Hello Everyone!
I found an English good morning message for this week!
I have a lot of news for this week! First, as you may remember from last week's email, we have a new mission president! This is President Card and his wife:
Don't they look awesome? We had a Meet the President meeting on Tuesday, and got to learn all about them. They moved here from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. President Card served in the Taibei mission when he was young, so he still speaks some Chinese. Also, most exciting of all, is that they brought three of their four kids with them! They're a super cute family, and it's going to be fun to have kids in the mission. One of the coolest parts of the meeting was hearing about the revelatory process that prepared the Cards to come here. It started two years ago when they got the feeling that President Card, who is only in his 40s, should retire. They had no idea why, and they weren't really sure what the next step was, but they started making preparations for him to retire. On the day that he left work for the final time, President Nelson (who was still an apostle at the time) called to do an exploratory interview and see if their family was in a place where they could serve as mission president and companion. From there, it has been a series of miracles for them, including being called to serve in President's beloved Taiwan, and their oldest son being called to serve a mission in California, also Mandarin speaking. I am really excited to work with them and get to know them better!
Here's another amazing thing that happened this week:
Yup! Once again, I got to spend 24 hours doing missionary work with Sister Barber! And once again, it was literally the BEST THING EVER!! We went to Sister Barber's area this time, and it was fun to work with these people that she's grown to love so much. We worked hard and didn't get very much sleep because we were too busy talking about how much we love Taiwan. It's so amazing that we get to share this experience in Taiwan with each other. Serving in this country means so much to me, and I love that I get to share it with one of my best friends.
Contacting has been particularly fun this week. I attribute it to two things: school just ended, so everyone's more relaxed, and we just finished a solid week of rain, so everyone wants to be outside. People have just seemed happier, and we've had a lot of fun talking to everyone, and sharing the message of the Restored Gospel with them.
This week made friends with a 92 year old man named Jeff who has perfect English. Jeff is a horticulturist who used to work for the government, and in 1962 he spent a year touring and studying in the US. After that, he decided he didn't like working for the government, so he quit and instead made a living by hiking into the mountains and gathering wildflower seeds to export to other countries. After his wife passed away, he got sick of living in an apartment all the time, so he bought a house with some land so he could grow flowers again. His house is whitewashed, so he likes to joke that he lives in a 'Little White House' just like the President of the United States, who lives in a 'Big White House'. He met with the missionaries about 40 years ago, but he's forgotten all that they shared with him, so he invited us to come back and share again. We love him already, and are super excited to keep meeting with him!
Mango season is in full swing, and the mangos are getting bigger and sweeter by the day. Our angel members and investigators all know that missionaries love mangoes, so we've been gifted them by the bag every week. Life is good.
Weather is unpredictable here in Taiwan. Yesterday, clouds started rolling in on our clear, sunny afternoon. In the 15 minutes it took us to bike home for studies, the sky went from mainly clear to pouring rain in a massive thunderstorm. After dumping solid sheets of rain for about two hours, the weather cleared up again to reveal a gorgeous sunset.
It's really cool to see just how much Heavenly Father guides our lives every day. For example, we have an investigator right now whose husband is a less active member of our church. He lived in America for a while and joined the church there, even serving a mission, but he hasn't attended since he's been back to Taiwan. Our investigator talks about him a lot, and we've really wanted to meet him, but we've never been able to find an opportunity. Then last night we were out contacting at a park, when we look over and see our investigator, Joanne, and her entire family! We introduced ourselves and were finally able to meet him. Joanne even invited him to come to church with her! They are such a cute family, and we are so happy to be teaching her. We really hope that they can all come back to church together so that they can have the blessings of an eternal family.
Have an amazing week everyone!
Love you all bunches,
Sister Hull
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