Taking it to Taiwan: A New Chapter Begins and the Crazy Just Doesn't Stop:)

Another one of the beautiful sights here in Taidong:)

Our zone at the beach

I just thought this was a cool picture:)

Dear Everyone,

Well... this week. Allow me to testify that God has a plan. He loves His children. This week... dare I say it, has been the craziest of my mission. haha. So... where to begin?

I spent a few days in Taipei this week to pick up my new companion! I rode up there on Thursday and we spent the day in trainings and such. Then that night we went babysitting! So babysitting is when all the trainers get assigned randomly to a trainee and then you go out for 2 hours and you go finding out in the streets of Taipei! My trainee was Sister Knapp. She's super great :) haha She was super determined and just so excited. That night I stayed in Neihu with Sister Wood's old companion. It was great! Then the next morning we woke up early, got ready and headed to the temple for the training meeting. So how the training meeting works for trainers/trainees is we all get to sit in the front and then President Day has a powerpoint with all of the trainee's pictures names on it. They come up one by one and introduce themselves in Chinese. Then we all drum roll...... and President Day announces who their trainer is! So Sister Johnson got up and introduced herself and everyone behind me kept saying "She's yours! She's yours!" (They said that after everyone... so it wasn't that big of a revelation) but then President Day read my name and I jumped up, screamed, and ran to hug my new companion. Then we went and got our picture taken and then we sat through the rest of the meeting.

My sweet new companion Sister Johnson. She is from Taylorsville, UT. Her dad served in Taiwan too and she is amazing:)

After that we had to stay in Taipei for a little bit waiting for our train to Taidong. Guess who I saw? Wu Jiemei :) It was the best!!! I also realized that my Chinese has gotten worse since I stopped being her companion. haha She talks really fast :) But we got to take a picture with the my daughter, me and her. She's excited to be an Ama! She scared my poor companion though because she completely spoke to her in her fiery/fast Chinese. haha. Such is the mission :)

So then that day we spent almost completely on the train. We had 6 and a half hours on the train to get to know each other and plan for the coming week. It was great! Sister Johnson also got to see some of the most beautiful parts of Taiwan.

So as I mentioned above, this week has been crazy. Moving into our new apartment has been a huge blessing, but it's been incredibly difficult. Let me explain some of the cool/crazy things.

We didn't have water. This meant that I didn't get to shower or brush my teeth on Saturday. But guess what? The Lord sent us rain. That way I knew that he loved me and it helped to cover up my stinkiness. haha.

We didn't have gas. We still don't have gas... haha so we're just not going to be cooking in our house much. But we had 2 members spontaneously feed us yesterday! So we didn't even have to worry about food.

Allow me to introduce you to one of the miracles of the week... HONG JIEMEI!

She's amazing. We were riding home from Conference on Sunday and I was really not looking forward to going home for lunch. We had bought some food from the 7-11 on Saturday night, but we didn't have much. Plus we didn't have gas so we couldn't really cook anything... haha. So we're riding home and I'm thinking about how I'm a failure as a mother because I can't provide for my child... when Hong JM rides up next to me on her scooter and (while we're riding) asks if we've eaten lunch yet. I said no and she said come to my house and eat! Wow!! It was a big blessing. We love her :)

We didn't have keys. But because of this we got to meet our neighbor, who is also our land-lady. She is catholic and is absolutely delightful. We were able to give her a Book of Mormon and she let us in to our house! She also called the guy who works on the water and had him come over and help us.

We didn't have bikes. So technically we have bikes. We have 5 bikes. But ALL of their tires are flat. We didn't know this until Saturday morning before we went to Conference. We had to make a lot of phone calls and a lot of our plans failed or fell through, but through some miraculous members we had 2 bikes. Lin DX had fixed my old one, and his son let us borrow his bike for the whole day! Then when we went back, he said that he would let us use his daughter's bike. So Sister Johnson is riding his daughter's bike and I'm riding my bike that he fixed.

We didn't have a phone. So we went to transfer meeting thinking that we could pick up a phone... but alas they didn't have any. Then sweet Elder Jensen pulled his out of his pocket and said here have mine. He took out his SD card and just gave us his phone. MIRACLE! So we had a phone! But... we didn't have a charger. Our phone was almost out of battery (this is the morning we didn't have bikes or water and I was still trying to figure out how we were going to ride to the church) and I was praying to find some way to charge this phone when I looked and found an old phone box! But sadly there was no charger inside... but guess what was inside? Another battery! This battery only had half a life, but it was enough to get us what we needed until the Elders could bring the charger to the church.

Sister Johnson has really been a trooper through all of this. haha. I don't know what I would've done without her good attitude. She's a rockstar.

I know that God lives. I know that He has a plan for each of us, his Children. He loves us infinitely and knows us perfectly. I know that sometimes things don't go according to our plans. But it's ok. Because as we are doing what we know is right, we can always rest assured that we know we are where God needs us to be. I love this gospel. I loved General Conference with my whole soul. We were blessed to be able to watch it in English with the missionaries from the surrounding area and it was a big blessing. I know that President Monson is called of God. I sustain the Prophet and Twelve Apostles. I have no doubt that the Lord is leading our church today. I trust the Savior even though I can't see the end from the beginning. The Lord will always put angels in our paths. All is well :)

Sister Giles