January 3, 2016

Jan 3, 2016

Sorry I wasn't able to email you back last week, sometimes I forget about some of the things I need to do during my emailing time. but to answer your questions...

How are you doing? Pretty Great :)

How is the language going? Its still pretty hard but between my companion and I we can pretty much figure anything out and we don't really have any problems with the language as far as teaching lessons and other missionary related activities go. We have a lot of practice with that stuff.

What helps you stay motivated? Sometimes its hard to stay motivated all the time. Sometimes we just need to take a five minuet break and talk about something else and then get back to work. It also helps to try and see the bigger picture of things or keep a vision of the missionary I would like to become. When I have those things in my mind its a lot easier to keep on going after a few hours of rejection in every direction.

How is it going teaching and finding investigators?  these last few days with Elder Frye have been great. The first day we were together we had nearly twenty people from off the streets agree to meet with the missionaries. A lot of them were female so we refereed them to the sisters and we haven't actually been able to meet with all of them yet but we are hoping to find a lot of new investigators these next few weeks. As far as teaching goes other than the new people we have found we only really have one investigator that has been investigating the church for a long time but has lots of excuses to not get baptized. We had a crazy lesson with him a few days ago that lasted two and a half hours and by the end of it he was literally trembling because the spirit was so strong in the room. We are hoping he will get baptized in the next few weeks. If things keep on going the way they have these last few days this will end up being a pretty great transfer.

Brother Dewitt called me and said he will just invite us and Sister Borden over to dinner together. He is supper great and willing to help missionaries so meeting up with her shouldn't be to much of a problem :)

It looks like you all had a lot of fun these last few days. Thank you again for all of the pictures :) New years and Christmas were pretty normal days of missionary work for us but the Chinese New year is coming up and I've heard that can get pretty crazy. From what I can tell Its like a party that lasts an entire week and by the end of it I would have eaten so much that I might slip into a food coma. I'm sure I will have lots of fun pictures to send when that actually does happen.

Now I have a few random questions 1) Is there any way to get a new copy of my Patriarchal blessing? Mine didn't come out of the printer very nice in the first place and now there are a few parts of it that are pretty difficult to read. 2) does the church make the small compact scripture quads still? I think I remember when I got my set of scriptures we couldn't find them anywhere but lately I have seen a few elders that had bought some in the last few years. If they do make them do they have any options that aren't supper expensive and would it at all be possible for me to get a hold of a pair of them?  I feel kinda bad asking right after Christmas and I know you sent me some nice scriptures for my birthday. The ones I got for my birthday have been a huge help but there have been quite a few times I regretted not having the bible with my. so them these last few days I've had my bigger scriptures with me which hasn't been super convenient and I decided I wouldn't mind getting a new set of scriptures to study with an actually marking system which I regret not having when I got my scriptures after graduating seminary. But it isn't a necessity and I'm guessing they can be a little expensive so you don't need to worry about that to much. 

now for a few random pictures......

​almost every missionary that serves on the coast takes one of these pictures so I decided to jump on the bandwagon.

we came across a transformers statue and Just couldn't resist....

these next two pictures might help you better understand the diversity of lifestyles in Shizhong. they were taken about ten minuets apart.

I'm sorry I have been really bad at emailing you lately, I promise I will try doing a better job at that. These next few weeks should be pretty exciting so that should also help with he quality of my emails a little. Last week when we were skyping I said something about how I don't have a ton of emailing time and then the next week you apologized for taking up my emailing time. That wasn't what I meant when I said I don't have a lot of time and I don't want you to feel like its a burden for me to read and respond to your emails. I absolutely love hearing from you, everything you have to say, and I love seeing all of the pictures you send. Sometimes I don't have enough time to do everything that I want to during my emailing time so a lot of times I don't get around to emailing you back or all of my emails are short and don't really mean much. I think I might start trying to get better at writing letters, I personally think they are a lot more convenient because I don't have a time limit and I think most people would agree that it is more fun to get a letter from Taiwan then a short Email.

Thank you so much for everything that you do for me., I really do feel extremely lucky to have such a great  Mom :) I love you so much and I always love hearing from you.

我愛你!

-溫長老

Elder Wills