D. Todd Christofferson Visits Taipei

Okay! Not a lot of things to say....

This week, not a lot more to say about it. I guess something cool I can think of, is that we went and taught Hilda, the Spanish lady. I mostly just sat there. I introduced myself and my family...then said dificil when my companion was struggling for difficult in Spanish and coming up with Chinese. Ha, I was glad to be a help in that way...but pretty much I was mostly useless. I just listened. She was in a flow, and I didn't want to interrupt. I let it be her thing. She said it was hard, but I was proud of her, she was totally pull it off, even though she hasn't been speaking Spanish in a long long time. She taught this lady the whole first lesson, and we gave her a Spanish Book of Mormon, and invited her to read it. We left a note on her door before she went back to her country this week with our information and told her to keep in touch. So yeah, cool foreign language experience for my mission. And by foreign language, I mean something I don't understand...Chinese is really normal to me now, I can't remember the days it sounded like Chen Qingquan to me. Haha. There was an investigator the Elders had in Jilong with that name, and we always joked that his name sounded like Chinese before it all made sense....He got baptized now...wooo. So I guess I should say new member.

How Being Hit by a Car can Affect a Missionary's Performance

Hellooooooooooo again. This week has been quite a week! Full of stress and miracles all mixed together to make an excellent week. Something amusing...Thursday, was a really stressing day for me, like really full of dramatic peaks...like, for example, it was my first MM meeting as senior companion, so I spent a LONG time on the progress record, trying to make it really good and respectful for the ward...but the MM leader wasn't even there for my reporting, he was late that week, the Elders were really rude to me about some things, and I just had gotten hit by a car, just about 2 hours earlier, so I took their criticism really really bad and had a hard time even talking in MM meeting because it was my first time and I was nervous and the Elders were mean to me, and a car just hit me and my leg hurt...haha, so i just thought the whole world was crashing down around me, you know, those days where everything just, doesn't go right. But don't worry, it was all okay in the end, the MM leader got my progress record...the Elders and I talked and got back on the same terms, and the lady that hit me apologized and my bike wasn't hurt, just my leg, so I told her to not round corners so tight or fast and be careful...and everything worked out in the end.

Mission Humor on Being Transferred

Hello from the City of Bade Taiwan. This week, I have moved to a new area. I'm still in Taoyuan county. In fact, I have now served in every single area in Taoyuan County. There are 3 sisters in this county...Zhongli Sisters, Taoyuan 1 and 3rd sisters, And Bade and Taoyuan 2 sisters. I just moved from being the 1st and 3rd sisters in the City, to moving over to the side and taking Bade City. Not a far move at all. Bishop Liao drove me this morning here...he's such a great bishop, he's been doing so much to help the work in the Tao 1 ward. I worry about how much he does. I hope he doesn't overdo it. He's just been doing so much, but I really appreciate and respect all the work he has done. Haha. It only took me 6 weeks to figure out what ward was what, then I moved.

Missionary Letter: Shenme Shenme (Taizhung Missionaries Now Transfered to Taipei Mission)

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 11:21 PM

So one of our Elders this week said it's really easy to set up the computer to type out pinyin instead of bopomofo so I can write in Chinese characters, but unfortunately I must have lost a lot of computer savvy because I can't figure out how to change the Chinese typing system on this computer. It sure doesn't help that it's all in Chinese...haha.

But yeah, sorry this week is going to have to be a fast email, because we have to catch the bus that comes in 20 minutes to Taipei...So I have like 12 minutes to type this. This week was pretty cool. It was our first zone conference with President Grimley. Zhongli still doesn't have the chance to interview with him until next Monday, so to be honest I don't know much about the Grimley's besides the get to know you thing they did where he talked about how everything good that happened to him, all sorts of blessings, started from his mission. I can't remember if I already said that or not. But Zone Conference was pretty good. I have to admit, it was different from being with the Nielson's but not a bad different. They added Xinchu to our mission, and so there were 24 more people in our zone conference than before. It was fun to see them. Quite a few of them are dying this transfer. I think it would be really weird to be part of the Taizhong mission, then all of a sudden part of the Taipei mission. But it was still really great because I got to meet 4 new sisters and they are really friendly and nice. It was exciting to have them. At Zone Conference we discussed being Unified. Baptism was talked about a lot too. We practiced the invitation they wanted us to be extending in English and Chinese. So that's good, because now I know a specific invitation that is powerful and I can use in our teaching. Before zone conference, what me and my companion just changed depending on who it was and such, but now we ask what is in the Preach My Gospel, and I've just seen how it is more powerful. The next day at District Meeting we further perfected it. Elder Kasey Lords (there, i'm including first names for dad when I know them...haha, i just don't know how to spell their names, so i'm guessing) played inny-minny-miny-mo (however you spell that too!) to pair us up. We did it 3 times, the first you accepted the commitment, the second you just didn't have time on the date, and the third you needed a question resolved before you were willing. Elder Dennis Mauldwin and I did it together, and I just seriously felt the power in the invitation a lot stronger than when we had extended invitations before. I was actually one of our real investigators, and it was nice to see how he resolved her concern. My companion did it with E. Lords and she was another investigator of ours. So we talked about it and think we have a pretty good idea of how to re-extend the commitment to our investigators in a powerful way, and more ideas now to resolve their concerns, so it was a really good activity...even though I honestly don't like roleplays...but I admit, they are useful.

