PICTURES

 

For p-day last week we went and saw Taiwan's largest waterfall

Elder Willes and Elder Jensen

Just a random dog

Guo1 family

Hong2 family

Tang2 DX - He is the man!  A stud!

Elder Westover and his cute pink camera

The APs with Elder Jensen and Elder Willes

Outside a crowded Buddhist Temple

Waffles with chopsticks

The Bishop's kids

Just some random guys we talked to while finding

My room

Our study room

The Piano Guys are apparently coming to Taiwan!

The view from my apartment's roof

Zhou1 family

Little fishes

Big fish

Wang 2 family

Liu2 family

A steak dinner

Yep a menu really did say that

Icecream

Gu3 family - Member love this week was awesome!  I'm so grateful!

THE BEST TWO YEARS

TRANSFER 8 - Week 5

Hello Everyone!! This week was spectacular! Mom and Dad Happy Anniversary! Cutest couple out there! Love you guys so much. Also, thank you for praying for Lin2 Di4 Xiong1. I'm happy to report that he was baptized on Valentine's Day as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

It was such a cool baptism. I want to share with you some things that Lin2 Di4 Xiong1 shared with us. One day this week we knelt down with him to say a prayer and in his prayer he said, "Heavenly Father, I am really grateful you have given us this gospel and through the missionaries my life can be filled with hope. I am also excited to be with you throughout my life. And, when the end comes, I will still walk with you." It was a profound statement and it made me so grateful for the opportunity I've had to teach Lin2 Di4 Xiong1 the past 2 months. I really feel strongly that President Day moved me here for one big reason and that was to meet him and help him overcome his trials and help him prepare to return back to Heavenly Father's presence. He is such a great guy.  I am so lucky to know him.

His baptism went very well! Lin2 Di4 Xiong1 showed up to the chapel 1 hour 30 minutes early and it was awesome. He asked me to baptize him and it was a very spiritual opportunity for me. Us missionaries sang, Nearer my God to Thee, before the service and Elder Jensen gave a great talk on baptism. The whole service was just filled with the spirit. I'm not kidding when I say Lin2 Zhi4 Ren2 Di4Xiong1's eyes were glowing with the light of Christ. When he came out of the water I gave him like the biggest hug ever! He had this huge smile on his face and looked out at everyone watching and said, "Finally!! I feel soooo good!." It was such a special moment and one I will treasure forever. 3 months ago he was a homeless man who smoke, drank, and didn't have much direction with his life and now he is a disciple of Christ with the Holy Ghost as his new and constant companion and is on the way back to Heavenly Father. How great is our calling as missionaries? The best two years!

Those attending Lin2 Di4 Xiong1's baptism.  He is front and center in the blue shirt.   

This week I got to go on exchanges with Elder Grey and Elder Gonzalez and that was a very fun experience. We had such a cool lesson with Tang2 Di4 Xiong1. Last time we met with him we invited him to read the Joseph Smith History section and he told us about how it reminded him about his mission. He had an interview with his mission president and his mission president told him that before his mission he had heart cancer and was unsure how long he would live. The mission president went on about how he knew that God's purpose for him in this life was to be a mission president in Taiwan. Tang2 DX at the time didn't know the significance of that statement. But shortly after, the mission president went home and passed away due to heart cancer. It was then that Tang2 Di4 Xiong1 really knew that the Lord needed him as a mission president at that time and that specific place. Tang2 DX related that experience to how Joseph Smith accomplished all he needed to on the earth. Restored the priesthood keys, translated the BoM, built up the kingdom of God, etc. He did all that before he was killed. He fulfilled all he needed to on the earth. As well as Christ did all he needed to while on the earth when He atoned for our sins. When I heard Tang2 DX apply the scriptures and gospel like that I was mind-blown and could so obviously see the spirit working on him! SUCH a cool experience.  He came to the baptism, to church (brought his MOM!!), AND passed the sacrament. Such a cool miracle :) Wow. Just too many miracles. 

Elder Willes with Elder Gonzalez, the big ZL and a great guy, on exchanges

Elder Willes and Elder Grey (who is being trained right now) on an exchange.

This week we also had a small earthquake which was cool. We also went to another Christian church and talked to their pastor for like 20 minutes and bore testimony of the restoration of the gospel. Gave him a BoM and he committed to read it. Felt like such a boss! Haha. 

We also had a cool service experience where we set up chairs and tables for a service organization that held this HUGE buffet for homeless people.  It was so great to participate in that. 

Lastly just want you all to know how great my companion Elder Jensen is. He has battled a cold this week, which I am sure I gave to him, but Elder Jensen had such a good attitude and we worked really hard this week and had 22 lessons! We get along so great and have tons of fun together. He's teaching me how to cook :) and I feel like Heavenly Father is blessing us so much! Such a great guy and I love him to death! 

