Taipei Taiwan

Taipei Taiwan

Monday, May 26, 2014

Xinzhu #52

Christina!!!! Happy Birthday!! :) I love you all.. You're all so great!! Thank you all so much for your prayers for Habip and all of our investigators. Habip wasn't baptized this week but he is going to on Thursday this next week. :) His wife (Chen Ya Yi) should follow soon after :) pray that she can find some other work so that she can Keep the Sabbath Day Holy. Habip is doing so great!! He is on his 5th day straight of not smoking and he is doing really good! We had a really short powerful lesson with him last Wednesday and we continue to pray for him. Really tried to "Rip off the roof" by telling him right at the end of our lesson to give me his cigarettes and I took it home and threw all the cigs away and took the box and covered it with pictures of Christ and filled it with rolled up strengthening scriptures of Faith and about the Atonement. Then while I was on exchanges my companion followed the Spirit by being persistent with the message of the restoration to a man that was not very nice, by asking him about the questions of the soul on the restoration tract and the guy ended up calling us up the next day and asked if we could meet with him at the church. This man's name is Huang Dx and he is super great! We called a member to come over to the chapel with us and we gave him a chapel tour. He felt the Spirit as the member testified of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he committed to a date on 6/21! He is about to go to dang1bing1, but he really is great! Then those three brothers that we found... haha, the wife and two little girls of one of them is moving down here from Taibei so we will be able to share with them as a whole family next week!! We also were at the church building on Thursday night and six college students walked in wanting to know more about the Church. It was specifically for a class, but they were all willing to learn more, and read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. :) Super great! It was really great! They are all going to keep meeting with the other missionaries in the other ward. :) I love you all. I am called of the true and living God. I am a representative of His Son Jesus Christ to bring the people of Taiwan unto Him and enable them to obtain Eternal Life. HURRAH For ISRAEL!!!!!! Love, Elder Westover

Monday, May 19, 2014

Xinzhu # 50

This week has been wonderful. Seeing wonderful progress in our investigators in overcoming challenges and repenting, and having an awesome Stake Conference with our Mission President in attendance. In our own area Elder Willes and I have seen many wonderful miracles, one of which was our Turkish investigator, Habip, really working hard to repent and rid himself of the addiction he has to cigarettes.He currently is really striving to get over, and is doing really great!! We shared the Word of Wisdom with him two weeks ago, and he has dropped from one box a day to 3 a day by Sunday at Church. His baptismal service is this Saturday and he really wants to be baptized on that day! We have plans to meet with him every day this week and to keep him busy. We are going to do service with him and help by reading the Book of Mormon with him and watch the Finding Faith in Christ video with him. His baptismal interview is set up for Friday. Please pray for him!!! We also had a very special experience with following the Spirit and finding three yuan2 zhu4 min2 (kinda like the Taiwanese Native American) brothers. It was Wednesday night and we had just gone through all the steps of the planning guidelines up to the finding step and I just sat and pondered. I asked Heavenly Father where he felt that we should go to find the lost sheep, and I just felt that the first place I thought of was the best. So we planned to go there. Thursday night, we went to that place and we were getting rejected right and left... nothin'. We got about to thirty minutes to the time that we needed to go to our scripture discussion class at the church, and my companion said a wonderful prayer to allow us to do the work that he would have us do at that time and in that place. We went and another 20 minutes later we were in an apartment building that someone had left the door open to so we were on the second floor and I was just thinking... am I doing this right? What are we doing that is not right to allow us to find the souls that are prepared to accept the gospel? And I had a comforting feeling that just told me that we should just keep going. So we went to the third floor, and knocked on the second door, it opened and there were these three yuan2 zhu4 min2(native)... They let us in and we had a wonderful lesson. They had some really good questions and we told them that we would like to study their questions and then come back the next day and share with them the Message of the Restoration, and they happily accepted :) I know that the power of revelation and prophesy is possible as we follow the instructions and teachings that we are given in PMG and following the Mission Vision. Being obedient and keeping covenants will bring the Spirit of the Lord of the Vineyard in the work. We also met a girl on the road yesterday and set a baptismal date with her! Her English name is Cherry Lee. She really doesn't speak good English, but she was very nice. The lesson was great! Elder Willes is so amazing with his Chinese for just being out for 2 months, but I felt the most wonderful thing this week... it really is all about our desire to find those that our Heavenly Father has prepared... Have pure love... Charity. A distinct desire to be a tool in the hands of the Lord to invite people unto Christ. Then the Spirit comes and works with you. Smithsons, Bracamontes, Graifs, Westovers, Halls, Meyers, Browns, and everyone. Thank you for your notes and letters, and packages. :) I love you all. Thank you so much for your prayers. Love, Elder Westover

Monday, May 12, 2014

Xinzhu # 49

Oh my... I really can't believe how fast the time is flying by...... It's so crazy. Brigg and Gunner are turning 14 and are starting to go to Stake Dances! Oh man, I remember playing with you boys and making you run around the house and tripping you on the carpet of grandma and grandpa's house and you would just grin and laugh and run around again, and then I'd do it again!! :P It's really incredible :) So Happy Birthday to you two "shuai ge men" (handsome) guys :) And a Happy Anniversary to Rebekah and Jesse!! It was really good talking to Mom, Dad, Vicki, Christina, Jared and Lacy this week and just know that I love the rest of you just as much :) This week was awesome because our Investigator from Turkey and his wife set baptismal dates and are both working toward those dates!! :) Then there were three members who brought their friends and family to church :) So great!!! I really don't have too much time this week, but I just want to share with you my testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ. I know that He lives. There is nothing more that I am sure of than that. Even as I live I know that he is a real being and through Him we are able to return to the Father and be welcomed into His Kingdom. 3 Nephi 5:13. Love, Elder Westover (Jordan)

Monday, May 5, 2014

Xinzhu # 48

Happy Mothers Day!! To all of you wonderful women in my life... I love you and am so grateful for you. I won't be there to give you a rose and a hug or anything, but know that I love you and I know that because of our Savior Jesus Christ we can be together forever. Moms are my Heros. Especially my mom though :D I am loving the work here. We had a baptism!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The 6 month dry font for our area is over!!!!!!! Zhou Chang En will be great in the church. He has been ready for 6 months and is finally on the path!! I'm going to do the best that I can to make sure that he is going to get to the temple! Elder Willes is super good. I am so happy to work with him. He makes me better and keeps me accountable. I have actually been able to see the change that has happend in me and in my nature since I was trained... I remember just little things that my trainer would do that made me kinda mad, and i would occasionally get mad at him... now I have learned that I should love everyone and always remember that I can't control other people and the things they do, but I can decide whether I will just change myself to love the things they do. It makes things easier. :) I love it. Thank you so much for all of your prayers!! Love, Elder Westover I'll send pictures next week... I'm having some mishaps with the computer this week....