Tsunami

This week blew by me like a bullet train. I don't know where the time went, but it passed me right by all sneaky like. We seemed to have spend a lot of this week in Hualian. Hualian if you remember from my other emails is a city up the coast from us about 3 hours or so by train and is a out doors paradise of mountains and ocean and forest. But the headquarters for our zone is there.

We had a special training meeting (or otherwise known as a zone conference) on Friday and it was amazing. We had a member of the 70 in attendance, President Perkins, the Asia area authority. I was excited to meet him because his son was my tutor in the MTC and I'd heard a lot about the fellow. He is definitely an inspired man I learned so much from that day of spiritual refreshment. It was sort of like a a monsoon in a desert. I had to put my sponge under the rain and see what it soaked up. I'm still wringing that sponge out. I took a whole chapter worth of notes...ha. It was insightful on listening to the spirit, the importance of the spirit and also the importance of faith. I would urge each of you to look up the spirit/ Holy Ghost in the bible dictionary, true to the faith (if you don't have that book, go buy it) and the topical guide and then study it in the scriptures. Understand why we need him and how to get him and it will change the face of your faith. It is the Most Important gift mortal man can receive from Heaven or Earth.

It was especially cool because our zone is so far away and secluded that we couldn't join with any other zones so we were very few in number. Instead of 60-90 missionaries there were about 18-20. So we all got some personal time and got to ask questions. A blessing ha.

The tsunami and the earth quake! We were just ending this meeting when all the phones in the room started to vibrate with this news, of course they were all on silent. Everyone went to the phones as soon as the prayer was said (by me...) and President Perkins got the news of the tsunami warning first. the missionaries that were in the Hualian area were to stay in the chapel all night but the Taidong missionaries, my district still had to try to catch the train home. It was a three hour train ride and the tsunami was supposed to hit right in the middle. Taidong and Hualian are right on the coast, the vulnerable side of Taiwan. They let the trains go though, and we didn't even see much evidence of the tsunami. Taidong is really right on the coast and we saw nothing big. A little disappointing really. I hear the US and other places got hammered much worse, but we don't really get to hear much at all about the news. Any news would be appreciated.

SO, to sum up. I am just fine. But thank you all for your concern! I was touching.
My time is up. I love you all
Sister Thiessen

EMAIL: melissa.thiessen@myldsmail.net

ADDRESS: (a regular size letter/card is .98 to mail and takes 1-1.5 weeks to get there.)

Sister Melissa Thiessen
106-42
Taiwan, Taipei Mission
F4, No. 24, Lane 183
Chin Hua Street
Taipei, TAIWAN