Move Calls!!

Hi Family!!

Today is my first day in my new area with my new companion!

This week has been good! I'm going to really miss my companion, Sister Weng. I really love her. We've had such a good transfer. She has so much charity and love and she's hilarious! She loves Stitch (from Lilo and Stitch), and gets trunky when she sees "Shrek" happy meal toys, makes funny faces that look like the Bull from Bugs Bunny, and always says REALLY funny things in Chinese. Oh!! I'm going to miss her soooooo much!!! I just love her! It's so sad to move!!

This week has been pretty good. We had a really good Zone Conference on Tuesday that really got us motivated. Elder Pratt from the Quorum of the 70 came and taught with his wife. He's a GGgrandson of Parley P Pratt so told some fun stories about PPPratt's mission experiences. He said that it doesn't matter why we came on a mission, it just matters that we start right now making our reason to continue "love". So that we preach because we love God, the gospel, the Taiwanese, the language... Then his wife talked a lot about obedience. I've probably said this before, but since I've been on a mission, my favorite principle I've learned is that of obedience. This is NOT saying "oh I'm the most obedient missionary, blah blah". But I just really love the principle that with every obedient act, there's a blessing beside it. "There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heave before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated --And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated." I think sometimes we may get a blessing when we don't necessarily deserve it--either by the grace of God or just being leaning on our own feeble strength, but most of the time, when we receive something good, it's because we knowingly or unknowingly obeyed a commandments of God which qualified us for that blessing. Sister Pratt talked about that alot in Zone Conference and it really brought me to repentance. Not that I have major disobedience issues, but everyone can always be more obedient. Like I need to be a better teacher. But most of all, I needed to change my attitude about obedience. Sometimes I would get bugged at some of the lamer rules I don't understand, like stretching for 10 minutes after running, and stuff. But if I just remember that every little thing I obey, will give a blessing, or at LEAST the Spirit more so that people will believe us more, than it makes me more excited to obey. Anyway, it was really cool. Sister Weng and I were too happy and having too much fun together that sometimes we would have to snap out of it and stop talking so that we could contact people. Zone Conference was a really good motivation.

So we made a couple trips up the big hill to Hukou, (about 1 hour+) and knocked doors. Every time we went this week, it happened to start POURING as soon as we got there. I like rain...but not if I'm going to be biking in it for 6 hours. Being in wet clothes is one of the most miserable things there ever was. I now have all sorts of sick Taiwan dried sludge in my shoes from walking through grime puddles. Ewww. But it was good. Since Zone Conference, I've just felt way more fire to testify and share, which is great, but is sometimes painful when people still reject you. When you feel that burning in your heart and that love of the gospel even more, it's more sad when people don't care. I just wish I could somehow transplant the feeling I have and put it in that person's heart. I wish so much sometimes that I could just be in that person's shoes for a second and feel if they feel anything. So yeah, I figure that's where study and obedience come in. In the Book of Mormon it talks a lot about missionaries (Alma, Ammon, Sons of Mosiah, Nephi, etc.) and they had more authority and power because they were so obedient and diligent so it carried it to the hearts of the people they taught. Anyway, we talked to some cool people in Hukou. No great success, but we had some good conversations and some good moments. We also ran into this really cute dog that looked EXACTLY like Doug from "Up". He kept following us to doors we were tracting, so when people opened the door, they saw 3 sister missionaries and a yellow dog. haha. So cute!! "Hi There. My name is Doug" "I hid under the porch because I love you." Hah.

So we have run into a really interesting religion in Taiwan. We taught an investigator who was a member of it and I'm starting to think it's....creepy...? Anyway, it's a religion that pretty much excepts ALL truth and invites all religions to preach in their churches. So pretty much their way of thinking is "there's a lot of roads to take, and they can all lead to Taibei". (I thought about that, then it didn't make sense because if we all START from the same place... in our case Heavenly Father's presence...then all roads DON'T go to the same place...) Anyway, that's not really the most worst part...although saying that EVERYTHING thing is true is denying God (see 2 Nephi 2:13). What just set us kind of on edge, was when we taught, she would bear her testimony of her religion and we had a really eery feeling. Then we asked her to pray and she refused. We asked why and she said "I'm not positive...but I think that that's something I'm not allowed to do." Apparently this religion makes some interesting oaths and covenants when you get really deep into it that are secret. That also involve secret hand signals and stuff (secret combinations....?). Anyway, interesting.

Recently, I don't know what is happening! All of our investigators are just dropping like flies! They just stop calling us or tell us they can't give up Buddhism. Ugh!! Pray.

Transfer calls were on Friday. I was so excited because I was transferred to Shuanghe. Shuanghe is in Taibei and is one of the most densely populated placed in the world. I actually wasn't necessarily excited about that part, but my new companion was going to be Sister Scott! I love Sister Scott! We were companions for 2 weeks when I first got to Taiwan. But sadly, after I got the move call, I found out that Sister Scott is going home early for medical problems. She has such bad allergies and asthma that she is having major breathing problems from Taibei's air. I've been very fortunate in that area. But yeah, sad! So my move call was changed to Taoyuan/Bade (pronounced Bah Duh) with Sister Messenger. She's really cool so far so it should be a good transfer. It was sooooo sad to leave Zhubei though!!! We were "qing-ed" for dinner a few times and the members were so nice! There are a few teachers who want me to come back to Zhubei after my mission and intern at their school. I'm seriously considering it. I love that place!!

Anyway, all is sooooo good! I love you all! The Church is True! Blessings come from the Gospel! Christ lives! Joseph Smith was a prophet!

LOVE YOU!!!
Coley

Transfers are Coming!

Hi Family!!

This week has had a lot of new experiences and surprises, but has been alot of fun. Sister Weng and I were doing companionship study on Tuesday morning when we got a call from President Grimley. I was kind of nervous, because getting a call from the mission president out of the blue can never be good. Haha. But he was calling to tell us that a new sister would be coming early to the mission and Sister Weng would be training her and we had to go to Taibei that night to pick her up! We screamed for the next half hour of studies. Sister Weng has never trained before and I REALLY didn't want to move away from Zhubei. It's true that Heavenly Father really takes you away from comfort when it's time to learn something new. This past transfer has seriously been one of the happiest experiences in my life. I've learned SO much, and LOVE Sister Weng! Some nights I would just come home and be so happy that I would just pray in thanks. It was sooooo awesome. Zhubei is wonderful and I'm finally getting to know the wards. But I can see that sometimes when you get too comfortable, you're not moved upon to learn as much. I feel like my teaching skills have improved this transfer, but I have other skills that could be built with a change of surrounding. I'm just a little afraid of my new companion/area. Sister Weng and I just had such a good time, it'll be hard to top that experience. Sister Weng is so cute. Sometimes she makes faces that look like the bull from Bugs Bunny and makes me laugh so hard. I just love her. She teases me and I love our companion studies. They are so edifying. She loves the gospel but she's very real. Anyway, I'm really sad to leave Zhubei. It's the "Yingxu Di" or Promised Land. I'm so afraid of being sent to a big city. So many people stresses me out and I'm afraid I'll get hit by a bus or something. Apparently taxi drivers hate missionaries...

ANyway, so Tuesday night Sister Weng and I went to Taibei and stayed in the temple hotel thingy while we waited for Sister Li, our new companion. Sister Li is American Born Chinese, so she speaks complete fluent Chinese and English, her parents are Chinese and she grew up in Provo. So she actually came 2 weeks before the transfer, just like me. So now we're in a trio until next preparation day. It's interesting how Heavenly Father always puts you in situations that help you further understand others. I'm now in the same position as Sister Scott from my 1st transfer. I'm the 3rd wheel missionary sleeping on the floor and living out of a suitcase. Actually, we just separated one of the bed's mattress and box springs so our beds are actually right side by side. It's kind of fun. Like a slumber party every night. My bed is in the middle of the floor, which is nice, because that's the coldest part. Here are the things I'll miss most about Zhubei:

1. The Hotpot restaurant (restaurant in the loose sense of the word...) with the all you can eat ice cream and pop
2. The Leprechaun Man. That's actually not a very nice thing to call him...he's actually this really cute handicapped man that hangs out outside of an investigator's hair salon. He has fluffy hair and side burns and always wears shorts and a green vest, so he REALLY looks like a hobbit or a leprechaun. But he always waves at us when we pass and he's so excited to see us. One day a man was just giving out peanut butter popsicles and when he gave L. M. one I've never seen a human being that happy. It was so cute.
3. Our huge beautiful chapel
4. The Relief Society President and the 1st Ward Bishop who collects the stamps.
5. Lai Weiting, my first transfer baptism.
6. Sister Weng!!
7. The BEAUTIFUL scenery in Xinpu, Xinfeng and the Haitan.
8. My own bathroom and a clean, new apartment.

Anyway, that's really not the best of even a small part of how much I love Zhubei. But anyway, I know where ever I go, it will be because the it's the Lord's will and I'll still love it. I find out on Friday where I'll go. Scared!!!

