Last Email EVER!! Holy cow!

July 23, 2017 email

This week was a lot of fun, full of great memories. 

ok, first really funny story from this week. :)

This tuesday morning, sister xie and I were just coming back from exercise and we see this old grandma babbling with the grandpa that lives below us. We overheard their conversation and it turns out there was some dead animal that they were trying to clean up but both of them were too scared to do it. They saw us walk past and they were like, "the missionaries! They can help us!" So of course we put on our brave face and followed the grandma to wherever this animal was. I was expecting like a rat.. or a kitten maybe. we get to this part of the road and lying in the gutter is an ENORMOUS badger.

WHAT?! 

This is taiwan?! A BADGER?! are you kidding me?!!!!! i was dying. They badger seriously looked like he just got really tired, laid on his back, and then died. it was hilarious. Literally massive.

then...I had to pick it up and throw it away.. 

aghghghghghghhhgghhhh! Xie jm, this grandma, and me were like three squealing 6 year olds. I was so dang terrified, but I knew I just had to man up and pick it up!! Top 5 bravest moments on my mission.

the grandma was super grateful and then we had a really good laugh about it later:)

Agh taiwan is nuts.

:)

Now for some other cool miracles from the week.

This wednesday we had a pass off lesson with the 2nd ward elders, it was with Lin Wen Jie Dx. He is amazing and basically the most prepared person in all of Taiwan. So earlier in the week I was talking to Lin DX on the phone and he told me about how he actually has  a 4 year old son that died 3 years ago in a motorcyle accident. We planned with the elders that we would teach him the plan of Salvation when we met with him instead of our original plan. The lesson went amazing. We all taught it together so simply and the spirit was so strong. Elder Johnson shared a scripture about how little children have eternal life and he testified to Lin DX that his son was with God in a place of peace and happiness. Lin DX just burst into tears, then I burst into tears...AGH It was so sick! He just understood the plan and how important it was to him! I'm so grateful that Heavenly FAther gave us the chance to meet Lin DX and get to help learn about our Savior.

I love this gospel. It is so dang true!

This week I also had my last interview

and last sunday

and last coordination meeting.

gonna have  a lot of lasts this week! kinda scary but really exciting:)

I have loved serving a mission in Taiwan. I know that God lives, He LOVE US!! I know that we have a living prophet on the earth today that receives revelation directly from God. This church has been restored! The Book of Mormon holds the restored truth. I know that if we live Gods commandments and follow Christs example we will be HAPPY. Dad told me something super awesome and true today. Missions don't change lives, purely living the gospel changes lives. 

I have seen a lot of unhappy people and a lot of happy people. The ones who are happy are the ones that choose to trust in God wholeheartedly, follow his son, repent, and keep his commandments. I love you tons)

SEE you all in a hot minute!!!!

xoxoxoox

emma

I Love Being A Missionary!

July 16, 2017 email

My beloved family and friends!!!! This week was great. I think last week I had one of the coolest pday in maybe my whole mission. We woke up early with our Member Zheng JM and her family and went to a little town on the outskirts of TAidong called Luye. It's beautiful and SO GREEN. So we went up there to see a performance. It was done by the aboriginals of Taidong, They sing and dance together! It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen and I may or may not have cried at one point because I thought it was so cool.......Agh I am a baby now...I cry really easily. but for reals it was the sickest thing in the world! afterwards we drove around and saw all sorts of cool mountain scenery of Taidong:) and then before we went home we stopped and saw Hot air balloons!! IT WAS THE MOST MAGICAL THING OF MY LIFE!!!

All in all it was a super duper fun pday:)

you guys this week saw a lot of cool miracles. But I just don't have time to write the nitty gritty details. But I promise I will tell you in person soon. I'll give you the quick run down of the amazing things that Heavenly Father was able to help us see this week:)

First off was the LA's that we were able to contact this week. The first was Chen JM. We simply got to know her and shared with her a mormon message about healing. She cried and cried and said that she hasn't felt the Holy Ghost for such a long time. she said she has the biggest desire to start coming back to church. 

the next Was Fan DX. He said that he hasn't been contacted by missionaries or members in 18 years. He has a big desire to quit smoking and drinking again but doesn't believe in himself. We invited him to come to church. Yesterday he was flooded with members loving him and welcoming him! AGH THIS WORK IS SO GOOD! LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR PEOPLE!

This week I also went on my last exchange! I went with Sister Austad. It was a lot of fun:) and we treated ourselves to not one, but 2 MANGO ICES!! the best.

I actually feel like this week was also just full of a lot of delicious foods.

And we got HUGE news for the week. Guo JM finally set a baptismal date!!!!!!!! She has been to church 4 times, reading the BOM, praying. agh she's awesome. But she was always just a little unsure about setting a baptismal date. This week we shared with her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and asked her how she felt about baptism. She just smiled and said she was excited about it. We then invited her to be baptized on August 26th and she just so pumped and said, "Ke YI!!!!!" 

perfect!! We are so excited for her and her cute cute cute family:)

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!

