Taiwan Taipei Mission

Taiwan Taipei Mission

Monday, January 26, 2015

Happy In Monument, Colorado

My dear family and friends!! 

Bryan: Sounds like you had a great week!! It is crazy that you are already done with another transfer! Have a blast in your new area! I will definitely be praying for you to find those ready to receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Marissa!: Congrats on passing your written drivers test! I am sure proud of you!! The family letter also talked about the lessons you have been having with Crystal and the missionaries!! I am so proud of you! You are such an amazing missionary! Be sure to send me pictures of her baptism in February! I also want to wish you luck in Los Angeles this weekend! Sing your heart out and have so much fun with mom!! 

Lachlan & Alexa: Looks like you had a blast at the Jazz game with dad! Keep having tons of fun! 


Here is a visa update from my mission President in Taiwan, President Day:
Continue to pray for our missionaries who are waiting on their visas.  Fifteen of nineteen have had all their paperwork sent into the visa office and we are now waiting for the final decision.  The other four missionaries need to send in one more document before the Taiwanese government can consider their visas. We are anxious for their arrival.

As for my week in Monument, CO: 

This week was pretty good. It went by extremely fast. I feels like I was emailing home yesterday. 

Tuesday, January 20, we were able to have a lesson with Cami. We brought our ward mission leader, Bro. Cook, with us and he added so much. We mainly talked about conversion. We shared the Mormon Message, The Refiner's Fire, and all shared our conversion stories. Cami also shared her conversion story and it was really neat. Cami is continuing to read the Book of Mormon and looking for truth. I hope she decides to come to church soon. 

On Tuesday, we were also able to meet with a less active in our ward. Her husband is currently traveling for work and will be gone for a month. She is just a neat lady. She continues everyday to read and study from the Book of Mormon. She shared, in tears, how she is planning on sending her son a Book of Mormon in the next package that she sends to him. He is currently in rehab receiving help overcoming some addictions. She has been through many surgeries in the past couple months and the pain she has been in is what has been keeping her from coming to church.
We had dinner with the Reynold family. They are the family from England. They currently have a son serving in Washington D.C. and returns this July. Sis. Reynold says the time has flown by. We were also invited to attend Young Women's tonight. Sis Goss brought her neighbor who teaches Pilates classes and we had a class. It was not only fun talking to Heather, the instructor, but also getting to know the young women in the ward. 

Wednesday, Jan. 21, we received 6-8 inches of snow. Because of the snow, the mission parked our cars so we couldn't go anywhere. Luckily, Wednesday's are Weekly Planning days so that filled our morning and I was able to get caught up in my journal in the afternoon. Sadly, we also had to cancel our appointments during the day but we were able to get rides to our dinner and night appointment. 

Thursday, we were able to go out to Area 2 and stop by some less active individuals. Unfortunately, none of them were home. We don't get out to area 2 very much because it is so far away and there are not very many members in that area. Area 2 is the wealthiest part of my area and the people we have come in contact with are not exactly ready to learn about the gospel. After, we were able to go to the Castle home. We helped Sis. Castle a little bit. She is due with their 4th baby the beginning of February. She asked us if we could play a game with her kids and so we played Chutes and Ladders. It was really fun and the Castle kids were a blast to play with. 
We had dinner with the Carpenters. Bro. Carpenter is a pediatric doctor for the Air Force so they have lived all over the world. She made this sticky toffee pudding from England for a dessert and it was SO good! They are a fun family to talk with their kids are geniuses so when they start talking about chemistry or something, they lose me...haha. 

We had an appointment with the Gaddy family after dinner. Bro. Gaddy is not a member but his wife is. I can't remember if I had talked about them before. Bro. Gaddy comes to church each week with Sis. Gaddy and stays all 3 hours. He has taken the lessons multiple times in the past. He is so neat to talk with and says that he likes having conversations with us..so that's always a plus. Last time we met with them, we asked Bro. Gaddy to think about his testimony and what he believes and to share it with us the next time we met. Bro. Gaddy is very educated and thinks very deeply. Thursday night, we mostly discussed the meaning of the word, 'testimony' and a little bit about what he believes. We always laugh with him because he has given a Book of Mormon away and he also told us tonight that he gave a Plan of Salvation pamphlet away to one of is coworkers. Ha. Sis. Gaddy has a daughter out on a mission right now in Chile and Bro. Gaddy has a really good relationship with her. She answers a lot of his questions and is a huge support to him. 

