Nov 18, 2013 - letter to Dad

Hey hey Dad!

     Now to your letter. I have just been really trying to make sure to email those who I haven't emailed in awhile (Elder Devey, Allaina). But so now I am to your letter. I already read through it at the start of email. 

     I am striving to understand and to embrace that to work hard and have fun. Not living up to expectations. But just doing my best.

     That's way funny about Matt walking into get a job and instead comes out with a date. I am sure President Wood thought it special and unique that Elder Dailey was my trainer.

     Yeah it really is true about Matt's chopstick rusted contraption to hold his bike frame part together. He really did try to carry as much as he could. But of course I have a box which is simply put much bigger carrying room. I don't feel like my Chinese is that good. I think Elder Dailey is just being nice. I honestly feel sometimes like my tongue can't move and that my mind is just blank when I try to speak Chinese. 

     I think what I could express from my end about a missionary that goes home early is that the parents need to support like none other. It's a hard time and he will need to have the support and love because he is going to feel like he is a bad person, that others will judge him, and that others will think down on him. Then make sure to just talk with him and what his goals are, what he wants, and explain that maybe the path that is the hardest or may seem the hardest (aka going back out) will yield the greatest blessings, peace, comfort, and literally joy. Then next is to make sure that he doesn't fall away from the basics. Prayer, scriptures, and church. Really I think he should right away if possible have a calling in the church. I didn't mention this before, but actually I think was this past week that I had an interesting dream that revealed more about me. Ok laugh all you want and such, but in this dream I was with this really pretty girl. She was brunette. But we were going somewhere (I don't remember where). We were talking and she eventually asked "are you happy?" I remember thinking it wasn't just an answer I gave because I was with her but more so in response to my life at this very moment right now. The steps I have taken over the last year and arriving at this point in time in Taiwan. I remember responding that "yes, yes I am truly happy. I haven't been this genuinely happy and content before." So yeah....

     Off to Orlando to really just play and have fun! Yeah someday, some time in the future I will eventually have my own family. Don't know where or when though. If Sahara has a dinner party with the princesses I will bust up laughing to the point of rolling on the floor because I would want to see Marty's face so bad. I am sure he would love that to see his daughter with a whole bunch of princesses. Marty's little princess girl :)

     Yeah I cherish that time I had with Cody, Kevin, and Pat.  But I so badly and will make it happen that the 4 of us will go to Florida again.

     I will for sure let you know about anything to pray or fast for. I would say pray for our new investigator. He is progressing in quitting smoking. I think to pray that he will have the strength to continue progressing and overcome this trial as well as his mom's heart will be softened and see the changes in his life.

     Well I am really striving hard to keep clean. For some reason over the past 3 or 4 days the temptations and thoughts have been a killer to handle with. For some reason just been much harder. Something I have repented of as well that I feel was an ok victory was last night Elder Chen and I were at 7 because he needed to use the restroom. But so he was on the phone talking with a new investigator we got this past week. He has a lot of hopelessness and I feel depression in his life. But so Elder Chen was talking for a long time while I was sitting by him. I was looking around and such and looking back over my shoulder I see the magazine aisle and of course somethings stand out to the eye more (like especially for the natural man when there is more immoral things). But so I tried to focus my attention to other things. It was getting close to time where we really needed to go home quick (we had about a 20 minute bike ride home). So I was tapping my watch to let Elder Chen know as well as I stood up to let him know we really needed to get going (but this new investigator really likes to talk). But so I ended I was standing and then I ended up walking around eventually ending up on the magazine aisle. I remember standing there and looking (over all the magazines from sports to cars to anything) and then having a few thoughts coming to mind. One was that I don't want to deal with the crap and baggage that comes from this. As well as I remember Brother Lindsley sharing one time that he was at an airport and in one of the stores and that he was in front of some magazines and that there were some pretty awful immodest and immoral magazines. He instead moved on not even thinking about it. Later on the plane he then realized and found out that some other young men or members as well had seen him in front of the magazines and saw that he didn't pick them up or anything but instead just moved on and how it touched them to see his integrity and faithfulness. So he didn't even know others were watching. But so yeah I had these few thoughts and I just walked back away not even looking anymore or wanting to pick up anything, going back to Elder Chen and eventually sitting down to wait again because this new investigator was still talking on. So yeah I still prayed and asked for forgiveness because I knew that those temptations were over there and I still put myself into a dangerous position. That's why I feel it is an ok victory because I know I can do better. The thing that sucks sometimes is that when I have these harder days like I have lately with temptations and thoughts (and understand me when I say harder I refer to just that for some reason thoughts or memories seem to just bombard more frequently, like I am not thinking about or lusting after or seeking these things, but the thoughts and memories just randomly come to the forefront more boldly) is that Satan starts to then make me doubt that I am clean, that I am worthy, and such because I am having more thoughts and memories to fight against during these days. That's one of the things I have hated most since being on my mission is how much Satan makes and strives to cause me to doubt myself. Doubt my work, my faith, my missionary efforts, and my worthiness.