I know this gospel is so true. I'm know that Christ lives. He's the perfect example. Literally all we have to do everyday is ask ourselves,What would jesus do. If we can all have this attitude and follow his example and use the  Atonement daily in our life, we will be happier and see miracles everyday:) I LOVE YOU GUUS!!!!!!!! ONE MORE EMAIL!!!!!!

OXOXOXOX

EMMMA

Thanks Dad For Teaching Me To Be Extemporaneous!

July 9, 2017 email

Making Shuijiao's with a member family.  This is our family's favorite thing to eat on the planet!!!

My beloved family! THis week was super fun and I love being a missionary. This Pday we went to a mystical place called Taimali. We explore a super cool waterfall, everything about it was beautiful even though the water was like chocolate milk colored....no problem, still beautiful! Afterwards we went to the beach, cause it couldn't be a P-day in Taidong without going to some beach:) It was beautiful! Good start to the week!

This tuesday we had Zone Conference in Hualian. It was my last zone conference ever.... kinda weird, but it was an awesome one for sure. It was all focused on how we can be more powerful and simple teachers. We all came prepared with 2- One minute lessons on a gospel principle and roleplayed our guts out! It was so dang awesome! It forced us to keep our teaching simple and powerful. I loved it. It has helped us so much in our teaching and finding this week. This whole training just reminded me of this one time where I was driving in the car with Dad once and I asked if we could stop and get an ice cream or hot chocolate or something! He looked at me and said, "We can if you give my a one minute persuasive speech on why we should stop and get a treat." hahahahha thanks dad. 

I am now and effective one minute persuasive speech teacher:) xoxo

A cool miracle from this week! We got this super long referral text from Taizhong this week. It was a man named Lin Wen Jie who apparently had met the missionaries a long time ago and is looking for God now more than ever! I gave him a call expecting to have to talk to him for a second before he would set up. When he answered the phone I told him who I was and then this is basically how the rest of the conversation went... 

"Hey can we meet with you this week.?"

"yes!"

"Wednesday?" 

"Yes!"

"3?"

"Yes!" 

hmmm. yes! easiest set up ever.

Anyways we met with him this week and he is hands down the most prepared person that I have met in all my mission. He is so great!!! So humble and willing. Too bad he's a man...so the elders will continue to teach him and help him be baptized. but hey! Team Jesus! It was a great opportunity to be the first ones to meet with him and set a baptismal date with him:)

Other fun bits from the week include:

-going member visiting with our bishopbric! (What?! this never happens! yes!)

-made delish chocolates for our investigators and members. (We are the See's Candies of taidong)

-Our Member Cai JM called us tuesday morning and told us that her cousin was going to meet with us THAT night! (Out of the blue referral!)

-Met someone from Muzha!

Our investigators are all doing so great too:) 

Waterfalls P-day

I had the most tender moment yesterday in church! We were sitting next to our investigator Guo Mama and her 3 little girls. Someone was giving a lesson and they were sharing about Alma the younger. All of a sudden Guo mama's eyes got so big and she looks at me and says, Ke Jie mei!!! I read this yesterday with my kids! then she goes off and tells me about how her an her girls read this story together in the book of mormon. She said how important it is for us to always repent and keep gods commandments. 

I AM SO HAPPY!

This mom has had a struggle reading the scriptures, but after a lot of prayers, reading together, getting them a childrens Book of Mormon to go along with the normal version, they are getting it!!!!

agh:) yes!

Ilove being a missionary!

 I miss you guys a ton:) love you so dang much!!

xooxoxox

emma

Happy 4th of July!!

July 2, 2017 email

Hello my beloved family! this week was blast. A lot of super awesome miracles, lessons, and funny random moments.

To start off the week we went back to our favorite park Shenlin Gongyuan. It is absolutely beautiful! but this time to took an adventure path and went and explored for a little bit. It turned out to be this sick path the lead up to the beach! So then we all skipped rocks at the beach for like 20 minutes. One thing I've realized. Throwing or skipping rocks into a body of water is a big things amongst americans, Taiwanese not as much. But don't worry, Sister Xie is a pretty great skipper now. We had a tender bonding moment as I taught her how to skip rocks. Just like a date! hahaha. FUN  Pday:)

This weeks English Class went a lot better and we had 13 kids instead of 15 come:) I did some serious prep this week. Games, songs, races, you name it, we did it all! I think teaching english once a week on my mission has made me never ever want to be an english teacher! Way too hard! Its harder than teaching people about the gospel! 

This is Zhou ZiChen and her cute kids!  Emma loves teaching them:)

Anyways we had some incredible times with our investigators this week. Zhou Zi Chen met with us on saturday and was SO happy. Her countenance has changed so much:) She has been eating food more, happier, better relationship with her mom. It's ridiculous! WE asked her why she thinks all these things are changing in her life and then she went off for like 10 minutes on prayer and how she knows that God loves her and wants to bless and answer her prayers:)

eeeeeks:) yassss!!

We love her so much and are so dang excited for her. 

This Saturday we started our weekly summer festival activity! so every saturday throughout the summer from 4-6 is a different activity. this weeks was a giant water balloon party. All of us missionaries filled up hundreds of water balloons and invited everyone to come! We played volleyball, capture the flag, and had a war at the very end. EVERYONE was squealing and smiling it was so dang fun! over 50 people ended up showing up and it was such a success! We all got new investigators from it and a ton of happiness. 

