Dearest Family,
Hello :) well it seems like this week and the rest of this month are just going to fly by! I must admit our schedule is a little bursting full. We have to go on exchanges with sisters about 2x's a week and we are also in the missionary Christmas choir. We were all specially selected to participate and we travel all over Taipei singing at different Christmas parties and stuff. We are out of our area performing 2-5 times a week. So between the two we are pretty booked full. It is really fun though and the Lord is definitely taking care of us. We have received so many member referrals lately and they are really taking up the invite to invite someone to church. Super cool and super fun to see the hastening of the work to it's fullest in this area. It is really fun because there are a few Xinban members that know my friends from college or who attended BYU-H with me. There are sooo many people who have excellent English in the ward, so that is really fun. Don't worry though... my Chinese is still pretty good. It could be much better, but I have mastered the Taiwanese accent. Here are some pictures from the past few weeks
This is our Thanksgiving dinner. One of the X
inban members made curry and a bunch of other delicious things for us. She is actually a returned temple square missionary and her three daughters are the cutest!!! The elder on the far right is Elder M. His family lives in American Fork. They just moved there a few weeks ago though.
The first day of December we put up the tree and the stockings :) Our Christmas is getting more and more festive. I haven't got the Christmas stuff yet, but I'm sure I will soon. I did get the Philippines and my friends printouts. I was super touched by the Philippines stuff. Thanks for sharing!!!
Two days in a row of exchanges. I got to go with a sister H. She serves in Xinzhuang and she is from Zhanghua (where Matt is serving) She doesn't live that close to him though, but her dad is good friends with his bishop so he told them to take good care of my brother and the bishop already invited them over for dinner. super cool :)It sounds like the weather is pretty cold there! It has been pretty nice in Taiwan. It was a little cold the past two weeks, but the past few days have been pretty warm. Thank goodness! I haven't been sick yet so thank goodness! With all these exchanges I am going to need some prayers it is really really exhausting sometimes, but also really really fun. The sisters we serve with are super awesome.
We are going to be booked out with Christmas activities. Between our zone conference and performance and then two different wards (we serve over two Tuchen and Xinban wards) and their ward parties we are going to have a very festive Christmas. It should be very fun and a great opportunity for our members to do missionary work. Ward parties are the greatest!
So I think the biggest missionary miracle this week is that we got some more investigators with baptismal dates! our 4 before died down to 1. The 1, XX JM is still doing awesome! She is so ready, but has some problems about Sunday. She is praying about it though and has faith that the lord will help her. She is keeping all of the other commandments and doing just great. The other 3 that set dates with us are actually all from referrals too. Super awesome! One is an LA man's wife who told him she wanted to learn about the gospel. Her name is xxx JM. She is really wanted to know about her life purpose and who God is, so it is awesome and exciting for her husband. Another is a teenage girl. She was meeting with the elders before because they helped her brother get baptized and her boyfriend is a member. She hasn't been progressing lately though so they are passing her off to us to see if we can do anything. Then the other is from English class. The elders were English contacting and she decided to come. Turns out that she really has a ton of questions about our religion. Right now it is more of a curiosity. She is not really desiring baptism, but she is willing to do our invites and feels good about prayer and stuff. She is really awesome and fun to teach. We really have some awesome investigators right now. I only feel bad because I don't feel like we have enough time to give them the time and care they deserve, but it is a great opportunity for my companion and I to learn more about time management skills. It is going ok so far, but we have a lot of room for improvement. We are just praying we can get it down or the new investigators this month are not going to be very many... If you have any good suggestions about better time management let me know! (here is a picture her companion took of her calling her report in)
So Christmas phone calls also got much more complicated as you can see from the mission email I forwarded. It looks like I might not get to coordinate it with Matt.
I love you and wish you a happy happy holiday season filled with Christ in every thought! :) I love you all
Sister Sara Gummow ^_^
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