WE ARE DOING OUR BEST TO GIVE AS MANY PEOPLE AS WE CAN THE OPPORTUNITY TO HEAR THE MESSAGE OF THE RESTORED GOSPEL

First off, I just want to thank everyone for all of the emails I received this week. I appreciate them so much! I can feel everyone's love and prayers every single day. This week we saw many miracles that you will hear about shortly. :)  Zao3 an1! Sorry for the delay in sending my email today. We went to Costco after studying this morning.  We had a member who was willing to take us.

Elder Willes' apartment in XinZhu

This week was my first English class. One of the pamphlets we give out on the street is for a free English class which we have every Wednesday night.  It was great. Probably about 50 people came. Their English is all pretty good, but it is funny to hear everyone speak. It probably sounds similar to when I speak Chinese. 

 

This week I had some nice tofu. Not stinky tofu, but regular tofu. Ewww, so nasty! Mom and Dad I think you need make some tofu for Nate and Jake to try. :) They will love it ha ha. We also went to McDonald's this week. So good. It's like one of the most expensive places to eat here. A 6 piece nugget combo is 3$. Everything else is just a little bit less around 2$ for noodles, rice, etc. We eat a bunch of random stuff.  I don't even know what it is sometimes or how to describe it.  But the food is pretty good. Lots of rice with random things on top of it. We did indeed go to Costco today and we had some pizza and got tons of Costco muffins. We also got Zhua bing which is my favorite food here. It is like Chinese tortillas. We put eggs or meat inside of them. They are delicious.

Elder Willes and Elder Westover with those huge bears at Costco.  

OK, now for the interesting stuff. We had some awesome miracles this week! We have an investigator named Habip. He is from Turkey and he is great. He has been learning English on his own as well as Chinese. His English is good enough to get around but his Chinese is struggling. He moved to Taiwan around a year ago to marry his wife who is Taiwanese. They met online. They are awesome. We had a great lesson with both of them this week. Habip told us how he gets goosebumps when we talk about the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ. He then told us he had a dream of him being baptized ahhhh so cool! We are hoping he will get baptized in the next 3-5 weeks. He is Muslim, but really loves our message and feels the spirit. His wife is very busy with work so she hasn't been able to come to church yet, but we gave her a Chinese Book of Mormon and she has been reading. Habip came to church though! It was great. :) Such a blessing seeing him have a desire to follow Jesus Christ. Please keep him in your prayers.

 

Another investigator is Cheng2En1. He is a 13 year old boy and he kinda reminds me of you Jake because your ages are similar.  He is a big boy. Probably like 5'9". Really random for someone to be that tall in Taiwan. He is great though. His family is all less active, but he really wants to get baptized. We are helping him prepare to be baptized on May 3rd. We have been reading the Book of Mormon with him and families in the ward together. We are helping him build a desire to serve a mission in the future! He was also at church! With shorts and a t-shirt on.  He is great.

 

Lastly is Shi2Di4Xiong1. He's really great. His dad is a convert to the church, but he passed away in February. Before his dad died, he gave Shi2Di4Xiong1 a Book of Mormon and a Bible to read. Shi2Di4Xiong1 has a great desire to learn about all of the christian churches, and has a belief that God exists and that Jesus is the Christ. We have been really working on teaching him from reading the BoM. He also fed us Tepanyaki this week. Sooooo good. We went to the restaurant and we had steak, rice, random vegetables, etc and he payed for it. Shi2Di4Xiong1 was also at church. 

Church was so cool!! Seeing Cheng2En1 sitting with all of the youth. Habip was sitting next to Elder Westover who was translating the meeting for him. I sat next to Shi2Di4Xiong1 and taught him about the sacrament and told him about fast and testimony meeting. Such a cool sight to see. The Lord really blessed us this week. I also got called up to bear my testimony. So that was really cool. Elder Westover and I have great faith and hope that through the Spirit we can make great things happen in this area. We are excited for what the future holds.

 

The rain isn't too bad. We get drenched, but we both got rain gear so we are good. :) Lots of people reject us here, but we try our best to talk to everyone. Mom thanks for all the advice about talking to everyone. Really meant a lot. We are doing our best to give as many people as we can the opportunity to hear the message of the Restored Gospel.

Elder Westover and Elder Willes biking in Taiwan

Some things I took for granted in America. Reading signs and ordering food. They are so much harder here, so whenever you see billboards, signs, or order food be grateful! 

Nate, Elder Westover and I think you are coming to Taiwan on your mish :) buckle up buddy! Dad, thanks for updates on XinZhu. Interesting stuff. The weather update was great! Looks like we will expect some more rain. Anyway things are great here in XinZhu. Thank you all so much for the love and support. Mom, Dad, Nate, Jake love you guys! Have an awesome week!  Just know I am doing awesome and love you all!

 

Love,

 

Elder Willes

 

Oh what is the conversion for pounds and KG? We have a scale in our apt that is KG.