Beitou

Feb. 12. 1017 email

Sister Clawson and Sister Miller are together for another transfer in Beitou!  Emma was thrilled:)

Another Transfer is here and gone and i'm still in beitou!! I am so dang excited to be here with Sister Miller still. We are absolutely loving this work and have met some incredible people. This Gospel is so true and puts sparkles into everyone's lives!

:)

The week started off with a super duper fun Pday. We went to a Geo Park called Yeh Liu. It is so dang beautiful! It is a red rock park right next to the ocean. We had to go and check it out! The drive their was for sure one of the best parts. We went with our Ward mission Leader Chen DX. So of course we were out food exploring too. I literally felt like I was on an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives! We stopped at like 3 different restaurants just to check out the different kind of Zhongzi they had. Zhongzi is like this rice, meat, mushroom triangle all wrapped up in a palm tree leaf! Might sound kinda weird but I promise it is delicious! Chen DX is so dang funny. He just loves food, talking loud, and laughing. He is the best for sure!! We went and explored the national park and it was absolutely beautiful, this is the first time I have seen the beach my entire mission! This park is famous for a rock that looks like a queens head. We were pumped to see it. Turns out it was really really small..but still beautiful:)

some funny tender moments from this week:

-sister miller saw the word "chaos" and looked at me and said, "Sister Clawson , what in the heck does this word mean?!" but she pronounced it chows. She looked at it for a second and then just died laughing. We were both dying laughing! I then told me my famous story from 4th grade about "what's a canoe?" she's the best. (So the story of Emma in 4th grade and the canoe goes something like this:  Emma has always had the tendency to take things at face value.  She was reading a book and the word CANOE was in it.  She looked up from her book and asked, "What is a "CA KNOW?"  She had used the word canoe all the time, and she canoes at Grandpa Barker's house every Summer, but she'd never experienced the word in written form.  We busted up laughing, and still have not let her live it down!  There may be a few other words that this has happened with.  Like being at the DI and asking what is "ling- er- ee?"  Lingerie!!!  BAWAHHHHH!  That's one of the reasons we love Emma!  What you see is what you get, and it is pure gold!!)

-We met some hillbilly boys from france and prayed with them. They were so pumped about it and wanted to meet with missionaries in their home.

-Chen DX our ward mission leader bought  pepper spray:)

Beef Noodle Soup is a FAVORITE!

This week really was full of so many miracles. We are so blessed to be teaching some of the coolest families right now. Heavenly Father really is so good to us and we are so grateful for the trust that he has in all of his missionaries to teach all of his children the restored Gospel.

One of our investigators that we are teaching right now is named D. She is the most prepared woman I have ever met. She has a seven year old son named Anthony. He is a little fart sometimes but we are loving teaching him and his mom. D has such great faith. She has been learning and understanding so much and really has been relying on God to give her peace and healing. She has had a rough life. When she was younger she met a man and they got married. They were super duper poor together but worked hard. They were married for 12 years and their marriage started to fall apart. When she found out that she was pregnant with her son they got a divorce. She has been a single mom since the day he was born. Her ex-husband has been able to have great success since their divorce and apparently is a very famous figure in taiwan now. D's life has been full of feelings of inadequacy and heartache. She is looking for peace in her life and has really been starting to find it here. She even texted us this morning telling us how proud she was of herself because she threw away ALL her coffee.

she is amazing, this gospel is magic, I love it!

The title for this pic was, "Cute Grandpa!"  Another picture straight out of Mulan:)

I am so grateful for families and that we can all be together forever. This week Sister Miller asked me about one of my favorite memories as a kid and I told her about Grandpa Garner telling us Magic Barrel stories every time we went up to the cabin in Bear Lake. I really am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who gives us all the blessings we could ever ask for, all we have to do is follow and serve him!

I love you all so dang much!!!!!

xoxoxo

emma

Miss Spider's Tea Party

Feb. 5, 2017

Danshui!  Emma is holding either cherry tomatoes, or strawberries that are dipped in a hard candy and then eaten off the stick.  Kind of like candied apples:)  but candied tomatoes?  

This week full of lots of happiness, activities, and lessons learned!
Starting off, this past Pday we went to Danshui and went on a ferry ride. It was absolutely freezing!!!!! I couldn't believe how many people were in Danshui this past week. It was loaded for Chinese New Year. It was super fun to see. People literally seemed even happier to be alive and talk with us because they didn't have work and just got to hang out with their families. How could you not be happy?!

Sunday night at the New Member Fireside.  This is Jewell:)  Emma loves her!  She sends me pictures everytime she sees Emma.  I love her too!

This Tuesday night was crazy, not gonna lie. This tuesday we got a call from this random number during district meeting. It was this woman that we had met on the street earlier named Blacksheep. She was SO pumped to see us, BUT was also a little cray cray. she called us and wanted us to come over to her house that night to eat with her. She REALLY wanted us to come! We were like, we can't say no, we have to teach everyone! so that night we prepared a lesson and head over to her house. We were a little scared but said a prayer that the Holy Ghost would help us carefully discern what needed to be done. We found our house and carefully started tip toeing up the stairs. BANG! We here a door slam shut, some quick scuttling, and then a witch voice cackling.

Miss Spider's Tea Party:) What a kind, generous woman!

PEACE! WE ARE OUT! \

Sister Miller and I booked it the HECK  out of their! We ran so fast down those stairs, ditched our bikes, and hid behind this alley and waited. My heart was pounding so fast. WE looked across the street and two little old asian men that were guards were giggling at us..:)

We peaked around and saw Black Sheep, she was looking for us! We were so dang scared, but as we watched her we noticed how sad she looked not being able to find us. We knew we had to talk with her but were too dang scared. So, we called the Elders:) The elders hustled over and within 10 minutes we were having a nice lesson with her in her home.

She is so dang crazy, but so full of love. It actually turns out that she is an LA! She got baptized 15 years ago but hasn't been to church because she feels like she is the odd one out. We invited her to come to church with us. I felt like I was reading the Miss Spider book, (here's a link to the Miss Spider book.  It was and still is a favorite book at our house!)where all the little bugs are terrified of Miss Spider but all she really wants to do is have a tea part with everyone! That was Black Sheep to a T.  She is adorable and we totally misjudged her. This is why we leave judgement to God. 

Street food in Danshui.

But to make the night even crazier, right after we got out of Black Sheeps house we got a call from the Danshui elders! Somehow during district meeting we had left our keys in Danshui!!! Agh!!! So we quickly all jumped on the MRT and met half way. We were all running our butts off so that we could do the exchange and all make it home in time! As we were on the way we met this couple from OREM UTAH...WHAT THE HECK! they were just visiting and wanted to go see the chapel in Danshui! They laughed when they found out why we were on the MRT at such a late hour in the evening..hahaha. Anyways we got to our meetup point and had the sickest pass off. the elder had to jump on the MRT to get home and we were running to where they were to grab the keys, Right as the doors were about to close we snatched them out of Elder Finsters hands and the doors shut and they zoomed off to Danshui! 

OH MAN IT WAS SO SICK! I wish ya'll could of seen it. I felt like James Bond or Mission Impossible or something like that.

Oh wait, Missionary Impossible . Yaaaa! It was a crazy night that's for sure.

I love being in Taiwan. 

Looks like they play Pie Face in Taiwan too!

The rest of the week was awesome. Heavenly Father let us see so many miracles and meet so many new incredible families this week. I am so grateful for the Atonement in our lives and how we can literally use it to change and become more and more like Christ each day!

I love you all so much! be safe this week!

xoxoxox

emma