This was a happy visit from friends from Muzha and HYRUM UTAH!!!  The dad in the back on the right is Brother Roe.  He was Emma's seminary teacher at Mountain Crest.  Emma said he walked into the room and gave her a huge hug!!  It made her day.  His son Elder Roe is on the back row with his sister.  He was the AP when Emma first got to Taiwan, and was a friend of Emma's from high school as well.  He was a happy, familiar face when she got to a new country.  And then there is the Chui's!!!  The greatest family from Muzha!  Emma loves them:)

Taidong, Taiwan

Sorry I don't have a whole lot of time today but I'll tell you all sorts of stories for the next 3 months after I get home! I love being a missionary and I love this gospel! God loves us and he wants us to be happy! This is why he gave us repentance and his son jesus christ! I love you guys so flipping much! have fun in my favorite place in the world this week:)

xoxoxoxo

emma

Hotter Than Sin Over Here In Tailing!

June 25, 2017 email

What a fun hot week! Ok quick story from last night just to explain how hot it is. Its about 8pm last night and we went to visit a member who hasn't been to church in the past couple weeks. We got up to her house and she was so excited to see us but didn't want us to come in because her house was messy. No problem:) so we sat in her menkou with her and shared a message with her. THe sweat, was a constant drip from my forehead, down my face, down my shirt for like a solid 20 minutes. Sister Xie and I both looked like we had just gotten out of the shower! We finished the visit real quick cause we were literally going to melt and die if we stayed a minute longer!!!!!! agh but don't worry we were full of love and charity for this member even though we were drippin sweat:)

Taidong is something else. 

SO DANG HOT!!!!!!

so sticky, so wet, but so many cool people!

This week we met some of the coolest new investigators, and there background are both very similar. Both are in the army but have a huge desire to treat their kids better and help them grow up in a more loving atmosphere.

The first family is the Zhen Jiating! WE met the mom a few weeks ago on the street, I remember her very vividly because she is actually brazilian.....but doesn't speak a lick of any other language except chinese! she moved to taiwan when she was 5 and hasn't left since. She is a soldier and that's how she met her boyfriend. They have 3 kids now and really want to get married and have a more stable family! They are both so cool! It's so weird to talk with a foreigner that's basically taiwanese on the inside! WE are excited to help them and their family!

The other soldier is Song Yun LIn. WE met her at the night market a couple weeks ago while she was playing with her son. she was sooooooo willing to meet with us,  I was chatting with her and then she looked at me and said, "I want my kids to grow up in church!!! can I meet with you and learn more?!" 

Yes. Willing!

haha. we met with her this week and it was magical. she ate up our message and opened up so much. She really believes that it was Gods plan that we met her at the night market, she said she hasn't been for 2 years but had a feeling that night that she needed to go.

agh!! goosebumps!!

She has not changed!

oh man this just reminded me of another sick miracle this week. We were meeting with our investigator Zhou Zi Chen and were trying to think of a member that could click really well with her, we had a feeling to call up an RC from the second ward, Guo Shi Yun. She said she could come help us with our lesson! We all met up at the church and then it just turned into magic, turns out that they both have the same health problems, interest, desires, you name it! They literally became best friends! Guo JM even said that she usually has violin lessons the same time as our lesson but he had surprisingly canceled. God planned everything perfectly so that they could meet! 

WE CANNOT DENY THAT THERE IS A GOD IN HEAVEN AND THAT HE LOVES US ALL.

yay:)

It's been amazing to see how things are really starting to change here in Taidong. Especially in the ward. The love is growing! I love it so much!

xoxooxoxoxxooxox family!

emma

The LAST Transfer Has Begun!

June 18, 2017 email

This week was a blast! We are so blessed to get to serve in the greatest area of our mission:) Today I want to share some cool lessons that we had this week. Man it is pretty dang crazy how different every single person is. Every lesson we have is not even sorta the same as the other. hahaha.

This week we had another lesson with Wang DX. He has been doing some serious homework on the things that we have shared with him! But he asks the most intense questions ever! Do you think plants have spirits? How would you describe the atonements effect in your life? And many many more! After his lessons I am whooped. Like so tired! His questions are soooo awesome and he is learning a lot. I just have to take the time to ponder and think before I answer. I'm so grateful for all the investigators that we meet! I think we learn just as much from them as they do from us!

The other is the cute Guo Family! This week going to their house was so awesome! They 3 little girls had memorized "secret Prayer"! It was so cute to sing it all together before we prayed. This week we shared the message of the Restoration and it was so cool to hear ALL the questions that the mom had for us. She wanted to know everything! They even came to church yesterday and the little girls absolutely LOVED it! They didn't want to leave. I know that God is constantly preparing people wherever we go! We just have to prepare ourselves well and then the blessings just flow:)

We had one night this week where we had planned to go visit an LA but turns out he lived farther away than we thought and we weren't going to have enough time to visit him and make it home at 9:30 so we just decided to talk to all the people that we saw around us! We saw a couple, said hello to them, and started to chat. Turns out that they just moved to Taidong from Muzha!!!!!!!!!!!! I freaked out a lot:) They are tour guides! Cool job. AND They are Menonites.....oh. First menonites I've met in taiwan!

actually ever...

haha.