Friday, we had district meeting in the morning. I was asked to give the devotional. On Thursday, I read the talk from President Monson entitled, "Guided Safely Home." It is from the Priesthood Session of this last General Conference. I LOVE the quote:

Like the vital rudder of ship, brethren, we have been provided way to determine the  direction we travel. The lighthouse of the Lord beckons to all as we sail the seas of life.  Our purpose is to steer an undeviating course toward our desired goal-even the celestial kingdom of God. man without purpose is like ship without rudder, never likely to reach home port. To us comes the signal: chart your course, set  your sail,position your rudder, and proceed.

I love this quote because it reminds us to follow the example of Jesus Christ. He came to this earth to not only atone for our sins but to also leave us with an example to base our lives off of. I love how all over the scriptures, especially in the New Testament, Christ says, "Follow Thou Me." I invite you all to find one thing in your life that you can change or work on to follow the example of Christ better. 

After district meeting, we did some stop bys and visited with the Billings. He is a chiropractor and he adjusted our backs. We were able to talk more to Sis. Billings about how we can help her and the Young Women in the ward. We had dinner early tonight because there was this huge forum tonight but it worked out great because Sis. Grant had this extreme pain in her mouth and we were able to get an appointment with Bro. Lovejoy (a dentist in our ward) for her after dinner. Because of this, we had to cancel our night appointments but it turned out great because we had an appointment with the Castles to work on their Family Mission Plan. When we called Sis. Castle, she answered so fast and said something like, Oh my goodness, I am so glad you called. I totally forgot you were coming tonight. I am actually on my way to the hospital to hopefully deliver our baby. ha. It was crazy. We were at her home yesterday and today her baby was born. Sis. Grant has infection under a cap in a root canal. Bro. Lovejoy gave her some antibiotics and some pain killers to get rid of the pain. We spent the rest of the night taking care of her and going to Wal-Mart to get her some food she can eat. 

Saturday, we went to have our 2nd lesson with Melissa but she wasn't home. It was kind of weird because a couple days ago when we confirmed with her, she said she was all set and that one of her children, Brenna, had an all day speech tournament. She is really hard to get a hold of so we hope we will be able to catch her home soon to see if she still wants to take the lessons or not. :/. We went back to our home for lunch and additional study and Sis. Grant's medicine put her to sleep. We spent a couple hours doing some study while she slept. It was a pretty slow day...but that's okay. I was able to read a lot of the Book of Mormon. 

We had a couple member appointments Saturday night. We were able to meet with the Relief Society President, Sis. Smith, and discuss some needs in the ward. We had dinner at the Rivard's home, a role-play with the Jones family, and an appointment with Jenn. The Jones family is so cute. Both Bro. and Sis. Jones served missions. Bro. Jones in Guatemala and Sis. Jones in Italy. They have three kids, Ky (7), Finn (5 or 6) and Bre? ( almost 2). We taught them the Plan of Salvation. We have a fun diagram we lay out when we teach and the kids had a lot of fun. Ky is so smart. He knew all the answers to our questions. It was the cutest thing, we asked him why he wanted to get baptized this year and he told us, "So I don't have to do it later." haha His parents just laughed and shook their heads. Finn was also really cute. Bro. Jones asked Sis. Cook to say the closing prayer and Finn said, No, and pointed to me. He wouldn't let anyone else say the prayer but me...I don't know why, but he was really cute. Also, when we were getting ready to leave, he came up to me and gave me a hug, high-5, and rocks. He then ran into their living room and in full sprint came running to give me a high-5. This happened about 3 or 4 times. It made my day! 

Jenn is also a member in our ward. This weekend was her kids' dads weekend to have them so she was home alone. Her fiance, Shane, was living in the same apartment as her but when we got there Saturday night, she was waiting for us on the stairs and the first thing she told us was that Shane left yesterday afternoon and hasn't returned. This has happened once before I came to Colorado and was gone for 2 weeks and then just appeared again. Jenn was pretty calm about it. She was more worried about what she is going to tell her kids when they come back from their dad's home. Being the expert marriage/engaged counselor I am (not), I gave her the advice of focusing on her 3 beautiful kids, school, and herself. I told her to not worry about Shane or trying to keep a relationship with him. She agreed and said she was done with the un-stability in her life. We shared 2 Tim 1:7 with her and talked about relying on Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

Sunday was very busy. Most of our day was filled with church, ward choir, and correlation. We were only able to stay a Jenn's for a little bit Saturday night so we went back to spend a little bit more time with her. We had dinner with the John family. They have 9 total kids. Their youngest three, 7, 5, & 3 are all adopted. They are so cute and the story behind their adoption and life is funny and also incredible. When I have more time I'll share. 

