Welcome Home Elder!

Yesterday, 12/22, my brother came home from his 2 year mission to Taipei, Taiwan. My mother was anxious, happy, stressed, excited, ornery, eager-with-anticipation, patient yet annoyed with the constant teasings (I see him! His plane has been diverted! There he is! He must have missed the plane. We won't make it in time. He can just walk home. He probably fell asleep on the plane and no one can wake him up, etc.)



And despite the dumb delays, he finally arrived. And all of us loving family members skipped the BYU game, braved the dangerous roads outside and waited for many delays and changes to his arrival time. After all, we think the kid is pretty great and special.

We are very glad that he is home. He was a great missionary. And he knows Chinese.

Flying Home

Elder Daniels is on his way home! Right now he is somewhere over the Pacific on his way to LA, then onto home! His flight arrives at 6:36 this evening and the family is gathering to head to the airport...through the snow.

Elder Daniels will be speaking on Sunday, December 27th at 1:00 pm at the Suncrest Stake Center at 120 N 600 W in Orem. Come say hello!

It's been a great two years and now we are eager to have him home, and just in time for Christmas!

My mission feels accepted

This could be the last letter from Elder Daniels...he returns in 5 days...

I received my birthday present, thanks. The chocolate was delicious. American money looks really weird now, ha-ha.

Elder Gassin and I were together yesterday just because we wanted to get some of the same souvenirs. Right now I am still doing my calling with Elder Worthen, we have three more exchanges to complete before the end. Today we are in Linkou, high on a mountain top. Sunday will be spent in Shipai where we will be in charge of a large Christmas party where a lot of missionaries will be performing, caroling and stuff. Saturday Elder Gassin and I will be attending a baptismal service in Hualien! And Saturday night another one in Taipei! Monday Elder Gassin and I will go out with the Lin family and spend some time together, then at night attend the "departing missionary funeral/banquet".

This past week, we saw a lot happen and did a lot of things. On Thursday we met with Fan in Danshui, a new member from Tucheng. He has been inactive which was kind of sad to see, but we had a really powerful lesson with him so he could more fully understand the magnitude of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. He was quite struck, and committed to start coming back to church.

I love this calling. It involves helping missionaries resolve their own personal concerns. Some are resolved naturally as they are invited to clean their house so the Spirit can dwell with them, some of the super hardworking missionaries need to sit back and understand the principle of "divine discontent." "Elder, you've got to sit back and eat a fruit off the tree every once in a while, smell the roses, buddy."

Anyway, enough rambling. Going on exchanges with my grandson was awesome. (His grandson is a missionary who was trained by a missionary who was trained by Jonathan.) There was a lot of "Elder Gong fire" within him, it was awesome. He is from the Philippines and speaks fluent English, Taiwanese and Chinese! He’s so awesome. That night we went to Taipei to sing Christmas songs at a really big shopping mall with 4 microphones provided, and a really nice sound system by a lady named Iris that we contacted on the street. She was looking for people to perform Christmas songs so we volunteered. We had called President Grimley for permission and he put me in charge of the activity. We ended up taking 2 zones, a total of 30 missionaries and sang Christmas carols for 2 hours. It was way fun!

Sunday we attended church back in my first area, San Chong. Only a few people could remember me this time, I was there so long ago. Joyce came to church! It was awesome!! We went and taught their family in the afternoon. It was the lesson of my MISSION! Holy smokes, it was so powerful. I love that family so much. I don't know how to explain my feelings after I left the lesson. They didn't commit to baptism. We didn't invite, but sharing with them so many principles that manifest so much of the power of Godliness, I couldn't walk away from that lesson feeling disappointed, I actually felt rather complete. Two years of praying every day for that family came out during that lesson, the Spirit led, we were all edified, the power of God was manifest, and they accepted our invite to ask whether or not the Book of Mormon is true. I couldn't help but feel complete. My mission felt accepted.

I had that same feeling as I bore my testimony in the last zone conference. I couldn't keep my composure. Everyone that attended KNOWS that I KNOW Jesus is the Christ, and the restored gospel has blessed and will continue to bless my family.

Monday we went on exchanges with President Uchtdorf’s grandson! His grandpa wrote him a letter, "There are three things to master on a mission: Punctuality, Accountability, and Responsibility." That was cool; I'm still working on that.

I was asked, "What do treasure most of all the things that you have experienced on your mission?" I like to learn now. I'm not in it for the "A".

The next day I went with ELDER READ! That was a blast, and we found a family! Elder Read has changed so much! He plans to run a marathon on his mission and is actively preparing for it!