But anyways they are really cool! They have searched so many churches trying to find the one that is the best for them. We gave them a quick low down of the restoration and asked them if we could share more with them later. They were all over it! We are so excited. Heavenly father blesses us so much when we open our mouths;)

Ok last cool miracle from the week. This was last night:) As Sister Xie and I were doing our planning that morning we had a feeling we needed to go and visit this LA that we had never met before. She is 16 years old and apparently had been baptized 3ish years ago. We biked our way over to their house and knocked on the door. we could see that there were 2 scooters outside, lights on, dogs barking, but nobody was coming to the door. The neighbors came out and told us that the parents of the house were both deaf and can't talk either. 

oh.

So.... we just kept knocking and waiting;)

FINALLY the mom came down!!!!! We were basically dancing at her front door to get her attention!! She saw the two of us and came outside.

for the next 20 minutes we talked to her using charades and a piece of paper. she was so cute, loving, and patient. We learned that her daughter, (who is the LA that we wanted to visit) had left home a year ago to live with her boyfriend. The mom is sad and worried about her. We shared with her a little bit about why we come on missions and told her that through Christ her whole family can be helped and healed. It was so tender!!!!! Literally one of the coolest experiences of my mission. she agreed to meet with us next week. Heavenly Father's plan is bigger than we can comprehend! he knew that Sister Xie needed to be here at this time in this place to write in chinese to communicate with her! THIS GOSPEL IS SO TRUE. GOD AND CHRIST LIVE!!

This week was a lot of fun.

Love you tons.

xoxooxoxo

emma

Tribulation Is The WORST!

June 11, 2017 email

Moving Day finally happened!

This week was AWESOME!!!!!

I feel like I am getting more and more tired as the weeks go on. We have had some intense service projects the past 2 weeks. I don't know why, but moving the Su Family has been one of the hardest, most challenging things of my entire life!!! We faced so much tribulation it's ridiculous!

I'll share how the whole thing went down.

So basically I was the middleman for organizing a moving truck, members, and missionaries to help this family move from Zhiben to Dulan. These 2 places are literally in the middle of nowhere. And super duper far away from each other!

But after try after try after try I finally got a Member with a truck, others to drive us, and everything was looking golden.

then tuesday night 9:00pm rolled around and I had a feeling I needed to call our moving guy to double check he was all good to go. I called and he told me that he had to go to taibei last minute and wouldn't be able to help.......NOOOOOO. We were moving the Su Family wednesday morning at 9. We were biking back home and then slowly one by one, members called saying that they couldn't come help us anymore.

I was LOSING it! I might have cried a bit and biked REALLY fast to get all the feels out. We got home and to add to the list another massive cockroach was in our room. NOT IN MY HOUSE! I was a lot more brave this time and the cockroach was killed instantly cause I was so frustrated.

WHY WAS SATAN WINNING!? Why couldn't we just move this family? Why did we have to reschedule everything 5+ times already? I closed the door, cried, and prayed.

I told Heavenly Father EVERYTHING that was going and told him how badly I needed his help.

After I prayed, we went to work. My companion and I called everyone, trying to find people to help us. at about 10:45 we had found a moving truck:) but still no one could drive us missionaries. We prayed again to see a miracle and went to bed. The next morning we got all the other missionaries to find members to help us. 

and we did.

WHATTTTTTTTT?????!!!!!!!!!!!

Literally at 8:30 we had everything set and ready to go to help the su family move!!!

We met at the church, went to zhiben, dulan, got really sunburnt, and it was awesome. THe Su Family is FINALLY MOVED! Afterwards, we were driving back to the city with the Su Jiating and they were so grateful. They were so impressed by us missionaries and wanted to know more about what makes us the way we are. I am so glad that we were able to have this opportunity to help them soften their hearts to learning about the gospel. 

When we got home, I just prayed my guts out. I can't even explain how accomplished I felt and how grateful that Heavenly Father was able to come out on top and give us miracles.

I know he will always win. He gives us the hardest challenges so that we can become the best person he wants us to be. 

These 4 Sister missionaries all live together:)

So, If anyone needs to be moved. I'm your woman. :) 

jkjkjkjk it was super stressful and next time I will deligate a lot better:)

hahaha

Other than that we met so many great people this week. We met a new family that have been searching for true repentance. They are the Guo family.  We taught them repentance and they loved it! We are stoked for them!

Emma bought Sister Xie a Snickers bar one day.  The next morning Sister Xie made oatmeal for breakfast and said it didn't taste like anything so she added her Snickers bar to it.  I'd call that a breakfast of champions!

They next was a guy named Brother Wang. He is a funny person:) He is so good. He is a ponderer! YES! We shared with him about our Heavenly Father and his plan for us. It was really cool to see how his mind started filling with questions as he pondered about how he could personally get to know his father in heaven better.

