The language is coming along...

OH man, wow! I LOVE MY MISSION!!!!! My trainer keeps telling me, I think you have seen everything, my friend. We got Huang Dixiong to commit to stop drinking beer. He's been worried about how we're going to baptize him though, because he has a messed up right leg that will snap if he puts any weight on it, without his big old brace that he wears under his pants. We told him that we can have three elders in the font to help him, and he can sit on a chair. All he has to do is lean forward. President couldn't find any doctrine that went against that, but, as of right now, all this kind of doesn't matter. You see, we've spent all this time getting him to stop drinking beer, and we never really told him that he can't drink tea, either. We had the bishop come over with us last night to talk to him because it’s a rule that you must have a member visit to talk about the word of wisdom. But man, this guy is tough. He will give up beer but not tea. That is a huge problem in Taiwan. We had to move him back a couple weeks in the baptismal pool because he's not quite ready. He's pretty stubborn, especially with his kids, but Heavenly Father has a plan for him, and whatever it is, I trust Him. The kids are doing great though. They play with us all the time and they should be baptized next week.

As for Sister Wang, she is afraid to talk about anything after this life for some reason and has closed her mind. We gave her a challenge and we're doing the challenge with her, to read the whole Book of Mormon in the next two weeks. My companion will read it in Chinese. It's going to be xinku (hard core), but we'll manage. We only get an hour a day to study the Book of Mormon, so yeah, hahaha. I know that it will help her, and we committed her to sincere prayer.

We also gave this challenge to two other investigators. One is the Lin family who my companion has been working with for 4 months. She's going to be baptized next week. The other guy is Mr. Li!!!!!! I haven't told you about him yet. He came up to me the other day as I was unlocking my bike and asked if I was German. “No sir, but I am a missionary.” He was chewing beanlang chich, this gross green sprout thing that turns your mouth red and people spit on the ground so there are a lot of red marks everywhere. It ruins teeth. Anyway, we set up a time with him, and he said, “Your church is the best. Wife! We're gonna be Mormons!” Wow. We told him to settle down for a second, that he needs to get a testimony. We committed him to read the Book of Mormon in two weeks with us. This guy is so smart and just so humble, and he loves his kids so much. They are SO CUTE. They have a 3-year-old girl and a 9-year-old girl who draw pictures for us. He is a good father.

Heavenly Father has been blessing us so much lately with our investigators. Mr. Li took us to a neighborhood party, and oh man, it was crazy. It was in a Buddhist temple thing and there were so many people. Then, when two Americans showed up, they went crazy!!!!! Everyone started shoving all sorts of food in my face. Pig’s feet, chicken feet, fish eyes, oh man. I kept asking my companion what everything was and he said "I don't know, just eat it!" Hahaha, I obeyed... oh boy... that was a crazy night, but we came out with a couple investigators. One couple wants to come to English class that we teach every Wednesday night.

I feel like I have really progressed in the language. When I first arrived, I could say just about anything I wanted. My companion’s Chinese is AMAZING and he's helped me realize that I couldn't say anything I wanted at all! He took me all the way back to really influence the tones in my speech and it has helped me so much. At first I was a little prideful. I liked to study my own thing. He always told me to memorize scripture in Chinese, and I always wondered how will that help me? That was my pride. I didn't trust him and I didn't make it my main focus. I ended up not being satisfied with my progress with the language. I was progressing, but not fast enough to be where I wanted to be. So, I tried it out, and man, now we're seeing some intense progress. I've passed up where I wanted to be at right now and I'm passing off the lessons, well on my way to starting characters. It might be a little while before that, but because I did what he told me to do, I've found success. I can talk to pretty much anyone with no problem, and they can understand me much better because the memorizing scripture has helped my tones become crisp. I realized I've got just about all the vocab I need to get along. I just need to focus on making it clear. Clarity is big, but because I trusted him, communicating isn't even a barrier anymore. Ha, sometimes I will slip, though. At church, this lady gave me M&M's and I said, “Ni tai bangle”, which means “you are so awesome”, but I guess what I said was a lot different from what other people heard. She and my companion thought I said, “Ni tai pangle,” which means, “you are too chubby.” hahahahahahhaahahahhaahah. OH MAN!!!~!!!!!! When I realized what came out, I felt terrible. Oh, well

I love it here, I learned early on that it’s best not to get stressed about anything. Just SMILE and love learning, and don't be afraid to mess up. Just trust your leaders, have fun, scatter sunshine, and trust that Heavenly Father will help, and He sure has. I love my mission. I am so glad Heavenly Father let me be a part of this work.
Love you, Elder Daniels