We have seen so many miracles this week. The main thing I have noticed continually in my studies and planning for investigators recently is the doctrine of the principle...love.
Love God. Love others.

I love you all! Bye. Elder Daniels. See you next week!

Happy Birthday, Elder Daniels!

I love my family!! Each one!

I hope you have felt it as I have prayed for each of you and your circumstances throughout my entire mission.

Question: What is love?
Pre mission Elder Daniels, love is liking someone...a lot, ha-ha.

Post mission Elder Daniels, love is sacrificing my own desires for the interest of others, or putting my own needs secondary.

I've learned the principle and I'm trying to apply it in every circumstance. I am giving it my all to have Christlike love for everyone and especially my family. Christ gave a perfect love, was a perfect teacher, a perfect person, and without this perfect path in the universe, "all things” would be frustrated. I know due to the Atonement, I have the potential to have Christlike love for every member in our family and outside of my family. This is the key step to having an eternal family. My love for my family has changed on my mission. Pre-mission Elder Daniels’ understanding of love has now become the post mission Elder Daniels’ understanding of love.

This love cannot reach it’s fullness without Christ. From the old prophecies of Christ to our prophet today and prophets of the future, we know that only Christ fully understands perfect love. Yes, we need Him. I love each one of you.

Where to start... I went to Hualien, and saw Jeff, Susan, William, but not Peter :( Huang, Wang, Cai, Zhen families and it was a GREAT experience. We saw miracles left and right in Taidong and Hualien. We taught at zone conference. It was really good, then we took a train to Yilan with two other Elders.

Afterward we traveled to TUCHENG! We went to church there!!!! EVERYONE was so surprised to see me again. I loved that experience. I remembered everyone’s name, and they remembered me. I went on exchanges with ELDER McComber! (Elder McComber’s family bought a home in our ward.) Does that name ring a bell? He asked me a lot of sincere questions, such as how do you capture the hearts of the members. It felt so feel good. I like him a lot. He is super fun to serve with and SO, SO, SO, SO, SO happy as he does missionary work. He is really on fire!

We were invited to eat at the Ding family house! It was great! Going to church there was so special. The bishopric looked older, the kids were taller, and lots more babies! I saw one baby that was born 2 weeks after I left. Cute baby. Oh good ol' Tucheng. I love that place. I saw Bishop Yang, Brother Ellie, Ding, Chen, everyone…the people that were baptized while I was there, Ryan who is still in New Zealand but comes home on the 23rd and Brother Fan. I will be visiting this week in Danshui.

Next was finding our way to Taipei from Tucheng. We ended up riding bike because they wouldn't let us on the MRT with them. We made it to the new member fireside where I saw every body from Jilong! It was great.

Zone conference in Taipei. Teaching was awesome. I saw Elder Gong, Elder Huss, and Elder Leavitt. I got to follow up with them on previous investigator families and it was AWESOME!!! We taught the principle of how to teach simply for understanding, using prophecies of prophets testifying of Christ!! And we invited everyone to bear testimony to their companions.

The last zone conference. I joined the rest of the missionaries who will be returning home and bore my testimony. I was second to last, right before Elder Gassin. I couldn't control myself. I couldn't speak or sing, it was too difficult. After I bore my testimony, I only saw red eyes looking at me. Elder Gassin was up and bore the best testimony I have every heard!

Times almost up. I love my family, Elder Gassin, Elder Worthen and Elder Scott.
They are awesome elders, and I am with them right now. We ran to Taipei 101 this morning!!! 6 miles.

A busy week traveling and exchanging

Elder Daniels will be home in 20 days! Signed, his mom

I am in Hualien, sitting next to Elder McNair and Elder Lords. We picked up our bikes from the branch president’s house, and the Zheng family was there with their cute little daughter! Life is good. We're about to go eat together, with Jeff! And we've got volleyball scheduled for later in the day. It’s good to be back.

We made our way around this past week. We started up on the north west part of the island and made our way over to Banqiao, and then we came all the way back down to Taidong which is at the bottom of Taiwan, then worked our way back up to Hualien on the train this morning!

While we were in Zhongli, I went on an exchange with a missionary fresh on the island named Elder Raskey. He had the most fire I have ever seen out of any missionary I have ever met. It was NUTS! I let him lead the exchange and he literally ran us from person to person, inviting everyone to be baptized!!! Ha-ha, it was quite unique. His Chinese is already decent because he spent two semesters studying it at the Air Force Academy. The only question I had to ask him was, "Can the fire be controlled?" Ha-ha, because he has got plenty of wood! His companion is more laid back and relaxed, but a hard working, smart missionary! That’s why President put them together, ha-ha. It was Thanksgiving Day and we ate American hamburgers and Dunkin’ Donuts.

