We Bought A Zoo!!

June 19, 2016 Letter

At the Taipei Zoo

This week was stinking awesome!! I am loving Muzha more and more every single day. Honestly it is absolutely beautiful and I am making the best friends I've ever had in my whole life. I have to bring them all home with me!

Well, to start off the week with a bang we went to the Zoo!! It's in our area so we all just road our bikes:) Bike Gang for the win:) We got to the zoo and I just screamed, "WE BOUGHT A ZOO!" It's what the adorable little girls says in We Bought A Zoo. Except no one has ever seen it in my district...WTH?! All you deprived people! So they laughed at me and by the end of the day Elder Dong couldn't stop saying it too:) It was such a blast! It's the biggest zoo I've ever seen in my whole life! We were there for about 3 hours and only made it about half way through! But it's ok, its literally only 2 american Dollars to go so we will be back for sure:) All the Animals we SO COOL! Elephants, monkeys, snakes, spiders, hippos, pandas, butterflies, kangaroos, camels, emus, zebras, tigers, ets....It was massive! We met some people from the phillipines there and they wanted to take pics with us. Cause we are white. So we did! Everyone wants to take pics with us and it cracks me up!

Tuesday was our first day of Temple Tours!! So here's kind of how it works. You have a scheduled temple tour day. You are there from morning till night. Literally all day. Sometimes there are tour appointments set up, other times there's not. When there's not, you stay within a 5 minute radius of the temple and find! Talk to everyone and convince them to do a tour:) It's awesome. 
So we had absolutely NO tours scheduled....oh no!! So we were out finding. all. dang. day. It was pouring rain, we may have got ice cream twice at the 7-11 to rejuvinate ourselves, but we did see a miracle. We met one guy that actually wanted to do a tour. His name is Chen dx! We talked and did a tour and were all touched by the spirit. He knew that what were taught was true and commited to baptism! Then we asked him were he was from, and he said....


Muzha.

What?! Temple tour miracles! The one person we meet actually lives in our area:) Christ is my anchor and if we have faith and are diligent we literally will never fail.

Sister Hughes and a really nice Elder I don't know his name!

The Elder's in Emma's District 

Wednesday we we graced with the most amazing zone conference ever. It was all about Pride. Pride and all the different faces it can take! I realized how much I actually struggle with this and need to become more humble dang it! we had multiple trainings, roleplays, costco pizza, and fun with friends (aka fellow missionaries). Mom I realized something this week. It was an epitome I had in stake conference yesterday. Elder Roe is literally the most intense, driven, impressive, on fire, full of the spirit missionary I've ever met in my life. Just thought I would tell you. Cause you're my more and I can tell you random crap. So basically Elder Roe is my hero and I hope i can become as diligent of a missionary as he has been! anyways. back to mission stories.

Thursday was the start of a new kind of mission experience. My companion got SO SICK. Like sicker than a dog. Poor girl, she was coming out both ends for 3 days! She is a trooper. so thursday, friday, and saturday we were home bound. Lets just say I learned A LOT about chinese culture. I know the difference and beliefs of Taoisom, confucionism and buddhism. Buddhism here is very different than the rest of the world. I read A LOT of scriptures. And me and Sister Hughes basically learned EVERYTHING about each other. Like she knows about the Clawson fam 4th of July and how we once were on the news for dressing up like Obama and being scantily clad women...she knows it all!!!!! I'm pretty sure she wanted to kill me by the end of this week. hahaha:) I sang to her, told her stories, the whole plot of Mary Poppins, the whole shabang! we were both losing it staying inside! The good news is is that she's better and that Sunday was fantastic!

Elephants at the Taipei Zoo

The Tourists.

Sunday was Stake conference and our beloved Ji Pei De was able to come with us!!!! He works all the time but was able to came with us:) KNow why? BECAUSE HE PRAYED FOR HELP AND GOD ANSWERS ALL OF OUR PRAYERS, THATS WHY! His testimony has grown so much and he's made the biggest changes in his life. Stake conference was the biggest blessing. They had a mens choir that was absolutely fantastic! It had so many of our ward members in it so it was a blast to watch them. I was overcome by the spirit while they were singing and just really realized how much I love these people. I never thought I could love the people in Taiwan, but the have my whole heart. I know that Heavenly Father sends us the the places that we are supposed to go and that if we put our trust in him he can help us change the desires of our hearts. Till next time folks! love you all so much.
xoxoxooxox
emma