Other fun bits from this week

-it was killer hot....ahhaa

-I met my new best friend! He is basically the taiwanese Jake. he loves bmx biking and I told him about how through Jesus all of his talents can improve! He was super funny:) we are excited to teach him!

-we drove to Hualian for stake conference and it was beautiful:)

-had a bike race with 3 little girls:)

I love taiwan I love this gospel:)

xoxoxooxoxox

love my family!!!

emma

Dumping Rain!

June 4, 2017 email

Hello my beloved family! Don't worry the rain in Taiwan has been crazy this week but Taidong has gotten the least amount out of the whole island!

This week has been awesome. A ton of rain, a ton of service, more rain, cool lessons. 

I am so sorry! this weeks email is going to be a little jumbled because of our time crunch and I am a little frazzle from all the other emails I got! so many fun friends! Agh. 

This week was awesome with the Su family, we had everything ready to move them but then it POURED rain so we had to cancel! no! Don't worry we will get it done this week!!!!!! but we did have a really good lesson with them and the Elders were able to find a super sick new investigator in effect from the move cancelling. So really Heavenly Father had a greater plan that we just didn't know about. One thing that I really did learn a lot this week is how important it is to constantly be pondering about what the will of God is. So many times I work my guts out and wonder why nothing is coming out of it, then I remember my Heavenly Father, and realize that maybe the time isn't right yet, or i need to just try one last time. Always be striving to align our will with Gods!

Cleaning

Some of the stuff they hauled away.

This week we had another service project...... The elders investigators home..hasn't been cleaned in over 20 years. 

I will spare the horrific details...

But it was terrible,

the smell,

the sights,

the rats,

the cockroaches,

the pee everywhere,

the old hip hop taiwanese music,

the squeals,

the laughing,

the screaming,

the crying

IT WAS NUTS!!!!!!!!! Literally every horror movie i've ever seen I'm pretty sure was filmed in that home!

but now that little man has a cleaner house he will be able to better feel the spirit with him daily. :)

other fun things from the week.

-my friends Judy from Beitou sent me a package of rice dumplings this week! She isn't a member, just a beloved English student! She remembered me!!:)

-We went on exchanges in our apartment and me and sister Reinard got to help 4 little lost kids find their way home!

-We taught a lesson to 3-

14 year old girls and it was probably the hardest lesson of my life! they were all so shy it was painful! Pray for them;) ahah

Now for a really scary story. The biggest cockroach in the world...in my room........so Sister Reinard came into our room to tell me something and then she saw the largest roach in the WORLD ON THE WALL! I freaked!!!!!!!!! I hate those things SO MUCH!!!!!! I tried to kill it but they just don't die! I was losing it. I was like oh crud we have to pray right now!!! We dropped to our knees and poured out our hearts that Heavenly FAther would give us the bravery to kill the sucker! AFter about 5 more minutes of sweating, intensely fast heart beating, and a sandal later, the cockroach was finally killed. 

I hated it so bad.

I was shaking so much after!!!! it was ridiculous!!!! 

I literally know that Heavenly Father will answer all of our prayers. Even the ones about killing cockroaches.

I love and miss you guys so dang much!!!!

xooxoxoxox

emma

We Had The Best Pizza!!!

May 28, 2017 email

My beloved family! This week was awesome! I know I say that every week is awesome, but it really is! We were blessed to see so many miracles and get completely drenched by the rain everyday. hahaha:)

At the beginning of this week Sister Xie and I went up to Hualian for exchanges with our Sister Training Leaders. It was AWESOME! It went good right from the start. Right when we met up with the sisters, got our bikes, and started to bike away, this white guy yells at us! He quickly biked over to us and was like, "Hey! what are you guys doing here?!" WE told him we were missionaries! Then he flipped.

He LOVES missionaries! He kept saying, "no way no way! I am the mormons biggest fans! You  missionaries are the coolest." It was hilarious. Like he really is our churches biggest fan. hahaha:) We talked to him for a little bit and turns out that he is Jewish and he loves us so much because we don't persecute or discriminate any other churches. It was actually really touching. Like this guy was SO grateful! He then told us how his boss is a member and he just loves him to death! He was in taiwan because 10 years earlier he had lived in Taiwan for a few years and married a girl from here so he was in Hualian visiting. It was a really neat experience. He wasn't interested in learning more, but a tender mercy for sure.

Dan. The Mormon Churches Number One Fan:)

So that was a really great start off for exchanges, Sister Apsley and I were together again and it was the best. ( Sister Apsley was Emma's MTC companion:)  We did so much better at getting to bed earlier this time:) It's awesome to be able to learn together with some of the greatest missionaries!

After exchanges, we headed back to the beautiful Kona, Hawaii. (Taidong) We had scheduled to go to Dulan to meet with a family that we met almost a month ago!!!!! The Su JiaTing!!! We were so pumped. They are a super poor family and desperately need the gospel and help moving:) We went to meet with them at their home, share a message and find out how we can help them move. We got to their house and I don't think I've ever been welcomed in a more gracious manner in my whole mission. This family was basically on their knees thanking us for coming to help them. We sat together with them and learned more about their background. Both of them were born and raised in the city but were sick and tire of never seeing their kids because they worked all the time. So they decided to gather everything they could together and move somewhere where they could have a simple living, simple work, and have more time with their kids. They do not have a lot. But they believe with all their hearts that God sent us to help them. They are pretty earthy, not gonna lie, but they are so humble and prepared:) I'll send more pics of the move next week!

