Hello dearest family!
Sorry I realize that every week I get so involved in writing my email that I forget to answer any of your questions so today I am going to answer questions first. I did get the contacts and I was so happy! Thank you they came just in time! It was nice too because when I got moved back to Taipei I got welcomed back with a bunch of mail so it was a happy welcome back. Thanks for the email about my bro out here in Taiwan and yes we are supporting each other. I gave him a late... but still awesome birthday present and we write sometimes... every time i get a letter from him it is like a miracle, but always makes me way happy. He actually sent me the pictures of him wearing the tie I sent. it's pretty awesome and made by hand by some Aborigines. If I would have thought about it I would have bought another one to give dad or Daniel, but for some reason I never really thought about it... luckily sister xxxx is still there so i might be able to ask her to buy another one for me.
So anyways this transfer is still going really well. 3rd area, 3rd native companion... must be good right?! Sister D really is amazing. We have the least amount of time together because we go on exchanges once or twice a week. We go sooo much! It is really fun though and really cool to see the sisters growing and progressing as missionaries. I realize how much I have learned everyday and it is fun to continue learning from them as well.
I finally got a real Sunday here and things went really really well. I could really feel the lord guiding my introductory testimony and I can already feel the ward members enthusiasm for missionary work building. They all keep asking me how long I have been here because they think I am going home soon.... yay I even had one member say they thought I was Taiwanese yesterday. I still think my Chinese is really bad... I'm still on phase 2 :( but luckily my accent is ok and I think mostly in Chinese now so my grammar and flow are pretty good though my vocabulary may not be as great as I would like. I really feel so at home with the members here now though and with the culture in general. I am grateful for how much the lord has blessed me. We have found some awesome new investigators this week and they are already progressing really well. Next week I will email more about them. I also want to ask for some special prayers for us. We have 2 wards and one of the wards, Tuchen, they are on fire with missionary work. The last sets of sisters had a lot of success in those wards and right now all of our solid investigators are there (we had 5 come to church on Sunday). The thing is the other ward, Xinban, also has some awesome members, but we need to get them on board with the missionary work. We are hoping to go find some really awesome families that we can bring to church, so that we can get them filled with hope and faith (the sisters didn't have many investigators in that area before so we really need some special help). We have decided we really want to help build up the xinban ward so that they can have as much success as the Tuchen ward has. Pray that we can find those families! thank you so much for all of your support!!!
This week I was reading the 2008 May general conference Liahona. They have some great talks in there and I thought it was so cool because I have really really seen the same things in my missionary service. there is one that I want to specifically share with dad I posted the link below.
http://www.lds.org/liahona/2008/11/o-ye-that-embark?lang=eng&query=o+ye+that+embark
I think this talk really applies to you right now because it is funny how we face so many challenges and we always think that in a few years it will be easier or once I get this done it will be better... when really every time we think things are good... the lord will give us a new challenge to let us grow. Our job is to not get discouraged, but take each new challenge with faith... just as we did the one before. I told xxxx it is funny because at first on our hike of a mission we think that there is no possible way we can climb those mountains... but after we get over a few, we realize how much stronger we are. then we have even steeper more difficult ones to climb, but instead of saying no way I can't... we say bring it on and we face it with the faith that the lord will help us just like He did all those times before.
So keep looking outward and upward just like mom said and keep hiking those mountains that I know you are all facing (or if you aren't right now will be facing soon). I love you all so much and pray for you often.
Here are some fun pictures from our Halloween party on Saturday. I love Halloween!!!
Sister Gummow ^_^v
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