Taiwan week 23

Hey,

...We had Mission Conference this week, so I got to travel back up to Tai Zhong and see all of the missionaries in the mission; everybody that I came on with, Elder Buenning, Elder Rostedt, everybody. I even had the chance to ride up on the bus next to Elder Olsen. We had a good talk about how our missions were going. He is having a great time in his new area too. I hear that you and his family all stay in touch still. That is so cool! So yeah, the whole trip started on thrusday night where we traveled by train to Gao Xiong and stayed the night at Elder Palmer's apartment there (ELder Palmer was Elder Buenning's MTC companion. He is training for his second time now). Then we woke up at 2 in the morning and got on a bus that took all of the South Area Elders and Sisters up to Tai Zhong. We heard from a member of the 70's presidency, ELder Jensen. He was such a good speaker. But most of all he was an amazing teacher. I reallly loved what he said about missionary work and what it is all about. His knowledge of the scriptures was really amazing too. His main topic was just about our relationship with our investigators and with the Lord and our investigator's relationship with us and with the Lord. He drew out at triangle and put God, Missionaries and Investigators on respective corners and we discussed what the relations were or what they should be. There were alot of scriptures used and there were alot of good points made. I really liked what he said. After is was all over, he and his wife and Elder Watson and his wife (of the Seventy. THey came too) all got back into their car and left, then we were aloud to leave the building. Coming in, we all got to shake his hand. It was cool. He said it was like a little interview when he shook his hand and looked into our eyes. It was all so good. We got ushered back onto the bus right after that and we got shipped back to our respective areas. It all went by so fast and I couldn't really absorb it all, but as I remember it all and look back at my notes, I have alot of new ideas and things that I am going to use. One of which is singing more with our investigators. Elder Jensen said that when we sing hymns, it brings a spirit of reverence and reverance brings revelation. So true, so good.

So that was the cool big thing that happened this week. Other than that, just the same old happy hard working. We have a few families that we are working with right now. They all live in our second areas, so a lot of our time is spent on hour plus bike rides out to where they live. It is pretty good. I'm trying to use that extra thinking time to memorize more scriptures in Chinese. It's fun. Reading scriptures in Chinese is a little different than reading them in English. The meaning is all the same, but some times there is added meaning in Chinese. Small things. For instance, there is no way to really just say "brother" in Chinese, only "older brother" or "younger brother", so you find out that The Brother of Jared is actually the Older Brother of Jared. Cool. Little things like that.

I FINISHED THE BOOK OF MORMON! It was such a wonderful experience. In finishing it, I flipped to one of the blank pages in the back and wrote down my testimony of it. It is so cool to look back and see how much my testimony has grown of the Savior. I know that we can be perfected in the Lord and that as we work at it, we really can develop every good gift through the atonement. I have been sharing my testimony of the book since then and I love saying that I have read it recently and seen how it applies differently to me in different times in my life. Such an amazing book, of such an amazing man. I love the Book of Mormon, and I love sharing my testimony of it with those that we meet with.
Got to go!

LOve Ya all

-Elder Sanford