August 2, 2010‏

Dear Friends and Family,

Hello again! It is me, the Sister Missionary who had been banished to the far end of the mission never to return to the crazy city life of Taipei again...at least I hope so! I love it here! Before I forget, I want to start off by telling some things I find funny in Chinese...

First off, if you are going to say the number 20, you better get the tones right, or else you are going to tell someone you have earwax. Second, there is a particular kind of really tasty noodle, and the rough English translation is "Goat meat snot noodle." I love Chinese!

Things here continue to go great. We continue to do the work of the Lord, and it is fantastic! Our investigators are doing great. Not all 13 from last week are still willing to meet with us, but that is ok because the ones that are still around are absolutely amazing! Which brings me to a point I want to make...Talk to your friends about the church! The best investigators we have (all of which are working towards baptism) came from their friends talking to them about the church. It makes a huge difference! We can spend all the time we have in a week finding new people and even contacting names that others have given us, but in the end have no results to show for it. But when others are talking to their friends about the church, THOSE are the real success stories. PLEASE HELP US MISSIONARIES OUT! We love to teach people, but nothing happens in missionary work until we actually have someone to teach. And the best ones to teach are ones who have been initially contacted by members. Hands down. Yeah, just share the happy message about the restored gospel. There is nothing greater in the world.

This week was a great one. We went up to GuanShan, which is about a half hour train ride away, to visit one of our awesome investigators. She is 13 years old and she really wants to join the church but her dad doesn't want her traveling that far every week for church. Ah! We are working with them to overcome this challenge. On the positive side, the train ride up to GuanShan is absolutely gorgeous! I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life. Taiwan=Heaven. I love it!

WE also ate this GIGANTIC fruit. Boluomi. Seriously, this thing is huge, and it STINKS! And it is so, sticky that when you touch it the goop it leaves on your hand seriously resembles chewing gum. But wow, it is tasty! Tastes like fresh melon. Yum!

This week I had an interesting experience. When we ride home at night if we come from behind our apartment we have to take a back path. IT is EXTREMELY dark there. Even my headlight on my light is not enough to penetrate the darkness. This week was the first time we had to take the back path, and I am not gonna lie, I was a little scared. But I could see my companion's tail light up ahead of me, and I knew that she knew the way home, so I just kept riding. I had no idea where we were going, and I couldn't even see the road ahead of me, but I kept following the dim glow of Sister Lin's tail light. We made it home safely.

This little experience reminded me of how important living prophets are. The world we live in is really a scary place. It is dark and full of temptation and wickedness, and yet we must go through it. WE don't always know where we are going or which is the correct path to take. But that is why we need a living prophet. He knows the path because God tells it to him. WE must have faith that as we follow his light, we will make it safely home. That doesn't mean we can see and understand everything. WE are still going to walk through darkness. But as we focus on following the living prophet and his words, trusting that he is receiving revelation from God and that he knows the path we need to take, we will make it safely home.

I am so grateful for a modern day prophet who leads us today! I know that the Prophet of the Lord, Thomas S. Monson, truly receives revelation from God and that through his Guidance we can return to live with our Father in Heaven again. What a great blessing God has given us!

I love you all and hope that you have a great week!

Love,

Sister Collyer