So we had a neat experience the other day during exchanges. We got kind of lost looking for a less active member's house because it was dark, and the address was wrong. So we were biking in an old part of Zhubei, surrounded by very old homes and rice fields, when we passed a woman who just walked out of her house. Sister Collyer contacted her and the 3 of us (Me, Sis Collyer, and Sis Li) bore testimony and tried to get her to set up a time, but finally she just said no and we left. But I told the Sisters that while we were trying to convince her to meet with us, I had had a feeling that we shouldn't ask, we should just start teaching. But we'd lost our chance since she now didn't want to talk. But we then decided that the NEXT person, we would just start teaching. Two minutes later, we stopped to check the address and saw a man smoking outside his house. We acted on our decision and taught the man the first lesson. He was 67 years old and we gave him a Book of Mormon and will meet with the Elders! It was just neat because the Spirit was really strong in the lesson and all 3 of us are very new missionaries --Sister Collyer and I with horrid Chinese and Sister Li only out for 2 days. It was neat. I really know that when we depend on the Lord, the power of the Atonement can enable us to do great things. The other day an investigator asked why missionaries who are so young go out and preach the gospel and we shared with her Alma 36:6-7. And this scripture is very true:
"Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.
"And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and be very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls."

Missionary work and life is just a miracle sometimes. I think Heavenly Father works in every detail of our lives to try to bring us back to Him. It's just our choice to follow Him and listen/notice His enticements. Over a month ago, Sister Weng and I talked to this man cleaning out his van. We tried to set up with him but he kind of laughed at us and said "here's my card but I'm not interested". So we took his card and just held onto it and thought nothing would ever come of it. Then we laughingly gave his card to the Elders the other day and the man came to church and is now taking the lessons! Miracles! I fully believe that in that month, the Lord used that time to prepare him to be more receptive to the gospel, so when the Elders called him, it was the right time.

Anyway, life is good! I love you!! I'm working on my handwritten letters to all of you!! Dad, I need your physical address! Love you!!

Coley

Teach me all that I must do

Hello Jiating!

How is everyone? Happy Birthday Danny! I hope everyone is having fun and getting ready for the summer!! I bet everyone is so excited!

Here's the latest from Pooh. By the way, I hope my emails aren't really pointless and boring. If they are, please tell me and I'll try to shake it up or something:

*I found out that I have an unpleasant sun allergy. I know Rachel and Jessica do as well, and I thought I did before too, but as I've always had the Madam Mim approach to the outdoors ("I hate horrible wholesome sunshine. HATE HATE HATE!!!) I never really knew my skin was this sensitive. Last week the sun came out really bright and my forearms are in the direct light as I ride my bike all day. At first they just itched like crazy then I started developing a rash with little white blistery bubble things. So now every morning I put on a lot of sunscreen and every night I put on a lot of Aloe Vera. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I tan so well (even if the tan is only from my sleeve to my wrists...) but every Chinese person (even mid-lesson) points to my arms and says "tsk tsk, Hei hei!" Or "black black!" Every sunny day my companion says "I hate being black!"

*We went to a ward activity on Saturday at the beach. It was so windy the sand stung our skin so bad! We cleaned the beach of all the garbage and junk. It was kind of gross and scary because there were sick stuff like syringes and drug paraphernalia all over the place. The Relief Society President, Dai Jiemei that I told you about last email, was SO funny!! She was afraid of getting black in the sun, so she wore some sort of flowery head covering that resembled a ski mask with only a rectangle opening for her eyes. She looked like a ninja. Then the wind was so strong it kept blowing her shirt up. She's really the funniest, most wonderful women. I really look up to her. After we cleaned the beach, we played volleyball and relay games. It was so much fun!! That ward is so good. Us missionaries obviously couldn't go anywhere near the water (which was fine, it wasn't that warm plus the foam that kept washing up was some frothy puke color) but it was still awesome! The waves were really pretty since it was so windy.

*We knocked some doors last night before going in. It was pouring rain and we were both soaked so no one let us in. We spoke to a man through his intercom and he said he was Christian already so he wasn't interested. We didn't have a BOM to leave, so we put a whole gospel principles book in his mailbox. Haha. We had it left over because we'd donated a few of them to the local library. We'll see what happens with that!

*The other day we were teaching Li Pei Qi, a 27 year old girl who is the daughter of a woman I met at a stoplight. Mid lesson she looked at me and said "I don't want to ruin your lesson, but you have a little spider on your head." Haha. Our member who came with us, Jessica, who is REALLY funny, grabbed a tissue and instead of flicking the spider off, squished it on my head! Haha!

*Early last week Sister Weng and I were going around in the evening and contacting people on the street. That specific day I just felt especially afraid of contacting and speaking in Chinese. In my mind I just prayed and said "Ugh, I just can't do this. My Chinese isn't good enough and it's just too hard." I then had a thought come strongly in my mind that said something to the effect of "Do you actually think I'd let you do My work alone?" That was a big moment for me. It really taught me something important about God. I have often had the thought that I am doing missionary work and Heavenly Father is looking down on my like this is some big test and if I don't do it just so, then I'll fail and He'll be disappointed or someone won't get baptized or something. But at that moment I just realized that Heavenly Father isn't scrutinizing our performance with a clipboard but that He's always in the action with us--as if He's contacting as well, if you will. And the reason He wants us to be obedient, to work hard, to talk to everyone, etc. isn't because "if we don't he'll be REALLY REALLY ANGRY!!" but because if we do those things, we'll be eligible for blessings according to the laws He's already established. So He's always encouraging us to do better and be better so He can bless us because that's all He really wants to do. Bless us and help us bless other people He loves. He's a lot like the sweet Chinese fathers I see around Taiwan, taking their little toddlers out on their little tricycles or with their little toys, holding their hand or pushing them along. Heavenly Father is always there helping us like we're just little kids. But sometimes, we're like the little kids who have delicious candy in a hard to open wrapper and we "just wanna do it ourselves" and we struggle and struggle and whine that we can't eat the candy. Then finally we say "fine, Dad, will you open it for me?" I'm still working on that part. Sometimes you walk into a lesson, then walk out and realize that you taught that whole thing depending totally on yourself. And you know that that's why the Spirit wasn't quite there, or your Chinese wasn't all that understandable. But then there are the occasional lessons where you feel like you can't do it, and pray your face off as you bike to the appointment and the lesson just works out because you gave it to the Lord.

*As far as learning Chinese goes, that ALSO has taught me a big lesson. 1) That despite the fact that I'm NOT good at studying, I really have learned alot. That alone has taught me another thing about Heavenly Father. That He sometimes blesses us even if we don't necessarily deserve it. He just does it because He loves us and cuts us some slack. 2) If you're grateful for what you HAVE learned, you'll see that you HAVE learned! 3) Sometimes it takes a while to learn something not because Heavenly Father is thinking "I just want to humble you for a little while so just figure it out by yourself, bye!" But sometimes it takes a while because again, He has to operate by His own laws and sometimes He just needs something to work with. If I pray every day that I will learn "a lot of new words today!" but then don't choose the words I want to learn and provide a way for it to happen, then Heavenly Father's "got nuttin' " to work with. He won't just magically plant 30 new chinese words in our memories every day. I'm sure if we were brain damaged and it was His will to do so He could. But really He just wants us to learn how to learn and He'll expedite the process. Anyway. It's been a good week. I think I've learned this lesson about God's merciful character dozens of times, and I will still keep learning it over and over again. I think it's the hardest thing for me to learn and have faith in so I'm really grateful that He's patient enough to keep teaching me.

I love you all!! The church is true!! Joseph Smith was a prophet!! The other day in a lesson we watched the "Restoration" DVD and I remembered my trip to Nauvoo with Mom, Dad and Michael and was really touched by the Spirit. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet and restored the full and living gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth. Love you all!!! I love every one of you!! MUAH!!!

Coley

Apostle Visits

Hey Family!!!!

I can't tell you how amazing it was to talk to you on Monday!!! I loved talking to all of you and hearing about all you're amazing things that are going on and your new goals and desires in life. I'm glad everything is going so well for everyone!! What a big blessing!!

Well, things have been really good! Last week we had a mission conference and Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve came! We all got to shake his hand. I told him I was from Sandy and he and his wife were excited because I guess they are too. I wish I brought some notes with me...but he basically did what Elder Holland did in the MTC and just answered missionary's weird questions. Haha. One of them was "what God's hand was in other religions?" He said a lot of stuff, but one thing in particular I liked was that he said that some people receive all sorts of blessings because as the scriptures say, there is a law in which all blessins are predicated ...or something like that. So it doesn't matter if people know they are keeping a commandment or not, they will still receive the blessing. That makes alot of sense to me. He and his wife then spoke in our Stake Conference. Their talks were about building faith and getting people to the temple. He said he was really sad that only 14% of the adults in the stake had been through the temple and said that people needed to do all they could to get there. Sister Christofferson's talk was amazing!! Maybe you've all heard this story before, but I hadn't. She talked about a bishop who always helped people who were stranded on the side of the road because he trully wanted to live the gospel. But one day he was robbed and thrown in his trunk and driven across town and left in a parking lot. By the time the police found him, he'd died. But he'd managed to open a little can of house paint and with his finger write "It's true. He lives." A lot of people were crying. So good.

We went on exchanges yesterday. I went with Sis Collyer from the MTC and we had a BLAST! We had some miracles happen. I felt like we should find an open place to eat dinner and someone would come up to us. We went to a park to eat, the lo! A woman came up to us and said, I want your Elders to visit my son in the hospital. AMazing!! Time is up!! Gotta Run! The picture is of Sis Collyer. If I had more time I would have added more pictures or a picture of me. :S

Love you all!!

Coley

Chi Bao le ma?

Hi Family!!

