So Much Fun In Taiwan!

Super windy p-day hike!

Oct. 24, 2016 email

To start off, I just realized that I haven't told you guys the landscape of Beitou yet!! It's very different than anywhere else I have served. It's not flat....at all. All the roads are either small hills, regular hills, massive hills, or slit your wrist hills! Seriously! My legs are getting SO jacked from living here and biking up all these hills daily! Dad, sign me up for the Strawberry leg of Lotoja next september:) ILL BE READY! One of the biggest hills in all of Beitou is the one that leads right to the church...we've had some members and investigators who don't want to meet or help us with lessons because of that hill....But Heavenly Father will give us all strength! I'm loving serving here:)

This wednesday we got to go to the temple and it was fantastic! One of my favorite members from Zhongli happened to be there too! We were both so dang excited!!!! We even got to do sealings together:) it was the greatest time ever:) I love all these people so dang much!

After we went to the temple a bunch of kids from our zone all went on a really cool hike together! It was SO windy but so dang fun! the winds here in Beitou are massive. But while we were on the hike I found out that one of the new elders is Curtis Heatons Nephew! ha! Small world! We had a fun time talking about bread and whatnot.

A great night doing temple tours!

Later this week we went on exchanges with the Sanchong sisters! Me and Sister Austad were paired up together and off we went to the island of Bali for a lesson with our investigator Zeng Yi Wa! She is adorable:) She has a baptismal date and we are pumped for her. We asked her if we could meet her parents and this was our first time meeting them! We went over and talked and shared with them about the restoration of the Gospel. Her dad was so curious and touched that we could have a personal relationship with God. As we asked him more questions and talked to him about baptism. He said that if he knew this was true he would get baptized on the same date as his daughter. WHAT?! Talk about a miracle! The mom wasn't quite as excited but we will keep working with her;) We are so excited for them. 

A friend from Muzha came to say hi during their temple tour.  

This week we also had the chance to do temple tours! We met so many cool people and Sister Kho even got to give a tour in Cantonese to a guy from Hong Kong! To make the night even better guess who showed up at the temple? Ji Pei De!!! He stopped at the chapel after work to buy some new scriptures and saw us doing tours! It was super fun to see a familiar Muzha face:) we were so dang pumped!!!!

The next day we met with a new investigator named Annie. She is a single mom in her 30's and has two little girls that are 9 and 6 years old:) We shared with them about the Restoration of the Gospel. The most amazing and spiritual part of the whole lesson were the questions the little girls kept asking the whole time. Who is God? Why do we have a prophet? What if there wasn't a prophet? How do we talk to God? How do we get answers to our prayers? The girls questions touched their moms heart. Annie helped us with the closing prayer and asked that her and her daughters would be able to learn and find answers to their questions together:) This experience just really made me realize why we must all become like little children. Humble and innocent. Such a cool lesson:) We are stoked for this cute little family:)

Beitou, Taiwan

Another little story from this week. I woke up this friday morning and just wasnt as happy as usual. (satan sucks) we had a lesson at 11 and were running late to get there. After we biked up the massive hill to get to the church I was angry and filled with rage cause my legs were on FIRE and I was letting satan get to me! I knew that our lesson would go nowhere with this attitude and that I wouldn't be able to have the spirit with me. I prayed my guts out for Heavenly father to help me be happy and soften my heart. 

Baptisms to top off the week!

We went into the church and immediately everything changed. our lesson was so full of the spirit and I could feel it so strongly. Our investigator was even able to take the faith to set a baptismal date:) I know that Heavenly father can Help us change the desires of our hearts!

This week was awesome. To finish it off our investigator Sister Ke and her son were able to get baptized yesterday:) She bore her testimony and it was incredible to hear her testimony of the Book of Mormon and Christs atonement. God loves us so much and this stuff is all so true. I love you guys so dang much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

have an awesome week:)

xoxxooxox\emma