Learning from the Traveling Assistants

Just a note…Elder Daniels has been on the island one year this week. (He had been in the MTC for 11+ weeks). He has been in two areas, Sanchong and Tucheng, which you can find on Google Earth. Who knows if he will move this upcoming transfer on April 13th?

OH BOY, things have been busy, EXTREMELY busy. Last week we called a lot of people from English class, and this week we've been meeting with the ones that set up and don't stand us up! :) We've also been busy because every night we make a vision of what is going to happen the next day. We even plan the miracles that we are going to see! We also focused on being bold with inviting people to be baptized and last week we invited Phillip, Yan Didi, and Jack. They will all ask Heavenly Father in their prayers if setting a goal for baptism is what they need to do or not. We also gave a couple investigators to the sisters due to convenience.

We've been blessed a lot, and the best bit if news is that Brother Fan is still flying! He wants to be baptized so bad. The next step is setting up his interview for this weekend, since last week we have had three lessons with him, and they have all been in the homes of ward families! Man oh man, I love this ward. We have ALL of our lessons in families’ homes now. It was announced in Sacrament meeting that all the members need to clean their homes so that the Spirit can reside. That might mean there can be EVEN MORE places for us to take our investigators and hold family nights. We've already had 11 family nights in 11 different homes with Brother Fan and various other investigators, ha. Now that is member missionary unity. It is IMPOSSIBLE for Brother Fan to go inactive, besides, he is too excited to go on a mission. He LOVES the Book of Mormon. He is an artist and he draws pictures of Book of Mormon prophets! What a blessing.

Ryan and I have been keeping in touch. He's been worthy and going to church EVERY Sunday over there in New Zealand. He really enjoys it which brings a lot of solace to my heart because a couple times right before he was baptized, he gave a strong impression to me that he might just go inactive and give up on traveling all the way to a church located 30 minutes from his apartment in New Zealand. However, he's made some friends and they take him to church every week by car!

I love this church. Ryan has had a couple of experiences to share the gospel with his friends over there as well. His English is really funny because he learned a lot of his English from the English Book of Mormon that he would read along with his Chinese Book of Mormon. I think that is really similar to how my Chinese sounded for the first little while. I love that book, you should read it...

I love the Bible. I've been reading it a lot this transfer because this transfer my studies have been completely focused on Christ and the atonement. The Bible has a lot of good material pertaining to these subjects. haha.

The Traveling Assistants came over and went on exchanges with us this past week and I learned a lot, mostly about the importance of the planner. It is just like the Liahona when used right (with faith) and can become a WONDERFUL instrument in a missionary’s hand. Oh baby, that’s so true. I learned a lot about planning from those two elders, Elder Evans and Elder Payne. They are an interesting pair. Elder Payne fits his name, he is a machine. He did 25,000 pushups last transfer. I asked him, “Why would you do that?” He said, “Goals.” He sets goals for everything and he gets a lot done. He was at the Air Force Academy before he came out on the mission so he is a very sharp kid. His companion Elder Evans is tall, a little more quiet, a great listener, and very humble.

I learned a lot from both elders and I fell in love with how they do missionary work, so I changed a lot of things and we've seen a lot of miracles because of it. It’s nice to have a senior companion to mimic every now and then. These elders were exactly that, and that is their purpose. They are two very old missionaries, (they are about to die - go home). They have an apartment but they have stayed in it once. They travel around the mission visiting as many companionship as possible, and they teach through example how to be better missionaries and instruments in the Lord’s hands. They take sleeping bags, bikes, a change of clothes, and running shoes. They are Amazing!! They are amazing because they remember their purpose in EVERY decision they make, and they do it faithfully and in the name of Jesus Christ!

This morning was interesting. We went to clean out the elders apartment that just moved and oh boy, that was a task. I've never seen so many cockroaches come out of one cabinet, whew. The Shulin elders were with us so it was really fun!!!

Oh man. I just deleted the second half to this letter. ZAO GAO!!!!! (that means messy cake). It was interesting too. Basically, president’s interviews went well.

I live in a very interesting world where everyone is and speaks Chinese. The time is going too fast and I don't know what to do to slow it down, so some tips would be useful. I have bad English, but I will relearn it in college. I love the Taiwanese and Philippinos. My companion is progressing a lot. He will be a "smart" missionary. I am addicted to rice. The senior couple here has the same carpet that we have back home, and so do President and Sister Nielson.

Elder Z’s bike got stolen, it was really expensive, he doesn't have very much money, so I'm sending him my bike and taking Elder Gilbert’s old one. We found Elder BARTON’S bike and took pictures!! I love you. ELDER DANIELS!!!