"The LAZY eye!"

Hi Family!!

Happy Halloween next week! You'll have to send me pictures of all of your fun costumes and tell me what you did! Be safe! It's Satan's day! :D I had to add that in...it's my job as a missionary to be Churchy. :)

This week was good! It's been a good week for learning. I've been learning alot from my companion. She's been so good. We both pray every day that we'll spend the holidays together. This week has just been a week of very good learning!

1) Remember a while ago when I said that everyone we were teaching had Word of Wisdom problems and I realized Heavenly Father also wanted ME to obey it (therefore, try my best to eat gluten free)? Well, I'm feeling a similar teaching moment from Heavenly Father via our investigator. We have this investigator that is nice as can be, but that lives in filth. She is wonderful, but her house smells like there is a sewer on the floor. She hasn't mopped in ages and there are mounds of junk ALL over the place. When she opens the door, we are HIT with a powerful odor that makes us gag for hours after we leave. We can't even eat. We can't feel the Spirit at her teaching appointments and it's absolutely no wonder she's making no progress. One can't feel the Spirit in a mire. She has all sorts of family problems and it's totally because of the laziness and dirtiness. As missionaries, we have this obligation to call people to repentance, so we are going to try to bring up this sensitive topic to her. But I realized, that if I am going to call her to repent in this area, I should too. Okay, yes, I am a slob. But in my defense, it's been getting better. Haha, BUT I vow to turn over a new leaf and be TOTALLY clean. I cleaned my desk and organized my shelf and washed everything. I will NEVER be a slob again. Every time I look at my area, I think to myself, is this REALLY clean? Then I ask myself, do you want to become like Sister So and so? Then I frantically scour my area again. I will never have a stinky house! I refuse.

2) My companion and I had some really good companionship studies where we discussed gifts of the Spirit and gifts our Patriarchal Blessings talk about and stuff (obviously done with tact and not READING or telling eachother everything). But what's neat, is that we both have very similar gifts. We are VERY similar to eachother. Then I've just been noticing all around EVERYONE'S spiritual gifts. People in the scriptures, missionaries, investigators and members. I've even thought about some of you and your spiritual gifts. It's really amazing and beautiful that everyone has their own that help them bless and touch others. I never thought of it as I do now, but I really think our "quest" in life needs to be FINDING what that spiritual gift is, then completely honing in on it for the benefit of yourself and others. We can find out our spiritual gifts through prayers and our patriarchal blessings. I remember an Elder in our mission saying that his blessing told him he had a gift to "teach the word of wisdom". So he would stop people on the street and tell them, "you shouldn't smoke, it'll hurt yourself." And people would be impressed by what he said and stop smoking. These gifts give us great POWER in the Lord's work and kingdom. It's soooo neat. So I challenge you all to pull out your Patriarchal Blessings and find any passage that says something about the "gift of ...." or the "ability" or "power" of something. Then when the Holy Ghost had told you your spiritual gift, pray and study about that gift. It's so neat. I feel like Heavenly Father has suddenly unlocked a huge mystery of my PB, and it's suddenly all coming together.

3) Make goals! I ALWAYS forgot to make goals, and then everything falls through and we come home with nothing. But the days we remember to make goals, even when things fall through, serious miracles fall in our laps to help us accomplish our goals.

Anyway, on a lighter note. I have found my joy in life. It's "Milk ice". And seriously, I WILL open a little shack in Provo and make bank selling it. It's ice cream times 20. It's just shaved milk with sweetened condensed milk and flavored syrup over the top. It's HEAVEN!! It's so light and creamy. It's creamy but not heavy like ice cream. But it's more flavorful than a snow cone. SOOO good. Robert, you know business! Help me open a Milk Ice shop in Provo. :D hush hush, mustn't leak the secret!

Speaking of eating things. I think Sister Bready and I got some sort of food poisoning. We've had gas, stomach pain, and crazy "runs" that kept us inside yesterday. Fun!

Anyway, I love you! Keep the commandments. Pray. Have fun.

Love you!!

Coley

New Sister Missionary Dress Code!!!

Hello!

