot here! It got a little cooler for about a week, but this week it is really hot again. There are lots of mountains around and stuff, but it's just about as hot as it was in Taichung. I think it's a little more humid here, though. We keep the windows in our apartment open (not in our bedroom because we have AC! YAY!), but when I go out and sweep the floor it doesn't look like anything is on the floor, right? But then I sweep up the dust that you can't really see, and it's so humid that it turns into mud. It's kind of cool and really gross. So yeah, maybe that gives you a better picture of how humid it is.

I got your cute little card in the mail this week! Thank you! I really needed it. This week was really hard. I think I was depressed for like, three days haha. Everything made me upset and I cried too often over dumb things and I thought a lot about giving up. I was really grateful for your card. It was cool, actually, because as we were getting on our bikes to leave the apartment I said to Sister Anderson, "I hope someone sent me a letter today." I've gotten a total of like, 3 letters on my mission so it was pretty doubtful. And sure enough I got two letters that day; one from you and one from an investigator in Donghai. I thought it was pretty cool that even though I am like, 6,000 or so miles away, my mom is still always there when I need her most. So thank you, mom. I love you! I also realized that it is the same with our Heavenly Father. It seems we are so far from Him, but He is always, always there for us. I prayed harder and more than I ever have in my life to have help from Heaven. And it came. I kept working and praying and now I am back to my normal happy self. So don't worry or anything.

Also, CONFERENCE WAS SO AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! Oh man, I didn't want it to end! I learned so much, it was so great! We invited like, everyone we know to come. We had one investigator make it for one hour, so that was good! When we invited people, we also invited them to think of a question they had, write it down, and then come listen to conference and we promised them that their question would be answered. I wrote down a few of my own questions, and every single one of them was answered. Heavenly Father even answered some questions that I had that I didn't write down. He knows us so well, and He knows our hearts, and He is so willing and excited to answer our prayers. I'm so thankful for this knowledge. And I'm so thankful for Prophets and their willingness to serve and live worthily to lead and guide us! This church is just so amazing! I can't get over it!

I liked the story you shared about Sister Rau and Elder Rau! As a mission we do the same thing. We all write down the names of our investigators with baptismal dates coming up and give it to the zone leaders. Then the zone leaders write them up on a paper and gives it to each companionship, and then every night we pray for each investigator by name. Prayer is real and it works! We have a couple of investigators, ____ _______ (brother) and _____ JM. They have been together for 7 years, but they aren't married.We had taught them everything except for the law of chastity and tithing. Two really scary lessons to teach a couple who are living together and struggling to save money because they have to move. So we have been praying extra hard for them, and every night the whole zone prays for them. Anyway, we went and visited them this week and planned to talk about faith, but then they started talking about baptism and asked if there were any more commandments we need to teach them before they can get baptized. Sister Anderson and I nervously looked at each other and were like....well...yeah there are still two. They asked, "is it the one about not having sexual relations before marriage or the one about tithing?" We were so surprised! They already knew! _____ JM's sister is a member and had mentioned the law of chastity briefly once while talking on the phone, and then they had read about it and the law of tithing in a Liahona we had lent them. So it was super easy to teach them and they are willing to follow both! We are just going to have to plan a wedding for them :) So yeah, prayer really does help SO much! Thank you so much for your prayers, I really do feel the help from them.

Time is going SO fast. I can't believe that I'm half way done with my mission. Yet at the same time, I feel like I've been doing this for my whole life. Did I really have a life before this? I've always been a missionary. I'm nervous that the second half will go way faster than the first, so I'm trying to live it up as much as I can. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. People warned me before I left, but it's like, 100 times harder than anyone ever made it seem like. It's also really happy, and I'm learning more now than I have in my whole life combined. I'm so glad to be here. I miss you and dad, though. You guys are great.