Ni Hao

Hello family!! 

How is everyone doing? Veronica your belly is getting so huge! Maybe by next week you will have your baby! I can't wait to see pictures. You must email me them and tell me his name. People here in Taiwan are so amazed that you have 4 kids and are so young. It's fun to see there faces when I tell them how many kids you have. :) Aborn and Keely, so happy to see your family all back together again! Kira and mia are so cute. I remember when i was taking care of baby Mia when she was just 2-3 months old! She is huge now and probably doesn't remember her Gugu. Mom, we have an investigator who is vietnamese but speaks pretty good chinese. I want to see if i can get permission for you to call her one day. She has a baptism date but i think it will be good for mom to talk to her and share with her your testimony! So i will let you know on that...maybe on a sunday you can call her. She is struggling with her husband and family right now and just really needs some good friends. We are having an outdoor zone conference this friday with all the east coast missionaries. They are all coming down to Taidong and we are probably going on a hike somewhere with President Day. Heard that there might be a typhoon this week, probably won't affect taidong at all. What are you all doing for Moon Festival this Thursday? We are getting so many youzhi's (i think in english it is a pomello) and so many moon cakes!!!!!!!! some of them are good and most of them are nasty. haha. The missionaries are going to someone's house for a BBQ on Thursday. Oh and we meet the weirdest people when we go knocking. this 7 year old girl grabbed my hand and pulled me into her house and fed us her birthday cake. haha. her mom was in the kitchen cooking and didn't even care that we were sitting in her house. we talked to the grandma who said she saw this weird god 2 times. Very interesting experience. Anyways, i love taiwan!!! :) 

This week flew by so fast! I went on exchanges with Sister Marler and had a great time. I stayed in Taidong this time and it was fun seeing how she taught. You just learn so much on exchanges. The main things i want to work on is to ask better, thought-provoking questions when I teach and I want to be better at street contacting. I loved when Sister Marler asked our investigators these deep questions that made them think even more. Sister Marler is an amazing missionary and I hope to become just as good as her one day. Doing missionary work with her was so happy because both of us were happy and had good attitudes. 

On Monday, we found out that one of our less actives was in the hospital. She had some bleeding in her in stomach area. I don't exactly know but we went to go visit her with our R.S. president. We had just barely visited her a few days before and she seemed to be just fine. We called her a few days ago and she is doing much better and is at home now. While we were at the hospital visiting with her and sharing with her a scripture, her daughter's friend was there too. After we left, our R.S. president talked to the friend a little bit more outside and ended up getting her number. We contacted her and we are meeting with her tonight! I'm so excited. She said she wanted to learn more about God.

We met with Grace this week and made cookies with her and taught her about the Ten Commandments. Our peike was really great. He helped her realize the importance of church. He shared his testimony about it and how it makes him feel. Grace has 4 jobs and is super busy. She only gets about one Sunday off a month, but she might have more next month. I'm hoping she can come to church soon. She is so great and has so much interest. She said she will pray and read the BOM. Now we just have to get her to church. I feel like people in Taiwan are just always working! They are so busy! 

Chen JM is just happy as can be. She can't wait for her baptism! She is counting down and only has about 2 months left. She literally can't wait. I love her fire and desire to get baptized. She is one of the most prepared people I have ever met. She loves her BOM and D&C. Also, she is excited for General Conference. 

We contacted a referral from the Elders and she became our new investigator! Chen JM is in her 20's and has met with the Jehovah Witnesses before too. We shared with her the first lesson at her work and she was willing to meet with us again this week. She seems really interested in getting to know Christ. I'm excited to see her start progressing. 

Biggest miracle of the week, we got Shi JM to commit to baptism!!! Shi JM is our Vietnamese investigator. We invited a member from 2nd branch who is Cambodian to peike. They got along so great and wouldn't stop talking to each other. It was so great to see Shi JM so happy to meet someone who is very similar to her. Shi JM is also part Cambodian but doesn't speak that language. So they speak to each other in Chinese. Our peike was sharing with her how the Gospel has changed her life. Probably the most fitting peike. Shi JM was like "I'll be at the churchat 2PM on 10/26." I was so happy to see how excited she was. The only difficulty we have with her is having her understand everything we teach. Her Chinese is pretty good but sometimes she doesn't understand completely. She has been to church once but not to Sacrament Meeting. 

Sister Marler and I met with Becky and talked to her about God's love and the BOM. It was a little difficult for Becky to respond when Sister Marler asked her when she has felt God's love for her in her life. She has hard time of admitting if she knows the BOM is true or if the Church is true. She always says "yingai ba." It seemed like from our conversation with her that she knows it is true inside but just doesn't want to say it just incase she is wrong. Why else would she be still going to church, reading the BOM, and praying for the past 1.5 years if she didn't think it was true? I think it is hard for her to realize God's love for her and the influence the Gospel has had in her life. We talked about baptism and she said she wasn't scared of it anymore but is nervous about the interview. We have her scheduled for an interview this week. When we saw her at church this Sunday though she didn't seem very excited about the interview. She broke down in tears and wouldn't really talk to us. I don't really know why she is so afraid of the interview or baptism. We told her that her life will still be pretty much the same and that she will just have the companionship of the Holy Ghost. She was worried that her life would be completely different than it is now. She left before the closing prayer in sacrament meeting. We hope she will come to her interview. We invited her to pray about the BOM and about baptism every day this week. I know she will pass her interview if she just has faith and is not afraid to admit what she knows to be true. We will see what happens. I'm praying for her everyday. I know baptism is the next step she needs to take right now, but it all comes down to her. She needs to choose whether she wants this or not. I feel like we have done everything we can to help her and it is up to her to make the decision. I love Becky so much and I hope she makes the right choice. 

Hope all is doing well. I miss and love you guys!!!!! 

Sister Chao