Sorry, I wrote a lot today...haha hopefully you got all the way through it..if not, that's okay too!!

Overall, this week was great! I am so grateful for the time I have to spend on my mission! My testimony grows daily as we work to try and bring others unto Christ. 
I love you all so much! Have a great week!!

Love, 
Sister Haacke
黃姐妹

Matthew 5:16
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

 Sis. Grant and I on Wednesday.

 Me in all the snow.
 
 Selfie: Sis. Grant, Sis. Cook, and I.

Monday, January 19, 2015

A Happy Visa Waiter

GOOD NEWS!!!! I am now receiving President Day's weekly emails and this is part of the email that he sent this week!!! I am SO excited!!!!! Hopefully our visas can come soon!


STATUS OF OUR VISA WAITERS

I have received notice in the past couple of days that the paperwork for 15 of our visa-waiting missionaries has been finalized and forwarded to the consulate.  We hope the paperwork on the other 13 missionaries will be put together and submitted quickly as well.  Keep prayer for quick results. 



Thank you so much for the letters I got through out the week and the emails I got today! I appreciate them all so much! Thank you so much for your support and the love I receive from all of you!

So today being a holiday, we are emailing from a member's home. :) Everyone in the ward that I am serving in is so friendly and kind!! Here's a run down of my week:

Tuesday (Jan 13): Tuesday morning we had another lesson with our investigator, Cami. She is slowly progressing but still has multiple questions about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. We talked more about the Godhead because she believes in the Trinity. After our lesson, we were able to go down to Transfer meeting. I still have the same companions, Sister Grant and Sister Cook but I had to go down to sign some more visa papers. Here is the crazy thing about transfer meeting, Monday night we received a text from the Zone Leaders and they asked me if I lived in China and if my first name was Samantha. After talking a little bit, they told me an Elder in this mission knows me and it ended up being Elder Despain!!!! I called him on our way down to Colorado Springs and he remembered me from China! They moved home about 2 years before us we figured out...so...That's like 10 years ago!! I remember getting his high school graduation and his family Christmas cards every year. He was also going to Transfer Meeting so we were able to meet up and talk for a bit. He is already almost done with his mission! I believe he said he has been out for about 20 months! His family now lives in Oregon. I totally didn't recognize him though. I'm glad he remembered what I

looked like. haha. It is crazy how small the world is! From living in China I have made so many connections! It is insane.

Mom, I got your letter also on Tuesday. Thanks so much! I definitely needed that :) Alexa--I love your picture and letter you sent! It's so cute! Hopefully I'll have time today to write back :)

Wednesday (1/14): Wednesday we had weekly planning which pretty much takes up our entire morning. After weekly planning, we were able to go help Sis. Sorenson prime her basement. She is getting ready to finish her basement and priming was the first step. It was really fun to talk to her a spend a little time getting to know her better. We were supposed to have a lesson with the Germono family after but they called and cancelled on us so we will have to try and go over another time. We were able to do some stop bys before our  appointment with the Goss family and dinner appointment with the Gearhart family. The Goss family has a cute little 4 year-old girl who kept telling me I looked like Elsa from Frozen. (I'm assuming she meant Anna because of my hair)..but..It was super cute. 

Wednesday night we had an appointment with Sis. Hayes. She is a less-active who wants to get back to the temple this year. Our lesson with her was phenomenal. What we have decided to do is start from  the beginning and re-teach the lessons. We brought Sis. Melville with us and she added so much that helped Sis. Hayes. Sis. Hayes has been through a lot in her life--especially the last couple of years. She was baptized in 1997 and has a daughter who is currently in her Freshman year at College. The Spirit was so strong during the entire lesson and we invited her to pray again like Joseph Smith did. She expressed to us, in tears, her fears that she has about coming back to church. Sis. Grant was so prompted and shared 2 Timothy 1:7. (Look it up!!). She explained how fear comes from the adversary and if we turn to the Lord, He will be able to help us overcome fear. It was just what she needed to hear. She accepted our invitation to come to church with us this Sunday. Lessons like the one we had with Sis. Hayes are reasons that make me so grateful I decided to serve a mission! I know this is the work of the Lord. I am so grateful for the Spirit. If it wasn't for the Holy Ghost, we wouldn't be able to teach what others need to hear. 