The next day we went to Xinzhuang, a 3 hour travel. We exchanged with Elder N and Elder D. They were both struggling with desire, but now they have the fire as well!!! We saw two people accept baptismal dates and one on the street! It was a really fun exchange. Elder D told me he liked going on exchanges with us because we are more fun then some of the previous traveling assistants. And we still worked hard and saw miracles!

The next day was with Elder L and Elder L. I knew Elder L previously in Tucheng so it was fun to be with him. He has been struggling his whole mission and actually his whole life, overcoming the same problem, "Confidence." He has none. He is the funniest person in the world, just has a lack of self-confidence. He hasn't had that many people willing to set up with him during his mission. It’s already his 9th transfer and he can account for all the people that he personally has set up. On this exchange I used the principle that I learned from my companion Elder Worthen. I testified to him on several occasions. It was almost as if he had become my investigator. He knew all the principles I was sharing but because we took the time to review the doctrine together and use the Book of Mormon to resolve his concerns and things like that, by the end of the exchange he was full of the Spirit, something that he hadn't felt so strongly in quite some time.

A lot of missionaries get into the rut of consistently doing missionary work but not letting the work change them. It becomes tiresome and pointless after a little while because you yourself forget your purpose as a missionary. Elder L thanked me after the exchange. He felt like he learned a massive amount, but most of all, he was excited to do the work!

Afterwards we went with Elder Yu and Elder Xu!!!!! I love them!!! They are so funny, they loved how I could speak with Aborigine accented Chinese! Ha-ha. They started doing it too, and that’s how we communicated. This exchange, we reviewed with Elder Yu the importance of not crossing people’s idea's to prove a point. Elder Yu says it’s his favorite thing to do in life!!! Ha-ha I like doing it too, however, it’s not necessary when we preach Christ’s gospel. It was a great exchange

After attending church with them and seeing some members that I knew from the Tucheng Ward that recently split off into the Banqiao Ward, we set off for Taidong! A seven hour train ride, and we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with no knife and not being previously made. That’s why God gave us fingers, I guess.

We got to Taidong, and I went with Elder S and Worthen went with Elder D. Once again, a lot was taught and a lot was learned! Elder W is way cool. He's overcoming the high school coolness factor, and he’s very fresh on the mission still. His Chinese was pretty good, he is super nice, but he is a Ute fan, poor guy.

The next day was the last and it was spent with Elder W and Adam! This exchange was miraculous. Each one we go on has "its huge miracle" but this one had like 7!!!! Elder W came from the Taizhong Mission, and he is SUPER HUMBLE AND NICE, just very not outgoing. But, we had the fire on this exchange and the Lord allowed us, both companionships, reach ALL the goals that we set. In addition to that, 4 people set baptismal dates, one was set on the street, (the most golden man of all time) and the other three were in teaching situations, and one of them was a called over referral! They have a lot to swallow in that area now. My favorite miracle was a lady that we had set up on the street and her mei mei was the cutest little girl ever with pink glasses that made her eyes really big! She could speak, and when she did it was really sassy!! Ha-ha, oh man, she killed me. And the best part is the mom was really good. She threw out like 10 questions of the soul and we answered them one by one with the Book of Mormon, she will be meeting with them on this Friday.

This is a hard calling because I never get to see the OUTCOMES! Ha-ha. It's okay though, "You can count the seeds in one apple but it is impossible to count all the apples in one seed!"

I've been trying to resolve everyone’s concerns strictly by using the doctrine taught in Preach My Gospel, chapter three, using principle number one all the way to principle number 42. This way I can be sure the doctrines I am teaching come from Christ’s gospel and not from my own philosophies. Every concern has it’s matching doctrine, all being found in chapter 3. I've been trying to show how EVERY concern can be resolved through teaching the basic principle and letting them govern themselves. Focusing on this has helped me become a better teacher, and it’s helped me come closer to Jesus Christ, and it’s also helped me realize how the atonement of Jesus Christ is the foundation of all this doctrine and can resolve each and every person’s concerns! At the same time I try and improve my teaching skills by studying chapter ten, which contains Christ’s teaching skills. Study them!

This is my goal for everyone that I go on exchanges with. I don't feel like it’s awkward to bear testimony to my peers any more. They need to understand these things! I love this stuff. Time is up. I LOVE YOU. Elder Daniels