Elder William Willes Taiwan Taipei: ONE YEAR DOWN AND ONE TO GO

TRANSFER 8 - WEEK 1

Well, tomorrow is my 1 year mark! Crazy huh? I still remember day one of my mission like yesterday. I was nervous, sad, and excited but it was a great day! I remember being dropped off late at the MTC and not receiving my supplies until the next day. Good times!

Elder Jensen and Elder Willes (new companions)

Packed up and leaving Zhong1 Li4

I have moved areas and have a new companion. Zhong1 Li4 is a great place and I met some amazing people there. I love and am going to miss lots of people there like David, who is now in the MTC, about to head to San Francisco on his mission as well as our Ward Mission Leader, Wu2 Di4 Xiong1. He was super sad I was leaving. I told him I was leaving on the phone and he said the area was doomed. I was like no!!! It will be ok! He is such a great and humble guy that I really admire. Saying goodbye to Xiang4 Mu4 and Lai4 JM (recent coverts) was also really hard. Lai4 Jie3 Mei4 made us a HUGE lunch before I left and was crying because she was so sad I was leaving. They are both so great though and I know they are in Heavenly Father's hands. I am now in Ban3Qiao2 which is in Xin1Bei3Shi4. It's just directly West of Taipei. It's a cool place! I love it so far. My new companion is AWESOME! We get along great. His name is also Elder Jensen haha and he is from Springville, Utah. He graduated in 2014 and came out the same time as the other Elder Jensen. So this Elder Jensen was just trained and now I am called his "breaker." Good stuff!

Saying goodbye to Lai4 Jie3 Mei4. She has already gone to the temple to do temple baptisms. Awesome!

The area looks a lot like Zhong1 Li4. Big city feel, really noisy, big, tall buildings etc. One thing I like about it is the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) which we sometimes take to get places and it's super fang1bian4 (convenient). This area has been crazy with baptisms! Elder Jensen and his trainer dunked 4 people together in two transfers and we still have some great investigators!

One investigator we have is a Lin2 Li3 Jun4. He is an 18 year old kid with a great desire to get baptized. Such a humble kid and really loves the gospel. He came to church this week and was supposed to get baptized this next week, but the problem is he has family fan3dui4 opposition. His parents won't let him be baptized until he is 20 years old. So we are going to try and set up a time this week we can meet at his house and talk to his parents. We also have another investigator, Wang2 Jie3 Mei4, a 61 year old lady who is really nice. She came to church this week and that was awesome!

Brother Lin2 in another one of our investigators. He is a homeless guy that lives at this big stadium, and is super humble. He has been to church for 6 straight weeks and really has a great desire to get baptized. He's addicted to cigarettes though and we are trying really hard to help him quit. I gave him a CTR ring and we are hoping that will help him quit. He is an awesome guy!

We have already seen a lot of miracles this week. We were out finding and we start talking to this lady and she was like "Guys! I used to have a Book of Mormon but l lost it and need a new one! I need to go to church again!" Turns out this lady met missionary from our church 20 years ago, never got baptized and lost contact with the church. Her name is Gabbi Chen2. She only has 2 teeth and is a sweet lady. We gave her a BoM and had a cool lesson with her. She also showed up to church!! That was super awesome. We are excited to continue to meet with her. She seems really prepared :).

We also had 3 knocking lessons! Most people don't see success from knocking, but we saw 3 miracles. We found 3 ladies who were super nice and all 3 let us share a message with them. 2 set baptismal dates and it was awesome. We just really tried to chat with them and help them feel comfortable before we went into the gospel and it worked. We sang for this Catholic lady and it was really cool. We are already seeing tons of miracles and I'm super excited about what the next week has in store for Elder Jensen and I.

The ward is really small. It's the Xin1 Ban3 ward. There are about 60 active members. They just split the ward so it's really small but a great ward. I was able to share my testimony in sacrament meeting and that was cool!

Our sink got clogged this week and the pipe fell out and started flooding our apartment! I will send a picture of us cleaning up the mini flood haha. Things are good.

I am super grateful for a really humble, enthusiastic, hard working companion. Excited to go to the temple today! It's been a long enough wait.

Love you all! When we put others first that's when we are the most happy. I've learned this week that the only thing we can give Heavenly Father is our will. The rest is everything He has already given us. When we surrender ourselves, thrust in our sickle, that's when we can allow God to change us and mold us into who He wants us to become! I will always remember in Priests Quorum reciting D&C 4. That's my motto chapter for the year! Go read it. Love you all! One year down and one to go. Couldn't be more excited for the adventure ahead. Love you all!

Reading scriptures with Chiang Kai-shek
For p-day last week Elder Jensen and I went with Elder Dexter and his companion to Da4 Xi1. Lots of cool statues of Chiang Kai-shek. It is a really pretty place. A great last p-day.