Now for a quick tender mercy of the week. we went to a pizza diner called Pete's Pizza this week. Pete is American. And he made the best pizza I have ever had in Taiwan. 

It tasted like America. I cried.

The end.

Tender mercies are everywhere.

I took a nice video to remember it:)

We had some other really awesome lessons this week. Our Liu JiaTing is doing so dang good:)!

They really loved church. Their favorite part was sacrament meeting! What?! Perfect. Liu Jm's twin boys I think are really helping her soften her heart more and more.

Another miracle this week was from our Member Referral investigator named Mimi. She is the sassiest funnest person I have ever met. Her and her friend came with us to attend a baptismal service in the 2nd ward. After the baptism we met with the both of them and taught about repentance and baptism. It was chuck full of the spirit! Gracias Holy ghost:) We were just about to invite Mimi to baptism, but before we could ask she said, "I want to get baptized!" 

uh...SICK! We were both so excited and a little surprised! I know that the spirit can change the desires of our hearts. This gospel is true. Christ lives.

 This week was neat. I miss you GUYS SO DANG MUCH! Seriously.

ahg. have an awesome week fam damily:)

xoxoxooxox

emma

Can't Wait For Future China Missionaries!

April 30, 2017 email

This has been an awesome week! First off I have to tell you about our fruit friend. By our house there is this massive fruit stand and this not very nice looking, gangly Taiwanren works there and is the fruit master. We have been trying for weeks and weeks to become his friend. Everytime we past him we smile, scream his name, wave and tell him he is awesome. About a couple weeks ago, he completely changed. Now he is the most smily person every and gives us all sorts of free fruit! But only us:) We are the special sister missionaries. mwaaahhhhahaha! But really he is so awesome! This week he gave us 3 free watermelons and a huge bag of pineapple!!

EVERYONE. We must be kind to everyone! Because then they will give you free fruit. Ok, even aside from free fruit we must be an example of Christ everywhere we go!

He's gonna get baptized. I can feel it:)

Last P-day we Went to our member Fly Fish's house to help him build a new roof! He lives in the magical Taidong wilderness. It was a fun day of helping him, we bagged sand, rocks and made a roof made of palm tree leaves. I also learned a lot about Chickens and the importance of eating only your own home grown food. He is a SUPER earthy person. He eats the monkeys that roam around his house..

All in all it was a really fun pday full of adventures.

This week we also saw so many tender mercies and miracles. One from the beginning of the week was with our RC Chen Yu Ru from Vietnam. She had to go to court to finally get a divorce from her husband and she was just sick to her stomach nervous about it. We shared a message with her but she just couldn't find peace. We decided to all kneel down and say a prayer together. The minute we kneeled down together the spirit completely filled the room. Sister Lin started to pray and by the end we were all crying.The gift of the Holy Ghost is so powerful and can calm the most violent of storms. Everything went smoothly for Chen JM at court and our testimonies were all strengthened. 

Sister Lin- This was last P-day when they helped a friend thatch his roof:)

This Thursday we got to travel to Hualian and have interviews with President Jergensen. I LOVE INTERVIEWS. It's the best time to have a one on one and get some serious revelation. I am so grateful for President Jergensen and all that he does for us as missionaries, the Lord, and the people of Taiwan. He really helped me see this week the importance of teaching people one by one. and how I can never dim my own light as a missionary either. I have been called as me to serve the people of Taiwan. Just be me! The Lord will help us see miracles. 

love interviews. 

That night we switched up some of our finding techniques and decided to go grocery store finding. So we hit up our local Carrefour and met the COOLEST family! They lived in the other sisters area so the other night we went on a split to go an meet them! Sister Liu and I traveled all the way to Zhiben to meet with this family.The Wen family. They have 3 boys. and 18 year old, 16 year old, and a 6 year old. Cute family.The dad and the older son were a little more hard hearted and nervous so didnt stay with us. But the mom and her 2 younger boys did. The lesson was so cool, and it was amazing how many questions the son had, I think he really helped his mom open up as well. We shared with them about Jesus Christ, repentance, and prayer. It was such a spirit filled lesson and I now have a testimony of finding in Grocery stores! Talk to everyone!

Do you think 2 girls could eat three of these watermelons in a week?  Wow!

There was a huge triathalon in Taidong this week. It. looked. so. fun. AGH!!! It reminded me of home so dang much!!!! All of the people racing, tons of tents everywhere, you could feel the excitement in the air. It was just like Lotoja or the top of utah marathon. Agh! I wanted to join! My companion couldn't really understand why i was so stoked but that's ok. It was a little tender mercy:) haha.

Last miracle for the week. Last night we met this old couple from China that came to taiwan to bike around the whole Island. They were adorable and so excited to see missionaries. They know where our church is china and have wanted to go and learn more but its against the law. We talked with them for a long time and prayed with them. We promised that as soon as missionary work was aloud there that missionaries would come find them. They were both so touched. I know God loves all of his children and we will all have a chance to learn. I don't know when, but I know it will happen. I love being a missionary. I love your guts!!!!!!! have the best week ever!

oxoxxooxxo

emma

Body Malfunctions and Cookies For Jesus!