The first week of my 3rd transfer is over and all is swell in Zhubei! Hey, just for clarification, my mailing address never changes. I used to think that when someone was transfered you'd have to mail to a different address, but I guess it always goes to the mission office. I know Jessica had mentioned needing the new address, but it is the same! :)

This week has been SO GOOD!!!! I LOVE my companion, Sister Weng. She's so cute and so much fun. She loves Stitch from Lilo and Stitch, which is funny, because she kind of reminds me of/looks like Stitch. She's really random and scatter brained, very down to earth, and just funny. She's VERY clean, which is good for me. We spent 5 ours of our P-day scouring our apartment. It looks and smells so nice! Haha. She is a very picky eater, which is funny too. She thinks everything is so "exin". Funny, you'd think she's not from Taiwan. She really loves "cute" things. So she bought the little happy meal toy stuffed rabbit at McDonalds and sometimes buys little toys at 7-11. She's so funny. She's also very humble and spiritual. We have some good conversations. She has a lot of faith and is very honest about her feelings. I love it!

So our second day together we had to make our transfer baptismal goals to send to the Zone Leaders. We went over all our investigators and Sister Weng said, "Let's do 8." I thought that was a very high number, but I thought she knows what she's talking about, so I didn't worry about it. Well, as it turns out, last month our entire mission baptized 37 people and the goal for our little district of 4 companionships is 21! Haha. The Zone Leaders gave a lecture to the district leaders (I was there just because my companion is the coordinating sister in the zone) about making goals too high and stuff. It kind of was frustrating just because who says we can't achieve that goal? Seeing as we only got 1 baptism last transfer you may say it is highly improbable of finding and baptising 8 people. But seeing as Sister Weng and I already made the goal and can't change it, why squelch our faith? Lecture us AFTER we don't achieve it. So anyway, it's been a really good week. We've prayed ALOT and done alot of changing. I've realized that for too long I've allowed myself to be a back-seat companion because I was too afraid of speaking or I figured I would "ease into it". Sister Weng is an amazing contacter. She contacts everyone she sees, which is very exhillirating (still frightening). So I've tried to do alot of changing and am contacting ALOT more people. It feels SO much better. There's no guilt when you're talking with all you can. I still can do so much more. Our district leader, Elder Broadhead, is a very good guy and has alot of faith. Instead of passing on the message that our goals are too high, he's pumped up our district to try our best and have as much faith as we can to achieve the goal. He told me the other day that he had some inspiration that if I watch Sister Weng and do everything she does and "get in on the action" then we'll see miracles. I still have alot to do, but it's gotten better and actually, we ARE seeing miracles!! Our 8 goal had no foundation, but we so far have 3 people that are farely solid with 1 that is almost there. They are really neat people and have alot of faith. It's really neat because we know that really, these people coming to us out of no where has been nothing of our doing. Heavenly Father really blesses us if we believe He will and we do our own part. I know that's true. If we can be as motivated as we have been, things will be great. Here are a couple of the miracles (although small) that have happened in the past week:

1. We taught the cutest 50 year old women named Lily. We set a baptismal date and she accepted it very easily. Then we taught her the word of wisdom and she came to Church the next day very tired because she'd already gone cold turkey on coffee and tea. She's soooo full of faith and so good! She read half of 1 Nephi in a week!

2. A woman named Grace came to English class. Elder Sessions taught about baptism in his after-class "fenxiang" and she came up to him and said, "what does it take to be baptized?" We taught her for the first time yesterday and she set a baptismal date!

3. I contacted a woman at a stoplight but didn't have time to get her info before the light changed. On the other side of the intersection, SHE stopped ME to give me her information and set up an appointment to meet. So cool!!

4. We're just meeting alot of people. I really believe that when we make a decision that we will contact everyone we see, he will trust us to place prepared people in our path so that we will contact them. I fully believe that. I believe that's the case with everything. When I get home I want to try it. If we make a decision to look for an opportunity to serve someone, bare our testimony, whatever everyday, the Lord will put someone in our path who needs it most because he'll trust that you'll do it.

5. We tracted a door of a girl that had wanted to join the church a while ago but hadn't due to family opposition. She set up an appointment with us!

Anyway, despite the miracles and good things that are happening, we've had some let downs too. It's been good though. We had such a good feeling when we prayed for 8 people to receive the gospel that we know that every let down is just a trial of our faith so it doesn't hurt quite as much. For instance, we lost our cell phone...this hurts our work quite a bit...but it's gotta be for a reason, right? And no, I wasn't the one who lost it. Haha. But we also had a really awesome investigator, Liao Ming Hua tell us that her life had changed since she met us so she was thinking of setting a baptismal date sometime--but then her daughter miscarried and she was so sad that she "lost desire and that feeling to continue" so she cancelled her lessons with us!! Ku!!! (cry). So SAD!!

Anyway, it's been a really good week and alot of fun. Haha, an investigator came to church yesterday, sat down, and held my hand!! She held it for at LEAST 3 minutes. It was so awkward!! I didn't know what to do! Haha. Very interesting.

Anyway, life is great! Elder Christofferson is coming this weekend! So excited!

Love you all!!
Coley

I am short, fat, proud of that...

...and looking for things to chew...like honey, milk and chocolate....

If you don't understand, you need to catch up on your Winnie the Pooh..

:) Well, this week has been great! We had a good Zone conference with the President on Tuesday and learned a lot about the power of the Book of Mormon and were challenged to share it on the street. It was really good. I'm still working on my sharing skills, but I got someone's phone number from sharing from the BoM so it's good. I just want to take this opportunity to say, that I really know the Book of Mormon is true. There really is nothing more amazing and powerful as that book. No other book or thing in the world does as much. It testifies that Joseph Smith was a prophet, Jesus is the Christ, God loves us. I know it's true!!

I didn't pace myself today again, so I have 2 minutes before time is out!! AH!!! So yeah, this week was good. Watch conference if you didn't get a chance to on LDS.org. SO good!! I loved Elder Hollands talk "don't serve them tea and crumpets and show them where the silverware is kept. you shouldn't be serving tea anyway. Throw the rascals out!" Haha.

I learned some good lessons this week and had some neat experiences with a "golden" investigator. It was a really good week. Thank you for your prayers. Love you all!! PS. I gave my physical address exactly a month ago and have gotten exactly ONE letter!! Write! :)

Love you all!!

Coley

Nimen Hao

Hi Family!

This week was good and crazy. We had my first baptism in Taiwan on Saturday. Her name is Lai Weiting. She's 21 and pregnant. I can't remember if I've already said anything about her...? She is really funny. She has the mentality of an 8 year old, so she's been really fun to teach. She talks about how "shuai" (handsome) the Elders are, especially the "pang pang" (chubby chubby) ones. Haha. Her baptism went well. She really loves the gospel and was so excited to be baptized. We're worried that since she's pregnant she'll have a hard time continuing to come to church and stuff. But the bishop and RS presidency sat her down on sunday and welcomed her into the ward and worked out rides to church and stuff. They don't want to lose her. She've very innocent and VERY pretty, so the ward is worried about her being taken advantage of (as she is pregnant, that may have already been the case). She's really sweet.
We're teaching ALOT of Young Women still. One of them is getting baptized this Saturday if her dad will let her. She's 17. Her name is Ilka. She is really shy and sweet and really smart. Really, we did very little teaching. She pretty much read the Book of Mormon on her own, so by the time we taught her something, she'd already read something in the BOM about it and knew the answer. She's amazing. She said that from reading the BoM she knew it was true. She really wants to get baptized and her Mom let her but she's afraid to ask her dad because she's afraid he'll say no.
We are also teaching an older woman and her 13 year old son. They live with the father, and her mother and siblings still. It's like they all got married and still live at home. They are a really good happy family. She's REALLY hard for me to understand. She speaks "Taiyu" and/or "Hakka" which are native dialects often and I'm totally lost. Her accent is impossible for me to understand. But she's really wonderful and they are always giving us fruit and making food without "mianfen" (flour) for me. We asked her how she felt about baptism and she said if she weren't married she'd accept it without a problem. But she's worried about family opposition. We found out her husband runs a porn DVD shop. Eeek. Law of Chastity ought to be an interesting lesson...

I LOVE the wards here. The Members are so good! The bishop Wu Zhujiao is so hardworking and fun. He collects stamps, so the other day I gave him some stamps from some letters I'd gotten and he practically started hyperventillating he was so excited. The Shao family went through the temple and were sealed on Saturday, and Wu Cai Jia received her Endowments as well. We weren't able to attend, but it's so exciting when members are so strong and make big commitments. I love it.

Haha, so the other day my companion got in a bike accident. She wasn't going very fast, so everyone was okay, but she was in a head-on collision with a scooter! She and the scooter man both ended up on the pavement. Scooter man's seat fell off his scooter and Sister Kunzler's front wheel was shaped like an 8. Her bike is totalled so she's using the bishop's wife's until she leaves next week.

Speaking of which, transfers are coming up! I'm petrified. Getting a new companion is a scary thing. They could be CRAZY! Or they could think I'M crazy! Either way, it'll be good. I am halfway scared of and halfway hoping for a native companion. It would be so hard but so good for practicing Chinese.

The language skills have been coming on and off. The other day I was having a bad with Chinese. I had 3+ people outright tell me my Chinese was bad. That's unusual for Chinese people...they usually say you're great even if you can only say Ni Hao. That was a kick to the pride. Then our guanli (apt building security guard) made fun of me and said I look like Donald Duck because I wear my bag around my waste and behind me. So every time he sees me he swings his hips and walks like Donald Duck. Grrrr...

