Hello Everyone! Thank you all for emails and your love! I really do love to hear how everyone is doing! Thanks for all of your support, it helps me out a lot! More than you know :))
First off - I am done with my first transfer/move call. So weird to think that I have been here for 6 weeks. Wow. Time is really just flying! I have learned a ton with this move call. My testimony of the Book of Mormon, Prayer, God's love ... pretty much everything has skyrocketed! It is so amazing to know that we have a Loving Heavenly Father. Really that is the message that we share. And that He guides our church TODAY. I am eternally grateful for the many blessings that He has given me. Especially my family. I love you family. So so so much! You have no idea how grateful I am for the support and love that you have given me throughout my trials and challenges of life. I have learned a lot about love this move call. A LOT! Really, "All you need is Love." It is so simple and yet so powerful. Everyday I feel God's love for me and for the people that we meet. I am sooooo grateful that this love is unconditional. Sometimes I think too much about myself and I think, "How can anyone forgive me?" It is definitely a question of the soul. The answer is simple. I am already forgiven. The hardest part is forgiving yourself. And loving yourself. Seeing others and yourself the way that God would.
Everyday I read the Book of Mormon and it is definitely my favorite book to read. How cool is it that we have God's words! And we can read them everyday and receive personal revelation! I am so grateful for this blessing. The Book of Mormon is so true! Reading coupled with prayer is very powerful. Through feelings and impressions God talks to us. The very Being who created us all, talks to us! Woah. How cool is that? God is literally our Father in Heaven. He really truly loves each one of us. This knowledge gives me great joy and comfort. I pray that one day EVERYONE can hear this message and accept it. I am eternally grateful for God's Plan for us. I feel like I don't have to worry. I can put my full trust in Him and His Plan for me.
First off - I am done with my first transfer/move call. So weird to think that I have been here for 6 weeks. Wow. Time is really just flying! I have learned a ton with this move call. My testimony of the Book of Mormon, Prayer, God's love ... pretty much everything has skyrocketed! It is so amazing to know that we have a Loving Heavenly Father. Really that is the message that we share. And that He guides our church TODAY. I am eternally grateful for the many blessings that He has given me. Especially my family. I love you family. So so so much! You have no idea how grateful I am for the support and love that you have given me throughout my trials and challenges of life. I have learned a lot about love this move call. A LOT! Really, "All you need is Love." It is so simple and yet so powerful. Everyday I feel God's love for me and for the people that we meet. I am sooooo grateful that this love is unconditional. Sometimes I think too much about myself and I think, "How can anyone forgive me?" It is definitely a question of the soul. The answer is simple. I am already forgiven. The hardest part is forgiving yourself. And loving yourself. Seeing others and yourself the way that God would.
Everyday I read the Book of Mormon and it is definitely my favorite book to read. How cool is it that we have God's words! And we can read them everyday and receive personal revelation! I am so grateful for this blessing. The Book of Mormon is so true! Reading coupled with prayer is very powerful. Through feelings and impressions God talks to us. The very Being who created us all, talks to us! Woah. How cool is that? God is literally our Father in Heaven. He really truly loves each one of us. This knowledge gives me great joy and comfort. I pray that one day EVERYONE can hear this message and accept it. I am eternally grateful for God's Plan for us. I feel like I don't have to worry. I can put my full trust in Him and His Plan for me.
1. I got to help the new missionaries go "Dan Jones"-ing! It was so much fun! :) I got to take a sister out and help her have her first experience sharing the Gospel in Taiwan. It was so much fun! And guess what! She handed out 4 copies of the Book of Mormon! She was on fire and she bore her testimony really well :) You could tell that she was sincere and really wanted to share what she has.
Since we were in the night market I tried some night market food :) Finally tried stinky tofu! It wasn't that bad actually. Almost good. Not my favorite but I would have it again.
2. Mason Cook and Sara Munns group's pictures are up in the mission office! And it looks like there are two others from our area that are coming that same month. Wow! KAYSVILLE ROCKS! I am really excited for all of you new missionaries to come!
Some advice: bring a picture of your entire family; whenever you introduce yourself to anyone they expect to see a picture. Start praying for the gift of charity now. Chinese: I would suggest on gaining a base in Chinese. Like the pinyin, tones and sounds. Helps a lot while you are out in the field. :) Don't worry too much about eating really weird food. Most everything here is fried anyway. :) Hope that helps?
