2/6 Email

Dearest family,

Whew, this week was the Lunar New Year. Oh dear goodness I have never eaten so much in my life. Think about Christmas dinner. Then think about that for lunch as well. Now, remember the whole week is like that. And, since we have two wards that we are over we had lots of fun this last week eating at members' houses. In the past 3 days we had 7 meals at members' houses. Yes, I did not miscount that. It is not possible to not go to a dinner invitation. We've had doubles of meals and I feel like I'm going to burst. But, we probably won't need to eat for a long long time. :) But I really love chinese food, it really is so delicious. My poor companion almost died though, poor girl loves american food and just won't eat some things. But if you stop eating they will fill your bowl for you :) She has been working really hard on eating what she has been given, I'm so proud of her.

Wow, this week has been really fun, yesterday jia hui came to church. She's the one who read the whole Book of Mormon but wants a miracle. She loved church. She is so bu yi ding, so she won't set up another time to meet with us, she is so non-commital, but wants to come to church next week. She really felt like church was something special, and I think it will still take her a few weeks, but I think she will be baptized.

And, we met this really awesome 17-year old last week. After we had done leadership training I learned better ways to contact people, as I was trying it out on this girl she was really uninterested at first but after I explained more about the doctrine of Christ and how we can use it to change she also changed. Her reaction to the message changed. The doctrine of christ has power that I had not realized. When you study the first lesson too, it's not just the restoration. It's the Restoration of the Fulness of the Gospel of Christ. The restoration is important because it restored the full truth. Before she was too busy, but after that she set up a time for the next day. I told Sister Peterson that I met someone who was either really interested in hearing or would fang us and we would never see her again. She didn't answer when we called and she wasn't there, but she called us back after. She came! And she is the most shy thing ever, and you really have to be patient and wait for her to say things, but when she answers, it's awesome. She is so receptive and reads and prays. Hasn't immediately felt that Joseph Smith is a prophet, but is willing to keep reading and praying to know. So shy, but we helped her meet friends before Sunday so that she knew people when she came, and the young women's knew she was coming and knew she was shy so it was just perfect. She wasn't able to stay for the whole meeting, but will come next week. We even lent her a skirt and I really think she had a good experience. Sometimes I think it is so hard for them, so many new experiences all at once, but she was such a sport and the ward members are so wonderful. I love the ward and how willing they are to take care of new people.

This week is POWER WEEK! :) So we shall leave an hour early, have no language study time and eat all meals on the go--adding investigators, teaching lessons, and baptizing like crazy :) It will be fun, it will be a good experience to bounce back from guo nian with less people in town. There were so many people on the streets that said they coudn't meet until this week so it will be a good opportunity to get a hold of them and set up times with them. Hehe, pray for us and the Taizhong mission this week :)

Oh! And, we, as a mission are doing this new activity. We all have new Book of Mormons and are going to read as a mission and highlight different colors for 1)every reference to the Savior, ex. names 2) his attributes, 3) the words he says 4) the gospel of christ (faith, repent, bapt....) Oh my goodness, I'm already blown away at how different studying the book of mormon is. It's a different attitude and a different feeling. I suggest everyone should do it as well. We are going to finish it in 3 months, I think President Bishop said that would be about 6 pages a day.

Ok, love you all!

-Sister ko