Missionary Letter: Loss of Investigators When Missionary Goes Home

Monday, August 17, 2009 12:42 AM

Yeah! I finally figured out how to have the computer let me write pinyin, since everyone here uses a system called bopomofo, which makes no sense to me, however, I only figured out how to write pinyin for simplified characters...but I study traditional these days, which I actually have time to study characters at all. Mostly I focus on passing off lesson principles to my wonderful district leader E. Lords!

So, my computer messed up and had to be restarted, so I only have a 9 minutes! You probably realize that it was move calls since this e-mail is coming on Monday. In both wards I cover, Zhongli 1st and 2nd, only one person was moved. Elder Mauldwin is going down to Taoyuan, only a bus stop away. He's still in our stake. Haha. As for me, I'm in Zhongli another transfer of course. I'm really old in my area. Only E. Smith has been here longer than I have. Everyone says new missionaries don't usually get put in their area longer than 2 or 3, but I'm in for 4. We'll see what happens in 6 weeks, but for now my companion and I are doing some weeding out, because we have a whole lot of people who are not progressing, so we aren't going to focus on them anymore. We are focusing our efforts on people who are willing to keep commitments, and the rest if they find time and desire to start actually keeping commitments, we will pick them back up. It's hard when a missionary dies. A lot of investigators die with them, but there is still a lot to do here in Zhongli and we've really gotten to change some things and start developing some better relationships with a lot of people. Especially Zhongli 2nd ward. The relations in that ward could use improvement ...I know way more people in the other ward, because my companion did. So we've really been working on getting investigators way out in Pingzhen and getting to know that ward.

I've had a lot of responsibilities, and so it's been a little stressful, but I'm starting to get used to having more responsibilities and it's turning out to be good. I'm speaking more Chinese...meeting more people, and learning how to skirt around things I don't understand instead of freaking out. Haha. So yeah! This transfer should be fun. And now I have 2 minutes left. Sorry this email was like, hardly no substance, but the last one I spent like 40 minutes on...and now it's gone...so yeah not much choice. Write again next Wednesday!

Missionary Letter: What Typhoon?--The Innocence of Missionary Life

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 11:23 PM

Okay, okay...after all the emails I got this week about how you think I'm probably stuck inside and waterlogged and stuff, I better tell you that this week has actually been very good, and we were only put inside for 1 day. Sister Hill left Thursday morning, and I got my new companion, Sister Engela Chen I was only without a companion for maybe 60 seconds, after Sister Hill drove off, Sister Chen arrived...that day it started raining really hard. We started hearing back on Tuesday that a Typhoon was coming in Friday. After our morning studies, Sister Chen and and I went to go eat lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, and while there we got "the call" from our district leader saying he had an announcement...the announcement was that we needed to get enough food and water to last until Monday. So, after eating we had planned on going straight back home for WPS, but we ended up going to the store and buying cleaning supplies and other essentials, cleaning supplies because when a missionary dies, the apartment get trashed with all their goods they didn't want to take home. So we decided if we did have a typhoon day, we'd deep clean. After that we went and had WPS. I was able to tell my new companion about all our investigators and such...then we had an appointment at the church so we grabbed our raincoats, and headed out there..

When we got outside it was pouring pretty hard. My shoes and the bottom of my skirt was sopping wet after only a couple seconds. It took us a lot longer than usual to get to the church, and then once we got there, we were proceeded to get stood up by every appointment we had that night...probably because it was POURING rain, and later when we talked the the appointments they were like, WHY WERE YOU OUT IN THE RAIN? A typhoon was coming, do you think we are crazy? Haha something to that effect. So we spent that night inside the church making phone calls and waiting to see if this appointment or that appointment would show up. The Elders also all showed up at the church, they had appointments scheduled there too that all didn't come, but it's understandable. After only an hour at the church though, Elder Lords got a phone call saying they wanted us to go inside as soon as possible, but no later than 8. So we had an appointment at 7:30...so we waited for our appointment, but she didn't come, so we went back to the apartment at 7:45. We were also told we probably wouldn't leave the next day.

The next day was Typhoon day. We were told we couldn't leave the apartment, so to be honest, I'm not even sure how awful it was during the actual typhoon, the wind was really extremely loud, to the point of what I would call wailing... and the streets were deserted and it would pour really hard heavy rain on and off. We live on the 9th floor, so we just could hear the wind rushing through our patio in the back of the apartment. So yeah, we spent that day inside cleaning and talking. It wasn't too awful.

