Taipei Taiwan

Taipei Taiwan

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Taoyuan # 62

Dear Family, Oh my dearest, beloved, beautiful Sarah and Tarah. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ZHU NI SHENG RI KUAI LE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 祝你生日快樂!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love my twin sisters alot. jiu zhe yang. (just like that!) This week was great!!!!!! lots of things learned again. hahah We had a Zone Training and two exchanges and it was super busy. :) but Elder Clyde and I are doing really good. I am so blessed to have a Mission President, called of God who is inspired to help me and other missionaries become more converted to the Lord and to help those that we teach com e closer to the Savior. Presidetn Day has invited us to really focus on the attributes of Christ and to become more like Him. This has made me think about the following: Through out my mission, I have been with just the right companions. Some of them were a little disobedient, and lacked the desire, but I can say that those times I am truly thankful because they were the times that I really went through my own Gethsemane. Earlier this year we had an opportunity to have a Mission Conference and have Elder Holland speak to us, and he got right up in our faces and shared with us his bold, fiery testimony he shared with us that we should remember that we are no better than the Savior. He himself was scoffed and rejected. Took upon Himself every pain and sickness imaginable, and we can not expect that it will be any different. I have been called of to represent Him and so if I am really accomplishing my purpose, I praise my Father for every trial. For just one more opportunity to become like Him. We have a loving Father in Heaven. I know that for sure. Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, who, if his son ask bread, will give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Ask. He will give it to you. :) Strive to keep your baptismal covenant of always REMEMBERing HIM. Love, Elder Westover

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Taoyuan # 61

I love you all. Miracles, miracles, miracles. So many wonderful blessings from the powers of Heaven. Peter Wang, miracle with Elder McKay, an awesome English Culture Activity, service, a wave of humility (naturally because I asked for it), and member miracles. Last, last Sunday Peter Wang, just randomly walked in and come to attend Sacrament Meeting. We went over on Monday, met him and shared the Message of the Restoration with him. He is 50 yrs old, likes to speak a little English, very excited to learn and said that he just feels that he has a great need for God in his life. We set up a follow, up for Wednesday after noon to go back and read the Book of Mormon with him, but it ended up that his father had some medical problems in Taibei and he had to cancel, but my companion told him to pray for his dad. He did and his dad was all good the next day!! Then to go on top of that... We walked out our door the next day to find that he was the new security guard at our apartment building!! Hahah, with his new work he has to work on Sunday. So he couldn't come to church this week, but in our visit yesterday night while we were sharing the Plan of Salvation he said, "If I feel these things are true, I will have no problem with finding work that will allow me to go to church." We are praying that he will feel and we are going to rip of the roof to help him prepare for baptism in September. Brother Lin hasn't drank for two weeks!!!!!!!!! Thanks so much for your prayers. We just need to have his baptismal interview this week and help his daughter prepare for baptism later this month! :) Elder Clyde and I had a period of time this week that was specifically hard to find. No one was wanting to talk, and so we just prayed. We prayed to do what he wanted us to do, and right as we finished there was someone who had broken down. Their battery went dead and was pushing their car back home. :) Elder Clyde and I were very happy and so blessed, at that moment I felt that God was so, so merciful because he gave us an opportunity to help one of our brothers. Even though he wasn't willing to listen, we got to push a car( it reminded me of pushing the sled at football... :D) and it led to us finding someone who was willing to be baptized about an hour later when we finally arrived back to where our bikes were parked. God's plan is so much better than anything we could put together. My exchange with Elder McKay was great! We had a fun time :) He is the one missionary in my generation that I have gone on exchanges with, ever. Haha. Anyway, it was good. It was super cool because we had a miracle member willing to come out that day with us to a lesson. When we got there it ended up being that the investigator went to Taoyuan, but the member, right after they said he wasn't there, asked the lady in the home if we could share with them!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hahah wow. I was in awe.... It was a wonderful lesson. She was from Vietnam. She wouldn't set a baptismal date, but she said if she felt it was true she would be baptized. Super cool testimony to me and a learning moment for Elder McKay and I to always remember to be bold and ask (invite). One of the things Elder Clyde and I wanted to do this month was for every companionship to push for 20 total lessons, but I feel like I have been focusing on that too much the last two weeks. That's what I mean by the wave of Humility that hit me. The end of the week was really hard. We were talking to everyone, doing everything we felt that we should do. Praying mightily, and striving to be diligent, but we still didn't get the 20. I realized yesterday... it's not all about that. This month we are going to go with the vision that you and the Lord have set forth for us. We are going to use the Christlike Attributes to increase the conversion of every missionary. I really loved this: "But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." (Matthew 24: 37-39) Love, Elder Westover