Today was fun. We went to a garden on a mountain with a member. It was really pretty but a LONG drive. Ni Jiemei "qing-ed" us or treated us to lunch at a restaurant at the garden. I ordered a seafood hot pot which I thought would be a friendly little bowl of fish soup similar to something you'd get at McGraths or something. Everyone ELSE'S meal looked normal. But when I got my soup, it was in a HUGE bowl and as I stirred through it I found little bird eggs, entire shrimp, mini octopuses, 4 inch oysters and so much more that I had didn't recognize. I kept having to spit out shrimp antennae. Aside from the strangeness, it was good!

Hmmm...what else is happening here? We had interviews with the mission president...he told me to not stress out. Haha. Hmmm...I don't know. But things are good. I'm learning alot (despite even myself doubting that...) and it's been really good. It's been a test to the patience, but life is great.

Love you all!!! Miss you!

Coley

Ghosts, Gummy Soup, and the Gospel---oh my!

Hello!

Hi! I hope everyone is doing great and life is treating everyone well! Remember to pray always and read your scriptures!

So! Let's see, what has happened this week? This week has been not so great yet great at the same time. We taught alot of lessons (23) which was a huge blessing, but only found one new investigator and one investigator come to Church. :S Yeesh. It's been rough. It's been rough for the work and rough for me personally. Still trying to adjust and fight some homesickness and frustration with myself and the language. But things are better and will be even better. It's less lonely as I get to know the members (even if they don't understand me, at least there are beginning to be familiar faces). Things have been good in other areas though. We have one investigator that is sooo sweet and shy. She's 17 and despite her shyness has come to church 3 times and 2 of those times were completely alone. She reads and prays and stopped drinking tea and coffee and said she "feels good" since she stopped. She has a baptismal date, but she isn't positive if she'll be ready by then. But she's doing everything and is just amazing, so we have faith she'll be baptized. That ward NEEDS Young Women. They have ONE. So we're wanting to fill that area. The YW President is so awesome. She's getting sealed in a couple of weeks and we may be able to go. So exciting! The Shaos have only been members for a little over a year. She had an interesting story as well...it seems like Taiwan has ALOT of "Ghost" stories. Alot of people see or say they see ghosts and spirits. But I believe them. When you have a culture wrapped up in creepy voodoo (not literally voodoo...but just very spiritual and worshipping all sorts of dead things...) then you'll undoubtably see some weird dongxi. The YW President said her 4 year old daughter sees 5 ghosts on a regular basis. 2 Parents, 2 children, and "a king". They are creepy and watch them in their apartment. They got so creeped out by this that they prayed, fasted, gave everyone a blessing, etc. but nothing worked. She even turned to Buddhist "bai bai"-ing and incense junk to get rid of them, but that didn't work either. Then she had the Bishop come over and dedicate their home and LO! The ghosts are gone! Strange, huh??

We went a visited a Less Active Member in Hukou the other day. She's Indonesian and fed us Indonesian food. It was soooo good but so spicy! It's funny, I've found that Asian food cares very little about presentation and texture. The Indonesian food had intestine in it, but tasted great. There was also this saucy hard boiled egg stuff that looked like it was scraped out of the bottom of a dumpster, but tasted great. The crab she made looked like it had been rolled in a mire, but was crazy tastey. It's funny, they put gummy worms in their soup! We ate a sweet potato soup and there were little (less sweet) gummy worms in it. Haha, SO weird. I think I'm getting used to the food though. The first night I was here we ate "Dou Hua" which I thought was sick but now it's my favorite thing in the world!! SOOO good! So light and sweet. I've lost weight the past couple weeks. The first little bit I was here I ate alot of rice and peanut butter and grew an unsightly "Bundt cake" around my belly button, but it's now just a wee little donut. But one of our investigators told me I have "more of a duzi than my companion" and patted my stomache. Grr!! Haha.

We're SO excited for General Conference! I'm so jealous of all of you that already got to see it!! We watched Pres Monson's talk last night, but won't see the rest until this weekend. His opening talk was different than it normally is. I was surprised. We had a woman get up in testimony meeting yesterday hysterical and heated about how much of a blessing it is that we have living prophet who talks with God and people still skip or sleep through conference. I quite agree! She's a good woman.

Today is a holiday. It's "Sao Mu" or Tomb Sweeping Day. It's pretty much like Memorial Day, but they also "bai bai" or worship their dead while they are there. Isn't it so interesting that Sao Mu lands right around Easter? Hmmm...interesting. Wow, the Church is true. Some of their characters even have gospel connections! Like "yi" for the word "righteous" is the symbol of a Lamb over the symbol of Me. So like "lamb over me". There's also some sort of ancient tapestry they found in China that has Adam and Even and temple things on it. Interesting, eh?? I am positive that the Chinese had the gospel anciently. I have no doubt.

The other day we had a funny little event...I can never remember if I already told this in another email...but oh well. I ran over a plastic bag and it got caught in the gears. A guy ran over and helped me pick it out and cut his finger in the process. As that was happening, my companion's bike fell over and her papers full of vital info blew ALL over the road. So while I'm picking trash out of my gears, she's dodging traffic picking up a progress records. Geh. The wind here is SO strong.

Have I told anything about Phillipinos and their "indentured servitude"? It's soooo rough. A TON of Phillipinos come and work here in Taiwan as restaurant employees, field workers, nannies, factory workers, etc. They sign 3 year contracts and work from 8am to 8pm or more. Most of the time they don't get a single day off. They live either above the restaurants they work at, in dorms with other Phillipinos, etc. They send their money home and generally sign SEVERAL contracts. Some people have been working for 9 years. Can you imagine being single, alone, working 12+ hour days, having no day off, sending your money home, not being able to go to church (if you're a member, which quite a few are), and doing all that for YEARS?? And being in your 20s! I can't imagine it. One of our new members, Cecile, is the sweetest thing ever. She's working and doing all this to pay for her cousin to go to college. Wow, I'm a bad cousin, because I don't think I'd ever do that. Speaking of cousins, is Uncle David doing okay??

Well, gotta go. Today we're going to Xinzhu to eat sea food!

Love you all!
Coley

"Stressed out of my GOURD!"

Hey!!

My time short again today. Grrr...but I'll try to remember all that's happened recently! I might have to do it in bullet point presentation though. :S

--It's been a rough couple weeks. I think the culture shock has finally set in and my frustration with Chinese is mounting. I'm blessed that I can understand it really well, but speaking is the biggest headache and I sound like a 2 year old.

--I've been stressed out of my gourd, but so has my companion...so maybe it's SATAN and it means good things are on their way!

--Good things actually have been happening...Last week we had a member bring 10+ of her High school students to a BYU-H info meeting at the church then pull them aside and say, "hey, why not listen to the missionaries?" So we're meeting with 8 of those girls and they are SO cute!! One of them has a tentative baptismal date. The lessons with them have been good and full of the Spirit.

--We had an investigator (a NON progressing investigator, mind you) tell us out of the blue that she had a testimony and wanted to get baptized ASAP. CRAZY. We had a new member explain to us (and I fully believe) that the only way someone will ever have a desire to be baptized and to CHANGE is if they are in a valley of hard times. If they are feeling like they are on top of everything and are doing great without any change, why would they? Hence, WHY we have trials.

BLAST!! Time is up. :( Bah, Sorry. Thank you all for your emails and letters. I love reading them and they make me feel loved and warm inside. :)

Love you!
Poohy

"Good job, it stinks to be you"

Hey!!

FINE, FINE!! SORRY!! Haha, Yes, I completely space sending my address every time! But here it is:

4/F #24 Lane 183
Chin Hua Street
Da An District
Taiwan, Taibei, 106
TAIWAN

Hope to hear from you all soon. :D

Well, life is good in Taiwan. Full of lots of ups and downs. The ups being beautiful bike-rides, people who accept meeting with us, having a moment when my Chinese sounds good, having someone accept a pamphlet; the downs being overwhelmed with the language, lonely when everyone knows what's going on but me, and being occasionally petrified to talk to people on the street. But all these things are part of the process I suppose. I really enjoy it. We had zone conference last week which focused on having a "vision". Having a vision for ourselves, for our areas, for our missions, for our lives. When you have a vision, you have a drive, and goals that keep progressing. So we visited Wu Zhujiao (Bishop Wu) and asked him what his vision for the ward is. Satan is hitting families hard here too, from what he says. So his vision for the ward is for the members to "return to the basics" of the gospel and to let it strengthen their families, THEN for the spirit of the gospel to give them a passion for sharing the gospel. So we're going to visit the member families this transfer and strengthen them and look for referrals. It should be great! My companion is Sister Kunzler (Sister Scott was transfered to YongHe). She is on her last transfer so she has high goals and alot of drive to go out with a bang. And I'm fresh and clueless so we're ready to do big things. We just need to have faith and optimism and things will work out. Really, I'm clueless and frustrated often, but the Lord makes up for our weaknesses and we really do see miracles happening often. We got 13 referrals last week from sheer miracle, for instance. Our goal as a companionship is to baptize a family before she leaves.

Hmmm...anything happen this week? It rained cats and dogs (I explained that term to a fluent English speaker the other day and was so proud of the random knowledge I learned from Pioneer Village) for a few days. We showed up to church with soaking skirts and squishing shoes. I think people are used to missionaries looking like rats. They have this phrase: "oh, hen xinku" which pretty much means "oh, good job, it stinks to be you," in essence.

