Awesome Jeff is baptised!

Well this week sure has been dandy, it is week 6 ALREADY!!!!! Moving calls are on Friday!! I keep telling my companion that he's in the hot seat for president’s assistant, and they will need all of his help as the new mission president moves in. My companion is Amazing. He has mastered the balance in missionary work. We have a lot of fun, but we are focused on the purpose the whole time. I hope he doesn't leave yet. I'm learning a lot from Elder Dickson and he is really good for this area.

Out on the east coast it is really easy to get discouraged because there are a lot less people on the street to talk to and things seem a little more slow paced some times, especially in the hot afternoons. But, my companion makes every situation fun and effective!

Yesterday we took a 3 hour train ride to Taidong to teach their district meeting and also to go on exchanges with the district leader, Elder Slade. The work in Taidong in the past has been pretty mediocre, but its improved a lot recently. We shared from Alma talking about Pahoran, Ammon, Helaman, and Moroni. We discussed all their roles in the war chapters and the work that God gave them. We talked to the district about how God gives us talents and molds us into the types of missionaries He wants us to become, according to our willingness to obey. We tied it all into district unity and working with each other. It went really good and it was the 1st district meeting I have ever lead. We taught in Chinese because half the district are Taiwanese missionaries. It was great.

Our district in Hualien is doing amazing right now. I've never worked in a district with better unity!Today we ate McDonalds on our rooftop and read mail together (no Dear Johns this time, hahaha.) However I did get a my first letter from TJ (best friend serving in Boston) and that was GREAT!! “Stanleh” wrote as well! (Family nickname for Shantel who knows we call her that and likes it! I saw her at Maceys last week and she looks great). They are both awesome and I'm still waiting on Dustin at the moment (other best friend serving in Germany/Austria).

Me and my companion decided that we are the luckiest elders in the mission because we are in the most coveted spot…zone leaders in Hualien have it good because we see the whole east coast and enjoy the celestial weather! We see a lot of miracles, too!!! We're getting about 25 lessons a week and I don't know where they are coming from, but it’s awesome!!!

The greatest blessing so far is JEFF!!!!! I could spend an hour talking about him. His baptismal service was the greatest EVER!!!! I was blessed with the opportunity to give a talk and introduce Jeff a little bit, and I was also blessed to sing a duet with Sister Lin, a song called “Pre Earthlife,” about two friends who met in the pre-existence and received their calls to earth, one called to a gospel family on the American continent and the other called to live in a poverty country with no gospel whatsoever. The other friend promises to become a missionary and find his buddy. It was amazing!!! I don't mean to sound haughty, but it sounded GOOD, and everybody was emotional. It was a successful service, and then Jeff’s testimony!!! I'm not just saying this because he's our investigator but he shared the best testimony I have ever heard, not just by a new member, in general! He will be a great missionary. He spent 5 minutes talking about Heavenly Father, his personal growth and the influence of the BOM!!! It was awesome. There was only one problem that happened during the service and that was me in my talk, slipping in my Chinese, meaning to say, "Because of Jeff's faith, he will have no problem enduring to the end," however instead I accidently said, "Because of Jeff’s faith, he will never endure to the end!" Blast!

Oh yeah, and his sister came through and said the prayer! She is slowly showing more and more and more interest into the church. Jeff’s parents didn't come because they are really mediocre, just like my bike.

My bike is dying. Last Wednesday we went to the ocean where we decided to play, although we weren't allowed to swim and we didn't dare touch the water (amidst 30-40 kids on the beach playing in the waves on a hot summer’s day). We decided it would be okay to wash our bikes as long as we didn't get wet, so we did. Afterward I realized there is salt in the ocean water, and salt is good for steaks but bad for bikes, so Kathi 2 is riding an uneasy line for the last 8 months of this whole mission thing. Haha.

The investigators are all doing well, most of them are in the Sister’s hands at the moment but we are still involved in a lot of their lessons. SUSAN will be baptized this weekend and she wants me to sing, but I think we're doing a district piece and my companion, whose singing is his only weakness, will be the director. :) I teach Elder Dickson how to sing at nights. We are on page 256 in the hymn book and we've sung every hymn up to there now. It’s been an interesting game every night before daily planning session, especially when we both don't know the song. We sing in English.

I love the work out here. Love you, Elder Daniels