Sister Museus, September 19, 2010....Huwei and the Typhoon

Please have a great birthday Mom. I wish I could be there to celebrate it with you. Your birthday last year was awesome and everyone did a great job in setting it up; all I did was bring home a chocolate cake. Nevertheless, I did get you a little something and sent it off last week. You should be getting it within the next couple of days. Please don't open it until it's your actual birthday. I wanted to send off another tape, but it's not quite done. I'll make sure to send it off within the next couple of weeks. Cole, it was really good to hear from you. I'm glad that swimming is starting up again for you. I know you will do awesome if you put your whole heart into this (I already know you will do great since you can already swim faster than me). I know by experience that as long as you are diligent and have fun you will do an amazing job. I learned through playing softball and enjoyed every bit of it (I still miss playing this sport too). It's neat to hear that Erika is going to serve in Chile. Let me know what her address is when it's on the back of the ward program and I will write to her. Have fun with school while you can Cole. Sometimes I miss highschool because of the fun memories I had. Make sure you take as many college classes as you can (AP classes and concurrent enrollement so you can have a lot of college credits by the time that you graduate). You will not regret this decision and you can graduate college as fast as I did. Cole, kick Alex in the butt for me since she has not emailed me for quite some time when she made a promise with me too. I keep asking her questions about her boutique and such and she isn't responding. Let me know if she ever got the little suprise from me in the mail. On Tuesday of last week, we had a Mission Tour (more like a Zone Conference) where Elder and Sister Pratt came and spoke to us. (Elder Pratt is in the Area of the Seventy). It was really good to hear from them as well as our mission president and his wife. Each of their talks were based on the new lessons called the Fundamentals of the Gospel that are now being taught to every missionary in the field and in the MTC. These lessons will be taught to us which will help us better teach our investigators. Some of these lessons include teaching to the needs of the investigators, receiving personal revelation through prayer, scripture reading, and church attendance, etc. Our Missior Tour was based off receiving personal revelation through prayer, scripture reading, and chuch attendance. It was neat to her Sister Pratt describe the Tree of Life as being the temple. Too often missionaries only see the main goal for the investigators to get baptized, but in reality the main goal is getting them to the temple. It is only there at the temple that we can receive eternal joy and happiness. In addition, it was neat to have the realization that when we feel that we are not feeling the Spirit as frequently in our lives it is because we are lacking in one of these three areas: prayer, scriptures, or church attendance. Remember family that if you want to feel closer to our Father in Heaven and Dad you must do these three things. It is through these three things that we can have personal revelation and feel the comfort, joy, peace, and guidance that we need each and every day. We had a typhoon yesterday, but were lucky enough to have at least one hour of church. There were only three wards in all of Taiwan that had at least sacrament and we were one of them. We were really blessed for this because we were able to get one of our investigators named Linda to come to church. I met her during my English class on Wednesday (the Elders had tracted into her and invited her to English class). She is in her 40's and has already suffered a major stroke that has left her partially disabled in her arm and a leg. She speaks really good English since she majored in it in college. Linda is a very humble person and really wants some friends and more to her life. She lives with her mom who is really nice and served us some yummy fruit. We were able to get her to church, which enables us to get her baptized before the end of our move-call (since investigators have to come to church 3 times and two of the three have to be to all three hours of church). We continue to have faith and hope that things will work out for her. She seems very excited to learn more and has already been reading the Book of Mormon and met some great people at church in the ward. We will meet with her again on Wednesday after English class. We have a few other progressing investigators as well that could be baptized during our move-call. Yesterday, it actually felt like the Sabbath day since most of the businesses were closed and very few people were outside. The wind was horrible and there were a few times that I almost got knocked off my bike, but we made sure to stop and get off our bikes when this occurred. It started to pour in the evening and my rain coat didn't help. I came back to the apartment feeling like I was wearing a wet suit since I was completely drenched from the rain and wind. I love you all dearly and please continue to write me each week. I haven't heard from John and Alex for quite some time. Alex, my companion Sister Roper wants to give you a call in the next month or so (since she wil be going home in three weeks) because she has heard you have a great taste in music. She will want the updates with the music these days. Please continue to do righteous things and I know you will be blessed. Don't worry too much about me. Things are going great I just worry about all of you. Remember to keep the eternal goal in mind that we all have....to be an eternal family forever and at the tree of life tasting the joy and the sweetness that this gospel brings. Love and miss you all terribly. Love Everyone of You,Sister Museus