Thursday was alot of fun. It was the beginning of a new transfer and since I never got arrival training, I got to go to Taibei and have that training with Sister Collyer who just came from the MTC that day. Sister Collyer is the BEST! She reminds me alot of Brewy and Cousin Carolyn, so she is amazing and fun and really a GREAT missionary. We always joke and say we're related because once we went to the Provo temple and an old worker said, "oh, Dowdle, my ancestors were Dowdles in Cache valley." Then Sister Collyer talked to him and he said "Oh, Collyer, my ancestors were Collyers in Cache valley. They married the Dowdles." Haha. So we say we're related by marriage. Anyway, we had our training in Taibai, which was nice. The President is AWESOME! He's SO laid back. Not as laid back as President Laney, but pretty darn close. We are allowed to watch Disney movies on PDay! When we went to pick up Sis Collyer at the airport, we watched a Lakers game. The whole training was so laidback and nice. We got to buy some dictionaries. Oh yeah, and he took us to the dedication site of Taiwan where we all (president and sister Grimley, the Wrides who are a new Sr. Couple, the APs, Sis Collyer and I) bore our testimonies and had private prayers where we dedicated ourselves to the preaching of the gospel in Taiwan. It was cool. Then we saw the Grand Hotel which was AMAZING. It's HUGE and intricate and gorgeous. I will stay there before I die.

So I don't know...not alot of things different happen in a week, so I can't remember what I've already said about Taiwan. Hmmm...everything molds. My closet, food, etc. I had a cough drop MELT. Weird! We have to keep our scrap food garbage in the freezer. We have the biggest chapel in Taiwan. Hmmm...We went to the Temple and it was 2000 degrees in there. We email in a internet cafe full of smoke and the sound of machine guns. Teenagers stay here for HOURS and have their food delivered to their computers. Sick. I'm trying to walk flat-footed...tell that to Heather. We'll both have a goal of walking flat by the time I get home. No one can read my Chinese character. They stare at it forever before they figure it out.

Well, I love you all!
The Church is True!
Sister Poohface/ Dent Jiemei

Missionary work weddings!

It's P-day again! I'm trying to think of all that's happened in the past few days...

The members are amazing here. There was a wedding reception in the ward and the adorable bride and groom turned it into a missionary event. They had pass-along cards and pamphlets at their guest book table and their wedding video was being played to "I know that my redeemer lives". They had the Bishop speak about Eternal Families and the Relief Society sang Families can be Together Forever. It was so neat. There were so many non-members, it was awesome! I love the strong people here. We also had a cool experience with contacting. So, I don't speak Chinese...and this is a probably and causes me much frustration and sadness. But the other day we were contacting on scooters (ride up to a scooter when we're stopped at a light and give them a mini lesson and a pamphlet) and I couldn't say much. Alot of time I just said "I want to give you this. It was will help you find happiness in your life". But I decided to write our phone number on the back of all my pamphlets and we actually had a guy I talked to call us yesterday and he's going to meet with the Elders! Isn't that cool? It's another testimony that as long as we're doing what we should, the Lord will allow someone who is prepared to hear the gospel to be in the right place at the right time to meet the missionaries. Heavenly Father really loves us. And it's really incredible what your eyes are opened up to on a mission. This is one thing that is HUGE that I've seen that has really been a testimony builder. And that is, that those who are active, strong members, ARE happier and have better families and more stable lives. Those who fall into inactivity generally have alot of "mafan" or trials, annoyances, unhappiness, and more family strife. It's really amazing. It goes back to what I remember someone said in testimony meeting in a ward we attended in South Jordan: That people don't change, but the GOSPEL changes people. It really is 100% true.

So we're having some new training on having a "vision" for our mission/area/ourselves. If you have a vision about something, you will most likely make goals that will actually allow you to achieve your vision. My companion pointed out that we are in an area with a HUGE (the biggest in Taiwan) LDS chapel that is beautiful. But our wards don't fill half of the chapel. But that's okay, because the Church and the Lord have a vision for this area. Someday, that chapel will be full and the overflow doors will have to be opened to have room enough to receive all the members. Now the Church and God have this vision, so the missionaries and members now need it too to accomplish it. It makes me so excited to be here. Times are really hard sometimes...I get frustrated with my language abilities and get lonely not being able to speak with people. But I love it and feel so lucky to be in this area with these great people. The Chinese are really something special. I feel like "Gladys Aylward" on a much lesser level. Haha. You should all google and find the Dedicatory Prayer for China by David O McKay.

I always LOVE hearing from you all. I love hearing about your lives!

Love you all!

Coley

PICTURES from serving in SLC!

White board of Missionary Work!
Happily Tracting!

Woohoo!! Emailing family!

Townsend's Baptism!

I can't believe I'm a MISSIONARY!!! WEEEEEEEE!!!

FINALLY in Taiwan!!!

I'm in Taiwan and I love it!! Very little culture shock...it's just like coming home! It's almost exactly like China, except I get to share the gospel, which is a dream come true. In China I always wanted to tell the people about the church but couldn't and now I can! I love it...but my Chinese is horrid so they don't understand me. Alas. But the day will come! I don't have a whole ton of time, so I will just make a wee little list of the fun things about Taiwan.

1. I have 2 companions. Sister Scott and Kunzler. They are awesome. Sister Scott is African American and people apparently ask her often if she's Obama's daughter. Haha. Sister Kunzler is from South Carolina and Sister Scott is from Maryland.

2. I'm in a suburb of Xinzhu called Zhubei. It's HUGE!! My area in SL was about 15 blocks. This is several miles. We biked for 45 minutes to an investigator's house yesterday. I'll tell you. The best way to work off cellulite is biking for a million years. My rear hurts so bad but it looks awesome! haha. I breathe scooter exhaust all day, but meh, oh well. There are a bajillion scooters here.

3. I haven't seen Jay Chou yet, but don't worry, I will baptize him before I leave. :D

4. Little boys are adorable yet evil. They torture their mothers but they are so cute their Mom's can't stay mad at them.

5. My skin is always super clammy because of the humidity. I hate it. I feel so sticky. But I must have hair similar to Asians because I stopped using conditioner too and my hair is awesome. When I first got here I used conditioner and it looked like I rubbed my head in bacon.

6. Sleeping is misery. Remember nice, cozy, dry sheets? Well pretend that every night someone snuck in your room with a spray bottle and dampened your whole bed. It's SO uncomfortable. It makes my skin crawl.

7. I really could like in Taiwan forever. I hope that umm...whomever I marry wouldn't be opposed to living here. Haha. I love it so much. It brings back great memories and feelings of China and the people and atmosphere is so wonderful. I love it!

8. Biking in a skirt is an adventure. Sometimes you have no choice but to flash the world your undies. Some people have said, "oh, I know the Sister missionaries! They are the ones with the white biking shorts." Yeah...Anyway, I'm improving.

9. Oh! haha, I have to tell you about my first two contacting experiences. The first one my companion and I walked up to a man and introduced ourselves. I told him I'd just barely gotten to Taiwan and said "I'm nervous to speak Chinese." But the tones were off or something because it came out: "I'm Bible to speak Chinese." Then the next person I talked to, was a 15 year old boy on a scooter. I asked his name and he said, Zeng. I said, "Oh! Mr. Zeng" He said, "actually, it's Miss Zeng". I was mortified!! It was a girl with a boy haircut!! I was freaking out and apologizing but then she just said, "oh don't worry. I'm gay." Awkward!!

10. They make a drink out of everything. I gagged down asparagus juice the other night at a member's house. I was pretty good at staying composed but accidentally shuddered when the member looked my way.

11. Paddington Bear is all the rage here. Weird.

12. I've experienced the singing garbage trucks. When you hear a pleasant tune in the road below, instead of seeing chubby children with their pennies buying nice little ice cream cones, you see hoards of people running out with sacks of garbage.

13. Their are orange spots all over the road from people spitting "beetlenut", a narcotic wrapped in a red substance. Ew!.

14. It's fun to contact people at traffic lights.

15. Everything looks like it came from a Jay Chou music video. Go to Youtube and type "Terraced Field Jay chou" and that's what taiwan looks like.

Love you! TIme is up!!

COloey

Last week in Salt Lake!

So...are my emails getting to everyone? I haven't heard from, Mom, Dad, or Jessica in FOREVER! And Brewy, you're emails aren't getting to me! :( Try to resend them.

Anyhow, this week has been rough, but good! Oh, everyone and their dog in South Jordan has a dog, so I've been in allergy Outer Darkness for a month. It's misery. Anyway. I don't know if I have anything terribly amazing to say today...I'm leaving to Taiwan tomorrow, so I'll call everyone I can (if I can afford a phone card) at the airport. Of course those who have written to me get longer phone call privileges. >:( Haha, just kidding... Anyway, it's sad to leave South Jordan. I actually have really loved this whole experience. It has shown me that it doesn't matter where you serve, just as long as you're serving, you'll love it. I'm really sad to leave some of our really awesome investigators. They are so neat and it's so cool to see them learn. There are the cutest little group of 8-10 year old girls in the neighborhood that we read scriptures with that I'll miss like crazy. They're in one of the pictures I attached.

Well, let's see, one fun event I had yesterday was with our adorable recent convert Townsend (he's the one in the baptism pictures). We taught him some review lessons then the ward mission leader taught him about the Priesthood and Missionary Work. After the lesson was over, we asked Townsend if he wanted to go tracting with us. He was so awesome! He's only 12 but he was fearless and he got us into a door! He taught part of the Joseph Smith story and bore a sweet testimony that was really touching. He is so excited to serve a mission. He was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday too.

