October 24, 2011

Hey Mom!

Holy Cow it's like Christmas with all of these pictures! Thanks : ) I'm so glad you guys got to meet Sister Lew and Sister Ko! They're so great, right? I got a letter from Sister Lew this week, it sounds like she's busy but having lots of fun. It sounds like you are all super busy too! I love the stay-cation approach. It sounds like fall break was a blast. I'm excited about the cello. I've decided I need to spend more time on developing my talents when I get home. Now that I don't really have any time for that kind of thing I realize how much I miss having an hour or two to play the piano or whatever. I miss going to the temple a lot. I hope before the end of my mission I'll get to serve in the North again so I can go to the temple another time or two. We get to go the day before we fly home, but that will make it over a year since I've been. That's way too long. I'm excited to hear the quotes from your lesson. I've noticed a lot of the members here that are having a hard time with self esteem, and the way it affects all the other parts of their life. I have been telling all of them to look up the book "You Are Special." We all need to be reminded of that every once in a while.

So it is move call day, and Sister Combe is moving to YuanLing, somewhere north of JiaYi. I loved serving with her these past 6 weeks! It was such a blast. We had lots and lots of laughs and some really great memories together. My new companion is Sister Wainwright! She was a move call after me in the MTC, so I got to know her the last 6 weeks I was there and it is so fun that we get to be companions now! She is from Mackay Idaho. I wanted to send a picture, but I forgot to bring my cable with me. I will for sure get some pictures on the way next week.

Some exciting things that happened this week were:

Sister exchanges. I went with Sister Page in Tainan, and Sister Wainwright came here (not sure if that was coincidence or not). I love sister exchange day! I know that it's purpose is so you can learn from other missionaries and see what ideas you want to take back to improve your own area. But mostly it just kind of feels like a sleepover. One miracle that happened was that Sister Combe and I were running late for the train to Tainan and I hadn't eaten yet so we stopped to grab something quick from the stand and as we hopped on the train at the last second I looked down at where my ticket was supposed to be behind my tag... and realized it was sitting on the counter where I set it down to pay. I was actually not that worried about it. You guys know me. But Sister Combe was very concerned. Well, the man came by to check tickets, and I calmly told him mine was at the HiLife in JiaYi. He said, "Oh, they called me and told me it got left there. They called ahead to Tainan too, so you'll be fine." It was really cool to know that someone at the train station was nice enough to do all of that for me. Even though as missionaries we make a million mistakes, the Lord always has a way prepared to bail us out when we need it.

We have this amazing amazing mudaoyou that we've been meeting with. Her name is Karen, and we met her contacting a couple of weeks ago. She has a ton of small world connections to the church, and it's so cool to see how all of them come together. She told us she has a friend that comes to this church named Tobias. It turns out he is a mudaoyou a couple of wards away, who can't get baptized because his parents are opposed but has already been waiting 2 years and is counting down the days to a year and a half from now when he no longer needs permission, and he is already planning to serve a mission. Karen's parents don't want her to get baptized yet either, so it's really cool that she has such an awesome example of having the faith and the patience to wait. Then it turns out that her boyfriend who is going to school in GaoXiong was meeting with Elder Sasine until 3 weeks ago when Elder Sasine moved up here to JiaYi. That was in SanMin, where I was for 2 1/2 weeks. Then she told us she had this other friend growing up who was a member and he used to tell her about some of the things we believe. It is really amazing the people we meet and the little things that influence us along the way so that we're ready when the Lord's timing is right. I'm super excited to keep meeting with Karen and see where she goes.

With Sister Combe leaving today, we went out to dinner a couple of times last week with some of the members that wanted to say goodbye. I love the members here! We have so much fun with them. I love how much they love the church and they are always willing to come help us peike or welcome our investigators and our new members or go tracting with us. They're so great. Yesterday we had Stake Conference, and we had to take a bus ride for a couple of hours to YongKang. It was a little miserable because my Dramamine pills didn't kick in (cheap imitation. I wouldn't mind a pack or two of the real stuff for Christmas) but it was also really fun because Huang JieMei, who got baptized last week, came with us and at the conference they talked about every member a missionary which she really took to heart and on the way home she shared all of the other things she learned with the people around us on the bus. She is super excited about serving a mission one day. I love her!

I love you!

Thanks for all of your love and support and pictures and letters!

Have a good week : )

Love,
Danielly