Jiang1 Yi3 Hui4 came to church again and we are really trying to help her!! She's so great! Wang2 Jie Mei also came to church and we have a new awesome investigator brother Xu2 who has a baptismal date for March 14th. An 18 year old prepared kid who is a referral. Came to church in the spiffiest suit ever! 

Elder Jensen and Elder Willes with their investigator Wang2 JM (far left)
and the Liu2 family on the far right-a great member family!

Love this work! I am a disciple of Christ. So grateful I have the privilege of sharing the gospel every day. Hope everyone continues to develop your own personal relationship with the Savior! After all, He truly is our best friend! Love you all!

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

Elder Willes

Wei2 Zhang3 Lao3 

STAND UP IF YOU ARE A MISSIONARY!

"The Gospel changes lives when it's principles are accepted and lived."

Oh Taiwan I love you!

Hello!  This week was a great on.  Glad everyone was nice and warm back at home but in Taiwan it rained and was cold ALL week long!

Start with the best news first: Lin2 Zhi4 Ren2 DX. Thanks for every one's prayers on his behalf this week! We truly saw God's influence and help as he gave up smoking cold turkey in 8 days! Super sick! He had his baptismal interview 2 days ago and passed. So as long as everything goes well he will be entering into the waters of baptism this upcoming Saturday. He has been so happy this week. We tried to make follow up visits every day this week to offer encouragement. And every day he would be like 1 day down! 2 days down! 5 days! 7 days! BOOM. Super big miracle. Lin2 Zhi4 Ren2 DX called us the prophets of helping people quit smoking! Haha we were like no we are just the servants! It was really really cool to see him do this. He came to Stake Conference and just loved it. Such a great guy. He also said, " When I get baptized I want to have a calling in the church. I want to serve God!" Such a great guy! Such a big miracle. Please keep him in your prayers that everything this week goes well. :)

We met with Lin2 Li3 Jun4, our 18 year old investigator who has a lot of family opposition, and we had a really spiritual lesson on temples.  All of us wrote notes to his family hoping that his parents' hearts would be softened and allow him to be baptized. Unfortunately they still are telling him he has to wait until he is 20 years old to be baptized. Family opposition is a really hard thing here in Taiwan.  It's really hard as a missionary seeing him want to be baptized but he just can't. Elder Jensen and I think we are going to go to his parents house this week, and see if they will talk to us, and give them a Chinese New Year gift! We will see how it goes! 

This past week we went English boarding with another companionship of Elders. We had a little fun. Each of us had a huge stack of English tracks and whoever passed them all out first was treated by the other 3 with a smoothie. I won so I enjoyed a free delicious Passion Fruit Smoothie. Haha. 

Elders Okison, Jensen and Willes out English boarding together
Thank you Nicole for sending us this picture from Taiwan.  We love you and we love those Elders!

We also met with Gabi Chen2 this week and it went well! We felt prompted to share the Word of Wisdom at her first lesson.  She liked it. Her health is really bad and her life is unstable so we aren't sure if she will keep progressing but we hope to keep meeting with her! The Gospel changes lives when it's principles are accepted and lived.  We also met with Jiang1 Yi3 hui4 Jm and our LA Tang DX! Had awesome lessons with them and they BOTH came to Stake Conference so that was super exciting! Tang DX is really turning around. Really cool to see. He's reading the BoM every day and has been to church every week for a month! We hope he can get a calling soon. :)

One of the highlights of the week was going to the temple with two of our recent converts, Xu3 JM and Cai4 DX, to do temple baptisms with them.  I got to witness and it was really special! The spirit in the temple is so strong. 

Last night we had a really cool night of finding. Sunday Nights are often really tiring because when you work so hard all week usually by Sunday night you are so dead tired. Our church is from 2:00 - 5:00 p.m.  But as usual, we still went out and contacted in the rain for 1 hour 30 min. Heavenly Father helped us to have some pretty cool experiences! We found this kid Chen2 Di4 Xiong1 who we had an awesome lesson with and then another kid and then we went knocking and knocked this guy's door, brother Huang2. I was like hello! We are a little thirsty. Could we have a glass of water? He was super nice and gave us a cup of water and we had an awesome lesson with him and gave him a Book of Mormon. Just planting seeds and then it's up to Heavenly Father if they're prepared or not. Super cool week.

Elder Willes outside another Christian church right across the street from the Taiwan Temple

Stake Conference was awesome. President and Sister Day both gave great talks. They spoke about missionary work duhh. Sister Day had all of the missionaries stand up and told the Stake how proud she was of us. It was a cool moment. It was like I knew she had our back kind of moment. Then President Day gets up there and he's like, "Stand up if you are a missionary." Like half the congregation stands up. Then he's like "lets try again. Stand up if you are a missionary and a servant of Jesus Christ." Then the entire congregation got the message and everyone in the building stood up! It was SO cool! Every member a missionary! So cool. Sharing the gospel is the sweetest and most rewarding thing we can do on this Earth. I encourage you all to be missionaries. Take up your cross and serve the Living Christ. Love you all! Have a great week :)  And remember to STAND UP IF YOU ARE A MISSIONARY!

