Thornley: TAIWAN!!!

Hello Everyone!!! I hope you are all well and are happy! May I share something I have learned from here- happiness is truly a physical choice we must make for ourselves each day. Challenges will come and we will have to face them for that is life and we are commanded to endure but may I suggest that we choose to endure in happiness. We can choose in which way we endure and let us all remember that the plans name that has send us here is of happiness. So I invite you all each day to arise and choose to be happy and I promise you you will fill more fully of God's love.

This week went by so fast and I am so grateful for that. On Friday we had our very first outdoor zone conference!!! It was so much fun as my zone and some others all traveled to some part in my area of beautiful mountains and hiked and learned of the Lord and his plan for us on the mission. It was so nice to spend a day out in nature among my friends and other missionaries. I loved being able to talk with friends from the MTC and really just remembering God truly does have a plan for us all and you can see it in all we have here in the world. There was a part of the hike that showed a sign saying that there were 120 stone steps to go to arrive at the top. LIE such a lie as we climbed over 220 more steps. I want to say that we can find relation in all things to relate it to Christ and his gospel and the plan for us here. Sometimes in life we may be told we have only 120 more steps to go until we arrive at the destination and we may become completely discouraged as we approach the 120th step and see there are still many more to go but you just keep going. Keep putting one foot down pushing with your strength for the top. It is worth it. Believe it is worth it and that God will reward you for going further than you thought you would need to.

This week I also got to do my very first exchange of companions!! I served in Taipei city for one day and man am I grateful to be in YiLan where it is slow and beautiful. But I learned so much about love. And also that I am called to Taiwan Taipei and that means I can teach the gospel to all the Taiwanese not just those in YiLan. I began to talk with a girl in the MRT station and I was not expecting much to come of it other than giving her a small pamphlet we give here but she brought up the gospel and was curious as to what my purpose was to be here in Taiwan. And I was able to get a new investigator for the Sister I was on exchange with! So cool! As I am honest to my commitment to talk with everyone miracles are happening. Oh also everyone know that God really does protect his missionaries. As Sister Brown and I were teaching that girl I talked above about three security guards came up to us and were not very happy we had been speaking with her informing us we can not proselyte there. Which we were not and tried to explain they had come up to us but it was heard on a deaf ear. I was terrified because I do not yet have my ARC card allowing me to be here in Taiwan and I would have been in a lot of trouble if they had asked for it but the Lord protected us and I am safe and sound back in YiLan!

Well thats pretty much it for this week I love you all and am starting to really love this work! You are all great!

Sister Thornley

Taiwan