The rest of the week it's just been very rainy, but nothing so awful that we weren't allowed to go out in it. Not a lot of people showed up to church and we had to travel to other people's apartments to see investigators because everyone said we were crazy and weren't willing to go out themselves, but they let us come over.

As for the state of Zhongli, there was a little debris and I know the rain hit pretty hard for a couple days straight because the locks on our bikes are completely rusted and we probably need to go buy new ones because it's hard to lock and unlock them, and when we went out the next morning, bikes and the motor scooters everyone rides here were strewn across the ground. But there is nothing really to help anyone with. Everything was cleaned up in a couple hours because they have really good road service and stuff here. Someone, not sure who, even cleared up the fallen branches at the church. I've heard that it was really awful in the south, but that's not our mission, thus why our mission president really wouldn't have a reason to publish anything to our parents. None of us suffered through anything dangerous. Two of our investigators asked us why bad things happen to good people, like those in the south, so we knew the typhoon must have been worse in the south, but we don't watch the news or anything, so we aren't even aware of the extent to how bad it is. You'd have to ask Taizhong missionaries about how the service opportunities are down there. Up here in Zhongli, after Sunday night, people started showing back up to appointments and the rain is a lot lighter. So the only really affect was that we had really small numbers last week, but Rita got baptized!!!! It was last Wednesday night, so I probably mentioned it was happening. She got confirmed Sunday, and it was just really awesome. The Elders investigator Jenny got baptized Sunday too. Zhongli 1st ward has been seeing a lot of success. It makes me feel a little bad because we don't have much to show for our other ward, we are so busy with our investigators in the 1st and always finding more that live in Zhongli because every day we are riding our bikes here and that's who we contact, and we live in Zhongli...then we hardly ever get out to pingjhen and even further out there, so we don't meet people out there...but the Elders are doing a great job there and they should have a baptism soon here too, so I'm excited for Zhongli 2nd ward, but I hope to find some investigators out there so it doesn't seem so sad on our progress records for them every week. I'd like to get to know the 2nd ward better. I know a lot in the 1st because I always need peike's from that ward. So yeah, I think my companion and I are going to try diligently to get some time to get out to pingjhen at least once or twice a week.

In companion news, I really love my new companion a lot. She is really funny and we have a lot of good laughs so far. I'm excited to be with her, it is a little stressful at times because I have a LOT of responsibilities, being the one who has been in Zhongli 3 transfers, so I've been making a lot of phone calls, doing the progress records in Chinese characters, making plans for the day, etc, but I'm glad to have her because she can lead the lessons and teach me the words I don't know that she uses. She's been a lot of help and she's amazing at getting to know names, especially of people who I don't know their names but it would look bad to ask since i've been here so long...so I'm getting to know a lot more names since she's been here! This week has been good! I'm safe! Pray for the people in the south...

1 minute left, I have a lot more I could have written about, but I'm out of time, maybe one day you can read my diary entries. Haha...

Bye!

Fu jiemei

Missionary Letter: Report from Taiwan

Tuesday, August 4, 2009 11:54 PM

Okay, so lately, I don't have much of an appetite, but since my companion is leaving everyone wants to feed us! So ahhH! I learned how to say appetite in Chinese the first time we had a meal with someone though, and so that's good, and people are understanding and say it's because of the weather, and don't force me to eat much, since they figure I can afford to lose weight. haha. It's been fun, every meal is an appointment the last like 5 days. So we've seen a lot of investigators and members and eaten a lot of different foods.

Yeah, so I found out what's happening to me when my companion leaves tomorrow finally...haha. I knew there was no way they would make me senior companion yet. My chinese has improved from what it once was, but it is not nearly good enough to be able to be senior quite yet. Maybe in 3 or 4 more transfers...and even then who knows. I'm just glad the Lord knows what I can and can't handle and didn't give me too much to handle. My new senior companion is going to be a Sister Chen. But there are 3 on the mission. I think I know what Sister Chen the assistants were talking about, E. Lin, the old office Elder, told me she was the ABC (American Born Chinese) Chen...he THINKS. But I guess I won't be POSITIVE it's who I'm thinking until tonight or tomorrow morning...probably tonight so we can coordinate her coming up to Zhongli and I can figure out if I need to try to set people up for tomorrow, depending on if she has a bike or not immediately will determine what we can and can't do. But with a new companion and me being the one familiar with the area, I will get a lot more responsibilities with my new companion. So that will be nice. I'd like to take on some new responsibilities and kind of repent for my laziness before and become a better missionary. Sister Hill was really good to me, she just let me do what I want when I wanted...but it's time for me to step out of my comfort zone and do what the Lord wants when he wants me to instead. But I have changed a lot over the months I think. One of the Elders even told me the other day he thought I'd grown up a lot since he first met me. Probably because I'm a stubborn person and my district has known me through some pretty bad moods. And my bad moods are a lot less frequent then they were back when I felt more inadequate and like I couldn't possibly speak to these people in a tonal language, or understand their food menus or weird squiggly line characters. Haha. Not that I'm all of a sudden always happy. I mean, I really respect that about some people who are always happy (I honestly believe there are some missionaries who are just always happy, and it's super respectable)...I don't know how they do it because I have ups and downs. But I have more ups lately and my mission has been a lot more fun...

