Happy New Year 2107

So last week was Christmas and it was lit. We had 10 investigators at church! And then the super cool Sister Ni had a super cool caroling activity at her house and she invited like 3 families and let us go door to door with like 25 members/nonmembers in her neighborhood, which is a neighborhood that would never be allowed in if we didn't have Sister Ni. So it was just an wonderful day full of wonderful people. 

But anyways, last Wednesday during lunch Elder Hammond and I got a little surprise phone call from the mission president. And after making sure we weren't busy and then said he was "about to flip our world upside down." He then proceeded to ask Elder Hammond to come be his assistant in the office and my new companion was going to be Elder Aiono, the AP Elder Hammond would be replacing. 

Because we were in the middle of training which is two transfer, we were supposed to be guaranteed 2 transfers together to complete training. So this came as quite a surprise, but super exciting to see Elder Hammond starting this new adventure as he comes to the last few transfers of his mission. And this meant that I would be working with the Elder Aiono for the last transfer of his mission, which is so exciting and has been just great since he arrived on Thursday. It's really a great experience for me to learn from two excellent missionaries with their different styles of missionary work. 

Last week we also had Charlie and Yvonne's baptism, which was just a beautiful experience. I am so excited for them and their future as active members in the church. And the most exciting part is that they're so excited about it too. We've been talking a lot about Eternal families and the importance of the sealing ordinance in the temple. On the mission the concept of eternal marriage has really hit me, and I just can't wait for them to take that step towards eternal life together as a family.

So yeah my super cool new companion, Elder Aiono. He's from Las Vegas and played football at Southern Oregon for a year before the mission. He's the oldest of NINE kids. So yeah you can say he's really good with the families we find here in Taiwan. And yeah this is his last transfer so he's kinda like a wise old man now, so I have a lot to learn from him during these next 6 weeks before he dies.  

(Note from Mom. In this mission each new group that comes in are called babies. The whole new group is called a new generation. That makes the trainer the Mom or Dad to the baby. So when you leave the mission you are a Grandpa or Grandma and you die. Elder Aiono isn't really dying. He is returning to his Las Vegas home in 6 weeks and will be released from his mission.)

Elder Hammond, Wen An and I during a hike last week.
aka before hair cut

Wen An cooking some noodles for us in the mountain.

Xie family baptism after hair cut. He looks so good.