Quick note to my parents - March 5, 2017

The only Disney on Ice ad I have seen anywhere in Taiwan.

Love you both!!!! So glad you're having a great time!

P.S. I wrote this to President this week:

Sister Greenhalgh is awesome. She is so kind and so good at her job. I'm learning a lot from her. I know I was really worried about switching companions, but just like you and the Lord and everyone else told me, everything worked out just fine. Sister Reeve compared her mission to a painting, and she said we need lots of different paintbrushes to complete the entire picture. If Sister Reeve was the big flowy paintbrush that sent color splattering all over the canvas, then Sister Greenhalgh is the black fountain pen that starts to etch a drawing onto the canvas. I love seeing what this canvas is turning out to look like.

Letter #20 - "Goodbye Until Tomorrow"

(Letter sent on Feb. 27, 2017)

​​​​​​​​​​​​It's been a whirlwind of a week. I am still in Yuanlin, but my wonderful companion Sister Reeve has been transferred to Gaoxiong, way down South. I have cried quite a lot this week...this girl absolutely changed my life, turned it upside down and made me into a better person. I love her to death. It's been an incredible 12 weeks.

My new companion is Sister Greenhalgh (pronounced Green-ouch). She was actually my STL last transfer, so I'd been on exchanges with her before! She has two transfers left so it looks like she'll get to finish her mission in Yuanlin. :)

In other news, HONG DIXIONG HAD A BABY!!!! Well, he didn't have the baby himself, but his wife did. We went to visit them in the most BEAUTIFUL hospital room in the history of the world. Picture is attached. We're going to give them some time to adjust to having a new baby before trying to teach him again.

We had a really cool contacting experience this week on our way back from a Sisters conference in Jiayi (down south). We were on a train and as we got on I felt like the man getting on behind me was important, I couldn't say why exactly, it was just a feeling. So we started talking to him and I felt really nervous because we would be on that train for an hour and a half and how would this conversation end, how long would it go on for before he lost interest? But it didn't end. Soon we figure out he speaks nearly FLAWLESS English so it suddenly becomes sooooo much easier for me to talk to him. He told us he believes in an invisible force that is God that supports us, but he's searched in different places before and has never really been sure who God is. We explained that he is a person of flesh and blood and he is our Father. We taught him to pray and although we didnt have a Book of Mormon on hand, we told him about the book and he asked "do you have an app for it?" and looked it up right there on his phone! Everything he said made it sound to me that this man is super prepared. He has been searching for God all his life. He's had hard experiences and has had to build himself up again, all the time relying on this force that he doesn't completely understand that supports him. Everything in his life has been culminating to that moment on the train, when we got to meet him. It was so amazing to be a tool in God's hands to see that moment happen. He lives in Tainan so we won't get to teach him, but it was still incredible. (Also, he is a huge Padres fan. He loves Tony Gwynn and his English name is Kevin Brown, after, you know, Kevin Brown. Call that what you will - I call it a miracle).

Lots of pictures this week! Featuring:

-Hong Dixiong and his wife in THE MOST GORGEOUS HOSPITAL ROOM EVER.
-Amusement park with my adorable companion

-Dinners with flipping awesome people

-All the sisters in the Southern part of the mission at a conference :)

-This morning as we were walking Sister Greenhalgh's luggage to the apartment, our Relief Society President pulled over and insisted we let her load Sister G's bags onto her motorcycle!!!! It was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

Much love!

Sister Daynes

P.S. above caption is from "the last five years"

Letter #19 - "Do you have anywhere we can get our picture taken, like a photo store?" -Uncle Rico

Excuse the strange title. See photos for clarification.  (Letter sent on Feb. 21, 2017)

If this is my last week in Yuanlin, then I'm so grateful that I was able to serve here. While it's not perfect by any means, Yuanlin has become a bit of a heaven on earth for me. I wish I had the language skills to express to these people how much I love them. They have put a handprint on my heart. We won't know til next week if I'm leaving or staying, but time has gone so fast. Sister reeve and I want to work super hard for our last week. We have so much work to do. 

Highlights from this week: Wednesday we took a train to Tianzhong, our secondary area. We found several new people who we set up with! Sister Reeve and I both needed the pick-me-up and it was an awesome day. We play contacting games when we talk to  people and our favorite is Quidditch, where we give ourselves points for every tract we give, lesson we teach, Book of Mormon we give, and number, setup, and new investigator we get. Our goal was 500 and we ended the day with 560 points! Being a missionary can be fun you guys :)

The elders had a baptism Friday night and they realized last minute they had no one to play the piano. Somehow I was called on to play (be proud of me, Mom). I played every song I knew in the hymnbook and was feeling pretty good, but then our ward mission leader said "and now we will sing I am a child of God" which I had never played before!! Uhh... I struggled through it and it was very off key, but everyone told me it was fine. Oh well.

Last thing- one of our english class students came to church on sunday. He's an older man and is a little strange. near the end of sacrament meeting, he turned around in his seat and handed Sister Reeve and I a couple of pictures he took in 1993 of him with his shirt off. We quickly got up and left the chapel because we couldn't hold in our laughter, then started laughing our heads off! It was so ridiculous! So included for your viewing pleasure....

Photos this week also include lots of food and heart shaped pancakes on Valentines Day :)

Also! Next week cuz of transfer changes my P day willl be on tuesday.

Much love!!! sister Daynes