Sister Annie in Asia: Two Words

Well, it has been a very miracle-filled, magical weekend. Gotta say, it was full of blue skies and sunshine. And why is that? Because ELDER COOK VISITED TAIWAN! And I am not kidding, the two days he was in Taiwan, it was beautiful weather. Guessing it was because an apostle of the Lord came to Taiwan. Lately it's been kinda cloudy which is nice, but it was cool.

Last Pday

Went hiking in Neihu. My companion was picking up geckos along the way, and at the end of the hike even picked up a huge frog and put it on her shoulder. Super crazy stuff. It was raining that day, and pretty much that whole hike, we were soaked. The hike was very...adventurous. We even climbed up one side of the slick mountain. Adam Jacobson who served a mission here last year came and visited Taiwan. The funny part was that he was in my 2nd and 3rd grade class in elementary school. I hadn't seen him in about 12 years. Last year, he was in my mission district. He came back last week to visit Taiwan and did fun stuff like surfing, snorkeling.

So now I have plans for visiting Taiwan after the mission. Adam said that if people don't visit Taiwan quick after the mission (at least a year), they probably never will come back for a long time if ever because of marriage and schooling. I'm gonna make sure that I can come back next summer, there's tons of stuff I still want to do. While I was with Adam, he Snapchatted me and gave it to my trainer, Sister Bain. She replied back, that she was driving home with her boyfriend. She was saying how she loved and missed me and at one point she said she was jealous of Adam...Honestly I would be very jealous too if I was her. I love and miss her.

We are going back again to...LEOFOO WORLD! Yay, the fun amusement park I went to last September. We are going with a bunch of missionaries and members. It's gonna be great, my companion is like me and doesn't like rollercoasters. It's gonna be great!

In my brother's email, Elder Wong came to a stake conference there (Thailand). I remember last year he came to our stake conference in Taoyuan, he was funny. We had a role play competition, whoever did the best roleplay in teaching a family got these special toy tops from Hong Kong (he lives there); they were super cool. One set of elders won, and one of the Elders was so excited, he was looking everywhere to buy the tops on his mission. Elder Wong then gave one to him, and an extra "for his eternal companion." Haha.

Elder Cook

Last Saturday, we as a mission went to Taipei to listen to Elder Cook. We as a mission got a picture with him, then he shook hands with every missionary. They had a question and answer time. One elder asked the first question, which was to talk more about Key Indicators, which got Elder Cook and the other GAs fired up. Key indicators of conversion are the numbers we missionaries try to get every week. So every week, we try to get someone baptized (our goal is one baptism a month per companionship), six people on baptismal dates, three people at church and four new investigators every week. I felt like it was a question that impressed the general authorities, that we were a hard working mission. Other missionaries asked questions such as how to know when investigators have a broken heart and contrite spirit and how to gain people's trust in Asia.

Joseph Smith, Actor

After Elder Cook left, we were still there in the room. You know the new First Vision movie? There's one that came out two years ago where they show it at the church Heritage Museum in Salt Lake City.

The actor who played Joseph Smith for the video is actually in our mission. He got up and told us the story of filming the project. He explained how he was chosen to play Joseph Smith, then we watched the video. It was interesting, in the video, it was different that the account written in the scriptures. After we watched the video, the actor explained how in the scriptures, Joseph said he sought for God because he wanted to know the true church. In the video, from a different account he gave, he said he went to God because he felt guilty for his sins and wanted to save his soul (sought for repentance), which made sense. The actor told us that at first it was hard to film, his acting seemed cheesy, but at one point when he took a break from filming, he realized he needed to follow the Spirit and act out the first vision instead of just Joseph Smith. He then had a powerful experience, and he actually felt like Joseph Smith, and it was captured on film. Like Joseph Smith, he was exhausted and slept in his trailer for three hours. Cool stuff!

Stake Conference

Elder and Sister Soares are from Brazil. His wife has a thicker accent, and when she told everyone she was from Brazil, the crowd gasped. It was so cute, she was talking about how beautiful the music and flowers were (a bouquet of flowers on the pulpit). It was she and her husband's first time in Taiwan.

Elder Soares kept on telling us how beautiful Taiwan is, the culture and language and everything. His accent wasn't as pronounced as his wife's, probably been spending more time with general authorities and have more of an American accent. He talked about the Book of Mormon and how important it was to read it to be converted, which was perfect, it was what our investigator needed! she is such a miracle, she was having problems but now is back on track we are so happy! Elder Soares told how he was the youngest of four boys, and when he was little, his brothers met the missionaries and were baptized. Years later after he returned from a mission, his parents served a temple mission. While serving a few months into their mission, his dad had a heart attack and died. His mom showed faith in Heavenly Father despite trials and continued to serve by herself with other sisters for the rest of her mission. Months later, Elder Soares' second brother died, then his third brother, then two kids of his died during his wife's pregnancy. All of this happened in the space of two years. Everyone was in tears when he told us this story. He was tearful as he was telling us. He then said we all will have trials in life, we need to have faith in Christ and be converted to Him to prepare us for trials. Ee told us over and over again he loved us, then at the end requested to shake everyone's hand. It was awesome!

Our phone got wet because of the rain and wasn't working, so we put it in rice for a day and then it worked! The elders kept joking that if we left it overnight, an Asian would come and fix our phone for us since the rice is there for payment. My comp thought it was funny.