This week has been good. It's really fun to train a new missionary. She's very sincere and trying her best. Our personalities are very suited for each other and we really have a good time. We've worked really hard this week as well and seen some good miracles. One day, we contacted a lot in the morning and were rejected WAY more than usual. We both were a little discouraged but separately made inner decisions to not let it bother us and to have joy and continue anyway. Then the next half of the day, we were very blessed. We talked to some good people. Then we were at a subway station (me making phone calls and Sister Bready contacting) and a girl told Sister Bready after she testified, "Thank you! I NEED that feeling in my heart right now." Then she came to church the next day! At the same time Sister Bready was talking to that girl, a man came up to me and said, "you're Mormon! What's the difference between your church and Christian churches?" I shared with him and he ALSO came to church the next day. Pretty neat! Then we were at an activity last night with the ward and a BEAUTIFUL family with the light of Christ beaming from their eyes just walked into the church and asked if they could know what we were all about. So we sat down with them and taught them! Sooooo neat.

Sadly, my favorite investigator, Li Dai Li, called out of the blue and said, "I'm not ready, I am afraid I can't keep all the commandments." And said she didn't want to meet with us anymore. SOOOO sad!!! She had a baptismal date and everything, then in one day she is gone. I feel like this has been a bit of a sore spot on my mission for me. I find my favorite people I build up a lot of hope for but they disappear right when you least expect it. But I KNOW they will someday get another chance and come back. I'm just sad they delay the blessings and that I can't see them be baptized.

So CRAZY. The Church is changing the dress code standards for Sister missionaries. This should be motivating for the girls who hesitate to serve because they fear becoming frumpy. The new standard is anti-frumpy, pretty much. The new standard is pretty much bright colors, skirts can go as short as below the knee, encourage jewelry, etc. It's really interesting. They want us to not look like a bunch of "polygamist wives" (this is apparently from the mouth of Elder Oaks). They want us to show the message we have to share, which is "happy", "fun", "cheerful", "bright", "hopeful", etc. etc. etc. Haha, too bad this message comes to some of us mid-mission, who already look like polygamist wives in our hand-me-down missionary clothes and dark somber colors. Anyway, I thought that was very interesting. No more sweater vests! No more Jody dresses! No more scary jumpers! Sister missionaries will be cute! Haha.

One thing that is probably not very good about having a new companion, is she is "up on the times" where I've been totally clueless. She told me the health care bill passed???? Are you kidding me?? I was sooooo angry I had to pray to get the Spirit back. Seriously, do people know what Socialized health care does? It leads to SLOPPY or incompetent doctors. Health Care in Taiwan and China stinks because of that. When people get cut here, they don't come away with nice, clean little scars, but with huge Frankenstein looking things. People wait for DAYS or at least HOURS to see a doctor or dentist that looks at you, rips a tooth out in under 30 seconds or shoves an IV of "I hope this works" medicine. Ugh, seriously??

Coley

Training a Greenie!!!

Herro!!

Hello my wonderful Family!! I hope you're all doing sooo good! With watching General Conference this week, I've thought about you all! I love you!!

This week has been crazy!! We hardly did anything in our area and hardly ate because we never had time. I lost 6 pounds this last transfer. Eek. Anyway, we just had a crazy week. We did temple tours on Tuesday and it was DEAD, there was NO ONE who came so we just sat around studying Chinese and making phone calls. Then Wednesday we had District Meeting and English which ate up the day.