I've been teaching Brewy (my sister) more and it's so cool! She's really doing so well. She's alot more like the Brewy I know and she's wanting and already making alot of changes. It was so funny to be with her. My companion was a little confused at our humor...we'd start making Looney Tunes "Bull" and Joanna faces and quoting RockaDoodle and laughing hysterically and she thought we were crazy.
You know what I've learned most of all through this whole experience in South Jordan is thus:
1. Those who fall into inactivity for one reason or another generally are very stressed out people. It seems like those who have fallen away feel a general feeling of frustration, but it's nonetheless REALLY hard to get them active again. It's hard because you know that the gospel will help things for them.
2. People don't change, but the gospel changes people. It's amazing the changes a person can make and the feeling you get around someone when they start living the gospel. Both getting reactivated and newly converted people start to have a new light about them. It's really a VISIBLE thing. It's incredible.
3. Heavenly Father gives you blessings depending on your desires. I have prayed my face off for Brewy (my sister) for a few years now, and it's a testimony to me that Heavenly Father loves us so much that he'd let me have the opportunity to teach Brew. I thought that was so neat.

Anyway, I don't really know what else to talk about. I will call you all tomorrow! :)

Running into family while on the mission!

So this week has been good! Well, first off, seeing Rachel, Robert, Lindsey, Emily, Cousin Bev, and Brewy all in the past week, was really fun!! Haha, I don't know if it was good for the focus...but it was good. I'll try to remember all that happened in the past week, it may be hard though...

1. Last P-Day Rachel took me and my companion to the bank to do the Power of Attorney thinger. It was so fun to see her. It made me realize that I was still in Utah and still Nicole Dowdle. I kind of forgot that...She was really nice and bought me and my companion groceries.

2. Last Tuesday our investigator that was going to get baptized but called us and dropped her date and off the face of the earth, called us and said "what will it take for me to be baptized this Saturday?" We were so excited!! We taught her another lesson and got her all ready. She was so excited and things were going so well!! Our prayers had been answered for her. THEN! Sad story. Some member co-worker of hers found out that she was getting baptized and said, "are you serious? You're rushing things. You're not ready and you're getting baptized for the wrong reasons." This really upset our investigator so she cancelled the baptism!! So upset! Why would a member say such things? So that evening we prayed to know what to do and right afterwards a member called about something totally different. But the member and I were both impressed that he should come with us to see our investigator that night. This member is AWESOME and really a stalward kind guy. So we took him to the investigator's house and everything went well. She's still going to wait on her baptism, but she feels better about things. Then she was praying about her co-worker and right when she did, she got a text from the co-worker apologizing, which really confirmed our investigator's faith. It was good.

3. We tracted an apartment building and ran into a couple "Bible Bashers". It was fun...we didn't bash, but it was interesting.

4. We helped a Hispanic family move for service on Thursday. They had a little boy named Ernesto. He was so funny. I asked if he had any pets. He said, "No we don't have ANY pets. Not a cat, not a dog, not a bird, not a chihuahua." Hahaha. I laughed for so long.

5. We worked hard this week to find people, and were given a kid who wants to be baptized!

6. We are teaching an adorable 9 year old named Andrea. She watched Richard Simmons videos for fun!

7. We had a baptism yesterday! A really awesome boy named Townsend. He has so much faith. His Dad is less active, but he goes to Church anyway. He's such a good boy. He's getting the Priesthood on Sunday and he's so excited. His Dad is starting to show some desire to be reactivated and get the Priesthood too, which is really exciting.

8. President Laney wants Sis Petersen and I to practice Chinese every so often so we have gone on some exchanges with a Mandarin speaking Sister. We taught a 12 year old girl who was just adopted from China. She was soooo funny!! She had so much energy and wore a "hello kitty" headband. The concept of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ blew her mind! We had a book and paintings and she would point to every one and say "This is Jesus Christ?" Sister Tan would say, "No! that's Joseph Smith. You know Jesus Christ has a beard." Then she would laugh and say, oh yeah!

9. We taught Brewy (my sister) the 1st Lesson on Saturday! It was fun to see her again. I miss her alot. Her hair is reddish now, it's pretty cute. It's funny, she wears all my clothes but somehow looks so much cuter in them than I did. Haha. The lesson went well. Brew remembers alot about the Church. The Spirit was really strong, especially at the 1st vision. Anyway, I'll let Brew tell you how she liked it, but I know she felt the Spirit because her eyes were the size of golf-balls after the 1st vision part and she said, "Wow, your companion said that so well, wow, that was crazy. That was intense!" We told her it wasn't how she said it, but it was the Spirit telling her it was true.

10. I saw Emily, Lindsey and Robert on Saturday! We were visiting someone in their friend's neighborhood and I saw their car! We knocked on their friend's door and Emily came to the door and screamed "NICOLE!" It was so cute!! It was so good to see those little girlies again and nice to chat with Robert for a minute. Unfortunately Jessica was out shopping, but maybe I'll run into her before I leave...?

anyway, I've gotta run!! Time's up!

Coley

Nicole hangs out with her sister (*gasp*)

(This post is written by Nicole's sister Rachel)

Due to all Nicole's issues with losing her credit cards and that bag, her mission president gave me permission to see Nicole so we could go to the bank and get things squared away before she left (long story).

So Monday morning I called the mission office and they gave me Nicole's cell phone number upon which I asked for Sister Dowdle.

Nicole picked up the phone and I said in a squirrely Popple voice, "SISTER DOWDLE? This is a Popple!" (inside joke, our family is weird)

She starts shrieking "RACHEL!!! You can't call me here!"

"Yes Coley, I looked in the Illegal Phone Book of Missionary Numbers and found you!"
We met at the mission home and I saw that she had CHOPPED OFF her hair but she was beautiful and shining!

After, I took Nicole and her companion (Sister Peterson) to the bank and helped her tie things off before she left to Taiwan and then I took them to Hobby Lobby and the grocery store, since Monday was their Preparation Day. It was so fun to see her and hang out with her! When would that have been able to happen?? It was awesome. She is such a strong and dedicated missionary. At the bank she even invited the woman from India who was helping us to meet with the missionaries. She doesn't let an opportunity pass her by! She and her companion live in the basement of a very beautiful home owned by a chiropractor who spoils them rotten. She is really enjoying her mission so far, even with this little detour to the Salt Lake City mission. Nicole is told she will have her visa within 1-3 weeks and then she is REALLY off!

We love you Nicole!!!

Drunken Chinese investigators (Week 2 in the SLC mission)

So, 2nd P-Day in the field! This past week was good. We had one of our investigators come to church finally which was awesome. It was a great testimony meeting, which was very good since sometimes they can be scary. Haha. It was really good. There are SUCH good members in this area.

Hmmmm...what happened this last week? Days are SO full of stuff that sometimes you wonder if you've just lived a 36 hour day. Well, my bag is unfortunately lost forever. :( I actually still have faith that I will get it back. Because it turns out no one used my cards, and if I were a crook and stole a bag, I would have at least tried the credit card at Walmart or something. So I don't think it was stolen. Plus, about 40 minutes after I lost the bag I'd called Temple Square and described the bag and they said they'd put it aside and hold it for me. Then magically it *disappeared* and they are assuming that they found another bag that looked like mine when they told me they found mine. I really appreciate Grant going back and forth and searching all over for the bag. I feel so AWFUL because Grant gave me the bag in the first place and it was SO perfect for the Taiwan weather and biking and stuff. WAH! Anyway, what I think happened is some missionary/visitor's center person put it in a *safe* place and it'll come up sometime. This is what I'm praying for at least. Sister Egbert who I live with is so sweet...she replaced my scriptures for me, so I don't have to use my old smelly quad. Haha, my old ratty ones really do smell like puke.

So we tracted a Chinese door at the beginning of the week and set an appointment to come back and teach. The young guy was really nice and his Dad from Beijingdidn't speak English, but was also really fun. It turns out he's some sort of government official from China in their Health Department. He's really interested in the Church, but not from a really religious standpoint. His son said he tried to get into both the Salt Lake and Oquirrh Mountain Temples and the workers had to tell him that he had to have a recommend. But the sad ending to this story, is that when we went back to teach them, the father and their tipsy friend were the only ones who listened to us and they were both drunk. And they both asked questions that were beyond deep and not necessary and confusing altogether. Like "God created us, but nature is different. Nature created itself. Maybe God created people, but He couldn't create Nature". Huh?? Must come from their Daoist background. We asked one of them if he would pray about our message and he immediately closed his eyes and started mumbling then said "sorry, I didn't get an answer". We told him to try again when he was alone and there weren't a ton of people around with crazy amounts of noise and he said "I will probably just start thinking of my girlfriend." Haha. It was interesting. We'd also be in the middle of teaching and the father would get up and get out a HUGE camera and snap dozens and dozens of pictures. Haha. So funny.

We are teaching this cute kid named Townsend. He's 12 and so pure and good. He's getting baptized on Sunday and we're SO excited for him. Tracting is actually kind of fun. It's fun to be surprised at who is behind the door. Sometimes it's an inactive member, sometimes nonmember, sometimes interested, sometimes not. It's fun. We felt prompted to go to a certain door the other day and it ended up being an inactive member that we just did the dishes for. Anyway, missionary work is fun.

Hmmm...well, I can't think of anything else that's of much interest. I'll just say that it's interesting how much your testimony is strengthened by the sharing of it and the sharing of the gospel. And I used to be afraid that if someone said, "You're Church is wrong and blah blah blah" that it would weaken my faith, but so far, it just makes me want grab them by the shoulders and say "If you ONLY knew!! If you only knew what you were saying. The truth is staring you in the face!!"

