Taiwan Week 29 - Feb 25 - Power Week

Hello on this beautiful 25th day of February! We are in full blown Spring over here! I still can't believe there's so much snow over there! Whoah with the new missions!!! It's pretty much the whole world! So incredible :)

Well this last week was our Power Week! This means the mission gave us a specific, pretty big goal that we needed to try to accomplish every day.  On Tuesday, we were invited to hand out 15 Book of Mormons and we only handed out 5, but they were all people who were really willing to read it! Sister Cole and I really enjoyed focusing all of our contacts on the B of M.......we had other days when we were invited to find 4 new people to be baptized, Friday was to confirm 20 people for church, and Saturday was to talk to 20 families and do our own personal "Dan Jones" which is what we do when we first get on island :) We attempted it with the Elders at a night market.......haha it was pretty funny, one of the Elders is super out-going and just went out into the center of all these people and started testifying of the B of M while holding it in the air--that takes yong gan(courage)! We did get to meet some great people though! We didn't hit all of our goals this week, but we were able to talk to a lot more people and have set up to meet with some of them next week :) Some people in the mission are amazing!! They talked to over 600 people! So cool- that's a small village! I think this last week just showed me how much more of a diligent missionary I want to be and the importance of goal planning.  It just feels super great when we do hit our goals and gives us another chance to recognize the help of the Lord and account to Him.

One of my favorite experiences of the week was meeting with a young lady that Sister Cole and her other companion had met about a month ago when her mom self-contacted the missionaries and said her daughter had been to church in Taibei before.  She has been really busy and we haven't been able to meet with her, but we finally did on Friday! We were waiting for her to come to the church and about 15 minutes went by and she hadn't come......we decided to say a prayer and just as we finished the prayer she called us and told us she was almost there :) She came and then we got to meet her a little more, she shared how she still didn't really know if she believed in Heavenly Father, and then we got to share the first lesson with her. We focused on families, Christ, and the Restoration.........she's kind of quiet so she hadn't said too much in the lesson, so I wasn't exactly sure how she was feeling.....then after talking about the B of M we invited her to be baptized and she said she thought she probably would! I was so excited and so happy that I just high-fived her! :) It was kind of funny, but I was just so happy for her!! I know that her baptismal desire will only grow as she comes to know that Heavenly Father lives and loves her :)

As we spent a lot more time talking to people this week, we really met some wonderful people. Last week Elder Evans talked about talking with people, not to people. We really tried to focus on that this week and I really felt a difference. We met a Dad who shared that he was worried about his baby boy who was born early, and had the opportunity to testify that Christ can help us to overcome these burdens. I met a lady on the road and we talked about how through the Gospel of Jesus Christ we can know what our purpose in life is and gave her a B of M and testified that this book teaches us how to prepare to return home. I really love talking to people and sometimes it goes well and sometimes not.....(occasionally forget some Chinese words ;) ) but the Spirit can testify to them and lead us in what to say! This is something I'm always trying to work on :) I know we are all Brothers and Sisters of a Heavenly Family and that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can see others as they truly are--with their divine potential, which is sometimes really hard to do, but that's ok because the Savior does and as we grow closer to Him, our hearts will change too :) This Gospel changes lives!

Have a stupendously, miraculous, joyful week!
Heavenly Father loves you so much and I do too!

Sister J.