Monday Aug. 24, 2015:
Elder Woo left our district and headed to his mission in California. It's a very weird story. The MTC thought that he was a fast track, when he is basically intermediate with speaking Chinese. However, he did not know how to teach the gospel in Chinese, which is kind of important for a mission. He was sent to the Provo MTC to do a six week program and leave at the same time as our whole district. Nobody let his mission president know the change of plans. The mission president needed him ASAP, so he had to leave immediately. Crazy! He found out he was leaving Saturday, which had to be stressful for him. I really love this Elder and I hope for the best with him!
Tuesday Aug. 25, 2015:
Today I had one of the best personal scripture study sessions I have ever had! I was studying in 1 Nephi
Chapter 8 about the tree of life. I understood more than I ever have before! At first I thought it was just about holding fast to the iron rod (word of God) and then we would be able to taste the fruit (love of God). That is what it is about, however, I looked at it from a different perspective this time. I put myself in Lehi's shoes . What was the first thing he did after he tasted the fruit? He wanted to share it with his family. This made me reflect back to my experience last Sunday with listening to Elder Bednar's talk "The Character of Christ" and how it is about turning outward instead of inward. Lehi could have turned inward and kept all of God's love to himself. But, instead of thinking inward and about his own desires, he turned outward and thought about the desires of his family. He wanted to share this gift which was most desirable above all other gifts. I learned to turn outward with the love of God. Lehi wanted to share the fruit of the tree with his family and he did. This chapter has completely changed my perspective on missionary work. I have tasted the love of God. We all know that it is the most desirable gift of all and is absolutely "delicious". However, there are still billions of people that have not tasted of this fruit. As our faith towards God and his love grows, we will have a greater desire to share the love of God with everyone who has not tasted it. Instead of turning inward and keeping this wonderful gift to ourselves, we need to turn outward and help a friend or family member taste the love of God, which is the most desirable love of all. I promise that if we do this, then we will begin to develop Characteristics of Christ, and we can then help the Lord with his work.
Wednesday Aug. 26, 2015:
Today was our last lesson with Holly. Elder Miller and I invited Holly to live the Word of Wisdom. If she was able to live it until our next lesson then Elder Miller and I promised we would bring her an ice cream. So, what kind of missionaries would we be if we didn't live up to our word! Holly followed the Word of Wisdom and we brought her a Blue Bunny Ice Cream Bar. Holly could not stop laughing! She thought is was the funniest thing in the world! It was a really good lesson and Holly is doing great! Today I saw a tianshi (angel). No lie! I was sitting in my room, eating some Doritos, when all of a sudden I heard something in the bathroom. I went to check it out. It turns out that there was an Elder singing in the shower. I decided I had to follow the example of Buddy the Elf! I sat in the bathroom and just listened to him! He was so good!!! He was singing Coldplay and I couldn't help but start singing along with him! I scared him! He was really nice to me though and didn't yell at me to get out. We just continued to sing Coldplay and it was awesome! We are now friends:)
Thursday Aug. 27, 2015:
We got a new lao shi (teacher) today. He's not our permanent teacher, but he is going to help other classes in the branch. He can speak four languages: English, Chinese, French, and Tagalog. He is from Taipei and he has taught me so many helpful tips! He said the people in Taiwan are very polite and won't correct you when your Chinese is bad. We should ask them for help speaking Chinese:) He also said that the girls in Taiwan are very attractive and they love Americans. They will be all over us and we need to lock our hearts!! I got a giggle out of that one! :) He helped my jianzheng (testimony) grow as well! He taught me that we need to do something that will improve our faith EVERY SINGLE DAY! We cannot just act on faith once a week and expect it to grow. If we do not participate in an act of faith everyday, then we are missing out on so many blessings and faith building experiences. I really took that to heart and I am working on improving my faith every single day! We can't just go to church once a week and expect our faith to grow. Faith is just like a tree. If we were to water a tree once a week, it would end up dying. But, if we watered the tree every day, it would grow into a giant orchard!
Friday Aug 28, 2015:
We taught Holly and Tony this week. The lessons were BANG (AMAZING)! While we were teaching Holly, the Spirit could be felt so strong in the room. I honestly don't remember what I was saying, (because it's in Chinese and I usually don't even understand what I'm saying myself!) but, something I said made Holly cry! It was the weirdest, yet most spiritual thing I have experienced. Holly is really Sister Hsuing (our lao shi or teacher).So, when she started crying, I was really confused! I saw her wipe her eyes, and then I paused because I wasn't sure what to do. It taught me a valuable lesson. I may not know what I'm saying half the time in Chinese, but if I speak with my own conviction, than the Lord with put those words into the hearts of the mudaoyou (investigators) I am teaching. I witnessed this with Holly! We then taught Tony. While we were teaching him he actually smiled!! Usually Tony shows absolutely no emotions during our lessons and it almost feels like he is just bored. He smiled today and I could see the spark in his eye that he was getting what we were teaching. It was awesome! Tony is another one of our teachers named Brother Walters.
Saturday Aug 29, 2015:
We had TRCs today which is always amazing! We also found out that on Monday, Aug 31, 2015 we get to Skype and teach someone from Taipei! I am so excited and will tell you how it goes next week!
Sunday Aug 30, 2015:
Today I had to lead a discussion in Priesthood about the Book of Mormon. It went really well and the discussion that followed was great. The Devotional in the evening was by Brother Dahlquist and he taught us about taking baby steps and how that will make all the difference. This can definitely apply to everyone. I applied this to the lesson I learned earlier in the week about feeding my faith. I don't have to do anything incredible or life changing everyday. I just need to take baby steps and then that will make all the difference. It's better to take baby steps than no steps at all. We also watched "Teaching" by Elder Holland. It's Elder Holland, so of course it was amazing!
Love you all,
Elder Coletti
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