Love, Elder Willes

SEE THE TENDER MERCIES DAILY

TRANSFER 8 - WEEK 3

Hello everyone,

I'm alive and well here in Ban3Qiao2 and finally feeling better. 

I saw lots of tender mercies this week. One little one, that is kinda cheesy, but I like it because it is a good reminder that the Lord is in the little details of my life. I couldn't find my CTR ring all day and so I said a prayer.  A minute later I found it under tons of books and stuff! It was crazy. I like my CTR ring because it's a constant reminder to me of Christ as we have all covenanted to always remember him. It felt important to me to find it.

For English class we played red light green light with our students and they loved it haha. We also had a specialized training this week and all went to Taipei for a full day of trainings.  I always learn a lot there. President Day is a great mission president and so BOLD. He's like Nephi. Not intimidated by anyone or anything. He is also very inspiring and all of his "pep talks" are something I will remember for a long, long time. I am grateful for someone who has so much love for all of his missionaries!

We had a lot of cool lessons this week. One was with our investigator Jiang1 Jie3 Mei4, who is a 20 year old college student. We prepared a lesson on God and we knew she had something bothering her that she was not telling us the whole lesson.  In the end, after asking her questions, she finally told us she has heard a lot of bad things about our church.  We were able to clear everything up with her and she even came to church yesterday!! 

We met again with our RM Tang Di4 Xiong1. It's a sad situation but we are working with him and trying to help him. He opened up about how he feels like the commandments control him and he wants "adventure" in his life. Elder Jensen and I were really praying about what we could share with him and we shared Alma 32 and taught about how once we plant the seed we must nurture it. Planting is a start but it is not enough.  The whole point of Alma 32 isn't just to start to have faith but it is the constant nourishment of our faith that allows it to grow. I love that! It was a spiritual lesson. As I reflected on my life I can definitely see myself so much happier because of the gospel and Christ's commandments. This was such a spiritual lesson and Tang Di4 Xiong1 came to church AGAIN! We are working with him trying to get him a calling and to the temple again.

Also, this week my companion was hit by a car! Elder Jensen is OK and was protected and not injured. The roads here are crazy.  A member in our fast and testimony meeting yesterday shared a testimony about wishing their family could share in the beliefs of Jesus Christ.  Family opposition is very common in Taiwan.  It is hard.  Most members are the only members in their families.

Our ward is good and very small. The bishop is a really humble guy. We are going over to meet with he and his family this week.  He was recently called about a month ago.  The ward split a month ago.  Our mission is shrinking and areas temporarily closing.  Missionaries are continuing to struggle to get visas to Taiwan.  We are all praying for them.  

I wish you all could see the funny things of Taiwan too. Our awesome EQP reps Nike shoes to church.  We had a lady in sacrament meeting tell everyone over the pulpit to feed the missionaries during Chinese New Year - in 3 weeks! It is good stuff.

All of our other investigators are still struggling with family opposition. It's a big problem in Taiwan. But we are working with them. The biggest miracle this week is probably our homeless investigator Lin2 Di4 Xiong1. I feel like we are Alma and Amulek in Chapter 32 teaching him because he's so humble. Such a great guy. We really tried to think outside the box on how to help him quit smoking. We got him hand sanitizer and mouthwash, washed all of his clothes for him, and a poster that quotes 1 Nephi 3:7 "I will go and do." We gave all these things to him and also fasted with him yesterday. By the end of church (our church is 2:00-5:00 p.m.) he was so tired but it was such a spiritually filled Sunday. He's a trooper and has so much faith! He's now 2 days clean with no smoking! So if all goes well he will have an interview this next week and then get baptized in 2 weeks! Please keep him in your prayers.  He can do this!

I'm so happy right now. I've been reading in Alma 26-34 this week and learned so much. My favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon is Alma 26 because I feel like Ammon. I am so grateful for my mission.  An amazing opportunity. 

I know that every day reading the scriptures will bless our lives so much and most importantly help us come to know our Savior. We will be able to feel His love. Love you all! Please read the Book of Mormon. It is the greatest book on this Earth. I know this church is true and when we serve others we will have joy and peace. We need to put others first and then Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ will bless US!

Elder Jensen and Elder Willes at the internet cafe to send emails on.  The internet cafe in this area
is so nice and usually filled with online gamers.

Love you all. Have a good week!  See the tender mercies daily!

Elder Willes