Anyway, Love you all! Sorry my emails aren't cooler. Haha. Tell me what you're all up to!

Nicole's new address!!

Until further notice,
Nicole's new mission
address is:

Utah Salt Lake City South Mission
Sister Nicole Dowdle
8060 South 615 East
Sandy, Utah 84070

Write her!
She'd LOVE it!

First week in my *new* mission!

Hi all!

SO! Guess where my first area is? South Jordan! I'm in the neighborhoods right behind the District with Hobby Lobby, Harmons, Target, etc, across from the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. It's funny because when I lived with Jessica I applied to work at that same Hobby Lobby and a bunch of places in the District. Haha. It's interesting, I also ran into one of the parents of one of the Elders in my MTC District, Elder Van Wagoner. Random and fun. We live in the basement of the Egberts...it's REALLY small world because they were in the Ashley Park Ward in our old stake but just barely moved into this area. Their daughter Amanda Egbert knew Brewy I think...It's really funny.

Things are very different from #1 how I imagined, and #2 how they'll be in Taiwan. I highly doubt Taiwan will be as cooshy. We have a car and a cell phone and get fed awesome food every night by members. We have to work to get investigators, but often the members are just "fed" to us by members. We are teaching twin 13 year-old boys who were friendshipped by their friend in the stake. One of the boys had stolen the girl's Book of Mormon and wouldn't give it back. He wanted to go to Church with her so he and his twin went with her then we taught them yesterday. They are really good boys! We taught the first vision and the Spirit was really strong. The one brother is a really deep kid. He was very contemplative about the First Vision and they both agreed to pray about it. It was pretty neat. We had a woman drop her baptism and told us she didn't want the lessons anymore which was pretty frustrating, but hopefully her fellowshipper keeps tabs on her.

So I've been trying to really find the reason I'm here and not in Taiwan, so I'm finding every opportunity I can to use Chinese. Our stake doesn't have a whole ton of Chinese people, EXCEPT for my neighborhood. Hmmm...interesting! We knocked on one door and set up an appointment to teach her next Tuesday with a Taiwanese member. Then we knocked another door of a part-member Chinese family. It was funny...if people in Taiwan are the same as these people, it will be VERY interesting, because all 3 of the Chinese houses we've knocked have let us in. But it's funny because they say pretty much "Come in we're not interested!" in the same breath as if it were one sentence. The part-member family opened the door and immediately said "come in!" and the wife yelled from the top of the stairs "we're Buddhist and SO BUSY!" But they were very cordial and talked about how busy they were for about 15 minutes. Haha. The man denied he was a member. I bore my testimony in Chinese and they said, "Oh very good Chinese, bye!" Haha. They were awesome. They looked very much like every older couple we ran into in Ningbo. Then we knocked another Chinese door and an older women and 3 little kids scurried to the door. The woman said she didn't speak English. So I found out at the door in my broken Chinese that she's from Indonesia and is Catholic. She let us in and showed us her ADORABLE grandchildren. I could have stolen that baby, he was SOOO CUTE!!! We chatted for a moment, then I realized..."What is going on? I'm sitting on this lady's couch, we're in her house, it's awkward...I think I'm supposed to start teaching something now." So I blundered through asking her about her belief in prophets and the Bible then told her about Joseph Smith and the first vision. She said she understood (I wonder how much she really did...) and I asked her if she believed Joseph Smith story and she said she did. I asked her to pray about JS and she said she would. It was really cool but there is still so much of a language barrier that I'm not totally sure if she knew what was going on or if I even knew what was going on too. Oh well. When we teach the Chinese family on Tuesday we are going back and going to give her a BOM and we'll have the Taiwanese lady with us so hopefully it will work out.

Anyway, it's really good here. I'm really enjoying this. I honestly am not anticipating Taiwan being this relaxed, but that's okay too. We're given alot of opportunities to serve people. One day we knocked a door of a little girl we were going to teach (parents are members but inactive). The mom answered and said her daughter wasn't going to be baptized any time soon. She was pretty blunt. We could have just walked off the porch, but it just seemed like the lady didn't want us to even though she was saying she did. Then she burst into tears and said life was hard at that time. We felt like we should just give her a hug. It's interesting where Heavenly Father puts you sometimes.

So the mission President Laney is AWESOME! He's so laid back. We go to the temple every Tuesday and new missionaries get to go to Temple Square. So last Friday, Sister Peterson (another Taiwan visa-waiter) and I got to take Trax with a ton of other new missionaries and tour temple square. Of course, I left my stupid bag in the visitors center!! ARGH!!! It had my scriptures and my wallet in it. It's so awkward, because the APs told me to call family or friend to pick it up and give it to them. So embarrassing. BAH. Yes Danny, I lost my purse again. Haha.

Anyway, love you all! Can't wait to hear from you! If you wrote last week, I won't get it until next Monday because our mail schedule is lame. :S

A *BIG* change in plans!

So, I'm sure you've all heard the big news by now. Wow, weird, huh? I was pretty bummed about it at first...REALLY bummed, just because I was so excited to fly out with my district of awesome Elders and my amazing companion. Oh, in case for some crazy reason someone DOESN'T know what's going on...here's the story. I had to have X-rays for my visa to Taiwan. But my X-ray kept coming back as having "nodules" or whatever that means. They finally did a CT scan and found that it was just a false alarm. Unfortunately that held up my visa by several weeks, along with another sister heading to Taiwan named Sister Peterson. I cried, of course, because I think out of my whole district I was most excited for our first 2 days in Taiwan. I already know a bit about the culture and stuff, so I REALLY just wanted to see my district and how they liked it and stuff. WAHHH!!! But anyway, the travel office didn't want us rotting in the MTC any longer than we had to, so they got us a temporary reassignment to...

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Salt Lake City South!! Wahoo!! Haha, it's funny because it covers everything between point of the mountain and south Bountiful. So essentially the same mission as most of my family, the Eastdell Ward, the Harmony Park ward, etc. So...ha, I'm wondering the likelihood of serving in any one of those areas. Kind of hoping to go to South Salt Lake. Go back to the ghetto, haha. It would be so awkward to serve in the Sandy Ward! "Yes...I didn't go very far." I'm afraid of running into someone I know and them thinking I didn't really go on a mission. Haha. So weird!

Hey, so this week has been really good! Actually, it was really bad. But it was bad for a good reason, so it was good. :) I have a firm testimony that right before something awesome happens, really cruddy stuff happens. So my companion and I were having a really horrid week just with alot of anxiety and stress and emotions that we couldn't explain. Oh, some other background. I've felt really impressed to get in contact with a good friend from BYU who's from Beijing. He's way cool, but I haven't talked to him in quite a while, so I thought it was interesting that I felt so compelled to contact him and share my testimony with him or something. Then, out of the BLUE, HE wrote ME a birthday card! It was perfect because then I had his address and asked him to come to MTC to be a "pretend" (but not-so-pretend) investigator at the TRC. So I wrote him and my teacher knows him as well so he called him and he finally came this last Saturday! I've been praying for him SO hard for the past 8-9 weeks and thought about him alot. He is an Atheist. Before the lesson, Sister Hintze and I were just not feeling adequate to teach him about God, so we prayed that God would make up for our weaknesses and the lesson would go well. All I will say, is that the Spirit was SO strong! Sister Hintze felt prompted to talk about Joseph Smith and I quoted the 1st vision from memory. One thing I've learned is that whenever that story is quoted word-for-word in whatever language, the Spirit will be there also. And it really was. We asked him how he felt after we said it and he said, "warm, peaceful, warm in my chest, very cozy." WOW!! He recognized the feeling of the Spirit and it was incredible. We committed him to pray about God. It was another proof to me that God lives and loves His children. I'd prayed the night before to know how I know that God lives, and a flood of memories of how God has answered my prayers. From the Charlotte smoking story, to losing my wallet and praying then having the thought "it's in the fridge" come to my mind and actually have my wallet be IN THE FRIDGE! Haha. It's amazing.

Anyway, I love you all. Pray for missionary opportunities. Continue to be worthy of God's blessings. God and Jesus Christ live and love us. Pray for the people of Taiwan, for China to open up to the Gospel, for Salt Lakians to be open to the gospel, and for your non-member friends/neighbors/coworkers/family. God answers our prayers. I have already seen miracles here.

Love you all! I'll have more time to write in the field. Wahhoo!!!

Love Poohface.

Only 1 week left in the MTC!!!

This week has been very good! We only have 1 week left now!! We officially got our flight plans and are leaving the MTC on Tuesday the 26th of January. I'm so excited but pretty nervous. It'll be awesome. We all fly over as a district, plus all the Taizhong missionaries, so it'll be altogether a group of 21 missionaries. I'll get you all the address ASAP.

So this week has been neat. The teachers switched it up a bit and we were assigned to another companionship to teach them as a "progressing investigator". The person playing the investigator has to pretend to be someone they know, so it feels so REAL. We are teaching Sister Weinheimer who is playing her cousin Jackie. It is amazing. I've really been touched at how the Lord can work through you. Even though it's just a role-play, Heavenly Father has really taught us to listen to the Spirit. Sometimes it just feels like pure intelligence is flowing through you and somehow the right scriptures are shared, the right questions are asked and the right answers are given. My companion and I are finally learning to teach together, so it's neat. Don't get me wrong, we are still pretty stinky at teaching, but it's just cool because there are many times that despite our lacking abilities, we've been able feel another power direct us in our teaching. Anyway, that's probably the biggest thing I got a testimony of this week.