Thursday (1/15): We had another lesson with Cami. Sis. Goss was able to come with us. We taught one of the commandments and mostly talked about the chapters she read in the Book of Mormon. She has sciatica (I hope that is how you spell it) so she has basically been on bed rest. She was able to read all of 2 Nephi and the first 4 chapters in Jacob. There were a couple things she questioned but she is learning a lot and remembering a lot of what she had read. She is also reading the Bible in chronological order this year so she did a lot of that reading as well. Cami is still trying to figure out who the Book of Mormon is written by. We were able to bear testimony but knowing that she will have to find that answer out for herself. For lunch, we went to Subway. We all forgot to pack a lunch but it was a miracle because we were able to talk to the worker, Jake. He saw our name tags and asked us what church we went to. We were able to give him a Mormon.org card with our number on it. He seemed really interested in learning more about the gospel. 

Later Thursday evening, after our dinner appointment, we were able to go over to the Gonzalez families home. They have two sons currently serving--one in Japan and the other in Chile. They are such a neat family! They are very talkative and we have a lot of fun talking to their family. 

Friday: Friday we had district meeting. Elder Wasden (district leader) brought the Ward Mission Leader from his ward, Bro. Hill, who talked to us about working with members and how hard it is for some members to accomplish the tasks we, as missionaries, give members. He mentioned the book, The Power of Everyday Missionaries. He said it is a great book on how to become great Member Missionaries. I heard that it is really good. I invite you all to read it! We were able to do some more stop-by's and we tracted a little bit. You should all be happy for me...I talked three homes in a row. We were handing out these Relgious Freedom Forum handouts so it made it a little easier to bring up that first. I guess there is some legislative that could possibly be passed in Colorado to limit religious freedom or something like that. This event is actually mostly being put on by the Catholic church but is going to be in the Stake Center. Tracting is starting, little by little, to be less frightening. I remember the first time we tracted--my first day out in the field--and I honestly thought I was going to have a heart attack :)

Saturday: We went on exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders. Sis. Cook and I went to Glen Eagle. It was a really slow day but we were able to play soccer with a big group of individuals from India! I guess the Glen Eagle Sisters came in contact with them about a month ago and they have become really good friends. They are all here on work assignments from Fed-Ex or UPS (I can't remember). I don't have soccer skills like Bryan but it was really fun and it was some good exercise. Saturday night we had dinner with the Billings and had a good conversation with Sis. Billings. She is the Young Women's President and we talked about how we can better help her and serve the Young Women.

Sunday: Sunday is such a busy day in the mission! Church was great. 3rd hour, we were able to teach the Young Women. The leaders asked us to talk about how to answer their friends questions. We had appointments with a couple families in the ward and a less-active family. We had dinner with the Bishop and his family. Sadly, our appointment after dinner was cancelled and we can't tract or basically do anything outside after dinner/dark so we went home and got a couple things done. We were also able to have some journal time to catch up which was really nice! Overall, it was a great day.

I am glad everything at home is going great. I love hearing everything!

Lachlan--congrats on winning the Pinewood Derby! I am so proud of you!! Your car looks awesome!

Marissa--My prayers are with you to pass your driver's ed test! haha. Keep studying hard!! I hope everything is going well with singing and everything. Any new word on The Voice tryouts?

Alexa: Thanks again for your letter! I loved reading it and the picture you drew is so cute! I miss having sleepovers with you!
This upcoming week we are really busy with appointments! Our ward mission leader is on fire! He is so dedicated to his calling and in helping us succeed.

Thanks again for all the prayers! I love you all so much!! I hope you have a great week!!

Love,

Sister Haacke

黃姐妹

P.S.

--I chopped off a lot of my hair on Friday night. I was really sad but it was so damaged on the bottom!!

--Bryan, I was able to meet Sis. Couch at transfer meeting! I guess Elder Poulter had emailed her too to look for me! She is so cute!
 


