Summer In Taiwan !

Dear Family & Friends,

Summer in Taipei has been ruff but the people in Taiwan have been very very kind which makes the temperate a little cooler!

Another transfer has come and gone and I am still currently serving in the Shuang He Area in New Taipei City! This area is amazing and I'm excited to serve here with a new companion!!

My new companion is Sister Oviatt! We were in the MTC together, which makes it even more fun! She is a sweetheart full of love and patience. She might need some patience if I'm her companion :) She is from Texas and she has been on her mission just a transfer or generation ahead of me! So we are both young missionaries :) In our area we have Shuang He 1 & 2. We serve in the 2nd ward. Our goal in our two wards right now is to help make a Shuang He 3! We are prepping to work hard this transfer to help make this goal happen within the year!! Actual Work is just music to my ears!!!

 So many new changes are happening this transfer! The biggest one is probably getting a new mission president! His name is President Jergensen - he's from Logan, Utah and he is bringing his wife, two twin sons who are 14 years old, one daughter whos 17, and even his father and mother-in-laws! I'm excited for President Jergensen and his willingness to serving along side us as missionaries. The Mission President with serve with his family for the next three years in Taiwan Taipei.

These last few weeks together we ate a lot with members and had a good time! We did all we could to make our last week count! Here is a picture of us with our Bishop's wife, Xie JieMei. They took us to a Thai restaurant. Then we ate lunch at a family members home. Heres a picture of their cute family! & another member made us a big pan of brownies!!! We also found chicken katsu in Taiwan~! It is was delicious!!!

Lastly, we saw our old "A Ma" (like a grandma but older and wiser) She is a old lady that sells "pig's blood" on a stick (everyone here loves it - i dont). She is always at the stop light going to our favorite contacting area. When we first met her we gave her a Christ picture because she said she believed in Christ. This last week we saw her setting up her little cart and saw the picture of Christ in here stuck on inside her cart! I had to take a picture of it. I love and adore her smile when we ride by. She always smiles and says we're pretty, which just makes our day.

Anyways, I love you all! I'm feeling much better and have a good time here in Taiwan. Trying to bless people's lives one day at a time!

Sincerely yours, Sister Komatsu

Happy Belated Father's Day !

Serving in Taiwan
With Sister Akita

Dear Family & Friends

Happy belated Father's Day to all the father's out there!

This week was an exhausting week! Feeling a little under the weather actually. It rained really hard yesterday and we were biking out all day long that I just took and shower and crashed immediately. We had Zone Conference which is a big training day for us as missionaries! It was our Mission President, President Day's, last time of training us. This coming week our new mission president is coming in and taking over! It's going to be so exciting! His name is President Jergensen. Everyone in the mission is a little worried or unsure about what's going to happen in our mission but I'm so excited and really to have a brand new and fresh Mission President. 

This friday is transfer meeting, which is a meeting for all new companionship to get together and move to their new areas they are assigned to. Transfer meeting is this really fun and a scary meeting that everyone loves to go to. The missionaries that are leaving that transfer get to share their testimonies and experiences they have. Then they pull up the big screen and everyone has their pictures on the screen - They show the areas and the companionship's in that area then your photos shows up in that new area with your new companion! It's scary but exciting!

I'm actually afraid to stay in my area because that means that my trainer is moving and I'm going to "take over the area" which just means that I know more than the new comp coming in so I plan everything. But I would be so excited to leave to another area and see Taiwan!!!

Here are photos! There were a lot of successes this week. We talked to a lot of people and visited our members. It was a hard working week! We are ready to blow off some steam and go ice skating today!! YAY!

Okay, love you all!!!

Sincerely, Sister Komatsu 小松姐妹

More...From Kelsie in Taiwan !

Dear Family & Friends!!

This weekend was an amazing weekend! Clare was Baptized and Confirmed!! YAY! We were so happy for her :)

This Saturday, Clare was able to be baptized by our District leader, Elder Casper. It was a special moment for both Sister Akita and I. I never thought it would be true - that I would assist someone in making the biggest decision of their eternal life! This girl has truly been a blessing in my time here in Taiwan. I will never forget what she taught me!

Her testimony is one of the sweetest and self-less testimony's I've have every heard. She is so charitable and loving towards others that she expressed that she is excited to bear another's burdens - to mourn with others and comfort others.

"...to be called His people, and are willing to bear one another's burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ue may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life." Mosiah 18:8-9

Then this Sunday she was blessed and given the Holy Spirit to be with her always. She just had a big smile on her face the whole sunday afternoon! She then said the closing prayer at the end of our Relief Society meeting- I had no idea what she said but I felt every word of it. She was praying with so much confidence and with a burning fire within her. I expressed to her that, thats what I was seeing in her and she replied that was the way she was feeling.

During the baptism I thought about how she was ours and how we helped her from the beginning to end - but then a humble thought came to my mind - she is her own, she did it all on her own. We were just there to give her the building blocks and from there she was able to build her own relationship with God, her own testimony, and her own future. She belongs and has always belonged to our Heavenly Father. This is His work and I'm just the humble servant doing as He directs me to do.

Being a servant of the Lord is much more than going to a different country and meeting new people - it's about having Heavenly Father open your eyes to the greatness and goodness in other's potential. She was already a good person when we met her but now I've been given the opportunity to see the change that Heavenly Father and His gospel has given her. I'm very very thankful to be apart of her story! 

This has been the first gratifying experience I've had while being on my mission! I know that I'm here to also bear another's burdens. This has been my goal for awhile since being here. My Chinese is horrible and I'm not a very good teacher but I am very willing to bear another's burdens and help them work through them. I'm grateful for this opportunity to help other's change their lives and I'm indebted to God for changing my own. 

This is my email this week! Thank you again for your love and support - even if it's just reading my email!

From Taiwan to you!

Sincerely, Sister Komatsu

 

Kelsie in the Rain !