August 8, 2010

Dearest family,

I'm glad you still got my letter,...:) Oh, another package, I really don't need anything, and packages get so expensive when you send them from the US, i still have a bottle of vitamins I brought with me, I try really hard everyday to eat healthy and eat vegetables. I'm pretty sure every one of my companions will never forget that part of me. I need to eat vegetables and I love milk. :) It's taiwan and it's pretty modern, people don't have a hard time finding things here. Oh! But one of our new members wants to see what I looked like as a child, haha, so could you send one or two and even just one of my baptism picture. People love to see baptism pictures :) The only thing I can think of is cookies. I miss cookies. But they might be kind of old by the time they get here so I'm not sure, but letters, cookies and pictures are what I can think of right now. I'll let you know if I think of anything else.

Oh! mom, I love you, thank you for remembering my wonderful Sister Malmrose, and I will remember to bring her address with me next week, but you might be able to find it in one of my earlier emails.

Yes, next week I will have a new companion, it will be so weird and still no news on what is going on, but President Bishop said he would let us know. Pres Bishop by the way is doing a fantastic job. He is very smart and very much involved in getting things done. We have a new program for missionary that is going to be implemented in the next couple months and he is doing a really great job with introducing that and following the instruction he received in the MTC. He really is so hard-working and cares a lot about us and the mission.

Renzhi and guimei are doing great! They passed their baptismal interviews this weekend so they will be baptized this sat. It will be perfect because we have a missionary activity with the young men and young women and then the baptism. So we can show them different aspects of missionary work and then show them what all the work leads up to. Perfect! :) It will be so great, I love missionary days and I am so excited for these two. Ren zhi smoked on tuesday and wednesday but hasn't since then and she has been battling her temptations really well. She is so strong. And, she is just so amazing. She has such a powerful testimony of her Heavenly Father and Savior. It is so inspiring. And also, she was so amazing when we started talking about tithing. She had read about it and said she had a problem with it. We were thrown off for a little bit, but asked her about it and she said, "well, I guess I don't have a problem now, because I just found work yesterday so now I can pay it! She was nervous about not having a job and not being able to pay tithing. I love this woman. The fantastic thing is that she is also reactivating a recent convert who stopped coming to church but has been to church every week since ren zhi and gui mei started coming. the recent convert is her neighbor.

Mom, you are hilarious, I love reading about your day at the cabin and how you were able to watch your soaps. Sorry I wasn't as interested in them as you would have liked :) I'll watch them with you when I get home. And, it just made me laugh to read about you and david cooperfield. you are so great. I do really miss garden vegetables. I eat a lot here, but taiwanese vegetables are better cooked and they cook everything and like to put a lot of oil with things too, so the vegetables do not taste the same. Eat some cukes and beans for me :)

Oh my goodness! Have you seen "Healing Waters" it's a movie about sharing the book of mormon with your friends and it is fantastic. I had never seen it until this last week and it was really powerful. See if you can find it and share it. It would be a great missionary activity with the youth, we are going to show it to them and have them write their testimonies in Book of Mormons for us to give out.

We get a monthy budget that is usually plenty, and it covers a lot. We have debit cards and most places don't take cards but we can always withdraw money from places like 7-11. Clothes, I actually inherited a couple things from older missionaries or missionaries who left things behind so I'm doing pretty good :) I don't wear a lot of my clothes right now because I sweat a lot nowadays and the whole back of my shirt and sleeves start looking a totally different color :) But they are fine, and I hear this is the hottest time so when sept rolls around it will get cooler, and I hear typhoon season is also around the corner so we might get some great rains soon. :) One of my favorite things about the culture is that nothing is a boy or girl thing. Ok, somethings are, but everyone wears pink everyone has cute little keychains or little animals hanging from their phones. It's really funny and very taiwanese. I actually really love it. But it makes rainy days hard for contacting because you don't know which are girls and boys. Everyone wears every color of raincoat :)

Ok, have to go, but I love you all!

-Sister Allison Ko