 Sis. Couch and I at transfer meeting!


 Elder Despain and I at transfer meeting.


All of us visa waiters (except one) in the Colorado Springs, Colorado mission signing our visa papers! It was like a little family reunion when we all saw each other! It was so fun!

Monday, January 12, 2015

Keep the Faith and Smile!

I loved Sis. Lindsay's (my MTC companion) Title on her email this week..So, I copied it. haha Thanks Sis. Lindsay! I love you!!!

Good morning from a snowy, foggy day in Monument, Colorado!! I just want to start by saying thanks to everyone for all the emails!! I was overwhelmed with love from all of you. This week has been a little challenging so I thank you all for that!!

Let me first give you a visa update that I was informed of this morning. Let me first say, no good news..so, don't get your hopes up...but, it's a step forward I guess. I have to travel down to the Mission Office tomorrow for the transfer meeting to sign some papers that are needed for the furthering of the visa application. From what I know, I have little idea of what these papers are. 
Better news is that I received two emails from Pres. Day (Mission President in Taiwan). He expressed his love and that all the missionaries are praying there for us to receive our visas. He sent us this language booklet that he wants us to start working on in our reassignments. He told us to not lose hope and to continue praying. 

Last Monday, my companions and I went up the the Air Force Academy and toured the Church there. It is gorgeous. They have rooms for all different religions. I was amazed! What is also really neat is that everything is based off of something off of an airplane. You can see in the large cross that it is the picture it is a plane propeller. I believe they told us it is 99 feet...so its huge! 

This week we were able to have a great lesson with one of our investigators, Cami. She is very very educated and has allowed me to learn so much about the Bible. I love the friendship that I have created with her. In our lesson on Tuesday, we talked more about reading the Book of Mormon with sincerity. She is not quite sure about Joseph Smith. She feels like he was a very sincere man but nothing else. She is still not coming to church but hopefully we can get her to church soon. Her and her family just moved a couple months ago from out East and it has been a little challenging on her family with all the changes that have gone on in her life. Religion is a very family central thing in her family so she feels like changing one more thing would take them over the edge. We are still working with her and hopefully see some progress this next coming week. 

Wednesday night we were able to have dinner with a part-member, less active family. It was really neat and they were all so nice! We talked to them about the power of prayer and asked them if they would come to church this week. Sadly, they didn't come..but, we will keep working on them. 

Friday, we had Zone Training all morning. We talked a lot about working with the Ward Council. I have come to meet some really amazing missionaries. Our Zone Leaders are very inspiring and great leaders. After Zone Training, my district and I went to lunch at Drifters. It reminded me a lot of In-and-Out. We had fun and we all guessed on where people were going to be transferred. Speaking of my district, I have gotten really close to all of them. There are 5 Sisters and 5 Elders (Because Elder Diepeveen and I joined half way through the transfer). Only 3 of us are getting transferred--Elder Peterson, Elder Van Patten, and Sis. Tarr, so it is still sad, but I am grateful I will be able to continue working with the others. We have a lot of fun together. 

Friday night we were able to get into the Tully home. Sis. Tully is a member and hasn't been to church in many, many years. Sis. Cook has been in this area for 6 months and has never been able to get into their home. Sis. Tully was the only one that talked to us and the first thing she told us was that she is an in-active but she still considered herself Christian. Her reasoning is that she was tired of forcing her children, when they were younger to go to church so she just flat out stopped going. We asked her the last time she read the Book of Mormon and she told us she can't remember. We challenged her to begin everyday to start reading the Book of Mormon and she accepted so hopefully she will do that. 

Saturday I was able to get together with Bro. Savage again to study some language. He was the one I met with a couple weeks ago who served in Taipei. He showed me the discussions that he had to memorize when he was a missionary. There was so much to memorize! Mom and dad, I don't know how you did it! With Bro. Savage, I role-played the first couple bullet points in the first discussion-The Restoration-and he helped me with some words and grammar. Before we role-played, I said the opening prayer and he told me my tones were really good...I was really happy. haha...Hopefully I will be able to meet up with him again since I will probably be here for a while longer. 

When we don't have appointments, we fill our day with stop-bys, service, and tracting. This week, luckily for me, we were pretty busy putting our ward mission plan together so that took up most of our tracting time. 

