Sister Lydia Jensen-Taiwan, Taipei Mission: Week 21-Oct. 29, 2018

"Naughty, naughty....."

Hello friends and family!

I hope you all had an awesome week! I think and pray about you all the time!

As for my week, we started waking up 15 min early to bike to the river to jog, bike, or do stairs in the mornings because the weather has just been absolutely perfect and it's so nice to exercise outside where there's people and a nice breeze!

The most exciting part of this week was probably our ward Halloween party! It was super fun and a ton of little kids from Sister Larsen's English class came and we got to talk to their parents for a while! The members helped a lot with decorating and preparing the games, and we even got to do a little game/spiritual share at the end! So good!

Funny story: There's a kid in Sister Larsen's English class who always says "naughty naughty [insert name or activity]" in a funny British accent- I don't know where he learned it, but its hilarious. And one time Sis. Larsen was gathering all the kids up to read a story and was holding the picture book she uses to tell scripture stories and one of the other kids was like "Are we gonna read about Jesus?" and she was like "yeah!" and then the little boy was like "Naughty Naughty Jesus story!" Haha so funny. Little kids are the best!

Also, our district leader is a gymnast and we set some goals on Tuesday in district meeting so for extra motivation, we decided to: if we dont have 2 gospel conversations each before noon, we have to do 25 squats per conversation missed, 4 more convos by 5pm and that's 25 push ups for each missed, and then 4 more by 9:30pm and that's 25 burpees per convo missed. Haha needless to say, we been getting a lot of good exercise recently ;)

So my STL says the more mistakes you make, the closer you are to being the missionary you want to be. A couple nights ago, I started a conversation with a couple on a moped next to me at the stoplight and ran out of things to say, so I asked if they had kids, only to have it dawn on me a few seconds later that they are probably not married and that was a really awkward question to ask... my trainer luckily joined in the convo and smoothed things out a little and somehow related what they were saying to the gospel but I felt really awkward for a while after haha. Ya live and ya learn! ;)

Thursday morning we decided to go for a walk for exercise and we saw about 30 older ladies in the park doing little line dances! It wasnt like taichi, it was like hip songs (like Remember me from coco) and pretty intricate footwork! We watched from the sidewalk for a second and one of the ladies saw us and waved us over! Haha it was pretty hard to keep up with what direction to face, etc., but it was so much fun and they were all super duper nice!

Miracle: Last week some missionaries from the Philippines finally got visas and came to Taiwan in the middle of the week/transfer, so President was sending them down to Taidong for a week or so until they would get their official areas. The office elders tried to book tickets on the 2pm train, but it was all full, so they took the 1:30pm train. That afternoon the 2pm train had a huge accident, fell off the rails, and 17 people were killed. It was truly God's doing that the precious new missionaries were not on that train and arrived safely in taidong. President's wife called them later that day to make sure they were all okay and they sang "I am a child of God" for her over the phone and brought her to tears. God is so very merciful and is watching over all of His dear, dear children.

Scripture of the week: Alma 26:37 "Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen." I know God is mindful of all of His children, no matter what land we may be in! He knows His children in Africa, Taiwan, Philippines, Europe, Canada, and America! He watches over us day and night. His grace is sufficient if we do our best to follow Him and trust in the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, His Beloved Son.

You are all amazing! Keep pressing forward and being a light to the world! You make a difference! The Lord is on your side!