So I'm excited for a new companion and for my old companion to go home, because she's excited to go. And she can get married and send me another wedding invitation, since I've gotten a few lately. It's fun to see people getting married and having babies. Haha, which reminds me...I told my companion about that Natasha Beddingfield Song, "I wanna have your babies" but she wasn't nearly as amused by it as me, so I think maybe I just have a weird sense of humor because a lot of things I crack up at...others don't so much...but what can you do. I haven't completely lost Babylon in that way, I still get random songs stuck in my head, but they aren't distracting and usually make me happy because I remember who I am and my personality and none of them have bad lyrics. It's interesting as a missionary to try to figure out what you can keep from before and what you need to give up. And then you just let your experiences and the Spirit shape you. I try to be an obedient missionary, or I made the goal to try to be obedient from the beginning and sometimes I fall short..but I think you need to learn to be obedient but remember who you are and have fun, because when the mission isn't fun, that's when it's unhappy. And work is and can be fun. So maybe I agree with the "it's not all fun and games" with the games part, but I think everything should be fun! Talking to everyone can be fun...and reading scriptures can be fun...seriously. Everything is fun when you have that attitude. So it's amazing.

Today, Rita is going to be baptized! I don't remember what I said about her last week, but her background is she was totally ready but then freaked out and didn't have her interview last last Sunday. So we've been really focusing on her, and this Saturday night, we still didn't know if I was leaving Zhongli to be with other sisters in their area, or they would send someone here, because the assistants had told me I wouldn't be with a duanchuan, for which I was grateful. But other than that, we still didn't know. So we called Rita Saturday and at first she had always been like that she would just be baptized in a few weeks and I'd be there and it would be fine. But my companion was really straight and said we weren't sure either of us would be here after today (wednesday) and that we knew she was ready and wanted to be by her side, but to just really sincerely pray that night, and God would give her her answer...and if she wanted to wait after sincerely asking, that's okay, there's still missionaries and other missionaries would love to keep working with her, because baptism is a start...and she will continue studying her whole life for the enduring to the end part. Well, church was crazy...we had 14 investigators at church, and 12 in the second ward, so it was just ahhh trying to make sure they all were talked to and sat by and happy and good. And we got to talk to Rita and she said she got her answer and showed us a scripture in Alma 38:9. She had opened up to that after her prayer and knew she needed to be baptized...so even though we were headed to Taipei that night, E. Lord's was amazing and did the interview with her...she passed and we set up the baptism for tonight (since her husband couldn't come yesterday) on our Preparation day, and we have English class at 7...but her baptism is at 6 and we will be fine and able to pull it together I'm sure, and it's worth it because she's amazing and really understands the gospel. More than any investigator I've met so far. Things just click for her. And I'm so excited.

Zhongli is amazing and we have a lot of investigators that are so prepared, they are just scared, so we have a lot of work to do, and I'm excited. Maybe a lot of change is coming up, with transfer calls next Friday (not this one), so Sister Hill is the first to leave, but tons of people could end up moving in my district/zone very soon here. But we had an amazing transfer, the Neili Elders have someone getting baptized next Sunday, a Jenny who is great! She spoke with me on Sunday and was like, "Sister, next Sunday I want to be baptized and change my life!" Aww. And the Zhongli Elders have had a lot of success lately too. Their newest convert, James who was baptized Saturday, is very friendly and had a lot of good input at FHE Monday. And yeah everyone is just really doing good right now here in Zhongli 1st and 2nd ward. My district has really been praying for each other, and we've been seeing a lot of miracles and seeing our goals really being reached. It makes me excited for the future and glad to be in Zhongli. I mean, I could move at transfer calls, but I highly doubt it. I think I still have a little bit more to do here. And so I continue my mission in my first area, Zhongli, and things are going pretty good.

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!