IF YE WILL HAVE FAITH

My favorite scripture in the Book of Mormon is Moroni 7:33. 

"And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power 

to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me." 

For those of us serving in Taiwan, really immersing in and learning Chinese 

is expedient for us. God knows we can do it! And the cool thing is we actually can.

Hello from Taiwan!  Wow my mission really is the best thing ever! It is also hard and very tiring but I love every moment of it and am learning a lot each day! 

This was a great week. We are working with our investigator Sister Lin2. She is great. 60 years old and golden. Our pace of lessons with her is slow because her religious background is very limited so we are just keeping it simple. She is coming to church for the 1st time tomorrow so that is super exciting! Please continue to pray for her.

This week we started our Outdoor Zone Conferences. Zone by Zone we hike all day in the mountains. We hiked to the top of YangMing Shan and stopped on the way up, at the top and on our way back down, for trainings. It has been such a blast. Elder Stewart and I have had the opportunity of training on the importance of this awesome Chinese language and the gift of tongues. It has been going really well. My favorite scripture in the Book of Mormon is Moroni 7:33 "And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me." For those of us serving in Taiwan really immersing in and learning Chinese is expedient for us. God knows we can do it! And the cool thing is we actually can. Isn't that amazing that all these kids are learning to speak Mandarin Chinese and yet with the Lord's help and with lots of diligence, hard work, and faith, this is possible. 

Elder Willes and Elder Stewart

There is a sister missionary in our mission who is a native from Taiwan and has great English. When she was asked why she had a desire to learn English she said, "Because I want to listen to and understand the words of President Monson." I thought that was so cool! The gift of tongues is real. There are missionaries all over the world speaking hundreds of different languages that are not their own. So sweet! All of the trainings from Zone Conferences have been super spiritual and so much fun. Serving with so many awesome missionaries creates this bond that is hard for me to explain. I am just so happy to be on the Lord's errand! 

Elder Jensen and Elder Willes (a happy reunion-William was Elder Jensen's trainer)

Elder Hughes and Elder Willes (buddies from BYU)

On Monday we had an awesome miracle! I was on exchanges in another area with Elder Ure. We were waiting at their chapel for an investigator. All of the sudden this lady gets out of a car and walks up to our chapel. I greet her and invite her into the chapel. She accepts. I thought she was the investigator we were waiting for but it turns out it was just some random lady who really wanted to come see our chapel. It was so cool! She was with her 4 year old son. She shared with us that she has been abused and mistreated by her family and that her family completely opposes her going to church. She told me that she has always had a "pull" to go to church. Elder Ure and I sang for her her. She was crying, feeling the spirit, and it was cool to really see the Love of Christ comfort this lady. We taught her the Restoration and about the Book of Mormon. We gave her a Book of Mormon and I even had the chance to give her a priesthood blessing. It was so cool. I don't know if her husband will let her come to church but I'm grateful that God led her to us that night. I won't forget it!

Our recent convert Sister Wang gave a talk at the new member fireside last week. She shared a scripture 1 Nephi 21:14 "...The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me--but he will show that he hath not." Sister Wang shared how sometimes we forget that God is watching over us but He always shows us He won't. He loves us! I thought that was super cool! 

We are also meeting with Brother Guo1 who is trying come back to church. He is slowly changing. Keep him in your prayers! He's such a good guy. 

We also had another cool miracle on exchanges with Elder Pincock in my area. We were contacting on our way home. It was pretty late, we saw this lady and felt prompted that we should go talk to her! It turns out she is from Japan and can't speak a lick of English and very minimal Chinese. I only know 2 sentences in Japanese so after that we didn't really know how to teach her. I remembered that back at the mission office we had a copy of the Book of Mormon in Japanese but we were super short on time. We somehow "asked" her to run back with us to the mission office. So the 3 of us ran back to the mission office and got her a Book of Mormon in Japanese. We used the scriptures to teach her about who God is. How Jesus Christ is His son and loves us so much. We were using lots of hand signals and gestures and simple, simple, simple Chinese. But it was so cool because she started understanding us! The spirit was touching her heart. She even said a prayer in Japanese! We asked her how she felt? She didn't know how to express herself so I told her to answer in Japanese and that we would understand. She answered. Even though I didn't exactly understand her words I felt so strongly that when she prayed she had had a very special experience. It was so cool! We gave her that Book of Mormon and referred her to missionaries in Japan in 2 weeks when she goes home! 

The Church is true! Love you all. Thanks so much for the prayers and support. Y'all are awesome. Go Cougars!! 

Elder Willes