November 15, 2010‏

Dear Friends and Family,

Hello again from paradise. This week was AMAZING because my dear friend Lan Wanling Got baptized!!!! What a happy day! We have been meeting with her for a few months now and it was such a happy day and the spirit that was there was fantastic. I love seeing people taking the first step to eternal life. The hardest part is yet to come - enduring to the end - but as the old proverb says, "The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step." Baptism is truly that one step that gets us on the straight and narrow path that can lead us to exaltation. We just have to keep going! Never surrender! Never Give in! We all will have trials that will make us doubt ourselves, our faith and our testimony, but the most important thing to remember is Jesus Christ. As Helaman told his sons:

"And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

Helaman 5:12

I just love this gospel! I love being on a mission. I know this is where we need to be. To all of my friends who are thinking about going on a mission but are not sure, I have three words for you - JUST DO IT!!! Seriously. These experiences are ones I will always remember. These people are people I will never forget. But most importantly, I have learned lessons that would have otherwise taken a lifetime. A mission is a miracle, one day at a time.

In other news, this week we went up to Guanshan as a district and rode bikes. My companion and I rode the tandem bike and it was a blast. Talk about a real test of unity! We really discovered that to have real success you both need to know when we are going to start, where we are going, which way we are going to turn and when we are going to stop. Hey, that is just like it is in lessons too! The better plan you have the better everything goes. Wow! It is just too true that you can make a good parable out of anything.




Well, I love you all very much and I hope all is well!

Love,

Sister Collyer

November 8, 2010

Dear Friends and Family,

Yes! Lan Wanling is going to be baptized this coming Saturday!!!!!!!! We are so happy and excited and I just cannot even tell you how much I stinking love that girl! We met her when I first moved to Taidong and have been working with her ever since July. We are so, so, SOOO happy she is going to take this step into the waters of repentance and eternal life!

We actually spent a good chunck of time this week in Hualian - which is a three hour train ride away. Ouch. We went out there Wednesday for Zone conference, which was great and I learned a ton and I am super grateful for our leader's guidance. We seriously have the best leaders in the mission! If I could use only once sentence to describe president Grimley, it would be this - He is a Man of God. That is it. He received revelation that will help us become better misisonaries, and every time I apply what he teaches us we see miracles. I love it!

On Friday and Saturday we went on companion exchanges to Hualian. Because the train ride is so long, when we exchange one companionship travels to the other area and we all just proselyte there. Last week we went to Hualian and it was a good experience. I went on exchanges with Sister Lai and we really had a great time. Hualian is a great place! It is so...what is the word...urban! Wow! we ate lunch in a MALL!! Wow! We con't have anything like that here in Taidong. I forgot what it was like to live in a place with so many people outside! It was a great experience, and super easy to contact people. I am grateful for that. But by the time the exchange was over I really missed the rice fields and bike trails of Taidong. It is good to be back home!

On November 20 we are going to have a big Thanksgiving day activity and the branches are going to cook Turkey and everything! They also want us misisonaruies to act out the Thanksgiving story as midgets. Yes, that was a very specific request straight from both branch presidents. How, you ask, will we do this? Well, just look at the pictures I have attached to find out! I will give you a hint - those are not my companion's hands...




WEll, other than that this week has no exciting things to report! I love you all and hope you are all well! Don't forget to read and pray and go to church! These things are super important!!!

Love,

Sister Collyer

November 1, 2010

Dear Family and friends,

This morning was another adventure in the apartment. Luckily no bookshelves collapsed, but wow! This morning's adventure was a LOT louder!

They seem to be doing road work here in Taodong more than even Utah has. :) Today they decided to start at about 8 in the morning ripping out the ground right outside our window. And when I say ground I mean foot thick cement. Yes, this picture was literally taken at our window. Sometimes the crane passed so close to our window I thought for sure it was gonna hit! and It was so NOISY!!!!! Durring personal study concentrating was impossible, and durring companion study we had to shout to even hear eachother! Yes, it lasted even until we left the house. I think it is still going on, but it is much quieter here in the computer lab.

Other than that, this week was a pretty great one. We got stood up a lot this week, but every time we did, we really saw miracles! It was great! One night all three of our lessons cancelled so we went outside contacting. We stepped outside the chapel, said a prayer, and then decided we were going to go over the bridge and take the first left and then the first right and spend the evening there. Well, in an hour and a half we taught FIVE lessons! Wow! THat was a real testimony to me that God is leading this work, and as long as we are out trying out best to do good, he will bless us. He is truly preparing people to hear this gospel. What a blessing missionary work is!

We also had four people at chruch which was really awesome because it was not the four people we thought would come. It was a great day and the branch is really excited about them. One girl that came was someone we actually never met before. Her name is Wang YiTing and a missionary from Taipei contacted her and sent us her information and we called her and invited her to church and she actually came and stayed the whole time! And she LOVED it! She is a college student here and she is awesome. Also, she has exactly the same name as a branch member, so her and the entire Wang family were immediately friends and she went with us to eat dinner with them last night and it could not have been better. I love this work!

Other than that, nothing special to report. It is always a great adventure here in Taidong! Every day something happend that I feel like would only happen in fairytales. For example, the other day I was riding my bike near the old train station that is majestically abandoned and a group of fireflies surrounded me and started flying with me. Wow, I felt like fairy tale barbie! And then sometimes there are groups of birds on the track where we run in the mornings and as we run they take off and fly into the blue blue sky as the cool breeze blows. This This morning all the worms came out and made crazy cool looking lines all along the track and the track was really shiny and it looked like it has a magis spell on it or something. Of course having to dodge a bunch of worms while running is not ideal, but is just still felt like a dream. I love it here in Taidong! Despite the monster truck eating the sidewalk outside or window, I never want to leave!

I hope all is well! I love you all!

love,
Sister Collyer