Church was really good yesterday. During second hour, we as missionaries are teaching an 18 year old boy named Ian. He is deaf and so his dad, who just converted about 1 1/2 years ago, translates for us. It was such a neat experience. Ian doesn't know who God is or anything about Jesus Christ so we are starting from the very beginning. Yesterday, we talked about the Plan that Heavenly Father gave us and the Pre-Mortal life. During 3rd hour, the Relief Society, Priesthood, and Young Men & Women's gathered together and we discussed the Ward Mission Plans that we have for the Ward for this upcoming year. From what I saw, people are pretty excited and hopefully we will see the work to start progressing here in this area. The missionaries in this area are just starting to gain the trust back from the missionaries. So, I also feel like the work will start progressing and we will see some success in the Jackson Creek Area. 

Sunday was also filled with meeting with the Ward Council and Ward Correlation. We also had a Stand & Report meeting Sunday night that we had to attend where the stake bishops, ward mission leaders, and missionaries get together and everyone talks about their Ward Mission Plan. Pres. Rehm (Mission President) was also there. It was a little repetitive but good to see what everyone else's plans were for the upcoming year. We had to leave early because we had an appointment but Elder Diepeveen talked to Pres. Rehm after the meeting and asked him about our visas. President told him about the papers that we had to sign and Sunday night when Elder Wasden (Our district leader) called us for our stats, he told me the news that we had more papers to sign. This honestly made me really sad and a bit frustrated. When I came to Colorado, I thought in my mind that I would only be here until transfers or leave even earlier than that. Transfers are tomorrow and when I heard that there were still more papers to sign, I knew that we were still out a couple of weeks. I had a hard time understanding why I am still here but I just need to ask that question to the Lord and knowing that he will give me that answer. 

I love what I am doing. I am learning and growing so much each week. Even though this week was disappointing about the visa situation, I need to keep pressing forward and learning all that I can here. 

I love you all. Thank you so much for the support I have received from all of you! I know that I couldn't do this without you all!! 

Have a great week!! I look forward to hearing from you next week!! 

Love, 
Sister Haacke 

P.S. Shout out to my MTC teachers, Sis Ochoa & Bro. Chia! I think about you both all the time!! Thank you so much for all that you taught me in the MTC! I learned so much from you! I hope all is going well with the new semester in school and the districts you are teaching in the MTC! I love you both!!
 
 One of the rooms in the Church at the Air Force Academy.
 
This is my District. We lined up from shortest to tallest :) From left to right: Sis. Grant, Sis. Fisher, Elder Wasden, me, Sis. Cook, Elder Van Patten, Elder Jenkins, Sis. Tarr, Elder Peterson, & Elder Diepeveen.
 
 My companions and I on a freezing day! There was so much frost on the trees!

Throw back to when I left the MTC.:

Sis. Wu and I. Sis. Wu was only my teacher for a couple days at the very end, but she was so kind and I learned so much from her. She is from Taiwan and is in Provo learning English. (Sister Ochoa or Bro. Chia: Please tell Sis. Wu hi for me!)
 Sis. Ochoa and most of the combined district we had the last couple of days in the MTC.
Sis. Lindsay and I saying bye to each other.  Yes--probably one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Monday, January 5, 2015

Small World

Family & Friends!!

First off, BRYAN! I met someone yesterday who just returned home from the Cauayan, Philippines mission! I asked her if she knows you and she said that she never met you but that the area that you are serving in, Bambong, is an amazing area and missionaries really want to go there! She said that the mission is wonderful and that she learned so much there! She also talked about how much she misses the people! Your pictures with all the little kids is adorable!! I loved reading through your email and looking at the pictures you sent! Love you!!

This week went by extremely fast!! It's also been an extremely cold week but its been really fun!

Sadly, Thursday, we were stuck at home...our car is the lightest thing..it got stuck in the driveway and we live many miles away from our area...it was snowing and we received about 6 inches of snow...but, other than that, I had a blast!

Some elders in my district found a couple people in our stake who speak Chinese. They set an appointment up for me with Bro. Savage last Tuesday night. I was able to talk to him and I learned a lot about studying the language. We talked pretty much the entire time in English (yes, he's a talker) but if I am here for a while longer, he said to call him and we can set up an appointment for me to teach him a lesson. 

