Families Are Forever

Elder Coletti's Letter 3/19/17:

This week I learned a very valuable lesson and it has really changed my perspective of eternal families.  So, recently in our ward, we had a member pass away.  His name is 林秉程 (Lin Bing Cheng).  Brother Lin was in Japan with his family when he started to have a heart attack.  He eventually passed away 2 weeks later.  He and his wife were baptized in Dec. of 2014.  Brother Lin has 2 children, both under the age of 8.  This past week Elder Welker and I went to his funeral.  At the funeral were all of Brother Lin's friends, families, coworkers, etc.  It was during the end of the service, that everybody that attended grabbed a flower, and set it down by a big frames picture of Brother Lin.  They bowed to the picture, and then they bowed to Brother Lin's wife, sister, and other family members.  After a little bit of time, and lots of emotional sisters, it turned into every sister hugging Sister Lin and comforting her.  It was then that it kind of hit me: he's gone.  The man that I saw every week a church.  The man with two beautiful children.  He was gone.  It eventually was time for myself and Elder Welker to go up and pay our respect, along with the other ward members.  As I turned the corner, I saw the big framed picture of Brother Lin, and I felt like I had been smacked in the face!  Throughout my life, I haven't dealt that much with death.  The death that I have dealt with happened when I was way too young to realize what was going on or what it meant.  When I saw the picture of Brother LIn, I realized that I was never going to see him again and that hit me so hard.  When I got up to the front, I gave Sister Lin a two handed handshake.  We were both very emotional.  But, when I saw her face and looked into her eyes, I was relieved.  What I saw, when I looked into her eyes was hope.  She knew that it was going to be alright.  She knew he was still there.  She knew that they had an eternal family, one that would break the binds of death.  That is the power of eternal families. Families are forever.

I know that families are eternal.  We will always be together.  We will always be near, no matter how far it seems that we have fallen.  Sister Lin's hope was amazing and it helped me realize the truthfulness of eternal families.  If you have experience tragedy, or when you experience tragedy, remember that it is not the end.  With God on your side, you will never reach the end.  I love my family, and I am so grateful to have this opportunity on earth to grow with them, to learn with them, and to eventually return with them.  Keep the wider perspective.  Think beyond this life on earth.  I cannot wait to go to the homecoming party with all of you, my brothers and sisters, after we win this game.;)

Elder Coletti

I've attached a picture of the Lin Family.

The Love of God

Elder Coletti's Letter 3/12/17: 

Good afternoon from Taiwan!  This week was incredible.  Its been raining quite a bit recently, but it has been filled with miracles nonetheless.  I love my mission in Taiwan.  It is seriously so much fun.  I can't believe the time is going this fast.  It makes me super sad.  However, I am so grateful.  I am so stinking grateful for everything that I have already learned.

Something that I have been learning a lot about this week is the love of God.  We have an investigator named 呂國瑋 (Lu Guo Wei).  His English name is Wii, but we never call him that.  He is a very interesting guy.  He always talks about Satan.:)  One time I told him we were going to start teaching the commandments, and he said, "If I believe Satan, do I have to obey the commandments?"  Just weird stuff like that, but most of the time he is joking.  He literally comes to church every single week.  Last week he worked Saturday night at 12 (midnight) until Sunday at noon (12:00) and he still came to our church service at 2.  He worked a 12 hour shift, and still made it to church.  He likes to come to church because he likes to listen to the choir that sings before church.  It's really peaceful.  So, I was sitting with him during Sacrament Meeting, and was talking to him a little bit about Baptism.  He was talking about how he's not really sure about baptism right now.  I then asked him the question, "Do you believe God loves you?"  He then said, "I believe that God exists, but he doesn't love me."  This made me so sad.  I then asked him, "What's your biggest dream in life?"  He then says, fighting some tears off, "That I can end my life earlier and get away from my struggles."  It then hit me why Wii always talked about Satan, and why he comes to church, and why he was willing to meet with missionaries.  He's lonely.  Wii literally has no friends.  He feels like he has nobody that loves him.  He wants to end his life early because he feels like it would just be a lot easier.  It would be a lot easier to go to the Telestial Kingdom.  He needs to feel the love of God.  I just had my arm around him the entire Sacrament Meeting testifying to him and telling him how much God loves him, how much God wants him to come unto Him.  He needs to repent and he needs to forget about the mistakes he has made in the past. During this Sacrament Meeting, I was filled with so much love.  How lucky am I to have been born in an environment that I could feel the love of God?  How lucky am I to go to an island where there are people that need to feel this same love? It is never too late to repent.  We can always change.  We can change how we think of ourselves.  We can change everything and that is because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  It's because of him we can change.  Don't ever forget who God is.  Don't ever forget how much he loves every single one of us because there are people out there that don't know what it feels like.  What they need is someone to help them feel the Love of God.  Someone to tell them what to look for.  Someone to tell them how to find it.

