Summer is here in Taiwan!!

Nimen Hao!

How is everyone doing?! Summer has definitely hit Taiwan. It's been super hot and humid. My arms have been getting really dark and i have the best watch tan line. :) Basically im soaking wet when i get to a member's or investigator's house. This week I went on exchanges with Sister Parker and I got to go to Hualien for a day! We rode all the way out to Xincheng from Ji'an!!! We took the long way there and lots of side roads so we can contact on the way. It took a little over an hour to bike there and visit this member. It was in the middle of the day too, so when we got there, we were both dripping from head to toe. I've never biked so much just to go visit a member! Then on the way back we biked the faster way home and it only took 50 minutes. I was so tired by the end of the day, but it was a good experience. Hualien is so pretty and we pretty much just went to the middle of no where. Sister Parker is great! I love the way she teaches. Fast and simply. That's how I like it. 

Last P-day we biked to Qixingtan. We took the long scenic route along the coast so it took like 1 hour and 20 min. I wanted to die because it was so hot, but i survived. ha. When we got there, we got some ice cream and played on the beach. There isn't sand, only small rocks. It was just my district. So much fun. I really like my district this transfer. They are awesome. There is just 2 sisters and 4 elders. We are all really close and it is fun to spend p-day with them. There isn't much in the part of qixingtan that we went to. only a few houses and ice cream shops...and a pretty beach. I love being on the east coast! so beautiful! You get the view of the mountains and the beach. Im not quite sure what we are doing today for pday. 

Dad, I'm still in Ji'an. Transfers aren't until July 19th or something. I'm not sure if I'll move or not. I love it here though, besides all the bites and how my legs look diseased. but thats okay. i think the oils are helping. 

The work in Ji'an is great! We saw so many miracles and I love teaching people who actually care and are truly interested in the Gospel. 

The zone leaders met this 12 year old girl on the street one night named Lin JM. She is golden! She is so prepared to hear the Gospel. She showed up at church the next day and we started to teach her. She lives with her dad, who isn't the nicest when he is drunk. But she loves our church because she said she has a different feeling when she comes. She didn't like her other church because people with make fun of her. She has been progressing so fast. We set a baptism goal of7/13 and if she comes to church every Sunday, i know she will make it! She reads the BOM and prays everyday. She is always excited to come to church and meet with us. I've never seen someone so prepared. I know it was the Holy Ghost who led the Elders to find her. We are all so excited to see her get baptized. She is excited too! She has so much faith and fire. I love teaching her because she is willing to act and commit! Best feeling ever! She is going to be one of those investigators who gets baptized in 3 weeks! 

One of our L.A.'s Chao JM drove us to Wanrong to visit her L.A. dad Chao DX. It was over an hour drive there. He lives all the way up in the mountains because he takes people out paragliding for his job. He is pretty well know for that here in Taiwan. We stayed in Wanrong forever because the daughter didn't want to drive us to the train station for us to go home at the time we wanted to. She said she would take us home,in a little bit. She didnt end up taking us home until like 3 pm! we left in the morning too! It was kinda frustrating but we made a few contacts. I felt like we were stuck there. We couldnt walk to the train station because we were all the way up in the mountains. We saw Chao DX take people out paragliding since he had a few appts when we got there, so we had to wait for that too. But once we actually got to talk to him, it was great! He has such a strong testimony of the church and is just awesome! The only thing is, is that he never has time to come to church because of his job. He takes people out paragliding and always has appointments on Sunday morning. Also, church is over an hour away. I loved talking to him. We want to get him active again and i believe we can do it with the help of members. He knows a lot of members and I want them to call him and invite him to church and just follow up on him. Chao DX said he wants to make it a goal to come to church once a month and he might come next Sunday. We will continue to call him and follow up. He such a great man. His daughter that we are working with doesn't really have any faith now. She told us she doesn't pray and doesn't want to go to church because she wants to make money. It's so sad to hear how she doesn't think God can help her raise her kids or make money. We tried telling her if she puts the church first in her life, she will have blessings she wouldn't have even thought of. 

Our other really great investigator Yu JM didn't make her baptism date because her kids were sick and couldn't meet with us. She is hard to meet with because of her job. We set a new date for7/13. She is progressing and loves learning about the Gospel. We just need to get her to church one more time. She has such a strong testimony of prayer and I believe she will make her next date if she makes time to meet with us at least 2 times a week. She is a friend of a Hualien member. Members are so important in missionary work! Anyways, I just love meeting with Yu JM. She has such a sweet spirit. 

We also met with our other investigator Little Hong. She is 14 and her mom is an L.A. We meet with them regularly. The girl is super shy and lets her mom talk for her every time. Her mom has a smoking problem and likes to read prayers out of a Namaste book. She wrote out a prayer for her daughter to read using our prayer outline because her daughter wouldn't say her own prayers using her own words (probably because she sees her mom reading her prayers). I was so bummed and frustrated when she told me she wrote a prayer for her to read every night. We were trying really hard to get her to say her own prayers using her own words. We also invited her to baptism again and she started to cry because she got really nervous. Then her mom answered for her and said she wasn't ready. Her mom told us that her daughter always gets really nervous when we ask her questions. I think it will be a slow process with her, but hopefully we can get her to pray on her own, using her own words. I want to meet with her separately without her mom, but her mom always has to be there. We are going to try our hardest and continue to work with the both of them. 

Our investigators have been coming in contact with the Jehovah Witnesses here. It makes it hard to teach them because they just come up with all these questions that dont really matter. It is kind of frustrating. 

Anyways, our goal is to get TWO more baptisms before transfers are over!! I want to be here for those baptisms! I love those people! 

I love you all! Update me on life! I'll send some pics soon.

Love

Sister Chao