So another thing I've been kind of working on, is just recognizing the feeling of the Spirit. If you've been in the Church your whole life, sometimes feeling the Spirit can just be a routine experience, but it really IS a miracle every time we feel it confirm something to us. So I'm trying to recognize it more in my life. Anywho.

Elder Perry came this Tuesday. It was neat. He really likes to delve into the scriptures. He talked about the importance of the Restoration. It's actually pretty amazing, this week has been week of the Restoration for Poohface. Elder Perry spoke on it, then we taught at the TA (we teach a volunteer from the "outside") the Restoration, then yesterday we had a whole devotional about Joseph Smith. It's cool. So first off, at the TA yesterday my companion and I were struggling pretty bad with Chinese. We were trying to get out our lesson but were just having problems. Haha. We were teaching 3 people, one of which was an older woman who didn't speak Chinese. Anyway, so when we were teaching, it wasn't a very powerful lesson...but when I recited the First Vision in Chinese the woman's whole expression changed. Before she just smiled and nodded, but when I quoted the first vision, I could see her face get serious. It was really neat...even though SHE didn't understand the Chinese and I could hardly understand what I was saying too, we both REALLY felt the Spirit. It was special. It just confirmed again that Joseph Smith's vision was true. Then yesterday all the "Jiemeimen"/sisters in my zone sang "Joseph Smith's First Prayer/I am a child of God" medley for the Sunday Devotional. I was nervous but prayed alot so it wasn't so bad. Before we sang, the 6 of us had a mini-testimony meeting about when we first knew for ourselves that Joseph Smith was a prophet. After we sang, we heard from Susan Easton Black who is an amazing Church historian who recited some pretty neat history about Joseph Smith that isn't heard of very often. She told this story about when Joseph Sr. moved to NY then sent for Lucy Mack and the children who were waiting in Vermont. On the way there, they stopped by an inn and someone tried to steal their wagon. To be brief, because of all the hubbub, Lucy Mack accidently left 11 year old Joseph at the inn (kind of like me being left at the Avalon Theatre when I was 5...maybe every time they passed the inn after that they said "there's Joseph's home!"...). Anyway, so Joseph was walking in the snow, trying to follow the wagon trail but was hit by a passing wagon which opened his wound from when he'd had his leg operated on. He said that as he was wallowing in his blood and giving himself up for dead, a mysterious stranger picked him up and carried him the Palmyra. Susan Easton Black compared that the Joseph of Egypt, how his brothers left him in a pit but then he was picked up and taken to Egypt where he would bring to pass the salvation of many. WAY interesting! Anyway, it was cool. I hope that wasn't very boring, I just thought it was really cool.

So hmmmm...I'm trying to think of anything else of any interest that's happened this week...I broke and have been eating gluten. I think I eat sliced potatoes and chicken for 2 out of 3 meals. I'm so sick of it. One day I just felt like Donald Duck from Jack in the Bean Stalk and wanted to yell, "Shut up! I can't stand it! Blah blah blah blah" and start eating the silverware and stuff because I just couldn't take eating the same thing again. Haha. But I'll try to be better. I'm really wondering how gluten free I'll be able to be in Taiwan. I've just been praying that I won't have any side-effects or damage for a year and a half. I think it could happen. :)

Welp, I'm sorry I don't have many interesting things to say. My emails are always very "Churchy" but I really don't experience much beyond that. Haha. I love you all!

I love hearing from everyone! I wish I had time to write everyone individually. In the field I won't have an email time limit so I'll be able to write more people. Update and let me know how everyone is doing! Love you all!!

Coley Dowdle

Meeting Sister Dalton and singing performances

Nicole's District

This week in the MTC has been pretty good.

Thank you all for your cards and gifts!! They were all so awesome!! My companion was super sweet and worked really hard to make it a good day. She had written her mom to have her mail some things to her for my birthday. On the 7th she woke up early and blew up balloons and decorated our door. Then her Mom had sent some little gifts, and hostess cupcakes with "23" candles. Then the Elders in my district gave me a whole ton of random stuff which looked like Christmas excess. They gave me a crochetted finger puppet, a chocolate reindeer, chapstick, a puzzle ring, slime, gum, a baby picture of our zone leader, and New years blower thingy. Then after personal study, out of no where, Elder Knight or "Xia Zhanglao" who is a really sweet quiet Elder, got up and played "happy birthday" on a little slide whistle he got in a new years popper. It was so nice. I felt really special. Grant sent me a cute package with a headbandy thing, and a mini poster of Jay Chou. haha. This will replace the one from our old bedroom, eh Amberly? He "signed" it and wrote "I know the church is true" in chinese characters. It was great. Rachel, thank you so much for the shirt and ipod! wait, it DID work to load music or it didn't? The screen light is broken on it, but the rest of it works fine...or at least it should. Thank you all again for the letters and cards!! It was the best birthday I've had in a long time. Oh yeah, I even got a card from the MTC President. Haha.

Soooo...we leave in 2 weeks and 1 day!! I wish I remembered to bring my mission home's address to the computer lab. Anyway, but we're flying out on the 26th. I'm very scared, but I feel like I've been in the MTC long enough. People get weird when they've been here for too long. Haha.

Sister Elaine Dalton of the YW General Presidency came to RS again. I got to shake her hand. She's a really neat lady. All the older sisters "jiemeimen" in my zone auditioned to since in a fireside or devotional and we got in. We're singing an arrangment of I am a Child of God and Joseph Smith's First Prayer that Sister Clyde wrote. It's really pretty and it's a neat opportunity to sing in the MTC in front of all the missionaries, but I'm PETRIFIED!! Especially when there are only 2 of us singing alto. When we auditioned only in front of the music chair woman and President Smith's wife, my knees were shaking and I almost fell over. Ha. We'll be performing in front of over 2000 people. Yeesh. You'd think the Heralders and a handful of solos/duets in Primary Programs would have gotten me used to it...

Well, tell me what everyone is up to! I LOVE getting letters telling me what everyone is up to. It's like I get to visit home for just a few minutes.

Anyway, I love you all!

"7 things I learned this week"

Today has been a hard, but good week. I feel like Heavenly Father grabs His missionaries, and pulls their souls out their toes and shows them how they need to do better. It's really beautiful and amazing actually. I feel like I've learned some pretty neat things that I needed to know. Here are a few things I've learned this week:

1) I learned that God is loving and kind and gentle and laughs and really just loves our lives. I think He's profoundly interested in all we do, and loves watching us grow. I used to think he was a harsh being who shook His finger at us. It's still an idea that I sometimes fall under the habit of believing, but as I search the scriptures for more examples of His true loving nature, it's reaffirmed to me how kind He really is. He wants to bless us so much but is only allowed to bless us according to our obedience sometimes.

2) It's important to account to God for our works and desires. At the end of the day, it's important to say, "God, I tried my best to be a good [missionary, mother, father, friend, Relief Society counselor, Ward Mission Leader, home teacher, co-worker, whatever] today. Do you accept my work? What can I do better." God will help us improve and help comfort us when we expect too much of ourselves or show us how we can make more of ourselves.

3) God will never beat us down when He encourages us to change. If we feel like we need to do better in an area, but we feel lost, overwhelmed, like a bad person, etc. then that is NOT God telling us to do better. It's Satan telling us we stink and he's LYING. The way you know a prompting to do better is from God, is if it's followed by encouragement, a "you can do it!" feeling, and ultimately feeling loved and like you can accomplish the change.

4) Perfect love casteth out all fear. This is very appropriate for when I hyperventilate about going to Taiwan.

5) Keep a record! This will help us keep track of and act on spiritual promptings [see Elder Scott's most recent Conference talk]. It'll also keep us from having to re-learn something a million times. I SO wish I'd kept a journal in Russia, China and Ukraine. But, I had an idea...so you know how our family is a little spread out right now...and we don't always know what's going on with people...?

6) I learned that our WHOLE LIVES are missions. So when I think, "AH! This is just so hard! 16 more months..." I stop myself because it's not like it'll be over in 16 months. I will be serving the Lord for the REST of my life. I have been okay with sitting back for the past little while, but no more! God wants us to lift and help others and we promised God when we joined His church that we would build his kingdom through service and missionary work and doing hard callings and stuff. So it's not ending any time soon. And that's good! I'm so excited! Life should be hard work.

7)I have felt guilty for the way I served in Russia. I was having a really hard time while I was there and always thought that I just blew it. So I was really worried about going on a mission because if I did a cruddy job in Russia, I'd blow it in Taiwan too. But I had a really neat experience where I felt Heavenly Father tell me that I didn't do a totally cruddy job. But not because I was so good, but because God knew I was trying my best so through His Atonement He made up the rest and made the semester a success. And Looking back, I can see it was a success. No matter what we're doing, if we try our best and rely on God to help us with the rest, we'll do things above and beyond our capabilities.

Well, time is running out. I love you all! Write me and let me know how everyone is doing!

Nicole's BIRTHDAY!!!

ATTENTION ALL FRIENDS and FAMILY of NICOLE!!!

Her Birthday is January 7th! I know she would be tickled to get lots of birthday love on her day! Send out something to her if you can. Remember, www.dearelder.com is free too!

Her address is:
Nicole Dowdle
Taiwan Taipei Mission
Missionary Training Center
2005 W 900 E Box#107
Provo, UT 84604