Merry Christmas

Christmas in Taiwan! Ooooo! I can't wait to talk to you ALL! It seems like we just talked and I was sitting in LA, weird. So here is the deal you said call at 10 AM my time but if its good I am going to call at 9:30 AM, maybe a smidge earlier. Same day... Christmas but just a smidge earlier because we have to get our the door by 10:30. I seriously am so excited, eek! I won't even know where to begin so have questions or something. I love you -seriously best family ever, go relax on the beach - put it on my tab. "You always good friend me" to quote a little note that I just bought at the local stationary heaven/mecca/store. Mom you would love it. seriously.

So seriously I don't even know where this week went. More miracles.

There is nothing I would rather be doing than sharing the gospel with the people of Taiwan...for Christmas! This Christmas will be a white one for Sister Howard and I. Our deaf investigator You Mei (we fondly call her yummy- it started on accident and now it is just stuck) will be getting baptized and we have a potential week A drop-in. Guan Ting is a 13 year-old who has been coming to church every Sunday for the last 8 months with her mother. They both know the church is true and have passed baptismal interviews. However, her mom has/had a really odd requirement for the both of them ... she wanted their faith to be tried before getting baptized. She wanted to see if the church and their faith could pull them through a trial. LAME! Like are you kidding me! But she wouldn't let her daughter get baptized until that happened. BUT this week it changed. During church Sister Howard asked Guan Ting if she could get baptized yet (we kind of asked her every couple of weeks) and her answer was YES! Her mom finally gave her the go-ahead. We don't know what changed but it did. Now it is up to Guan Ting. We talked to her last night and she said she was nervous so we told her to pray about it and we have been praying real hard ever since. We'll see, I can tell you what happens on Christmas. wooo!

Oh hey this week we had two Christmas activities. One was a stake Christmas activity at the government run hospital where yu jiemei lives. The one for the handicapped. Our entire zone came and we all sang a few Christmas song (close your eyes and cover your ears... sister howard forced me to sing with her and a gal from one of our wards- yikes. let's just say I pretended like the microphone was off. and then I thought hmm good thing I took choir at Eagle Middle School in the 7th grade. haha. we sang How Great Thou Art) We had a great turn out. 200+ people from the community/wards/ loads of our investigators and recent converts came too. It was so fun! It really felt Christmas-ee. We all wore lovely little Santa hats. real cute.

As the week started out we were worried that our number of progressing investogators was a little low but as the week progressed with had several awesome first lessons with people that were are so prepared for the gospel. They are now wonderful progressing investogators. Our little babies. One in particular, Tina, her brother is a member in Kaoshung but she was a street contact referral. We met with her for the first time on Saturday and then she went to Kaoshung on Sunday and got to go to church with her brother. She told us that he explained everything about sacrament meeting. Last night she called and asked when she could get baptized! I swear people are prepared for this. Daily I see how involved Heavenly Father is in this work, I just want to daily become a better tool in his hands.

Ok but at the same time... and I am sorry to admit ....yesterday I was kind of being stubborn in listening to the spirit. There were a few times when we were biking somewhere and I got a "turn around and talk to that person" feeling/nudge but I was stubborn and thought "but we are going to be late" or "but I will being going against traffic and there are like a billion scooters." basically I was being dumb, real dumb. Then last night we were heading to a good area to tract and I got one more big nudge to contact down a street which we weren't plannning on tracting. So I was thought"ok ok ok I'm going." I yelled ahead to Sister Howard and we headed down the street. The first person , the VERY FIRST person we tracted into - behind door number 2- was GOLDEN. Oh man! She invited us right in and said she was over her current Buddhist/baibai (which is the very mixed up religion here. where they mixed buddhism and daoism and decided to baibai or pray to their ancestors and thats basically all they do. thats what the mixed religion consists of.) beliefs. And just a few sundays ago had checked out a christian church but didn't really like how they sang really loud and prayed outloud together. By the end of the 10 mintue quick little lesson she basically asked how she could get baptized and when we could meet with her next. Oh and when our Christmas activity is becuase she wants to come. It was seriously so awesome and a good kick in the pants for me.

Shout outs:

Mere (check your provo mail box when you get home) asked about the weather... probably like 83 degrees. We have a cold day every once in awhile and I throw on a sweater or bust some tights. So yep, it feels like summer never ended (I am pulling a jake- hey buddy btw the pictures work, wow korea throw back that letter should be framed or something. check your eagle mail box in a week. mail is slow right now I just got your Dec 2 letter, BEES?) and listening to Christmas music in the middle of the year.

Ash! man I love you and I love that we are both doing the best work in the world at the very same time. Keep it up in the CR. And can you EVEN believe Adri is HOME! What the! Please don't let time go by so quick.

And Tawns!!! Happy Birthday on the 24th. I love you! Also please send me pictures of Heath! Hello I haven't seen a picture of that child since he was a newborn. word on the street is he is pretty stinking cute, of course.

Mom/dad- no package yet but I am pretty sure they are keeping most of the Christmas packages at the mission home until Thursday becuase we are all going up there for the mission christmas activity so no worries. And speaking of the Mission christmas activity ... I'm kind of excited. should be fun to see old MTC peeps. p.s. it feels like the MTC never happened- weird. serouisly a distant memory. I LOVE TAIWAN. Oh and yesterday in church I forgot that not everyone in the world has black hair and small eyes. freaky.

Well peeps Merry Christmas! How great is this life?! Bah! Bah! Bah! I love it! Talk soon (for reals-ees)!