Thornley: We want to wish you a merry Christmas!! Feliz navedas or whatever...

So its Christmas. For reals? This week marks my half year mark! So crazy to think what that means and to reflect on all the things I have learned sense being out here. This week I am sure is going to be very special for me and I hope for you all. We get to go to Taipei and have a Christmas activity for part of the day and then my companion and I will be returning to fill up the font and get our beautiful Yang Wen Pei ready for her baptism. Please everyone say a special prayer for her. She is such a beautiful woman who has had a challenging life. This gospel brings her hope and love. What a special opportunity for me to participate on the day of Christmas in seeing her make such a sacred covenant with the Lord to follow him.

This past week was very excellent and I am grateful for all the things we were able to do. We were able to go to a members house. I will admit I have gotten a little addicted to long bike rides in the rain racing to get to appointments on time. (:) But I am learning to plan better so its okay) My poor companion racing behind me not sure where we are going and I in my silly selfish self forgot to check behind me after a light to see if she was still there. And... luckily she kept coming straight. So anyways when we got to the house I was a little down hearted with myself for forgetting to check behind me so she didnt feel so lost and I'm sure a little scared then we were also late. I wasnt feeling very Christlike. Plus because the ride took a lot longer than we thought we would only be able to visit them for 15 minutes to make it back in time for our train. Then the member was late as well. Dropping our time to about 5 minutes. Yes a little stressful. But the Lord is so good to me in my trials. We went in and such a warm feeling of love entered into my heart. Her four young children were all so precious and it was such a comfortable feeling being in the home of two faithful parents who teach their children in the ways of the Lord. I had no idea how much I had missed being in the setting of a family working towards eternity. I was so grateful for the Lord helping us get there and being able to have the love and comfort of being amoung them. We then missed the train but it was okay as my spirits were high as we biked from YiLan back to Loudong.

This week was a week to remind me why the half hour of excersize in the morning should be taken more seriously. In addition to the long bike ride back from Yilan to loudong we made 2 additional 30 minute bike rides (one way) to visits. So I guess I should either get more serious in the morning or.. continue to set up far bike rides and force myself to get in shape that way! Haha!!!

The miracle of the week-

My companion and I had set up a nice day full of appointments we were stoked that night was also the Christmas party so that means we got to bring our precious Rei Jia to come celebrate Christs birth with us. Well.. as soon as our studies ended and we were walking out of the door we recieved calls from all of our scheduled appointments informing us the could no longer meet. So. A full day of contacting opened up. which I was not overly happy about and sad it was raining making contacting even harder. We set off and in the first hour had no success. We were drained and spiritually low. So we stopped and took a spiritual breather of reading some passages of the Book of Mormon and praying. We then began again. As we were walking down a street handing out English flyers a small road branched off. We decided we might as well go knock those few houses. WOuldn't you know it. The first house we rang 3 teenagers came out the were all family and seemed excited to be talking to us foreigners. Then the Lord blessed us. We asked if we could come back and visit with their whole family to share a message about Christ. They said yes. THey even thought their parents would be interested!!!!

But wait there is more. THen at the Christmas party one of our Phillipeno members brought two of her new co-workers and introduced us to them. (this member also served a mission before in the Phillipeans) We were able to meet with them right after the party. It was so wonderful speaking with them in English and sharing the message of Christ in my own tongue. I also was so grateful for the member (Jennifer) able to bear such strong testimony and teach them of prayer in thier tongue. I know language is no barrier for this world anymore to hear the gospel! The Prophecy that all men will hear in their own language is coming about!!!! TWO NEW INVESTIGATORS!

I love you all. Have a wonderful Christmas!!!

-Sister Thornley