Love your neighbors like you love yourself.  Love who you are.  Love that God loves you.  Take this love, and give it to others.  Give it to those that need that boost.  Keep praying for Wii.  We will keep helping him feel the truthfulness of repentance, and know of the Love of God.

Elder Coletti

Busy, busy, busy

Elder Coletti's Letter 3/5/17

HELLO!  Honestly nothing too crazy happened this week.  Just a typical week of work in the vineyard haha.  But I did learn some really good things this past week.  Elder Funk of the 70 was in town, and he trained us on how to better teach repentance and baptize converts.  It was really good.  Something that I have been studying a lot lately is about Repentance.  How it is a daily thing.  And how it is through the Mercy of Jesus Christ that we are saved on the condition of Repentance.  We all need to Repent.  And Repentance is a good thing.  We need to personally witness Repentance in order to help others feel the need to Repent.  They need to see it from ourselves, and see the mighty change that it can bring to us.  Love ya.  I'm still alive haha.  Sorry momma... No pictures this week hahaha

Love,

Elder Coletti

Sam was baptized!

Elder Coletti's Letter 2/26/17:

Somebody call 119, Taoyuan's fire burning with that 洗禮!  ooowhoaaa!  Hahaha  Elder Welker and I just made up a song;)  Sorry to everyone that doesn't read Chinese!:)  洗禮 means XiLi, which means baptism!  Elder Welker, Elder Lin, and I had another baptism this week.  His name is Sam (葉劭涵)!  He is honestly one of the most prepared individuals I have ever met.  Back in November, a missionary gave him an English Track, and he decided to go to English Class and check it out!  He really likes English and wanted to learn more.  After that, he met with missionaries and started to change.  When he first heard a prayer in English Class, he decided from that day on, he was going to say a prayer every night.  He did.  Sam is one of the most humble men I have ever met. He is so loyal and loving to his friends.  Before he was baptized, he was saving money to go on a mission himself.  He just absolutely loves missionaries!  He has a bunch of friends in the ward now.  All of the members LOVE Sam.  They always ask about him.  I am honestly so grateful to have met Sam.  He is one of my best friends.

Counts Your Many Blessings.  God makes up the difference for our weaknesses.  He always does.  Regardless of what you have done in the past, regardless of where you have done wrong, God is not giving up on you. As long as we have the desire and the intent to change, God will shower the sky with blessings.  God is good.....so, so good!

Email Sam and congratulate him!  His English is pretty solid!  I'm praying that he'll go to Logan Utah for his Mission:)))))  I will definitely 陪 his 課 if ya know what I'm saying;) hahaha

his email is: monkey86868@yahoo.com

Love ya!

 

 

Charity and Forgiveness

Elder Coletti's Letter 2/19/17:

Hello!  Sorry, but time is very, very short today.  I still love youzz.  I'm still alive;)

The biggest thing I learned this week is about Charity and Forgiveness.  The power of Forgiveness is so powerful.  Not only Forgiving others, but Forgiving yourself as well.  Realizing that we ourselves are unable to be perfect and realizing that there is a Man that can make us perfect. He is always willing and wanting to Forgive us.  But if we can't Forgive ourselves, why the heck would He forgive us.  Jesus wants us to come unto him so bad.  He is begging us to come unto him.  When we refuse to Forgive ourselves, we refuse to accept the mercy of Jesus Christ.  We are refusing to use the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  The healing is only as powerful as our attitude is.  You can do this.  You can succeed in this life.  You can be cleansed.  But it has to be from the inside out.

Elder Coletti

Transfers!

Elder Coletti's Letter 2/12/17:

Transfers!  I have a new companion by the name of Elder Welker.  He is from St. George Utah, and played football for Dixie.  I actually remember seeing him at the 2014 championship.  Pretty cool.  We also saw eachother in the MTC, and served pretty close to one another down in HuaLian.  Super excited for this upcoming transfer.

