October 11, 2010

Dear Family and friends,

Well, for the first time since I have been on my mission I am staying in the same place with the same companion for another transfer! I am really excited about it! I love Sister Howell, and I love Taidong. Miracles await us! One of the Elders is training in our district - Elder You. His new Companion is Elder Wen. They are both Taiwan people, and awesome! I am sad that Elder Brunson will leave, but it is ok.

Can I just say how much I LOVED general conference this year! Wow! Talk about a feast of spiritual enlightenment and encouragement and instruction. I seriously loved it. I especially liked Richard C. Edgley's talk about choosing to believe. It was truly inspiring for me. I have recently been reading the new testament and supplementing my reading with Jesus the Christ, and I have learned a ton about faith. Faith really is the answer to anything. Any sin, any vice, any fault we have, no matter how small, can be overcome as we increase our faith in Jesus Christ. But it is truly our CHOICE. Bishop Edgley said, "Yes, faith is a choice, and it must be sought after and developed. Thus, we are responsible for our own faith. We are also responsible for our lack of faith. The choice is yours."

Faith is a gift of the spirit, and like all spiritual gifts it must be earnestly sought after. We first have to give place in our hearts for the word of God, and do ad Alma directs in Alma 32:27 "But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words." A desire is good enough. Do you want to believe that God has more truth that he wants to give us? Do you want to believe that he has once again given us the power to perform miracles on the earth? Then this is good enough. Choose to believe! Pray about it. GOD ANSWERS SINCERE PRAYERS. There is no doubt in my mind about this. Desire to believe, ask in faith, and our loving heavenly father will answer. It really is that simple.

But be careful. If you have already decided that some spiritual truth is impossible - if you have already decided that living prophets are impossible and that miracles are not real - you will not receive an answer. You have already decided to walk the road of faithlessness and doubt. There is nothing that God can do to change the mind and heart of someone who has already decided they do not want to believe.

Anyways, yeah, I LOVED his talk. I think I really got a lot out of conference this year because I have spent the last two weeks getting people excited about it. Telling people, "Hey! a Living prophet is going to speak to us! Don't you wanna come hear?!" Getting other people excited really, really got me excited, and so I loved it.

In other news, we are going to have a baptism this weekend. Two or three in fact! Hu HuiNa and her son are getting baptized on Saturday. They both passed their interview and are ready to go! Izzie will most likely be baptized too, but her interview is tomorrow, so only time will tell! We are really excited about it.

Well, I hope all is well! I love you all!

Love,

Sister Collyer

PS - Sorry no pictures. I forgot my camera chord.