This week, we have been focusing on visiting less-actives. Most don't let us in, but yesterday we saw a miracle! We went to visit the Fitt family. Sis. Cook has been in this area for 4 1/2 months and she said that they have never let us in. We were able to talk to them for about an hour! They are very open about church. They have 6 kids. One of their sons returned from a mission a couple years ago and one son is a junior and talked about wanting to serve as soon as he graduated high school. They are a cute family and hopefully we will be able to continue to help them come back to church. 

Saturday we had exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders. Sis. Cook and I went to Glen Eagle and Sis Grant stayed in Jackson Creek. We had two baptisms to go to on Saturday. The first one was an 8 year-old girl who is in the Glen Eagle ward and the second one was an investigator that Sis. Cook taught a couple months ago and moved. It was so neat to attend a convert baptism. Her name is Brook and she has been through so much in her life. The Spirit was so strong and she was so happy. She has a cute little one year old daughter. I was so glad I was able to meet Brook. I hope that she continues to grow and learn more about the gospel. On Saturday, we were also able to teach a recent-convert for the Glen Eagle Ward. Her name is Giselle and she has the sweetest Spirit. The gospel has really strengthened her life and has helped her overcome some pretty hard challenges in her life. It is neat to see, even though I don't know these people very well, the changes that have been put in their lives because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They are so happy. It makes me so blessed to have grown up in the gospel and now being able to share the knowledge that I know to others around me. 
The neatest part about Saturday, was our dinner appointment. The family, the Kingrey's, have changed my life forever. They just moved out to Colorado about the same time I got here. They moved from Arkansas and have experienced so  much in their life. Do you remember the huge tornado that occurred on April 27? There was a neighborhood that had completely been destroyed in this tornado. Bro. Kingrey was about 4 hours away on a business trip when the tornado happened and Sis. Kingrey, their two children, and I believe her dad, were at home. When the tornado came through, their house was completely flattened and they had lost everything. They were all severely injured, their 6 year-old son and the grandfather were carried in the Tornado. What was the neatest part is that they had barely moved to the area a couple months before the Tornado hit. They moved their because they had a prompting. They had no idea why. After they had met their neighbors Sis. Kingrey had an impression that they were there to help their neighbors. They were somewhat older--no kids at home anymore. She felt as if the husband was going to pass away sometime soon and that they were going to be able to help the wife cope with the loss. In the tornado, the husband did end up being killed and the Kingrey's were able to weep and sorrow with the wife. It was such an amazing story of being in-tune with the Spirit and listening to the promptings. Sis. Kingrey still has some hard days remembering what she went through and even though they lost everything, they have been humbled and have learned so much from their experience.  I am an awful story teller but their story was in the Church news and their family was pictured on the front.  I learned so much from them about how things don't matter. Family and the Gospel do.

To see more of their story click here: 
and here:

On Friday (sorry, I am like all over the place...) after District Meeting, we spent the entire day helping a family from Albuquerque, New Mexico move into their new home in the Monument Ward. We also met a guy from Hong Kong in a neighborhood where we were trying to visit some potentials. He wasn't interested in learning about the gospel but he was really nice and said he could read my name tag...haha. 

Lastly, New Years was really fun. We had dinner at the Lovejoy's and we made sugar cookies with them. Bro. Lovejoy had to work till 8ish so we were able to spend the night with Sis. Lovejoy. She loves missionaries and loves sharing her missionary experiences she has. The ward members here and so kind and loving! I love them all so very much. I feel like I am getting connected with the ward. I am recognizing faces and being able to relate with many. It's funny because whenever is see Bro. Jenson (the one that called you), he always asks me about my visa and says that he will call dad and tell you a script to tell the Travel Office..haha. In all, I love Colorado. The people here a so nice. I am looking forward to the next week and hope that we can make some progress with the investigators that we do have. We weren't able to meet with any this week but we have some appointments this week! 

I love how much I am learning and the experiences that I am having on my mission! It is crazy how much I have already learned!!

Love you all!! I loved reading the family email! It sounds like you are all doing great! Have a great week!! 

Love, 
Sister Haacke 
 Sugar Cookies with Sis. Lovejoy.
 
 At Brook's baptism. She is the one somewhat in the middle with the Maroon dress.
 
 Splits with the Sister Training Leaders, Sis. Tarr, Sis. Cook, & I.