Funny experience from the week through the words of the one and only Elder Welker!;)

"This week was so cool!!  Sophie and Ray were baptized on Wednesday before I took off, and then Jamie was baptized on Saturday!  I got permission to go back and attend his baptism, so Elder Coletti and I got into a taxi and took off at what we thought was a time that would get us there about 15-20 minutes early, but then we missed the train.  So, we waited about 20 minutes for the next train.  As we arrived in 竹北, the time was 9:55, and the baptism started at 10:00.  We couldn't find a taxi in sight, so we started booking it to the chapel.  Elder Coletti was sprinting to keep up with my long strides haha, and we made it to the chapel around 10:10, where everybody was already waiting for me to get in the picture, so we snapped a couple photos, and then they all went in and started while I got dressed into my baptismal clothing.  It is now 10:15.  The service was awesome, the talks before the baptism were great, and after not realizing that the baptism of 陳姊妹 was already over (the Sisters also had an investigator getting baptized), Jamie and I stepped in to see all the confused faces of everybody wondering why we took so long hahaha!  After the baptism, it was about 10:50.  Now, why do I keep mentioning the time?  It's because we had a member buying us free lunch at 12:30, and it takes about an hour and a half to get back to our area.  So, the only things left on the list now are for Jamie and 陳姊妹 to bear their testimonies, and then for bishop to introduce them to the ward.  Well, the testimonies were awesome, but were pretty long, and so now it was about 11:00.  Bishop gets up, and I'm like, "alright, let's make this a short one."  But did he hear my thoughts?  No.  Did he see the anxiety that was in my eyes as I was trying to hide the emotions I was feeling with a smile on my face?  Not at all.  What he did was teach gospel principles class!!  Every time it seemed like he was about to wrap things up, another thought came to his mind, and after 20 minutes of listening to his sermon, we sang the slowest, or to us it seemed like the slowest, "come follow me" I have ever been a part of.  But it finished, and then the closing prayer was said.  That was followed by two second congratulations hugs and then we booked it out of there so fast that most people didn't even notice that we had left.  It is now about 11:35, and we flag down the first taxi we see and tell him to book it.  But to where?  We knew there was only one way to get to our free lunch.  So we took to high-speed rail.  The taxi driver punched the gas, swerved through the traffic, ran numerous red lights, and disregarded the fact that he had butted the 12 cars that were waiting in the left turning lane.  All for us.  I love that taxi driver.  So when we got to the high-speed rail, we embarked on the fastest train ride experience I have ever been a part of, and now we were in 桃園, or where we?  Yes we were, but we were in the farthest part of our area.  It is now 12:10.  We race outside, find a taxi driver, and just like the last guy tell him to step on it!  He too weaved through the traffic, flying at speeds that only the high-speed rail was capable of going, but he did stop at red lights.  We disembarked his car at about 12:30, where we walked in like champions, awaiting our wonderful meal that we assumed we probably could have paid for with the money we spent on travel (which was about $30 American dollars)😂"

Truly love every single one of you.  Thank you for always being there for me!  I love hearing/ reading that everyone is doing good.  Keep thriving in the gospel and striving to do better.  That's is the only way that we can make it back.  Can't stop, won't stop, like the ball team.

Elder Coletti

Kathy was baptized!

Elder Coletti's Letter 2/5/17:

This week we had a baptism!  Her name is 胡佩君 (Hu Pei Jun) or Kathy. Her story is a little interesting.  Her family is already members.  They've all been baptized before, even Kathy.  However, her baptismal records were lost.  This was her proof that she was baptized at 8.  Her family has been LA most her life.  Our Bishop asked missionaries to work on getting her and her family reactivated and to baptize Kathy again. Missionaries have been trying to get into contact with Kathy since July, but it hasn't worked out.  She usually doesn't answer her phone, or won't show up to appointments, etc.  One day, Elder Lin and I decided to just go to their home.  We went to the home and we called the home phone.  The mom answered and said they can't meet right now, but they could meet the next day.  We met Kathy the next day, and she started her journey back to church.  She always believed in our church, and she knew it was right, but she said she was just to lazy to come to church, read scriptures, etc.  We helped her regain her faith to act, and we helped bring her back to church.  We have also helped the mom come back.  We are still working with the dad and Kathy's other family members.  Kathy said that she is so grateful God has given her a second chance to be baptized and to rekindle her fire.  She is super fun.  We are so happy for her and for her conversion.

People all need second chances.  We need to help them Rekindle their Fire and Relight their Faith.  Love you all!  Transfers are this week.......We will see what is going on in TaoYuan!  

Elder Coletti