Chinese New Year Is Upon Us!

Jan. 22, 2017 email

P-day fun in MUZHA!!

Chinese New Year starts Sat. Jan. 28th.  Everyone is working late on Thurs. to prepare for 5 days off of work.  They will have a huge dinner on Friday night (kind of like Christmas Eve for us) and then have loads of fun and eating for 5 days!  Everyone goes back to work on Tues. and then the Lantern Festival will cap off the 15 day New Year celebration on Feb. 11th.  Emma has lunch and dinners planned with members and their families for the first 5 days!  Other than all the eating she will be contacting people out on the street and sharing the gospel with anyone who will listen. 

What a fun week! fam I am so sorry, I feel like my emails are getting crappier and crappier. Just so much fun stuff, so many miracles, so many crazy people, and not enough memory space!!!! Agh I promise I love my mission with all my heart and it really is the coolest experience everyday.:)

This wednesday we had the opportunity to go to the temple. It was perfect:) The only hard thing about going to the temple is that my body completely crashes right when I sit down. It was a straight struggle this time. I don't think I've ever prayed so hard as I did in the temple asking Heavenly Father to please just help me stay AWAKE! Oh man. But, it turned out really well, when we went into the celestial room it was so freezing in their it was impossible to fall asleep. LIke it was freezing! We are talking about like 40 degrees celsius. So we did some quick pondering and praying and then went to warm up real quick:) I'm so dang grateful we have a temple in our mission!

AFter the temple our district and some other missionaries went to the Maokong Gondola in muzha.

That's right.

Muzha:)

I was FREAKING OUT THE WHOLE TIME!

It was so fun to be there again. I swear Muzha really is the most special place in all of Taiwan. Dear to ma heart I tell ya. 

We went all the way to the top of the mountain, went on a mini hike, and then bought one of all the fun little foods they had in this littler market. It was delicious. I think Taiwan has the most delicious sausages in all the world! mmmmm:) It was a fun temple day.

This week we had a crazy miracle! Sister Miller and I were doing our daily planing together on thursday night and saw that we both had this Wu Tai Tai scheduled for 4 the next day. but we could not find her phone number ANYWHERE! We were so scared that we were gonna leave her hanging at her own lesson because the next day our assigned time to do interviews with president got switched so we wouldn't be able to make it back in time for her lesson! 

CRAP!

So we were completely flipping out thinking that this mom was gonna show up to hear about Jesus but we weren't even gonna come. We looked and looked for her number and couldn't find anything:( We prayed and prayed that Heavenly Father would somehow help us find this moms number so that we could change times with her. 

We went to interviews the next day and it was awesome. President Jergensen is an amazing leader that has been called of God to help  and guide us! It was my turn to be interviewed. After President and I were done, we walked back to switch off with my companion and I see that Sister Miller is on the phone with someone. She finishes the call, hangs up, and then looks up at me with a huge smile and says, "Sister, GOD IS SO GOOD TO US!!!!"

The person on the phone was Wu Tai Tai! She had saved our number and called to tell us that her son was sick so that we would have to change times to meet:)

MIRACLES!!!!!

Man its so dang fun to be here:) This week Chinese New Year starts! Everyone is preparing super duper hard core. We are so excited, and nervous for all the craziness. More stories and details to come next week I guess:)

This week we also met the cutest new family to teach. They are named the Zhang family! It's a cute Mom with a 12 year old son and 2 year old baby girl. Their dad works China most of them time. They all seemed pretty bummed about his work, but are super pumped that he is coming home for chinese new year! They really want their family to be eternal. It was so fun to get to know them and to testify to them about how through Jesus Christ and Baptism, we can be with our families forever. 

Taiwan is the Best!

Now for one last crazy story from last night.. hahah:)

Sister Miller and I planned last night to go to the night market english boarding. After being there for a little bit we wrapped it up so that we could make it home on time. We went back to our bikes and what did we see?

Sister millers beautiful bike standing proudly waiting for her, and mine,in a pile on the ground. I don't know what happened.....but basically my basket was off, my water bottle has a HUGE dent in it (it looks pretty gnarly:) It's got some good character now) and my helmet was a pancake..

But my bike is still perfect! Thank heavens!

So I think someone just might hit it, ran over it, man I don't know. So that was a fun adventure, Now I've got a spicy blue helmt!:)

I love this work so much! If we constantly are striving to live the gospel of Jesus Christ we will be happy:)

xoxoxxox\emma