April 9, 2017 email

These are the three sisters that Emma lives with.  Her companion is Sister Lin in the stripes in the middle.  

This week was really really great! 

It is starting to get hot as sin here and it's only April. Not gonna lie, I'm a little scared for a Taidong Summer. I have heard stories about how hot it gets here throughout my entire mission. Now I am going to live to tell another story. Even though it's hot it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!!!! The sky is absolutely massive here and you can even see the starts at night:) The work is magical here and we were blessed to see so many miracles this week!

pday was super simple this week. It was Elder Jacksons birthday so we bought a MASSIVE shaved ice!! Literally we had to have 15 people there so that we could eat it all. Then we went grocery shopping and found some neat little trinkets:) lots of fun.

Elder Jackson's birthday BING!!  Look at the size of that thing!  A bing is something that I have heard James talking about since the day I met him, almost 25 years ago.  It is a giant shaved ice that is covered in the most lovely ripe, fresh fruit on the planet and then doused with sweetened condensed milk!  He says that a Mango Bing in Taiwan will change your life!!  I am planning on eating one when we pick Emma up in July:)

Tuesday, now that was a funny day. We had scheduled to got to Hualian for exchanges with our sister Training leaders, we went to buy train tickets and were there for 30 minutes trying to buy them. BUT ALL THE TRAINS WERE FULL!!!! WTHECK! It was a holiday weekend here in Taiwan so everyone was taking the train back home....hahahaha. That was a funny phone call to the sisters. "Hey all the tickets are sold out! we can't come! sorry!"  We all had a good laugh together. the only rough part was that since we had planned for exchanges we made sure not to schedule anyone while we were gone. So now we had a whole day of nothing!!!!!! oh no!! But not really oh no, we saw so many miracles while we went out finding. This week we have really been trying to listen to every first impression that we have, cause that one is definitely from the spirit!

We were biking down a street and were stopped at a red light when we looked to out left and saw this little phone store. There were two little kids inside too. We had a prompting to go and just invite them to english class. We listened to the prompting and as a result saw a miracle!! We went in to talk to this little family and turns out that the dad used to be an investigator . The 2 kids were absolutely the best and were so dang cute:) an 8 year old girl and 12 year old boy. We started talking to them about the gospel and asked if we could do an FHE with them! They WERE SO WILLING!!!WHAT?! MIRACLES!!!

This friday we had the best FHE them about families and they are wanting to learn more:)

What do we learn from this?! That we must always listen to the promptings of the spirit!The first one! we just have to humbly and bravely obey and act!

This week sister Lin and I also put on a killer english class. It was How to Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies. Our class usually only has about 4-5 people, but since we announced it last week and got everyone excited we had 15 people come and 5 of them were new students! Cookies for Jesus! it was a blast. Everyone loved it. Cookies+the restored gospel of Jesus Christ=MAGIC.

This week really did have so many fun little moments, here's a few more.

-we went on exchanges with the other sisters in our apartment!

-On exchange sister Liu and I taught an english lesson, that was tricky, but she was way cool!

-Sister Lin and i hugged all the grandmas we talked to.

-A 5 year old boy gave me his number:) he wants to date jane:) hahahaha

-and much more!

Conference was so wonderful this week. I was so filled with the spirit and it was an awesome self check for me. I am so grateful and know that Thomas S. Monson is the prophet on the earth today. He is Gods messenger. Listen to Him! Read your scriptures dang it!

Listening to conference

Sister Lin LOVES Emma's hammock:)

But really, conference was awesome. One of our investigators loved it so much.She came to all the sunday sessions, than when it was done, she looked and me and said, "Was that all true?! Where can I pay tithing!" What?! She is truly awesome. 

Her name is Zhang Yue Mei. We met her earlier this week.She is a referral from taipei that lives in our area. We went by her house this wednesday and got to know her. She is struggling. She is 60 years old and her husband just passed away last year. She is living in pain and sadness and does not know how to escape. We shared with her #becauseofhim and she just started to bawl. All she could say was, "wow. They filmed this really well."She is really cute. She is so ready and excited to keep learning more about the plan of salvation.

Ok! Now for the funniest story of the week to finish all this jazz off. Alright so saturday night we had a pass off lesson with some of the elders from the 3rd ward. I'll cut to the chase and just say that the investigator is a little nuts, a little crazy, and we were dead tired after the lesson. 

Sister Lin and I were pooped, we were going to grab some dinner and sister Lin was like, I know what we can eat! "鹹酥雞 Click here to see a picture of what Emma ate!" I was like "Ok!" I had never eaten it before, Basically it's just a ton of mushrooms, vegetables, meat, and everything you can imagine all put in a fryer and then drenched in seasoning.

Taidong friends!