3. We have a new investigator! Wang Jie Mei. She and her husband own a hot pot restaurant. They have two kids. And she is just busy busy busy! We talked about baptism this week. She used to have a goal but we think she needs more time. She sees baptism as a precious opportunity - which is great! And she wants to be sure that she's ready for the commitment :)
Our other investigator, Sandra, called! It feels like she just dropped off the face of the earth! Haven't heard from her in like 2 weeks. But she is still around and still interested, thank goodness. We were also able to see our other investigator who we were having a hard time getting in contact with. She has been going through some hard things with her husband. But she still prays and has hope! She is a trooper.
4.On Saturday Sister Voss found out that one of her investigators from her old area is getting baptized. We are so excited but Sister Voss is sad that she can't attend the baptism. Sister Voss has been having a rough time lately. Feeling like she is not seeing the fruits of her labors and she is losing motivation because of it. So if you could pray for her or send her an encouraging email I think that would definitely help her out. I pray for her everyday. And I know that God is listening to my prayers. We have been seeing miracle after miracle this week. Especially with seeing the "fruits of our labors". Investigators are coming back and guess what! We had the most "less active" members we have ever had at church on Sunday! It was so good to see everyone :) That was the biggest miracle of the week. Usually we have one or two of our less active members come to church. Maybe. But this week we had lots. Two people (one that just got out of the hospital, the other was in the process of moving) showed up without us even expecting them to come. It was great! And coming to Church is amazing! You learn so much and feel the spirit! And you get to partake of the sacrament! What a blessing!
5. We had a great lesson with one of our members, Shi Jie Mei. She is in her 20's and has been having a hard couple of weeks...boy problems. We all have em. But this has really been weighing her down. We didn't expect her to tell us everything that has been going on but she just spilled it all to us. You could tell that she had been holding everything in and just needed to tell someone. It was actually a very powerful lesson. Even if we go through temporal challenges we need to remember that we have eternal blessings and an ETERNAL FAMILY in Heaven. We just need to remember what is most important.
6. So there is this lady who keeps on coming into our chapel demanding money. She says that Obama called her and said that he would give her money. We tell her every week that we are just a church, nothing to do with the US government. She thinks that because Americans (missionaries mostly) come in to the building, that we have her money.
5. We had a great lesson with one of our members, Shi Jie Mei. She is in her 20's and has been having a hard couple of weeks...boy problems. We all have em. But this has really been weighing her down. We didn't expect her to tell us everything that has been going on but she just spilled it all to us. You could tell that she had been holding everything in and just needed to tell someone. It was actually a very powerful lesson. Even if we go through temporal challenges we need to remember that we have eternal blessings and an ETERNAL FAMILY in Heaven. We just need to remember what is most important.
6. So there is this lady who keeps on coming into our chapel demanding money. She says that Obama called her and said that he would give her money. We tell her every week that we are just a church, nothing to do with the US government. She thinks that because Americans (missionaries mostly) come in to the building, that we have her money.
7. There is this baby in the other ward that we see every Sunday and she is so cute! We like to Boop her nose all the time. Babies just make me so happy! I saw an American baby for the first time here in Taiwan. She was a cute little red headed girl too :) ADORABLE! We came into the chapel to get some stuff and there was a Relief Society activity going on from the English branch. We talked to some of the ladies there and they let us participate for a little bit. We made some yummy zhong zi, which are rice and beans steamed in bamboo leaves :) really cool! Oh the funniest part of the activity was Sister Liu calling Sister Voss Stupid. Sister Liu is the quiet follower and actually always calls herself stupid. But Sister Liu was helping Sister Voss with something and Sister Voss couldn't really do it. And then SIster Liu called her stupid. It was just funny hearing it come out of her mouth :)
8. I read a conference talk about marriage the other day. Don't worry not thinking too much about that. But it talked about marriage as being a "completing" couple not a "competing" couple. I really liked that. It is so easy to judge and criticize when you think that you are right. And to try and be "better" than the other person. But it is very important to work WITH each other. I really applied this to me and my companion. I am trying my hardest to love and appreciate, rather than to compete and try to be better than my companion. I really do love her. So so so much. I am really grateful for her service and efforts to help me :)
Well time is up. Got to go! :))
-Sister Graham
Well time is up. Got to go! :))
-Sister Graham