     Well to share a more funny experience. Last Friday Elder Chen and I went on exchanges with the Zone leaders. Elder Chen went to San Min with Elder Hu and Elder Bennett came to Fengshan. So Friday night we had to do English proselyting for an hour as a district since it fell through on Tuesday night. But afterwards we went to eat at a resteraunt in Yuanshan (Elder Turner, Elder Barson, Elder Bennett, and I) called La Salsas. It is owned by a guy from Colombia who married a lady from Taiwan and their son works there too. I believe they are members. Lots of us missionaries eat there. But so we are sitting there waiting for our food and there is music playing overhead and you are never going to guess what came on!? Numa Numa by Ozone (a Romanian band whose song became famous because of a fat guy dancing in front of his computer to this song). But so all of us were just "we are not really hearing what we think we are hearing". And we are all just laughing and eventually singing along too to the song. It was a great laugh and was priceless.

     Well I love you lots and miss you all the time! Can't wait to catch up on Top Gear! (p.s. I saw a Ferrari 599 as well as a Ferrari F360 Scuderia this past week)

Elder Dayley

Nov 18, 2013 - letter to Mom

Hey Mom!

Sweet about the packages. I will keep my eyes open and as well have the batteries ready when it comes. It will be exciting when they come. I definitely always look forward to mail and packages. Even the ads for the grocery store we shop at I look forward to so I can read it while I eat breakfast. Cool cool. And you know me, I am careful with my things, I will not go at the package like a lunatic with a knife.

So for the Axe hair cream funny thing happened the previous Sunday but I forgot to say it last week in the email. Right now I am using one can and have another extra one I think. But Sunday morning I was opening my Axe can and it slipped out of my hands.......right into the sink.........Initially of course my reaction was oh crap, that is so not fair. But after like 5 seconds I was just calm and such. But so about half of the cream fell into the sink. So I began working my best to scoop it with my hands and put it back into the can. Needless to say I think I lost about 1/4 to a 1/3 of my hair cream from that can.

Cool cool you have 2 midterms done and that your professor goes that far and is that caring to get to know each of his students. And yes I am probably going to go to BYU when I come back. That is also another reason for going to BYU is all the cute girls, especially since they have good standards and the same goal of marriage in the temple. If you passed my photo and address along, you honestly would rank as the coolest mom ever and probably even more confident and courageous than I am.

So you got to go eat with the Dailey's this past week. Fun fun. I am sure that was cool to listen to Matt. Yeah let me tell you something about winter melon tea. When I first got here and had the first time I didn't like it. The second time was so-so. By the third time I liked it. And yes the starch balls are interesting with it. But winter melon tea with milk is so good! So all those stories you mentioned were all from one person. That is our RC. The one that is the hair stylist. He is quite the character. But he actually came home this past Saturday (he left last Monday to go for 4 weeks and do a short term mission) because his mom had had a stroke. So Elder Chen and I with Frank went to the hospital a little after he had gone there on Saturday (it was not in our area or zone I believe so we had to get the Assistant's permission) to visit and support. Elder Chen and I gave the RC's mom a blessing. I anointed the oil and Elder Chen gave the blessing. Right after we finished they took his mom into the ICU. I have to say since I have been in Taiwan for now almost 4 months, I have been to the hospital more within this amount of time I think than my whole life. I have probably participated in about 8-10 blessings as well as other visits to the hospital. It's crazy what you do and have the authority to do as missionaries.

Yeah Elder Dailey was pretty busy the last several nights getting everything together. So I wasn't fully expecting to have a letter at that time. That is why I wrote my letter for him over a week before he left. He told me he read it twice on the plane and it made him cry.

Thanks for sharing what was taught in YW's. Definitely always need a reminder and to always review and be taught the essentials.

