Testifying-in-Taiwan: Amazing growth the Lord can provide when we turn our lives over to HIM

Hello Everyone, Nov. 9, 2015

This week was so fun! Zone Meeting was a big success! We all had a good time together, had a good laugh, and had a good spiritual experience. The only sad part was that it was the last time we were all together for a while since this week was transfers. We had a ton of companionship get all switched up so there is a lot of newness. Which is good but different. Right after the meeting I went on exchanges with Elder King out to XinZhuang. We had a blast! :)

Then later this week went on Exchanges again. I got to go with my grandson!!!! Elder Coletti! He is the best, and hilarious. It is super fun to be in the same district as my son and grandson. (mission family of course) They are both killing it!

My Grandson and Me!! He is awesome.

Something nice was the weather this week. I can't believe it's November. It feels like paradise here. But winter will be here soon so not looking forward to that at all.

This week was fun and exhausting that I hardly had anytime to breathe, let alone write in my journal. I am the WORST at writing in my journal! But I had a cool experience that I wanted to share with ya'll.

I was writing last night trying to catch up and started to flip back to previous entries. I went back to a year ago at about this same time and started to read. The entry went something like this:

"I can't do this. I can do it but I feel so down. I am hard on myself but it's hard not to. I look at everyone around me excel, mostly with the language. I feel that for God to send people here to learn this language he must send the smartest of our kind. SO WHY DID HE SEND ME!?!?!? I am as far away from being intellectual as wood on a fence! Yet here I am. Everyday is a struggle I really need help. I know that God is there but sometimes it is hard to feel it."

Yeah pretty depressing right. I found myself laughing at this entry seeing as it was like yesterday when that happened. I can remember the feelings of inadequacy as I was striving to become the person that I knew God wanted me to be. I continued onto the next couple of days to find another entry like this:

"improvement! Today I was asked a question in Mandarin, I completely understood the question and didn't have to ask for a translation. Then I responded IN CHINESE and here is the miracle: she completely understood! She didn't give me a weird look, or have that vacant look on her face of misunderstanding. Instead she took what I said and wrote it down. I know that God is there and he is helping me daily, I love Him."

Two pretty different entries I would say. I loved it because I was able to reminisce on the past year... the growth. For one, linguistically speaking. Now it is effortless to talk with people and help them with their concerns so that is one miracle. And the other is the growth spiritually. Through the trials of being "not good enough" "desperate" "inadequacy" are when I grew the most. It allowed me to see the love and mercy of God. It made me fully dependent on him. And that is way I improved. I know that regardless of who we are, he knows us and knows how to help us. I feel so privileged to be here in Taiwan. Changing my life and others daily.