GROUP EMAIL 11/28/2018 Temple today Woot woot!

I get to go to the temple today woot Woot! I am so pumped you guys don't even know. 

Anyways, this week was pretty good! There are a few highlights from this week that I think that I will talk about. 

Alright, so the first is dodge ball! We actually played the very last dodge ball game in the mission. Fun stuff. It was especially fun because I left my workout shoes in LA and so I was playing in some good old church shoes. It was the first time I had thrown a ball in forever so my arm was a little sore afterwards which was kind of funny. Anyways, back to the last dodge ball game in the mission. We had zone conference that Thursday and dodge ball was banned, so yeah, that was funny because we have credit on the last dodgebal game in the mission. Don't worry it wasn't our fault though. 

The next day though I got in a bike accident! Woo-hoo for riding bikes in Taiwan. This actually had nothing to do with the crazy traffic here this was just all me. Basically what happened was I was riding while standing up. I then saw a 帥哥 and I tried to wave to him. However, as I did this I lost my balance since I was standing up and went straight into the asphalt. It actually wasn't too bad. I was fine, the only two bad things about it though were my pants ripped and my bike is no longer perfect. Sad day. However, I got up and we ended up having a gospel conversation with this guy. Sadly he wasn't interested. But it's okay. 

After that it was zone conference! Zone conference was absolutely fantastic if I do say so myself. Man it was so spiritual and we learned a ton about doing member work, so we are working on doing that. However, the best part was we got Thanksgiving dinner! Ah man it was great. I loved it. All of the missionaries born in Taiwan were blown away. We actually went to church that Sunday and there were pictures sent back from an Elder that just went home from my area and the members were asking a bunch of questions it was funny. They didn't know what like any of the food was and they were asking a bunch of questions about it. They didn't even know what mashed potatoes are. Man it was crazy. President told a funny story about going and buying the turkeys from Costco and all of the natives being absolutely blown away by the turkeys. 

That Friday I got to go to the temple! We took a recent convert there. She is actually super cool. Her name is Yuna. So her story is she was baptized like a month and a half ago, however, for her work she moves to Egypt for a couple of months and then comes back to Taiwan. It is super crazy. And then, on top of that, she can't go to church in Egypt because it is super dangerous. But she has been praying everyday and reading everyday. When she got back this past week, she got her temple recommend and went to the temple on Friday. It was super cool! It was super cool to be in the temple too. It is super small. There was actually two white people from Singapore and they were too tall so the one guy kept hitting his knees on one side of the font. But yeah! That was the temple. It was such a cool experience. 

Saturday! Saturday was crazy awesome. It was 陳惠妤的洗禮會！陳 JM baptism! It was so cool. So one thing about Taiwan, is that the voting thing here is super weird. Basically, you have to go back to your home town where you grew up in order to vote. And you can only vote for the people that live there. It is basically a national holiday here and everyone goes. It's actually super crazy. But we super worried we weren't going to get a lot of people to her baptism, but it was her birthday on that day and she really wanted to be baptized on that day, so we were like, okay! But then our ward really pulled through and it was so awesome! We had so many people come out and support her and yeah, it was so cool. She's awesome. She is so excited to keep learning more about the gospel and the ways that it can bless her life.

That was pretty much my week! Just another great day in taiwan. I love it here so much, you guys should all come visit. 

My spiritual thought this week is Helaman 8:15 "15 And as many as should look upon that serpent should live, even so as many as should look upon the Son of God with faith, having a contrite spirit, might live, even unto that life which is eternal." Man this scripture is powerful. All we have to do in this life is look to Jesus Christ. Have faith in Him and His Atonement and we will be okay. However, faith is more than simply believing. True faith is both show and followed by actions. Things like reading our scriptures, repentance, praying, going to church, loving others, SERVING others. These are all things that both show our faith and allow us keep gaining more faith. I can promise all of you that whatever you are going through, no matter how big or small and trivial it may seem, Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father care. They want to help you. They will help you. They are just waiting for you to go to them. All we have to do is look to them.

Love you all! This work is great! If any of you are even considering going on a mission, do it! It is so worth it. Love you guys! 

Elder Vander Linden

林長老