Then Thursday we had our weekly planning session and went to Taibei to "babysit" the new greenies that came in. So when new missionaries come in, they go out for a few hours that night with a missionary in the area and just contact and tract to get over their fears and just jump into it. So I went with a new missionary Sister Bready from American Fork. She was soooo much fun! We saw some really good things happen and shared our testimonies with some people that gave us their information to meet with missionaries in the future. It was such a good night. She was so much fun and will be an amazing missionary! Then, that night, I got a phone call from the Assistants to the President that I would be TRAINING one of the new greenies!! SCARY!! I hardly slept that night and had such anxiety through that next morning and all throughout training meeting. It was terrifying. I was afraid I would train a tall intimidating girl who would eat me alive. It's intimidating to train someone fresh from the MTC because they have all sorts of oddities and idealistic ideas of what a mission is. It's GREAT, because they have so much faith, but sometimes they can be very critical of their trainers. I heard it myself from the mouth of my MTC teachers, "Don't trust your trainer. You show them what's what!" Funny, because how the heck does the trainee know what's what?? So I came out of the MTC being totally self-righteous and wanting to put my trainer in her place yadda yadda. So anyway, I was terrified. But lo! Who was I to train? Sister Bready!!! We were sooooo excited!! She's SUCH a good sister!! She's already so brave and fearlessly contacts and shares in lessons and has good Chinese. She did ILP in China too so we have so much fun swapping ILP stories. She's just one of those personalities I LOVE!! So exciting!! It's been so good!! Training so far (as in...the 3 days I've been doing it...) is good because it feels like a fresh start. I can start doing things a little bit better, as if it's the start of MY mission. Plus it's good to have someone you can just serve a lot. I can try to help her do and be and have what I wish I'd done and become and had when I started out. It's soooo good. There's a lot of team work because she's not stuck in "her own way" of doing things because she doesn't HAVE her own way yet. So we can just do alot of learning together. It's fun so far. And she's so humble and so good. I'm so excited!

Conference was soooo amazing!! I loved President Monson's talk about Gratitude and Elder Holland's "Thank you" talk. I nearly bawled my eyes out through his whole talk. Everything just made me want to bawl.
So in honor of those talks, I want to say what I'M grateful for!

My mission so far.
For ALL of the things I've learned from every single companion.
For the investigators I can learn and love and teach.
For the Eastdell ward who got me on my mission!!
For FAMILY that helped me out financially, spiritually and emotionally!
For everyone who booted me out the door to go in the first place. Haha
For all the girls I've loved before. Who've wandered in and out my door. I'm glad they came along, I dedicate this song...to all the girls I've loved before...
For Jesus Christ and the Atonement that makes me so happy!
For a living Prophet who has all the power of Noah and Moses and Joseph!
For the Book of Mormon with revelations and personal revelation eeking off of every page.
For an awesome bike!
For an amazingly fun childhood!
For goodly parents that taught me right from wrong and didn't let me go on sleepovers.
For homeschooling! That was FUN!!
For the internet and email!!
For every letter I've ever received.
For delicious food including but not limitted to: steak, hot pot, spicy cucumbers, cot bread, Dad's chili, Mom's chowder, Jessica's cake, Michael's pancakes, and Rachel's cinnamon rolls.
For dressing up in ancient clothing and parading about pretending like you're from "the South".
For painting and beautiful music!
For poetry and the cello and the violin.
For movies I love like Fiddler on the Roof and Robin Hood.
For good friends that make awesome memories!
For travelling to distant lands and having insane and dangerous experiences.
For learning to master oneself and the power of the Savior to rip my weaknesses out by my toes.
For facebook...it's annoying but convenient for keeping in touch with people...obviously not on my mission.
For the convenience of a cell phone.
For a drivers license...a long time coming but still appreciated.
For every minute of my life.
For trials and heartache that help me become what God wants me to be!

And the list goes on! Send me your list!! Love you all, Coley

Pray for China

Hi Family!!

Sorry, today's email may be a little short...

This week we had a baptism!!! YEAH! Tang Mama was baptized and so happy. She is about 60 years old and a member's mother. She was soooo happy she couldn't stop smiling all through her baptism and church the next day. She looked like a new person. SO cute! It's neat to see people change.
We are teaching the cutest woman named Li Dai Li who I LOVE!! She moves like the squirrels from Sword and the Stone. I wish I could record her and mail her home. Jessica would get the biggest kick out of this woman. She's so absent minded but the kindest, socialable woman! She's getting baptized on Halloween.

This week the Church changed the vocabulary to a ton of church words so the translation would be more fitting for Mainland China. PRAY that China will open!!!!!! I'm going crazy I want to help open China SOO bad!!

Anyway, I'm out of time already!! Sorry, I love you guys so much!!
COley