Hello my wonderful family! How is everyone?
I have officially been on island for one month :) It's so exciting to be here and be involved in the Lord's work, so many miracles at work here. Last week was a harder one for us, but it was such a good learning experience and really helped us see where we needed to improve and how we need to really be meeting with our investigators more often and really putting forth more of an effort to contact them. But yesterday we saw this awesome miracle :) There was a girl who had I guess been riding a scooter with her friend and the elders contacted her friend. As a second-thought they invited her to church. Her friend had no interest but she ended up coming to church all on her own. She just showed up and the wonderful members graciously welcomed her in and she felt so welcome and at home, and as we were inviting her to be baptized she was so willing that she even asked, ok, so do I just show up or should I call you when I get here for the xilihui? She thought we weren't going to see her again before her baptism and was still willing! :) My companion reasurred her that we would be in daily contact with her and help her prepare--She is so cute and so ready, its another miracle.
Another miracle we have seen is in finding a family! We found a family to teach! I have been praying for a family since the MTC and it is the most wonderful experience to be able to teach a family. I can't describe the special spirit that was there. There is something special with teaching a family. The dad is extreamly humble, and at first was really reluctant to pray but the second time we came we could tell he had practiced because he was so much more willing and just awesome. The mom is from Vietnam and came here 7 years ago and has learned chinese from just listening to people, so hardworking and awesome. They have the most beautiful children, a boy and a girl. As we were teaching, I just felt so gandong, so moved, because I knew that this lesson was special because we were teaching a family how to strengthen their relationship, how to become more loving. This is gospel is all about families and blesses our families so much, and i really felt that as we were teaching. This is why we need the gospel we all want to go to the Celestial Kingdom to be with our families forever. We also had amazing peike's, the Ding family came with us and looking at their family and seeing how the gospel has truely blessed their live was really moving. This gospel truely is amazing and if we apply the principles in it we can create stonger family bonds and become better.
That was one thing that they really stressed in Conference. We listened to conference this week, it's a week later because we wait for the translated version. I really loved conference this year, and what I especially loved was that as a missionary, I still felt everything applied to me and everything was important. Listening to conference really once again strengthened my testimony of the importance of families and the family unit. Wow, parenthood is one of the most important and rewarding experiences. I really loved what Elder Bednar said about teaching our children to act and about the importance of spontaneous testimony bearing. Those moments are so special and really are the strongest. I really loved Brother Foster's remarks and nurturing and motherhood. Our mothers have been on this path before and know what it's like because they've experienced it before.
I also really enjoyed Brother Calson's talk on why we don't keep commandments, it really reminded me of some of our investigators and really strengthened the importance of faithful obedience to me. Because selective obedience is disobedience.
And, I was really inspired by Pres Uchtdorf's talk, when he talked about not letting ourselves judge others, but remember that everyone is a child of God. Everyone is of worth and we are not able to measure the worth of another soul. It really made me re-evaluate how I treat others and that I need to be more kind to everyone, and also that I need to be more courageous with talking with everyone because: everyone. Everyone on the street, in this room,in this world is a child of God and needs to hear the gospel.
Haha, ok, here are some fun cultural aspects of Taiwan that I've already come to love. So, everyday you hear music on the street from a certain truck. These trucks go around everyday helping the community. Guess what they are.....garbage trucks! The garbage trucks play music! It's fantasic, and it's a really nice tune too, they did a really good job chosing something that wasn't annoying :) Also, all the bread here is amazing, there is always some sort of dongxi in the middle, there is cream, meat, pudding, something or other, it's always a surprise! a yummy delicious surprise :)
Haha, oh yeah, this week I was exposed to my first dose of Taiwan rain. It was great because I luckily bought a raincoat(a fantasticly blue plastic raincoat :)) last week so I had it in my box as we were traveling to appointments. It started sprinkling and I was so excited because it felt so good and already had been a hot week. But then, my companion all of a sudden stopped on the side of the road and quickly pulled out her raincoat and told me to hurry and get my on. I thought she was being funny, but as we started getting our raincoat on it started pouring! I kid you not, it was awesome. I am of course taller than the average person, and much more so than the little Taiwanese people--and I also made the mistake of getting the regular person-sized raincoat so by the time we got to our appointment my skirt from my knees down was soaked:) haha, but I love riding in the rain, it's the most amazing feeling and so fun to go through puddles. I bought water shoes which are pretty much just shoes with lots of holes so that the water goes in and out. My shoes right now are fabulous but i don't wear them when it rains. :) They will be awesome during winter though--but I'm finding that I don't need really great shoes because we do a lot more biking than walking.
--Sister Ko
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