Love you oh so much!

Elder Dayley

Nov 11, 2013 - letter to Dad

Hey Dad!

     Cool cool you got to go to Elder Dailey's homecoming. That really means a lot that Elder Dailey's mom said I was the perfect companion for him to end on. Such a weird and unique experience that you have two elders end up together with almost the same last name, that is pronounced the same, that went through similar experiences. Maybe God has a sense of humor to pair a Dayley with a Dailey, but also is sensitive and aware of all our needs and what will bless us the most.

     All I would say with the home teaching is keep up with it. Home teaching is key and vital to a ward. This is something that Taiwan seriously lacks is home teaching. It's a little saddening to see that there is not much effort in doing home teaching. I really hope that it can improve over the years.

     So my new comp is from Taiyuan, up by Taibei. He comes from a family of six. His Dad is not a member, his Mom is a member. And then he has an older brother and sister as well as a younger brother. I think all the kids are active. Not sure. But so it was 7 years ago that the missionaries met with his family. So he was baptized when he was 12. He went a little less active for a period, but then came back and is now serving a mission. He is on his 11th move call. He has been out for a year and one month.

     Dad I strive to be obedient as I can. I really do try to be obedient and do my best. It's tiring and exhausting when I am trying to work at a pace that I know I am capable of doing but that I feel sometimes my companion cannot or just by nature is that much more relaxed. I really will try my best. It's exhausting trying to be that strict and studious or to not be rude or mean some of the time. This brings another thought that I really try to do my best or maybe there are times where I slack, but I feel that I will never live up to being as good as you.  Which leads to another part of me that I am discovering more and more. I'll explain in a second.

     So the language is going well. I mean I have a native companion now that most of the time I am speaking Chinese. Even the Sisters in our ward are both native. So ward correlation is fun with being the only foreigner there. But yeah right before my move call with Elder Dailey I passed off my last Phase 1 language evaluation. I now have Phase 2 flashcards that I review as often as I can. This will build my vocabulary now.

     So the thing to explain. I am discovering and feeling often that I don't have confidence in myself and that I doubt myself. I doubt whether I am a good missionary, whether I am a good person, whether I am being lazy and not working hard enough or I am working hard but that there are doubts that I am not. So this then paired with my harsh critical look at myself and perfectionism is a beast to deal with. I mean often times I do things or missionary work I do, that after it is done I then doubt what I just did and if it was good or not. Then the self-criticism kicks in and the perfectionism and I start beating myself up and saying man I should have done this or I know better to do this or man my faults and weaknesses just made me miss opportunities here. So then I get myself down. Over the last few days I have been having a lot of introspective thinking and pondering and I feel that I reached at the conclusion of why all of these are cascading together and causing me to feel over-worried, taking all the stresses and worries of the work and placing them on my own shoulders, and not enjoying as much as I could and being too serious and strict with myself. That conclusion is that I feel maybe I haven't fully forgiven myself yet and that I am nervous and worried about messing up again. I know in my past I made some pretty dumb, stupid, big mistakes and that struggled with some nasty things for several years. My thoughts are that because of these past mistakes is that maybe I just really haven't forgiven myself fully which causes my self-confidence to be very small and to doubt myself. And that the perfectionism and self-criticism thrive from me feeling worried and nervous that I don't want to make mistakes again. I don't want to feel the same pain again. I don't want to fall like that again. So I feel that perhaps my brain is connecting that with my missionary work and that if I don't do things perfect and that I don't have investigators and that I don't set up times to meet with people even though I try and they say they are not sure of their schedules or time that I have fallen. That perhaps I am connecting the two and causing myself to hurt too much, putting too much upon my own shoulders, and not really actually learning and growing and enjoying my time. I feel that just my confidence in myself has weakened again a bit now because of this destruction of myself in demanding perfection and feeling if I don't do this or achieve this then I messed up and am not good. So then I feel that I won't be as good as others. Don't feel like I am special, good, or unique. That I am doing well, or that I live up to your praise and words. So I feel I have pinned down where maybe so much of my stress, worries, and anxiety are coming from, that cause me to beat myself up, demand so much of myself, and basically shoot my self-confidence to pieces. I don't really know how to go about fixing and healing this though so that I can have confidence in myself, and can enjoy my mission more!

     Well I love you with all my heart! Pray for me that I will be patient with myself, with my new companion, and that I can have confidence in myself!

Elder Dayley