I was STARVING! We ran home to eat it and I took one bite and it tasted pretty good. Then my stomach started to do backflips, I was like, that's

weird, maybe I just have gas. So I kept eating. I took a few more bites and could just feel the oil running down my throat. like SO much. after about like 5 minutes of eating my stomach was screaming for help! I went to the bathroom and basically died for 20 minutes! I pooped my guts out and then got hives all over my stomach, my eye and mouth got swollen like none other. My comp was dying:)!! So I took some benedryl and CRASHED the rest of the night. the next day I woke up no problem:) They think I have a allergy to high doses of MSG. neat. 

so ya. This week was really really awesome. Till next!!

xoxooxoxoxox

emma

People Really Like Their Veggies Here In Taidong!

April 2, 2017 email

Emma and her new companion Sister Lin!!

This week was absolutely SICK! Taidong is getting better and better everyday and we keep meeting cooler and cooler people everyday! I love it so much:) Heavenly Father has really been right next to us every minute of every day. It's also been so cool to see how many ties have been made this week as well. Members serving in the same mission as Uncle Eric and him also serving in my companions home ward! The world is such a tiny place!

This church is so true!! (Note from Lisa:)  James, and my 2 brothers and 1 sister in law have been scanning faces for the last year, searching for people that any of them knew in Taiwan.  Well this last week we hit the mother lode!  My youngest brother served in Taiwan about 10 years ago as a missionary.  When Emma posted pictures of the people and friends she was meeting in Taidong, Eric called so excited!  Emma's companion lives in another part of Taiwan that Eric had served in.  Her family are members and had the missionaries over for dinner frequently.  Eric ate dinner with the Lin's almost on a weekly basis!  Sister Lin was about 10 years old at the time, but Eric remembers and loves her family!  Also another sister that was in a picture with Emma, was a missionary who served in one of Eric's areas. The world becomes such a small place sometimes!)

Alright, now we will start off with last P-days adventure.

It was super duper adventurous. We rounded up all the taidong missionarie, our stake president, and a bunch of members to join us! (we actually just needed them to drive us...hahah. jkjkjk we really do love them!) We all got together at the church and said a prayer to bless our journey:) We hit the road! our first Destination was SanXianTai. It is a super pretty beach, famous for this fancy little bridge that goes to a small island. It was absolutely gorgeous! It was pretty funny...we spent a really long time throwing rocks. I don't know, something about throwing rocks into water is so peaceful:) Then we went and explored the bridge! I can't believe how beautiful Taidong is. Its so similar to hawaii its crazy. 

This is Sister Bernhardt and she went to the same high school as Emma!  They have been friends for years:)  They now are in the same zone and get to see each other every once in a while.

Dragon Bridge in SanXianTai.

After the bridge we headed to destination number 2. A fish house! Not live ones. Dead ones. This place was pretty interesting. they just had thousands and thousands of fish and sharks and all sorts of sea things that had just been caught! Then they bring them to this warehouse and chop them up and box them up and ship them all around Taiwan. It's open for the public to come and check out. At first it was really cool, but by the end I was trying not to barf.

Our last destination was NUTS. We drove up this road a little ways into the mountains and then pulled over on the side of the road into a little turn around area. I looked out the window and there were like 15 monkeys. Just chilling. 

We all got out of the car to check it out!

They were so cool! Not a huge fan of monkeys but it was cool to be so close and check them out.

This monkey park is open to the public, but the monkeys are super duper protected, you are not allowed to touch them. I didnt' want to get mad monkey rabies anyways so I stayed away. It would freak me out too much! But ya, you will love the pics:)

So it was a fun day for sure! full of lots of adventures and monkeys:)

The rest of the week was great as well.

Our area isn't chuck full of people like taipei is but we have still found some awesome new investigators this week. It's crazy what happens when you just talk to everyone you see and invite everyone to learn more about Christ and how we can improve our lives!

I am so grateful for my companion Sister Lin. We have become the best of friends. she makes me laugh really really hard. The best is when she talks to me in English:) She is SO DANG CUTE! She kills me. but not only is she cute, she is also and amazing missionary! She has a talent for inviting the spirit everywhere she goes.!

This weeks english class was a blast. We are the Beginning class teachers and have the best students. This week we taught about American and Taiwanese cultures and did a compare and contrast. It was super funny and everyone was laughing there guts out by the end of class. this week we are baking cookies. should be fun!

this week we met so many cool people. It was interesting we had 3  people this sunday tell us that we were dumb for not being vegetarians. ugh...Ok..sorry! It was just funny that they all happened to tell us this on the same day!

People really like there veggies here in Taidong I guess.

Saturday night we went to our investigators jessie's resturant to help her clean up so that she would get enough rest to come to church! It was so fun! She was SO grateful that we would come to help her. It totally reminded me of working at the bakery! brought back lots of great memories of closing at the Good Ol Great Harvest:)

We also met an angel this week:) her name is Shi Ruo Fan. She is so prepared! We have met with her a couple times this week and she has the biggest desire to be baptized! Last night we shared the restoration and shared the Because of Him video. She was so touched and so happy to finally have so much confusion in her life be cleared up.

I love this gospel so much and know this church is the restored church of Christ! Through following his example we can all have ultimate peace in our lives!

I love you all so dang much!:0

xooxoxoxxoe

emma