In other news, this week was really quite the experience! I don't know if I've written a lot about Yvonne these last couple weeks...she had a baptism date of the 12th, which was her husbands birthday...but then that date passed, and a few of her dates had passed, and we didn't feel like it was right to try to re-extend a commitment at the time, so we asked her to pray about her need to be baptized, and that we would set-up a baptism for her whenever she was ready...and she just needed to call us and we'd get things together. She said she needed to have a serious discussion with her husband, so we encouraged her to do that. That week and the next, we kept following up on her prayer and if she discussed it with her husband. We felt a little annoying because she finally just said she'd call us back when she did it...so we thought we'd give her a little bit of time, since she told us she was going to go south for 2 weeks, and we thought that would be a good time to think about it since she said she still wasn't ready yet. But we made sure to leave cards that said to jiayou and not give up...then Friday morning there was a miracle! She called us that morning and said she wanted to be baptized on the weekend before she had to go south. And so we were SO excited. We asked her what changed her mind and she talked about how she had wanted to stop feeding her 2 year old breast milk, but she'd scream and cry every night when her mom tried to give her a bottle instead..and it hurt her heart to hear her baby scream and cry like that, so she prayed to Heavenly Father to give her child wisdom to know that both her milk, and the bottle milk were good. Then, in the next couple days she told Piao piao, that she was going to give her the milk in a bottle that night, hao bu hao? and her daughter was like...hao. She accepted it, and didn't cry. And she knew Heavenly Father really was there, and answered her prayers, and she needed to be baptized. But Sister Amy Hill and I were going on exchanges, and I was staying in the area, so we set up the interview with President Zeng for her, and Sister Hill went down to Bade. That day was crazy crazy. I was calling all the missionaries to invite their investigators and one of them to play the piano, the ward mission leader to set things up, all our investigators to invite them...and I'd never made a phone call in my life before...the senior companion always has the phone...but when the senior companion leaves the area, the junior is senior for 24 hours...so I had the phone and a million calls to make. It was so crazy hectic! So yeah, we had a baptism on Saturday and she got confirmed Sunday! And I had a really fun experience being with a native Taiwanese companion for a day...we really spoke a lot of Chingish. haha. So yeah, this week was a miracle. We had 10 people at church, less than last week but still a ton, and the afternoon investigators got to see Yvonne confirmed, and I'm really happy for her! We've known she's been ready for a long time, and it was a really exciting experience. Zhongli is a great place!

Okay, have to go, we are going to miss the bus if we don't run! bye!

Missionary Letter: Becoming a New Person

Sunday, June 28, 2009 11:28 PM

Hello again from Zhongli. From the looks of it, I will be here forever...my companion leaves two weeks early during this transfer, so either I will go senior for 2 weeks with a native Taiwanese who will become a missionary for 2 weeks, or I will become a three-some with other sisters. That would be hard though because the closest sisters are Bade and Taoyuan. Both are a train ride and then like 10-15 more minute bike ride. So it wouldn't be easy to visit my investigators during that time. But it would be hard to be with a native Taiwanese who doesn't really know the missionary lessons and would be unable to speak to me in English. My Chinese is not at par to be able to handle that yet, and I highly doubt it will until I change companions....But yeah, I think white washing isn't a super common affair, so unless something uncommon happens, I'll be in Zhongli this and next transfer. But that's just my personal opinion...you never know.

President Grimley will be here on Wednesday. We saw President and Sister Nielson for the last time here in Zhongli on Sunday. They came and spoke in the 2nd ward. It was nice to see them for the last time...and we finally got those letters we wrote to them...My companion lost the letters twice...so we had to bike all over the world and waste a lot of time and energy both times just to get them...but I put a lot of effort into them, so that really was a blessing that we were able to find them again both times. The Nielson's told me I looked good and had a light in my eyes and stuff. I guess I was happy to hear that, because its true. I really have changed a lot from when I first got here and I'm a lot better. Still a lot of things I need to change, but as long as I'm making steps and becoming a better person a little every day, I figure that's what really matters. You can't become a new person in one day. I used to want to, and tried, and failed. I mean, maybe some people can, but for me, it's just step by step.

But yeah, it was really cool, President had us missionaries get up and we sang I am a Child of God. It was a really neat experience. I saw a lot of woman crying in the crowd. I think it was a good thing for our ward.

Then later that night, we had a missionary fireside for the other ward. So this was a good week for the wards.

This week has been pretty slow. It hasn't even been a week since we wrote. I guess the cool thing of the week is that 11 people were at church. So that's really good. Especially since we only have 2 people with dates. But honestly, I was still a little :( because I had a goal for 15, since 20 people said they were coming. My companion said she highly doubted that many would come. She was suprised 11 came. So I guess wo de xinxin bu gou. My faith wasn't enough. Maybe one day.

Mom and Dad...I need you guys to send me a family picture I asked for forever ago! Also I need a way to get my pictures from my camera to the computer...I've been borrowing my companions and she leaves in a couple weeks. I told dad forever ago for just a couple bucks you can get something that converts my sd card to a jump drive. So if you could find that really soon so I can keep sending pictures that would be great!

And gigi, can you try to get me the following addresses, I would like to write....Amanda Lowder, Sara Medina, Nick Drake, and Cole. Matt Moses will probably have Cole's address, the other ones have facebook. So if you could do that for me, it would be great. I thought of other ones before, but now that's all I can remember.

Okay well time is up, byebye.