Transfer 5 Week 2: Struggles in New Area

This week doesn't have a lot in the way of things to talk about. I've found that I don't exactly like moving. I miss Zhongli a lot. Mostly because I worked so hard there in Zhongli for almost 6 months and our numbers were like, almost too good to be true, then I came here and we only have one ward instead of two, it's a lot smaller of an area and only one ward, and it's really ridiculously hard to get places, and I'm exasted to death after ever 20 minute bike ride, whereas, 20 minute bike rides in my old area were nothing...and our numbers were the worst they have been on my entire mission. I'm not really sure what to do to start to like this place. Our church is the 5th and 6th floor on a 12 floor building, and it's kind of ghetto fabulous. It has green tiled floors, and looks like it was built in the 60s. But, at least I have found some more positives besides my huge apartment and my own bathroom. Haha. One is my companion. She's actually really good. She's been here a long time, so you would think that if I thought we should stop meeting with an investigator, she'd be upset at me and want to hold on, because she's been here 6 transfers (longer than I've been on a mission) and been working with them forever, but she's very open to my opinions. We've spent a lot of time contacting, which I've never spent a lot of time doing at all...and I'm getting used to it. I have to admit, I feel like contacting is not exactly super effective because you talk to people for 2 hours, and you are lucky if you find 1 that wants to meet, but I'm talking to more people, so that's good. In the past I have not talked to nearly as many people. My legs are also pretty buff. It hurts to go up hills, but my legs are getting huge with muscles, so I'm sure I'm going to like that eventually..once it stops hurting. Rather huge with muscles than with fat right?!

Our district is also really good. Our district leader, Elder Daniels, used to be the zone leader in Hualien. Elder Lords went and took his place. He's training an Elder Leavitt this transfer, so he went district leader to train ba. His companion is very dedicated. It will be fun to see his Chinese improve, I've always been the youngest in my district until now. We also have the zone leaders in my district. Elder Cai is really funny. He was in Zhongli 2nd ward with me and Sister Hill back in my first 2 transfers. So, it's nice to be in a district with someone I already knew before. And E. Hammer seems fun too.

The only thing that I can even remember about this week, besides that we contacted a lot since we don't have a whole lot of investigators right now, so we are in a transition and finding a lot...we had the Moon Festival here in Taiwan this last weekend. There are about 3 big festivals here, and the Moon Festival is one of them. We cooked meat...steaks and squid and porkchops on a grill and BBQed them. That's a big thing to do. And FYI squid isn't bad. It's just chewy! It was a lot of fun. I just played with the kids and ate a lot. My stomach was so happy. Us missionaries are kind of poor, so we don't eat a ton of meat...at least I don't...because it's a lot more expensive. Unless I just eat like a piece of Chicken for dinner, for 50 kuai..and that's all. And I haven't had steak since America! So yum yum yum. So yeah! I enjoyed Moon Festival, too bad I only get to be here for one. But not THAT too bad, because everyone going home is always like "I'm so tired!" So I probably will be tired by next year too and not want to stay another 3 months to have Moon Festival. haha. Soooo that's pretty much it. Contacting and moon festival. Those were pretty much the events of this week! Next week we have Zone Conference and we watch General Conference Saturday and Sunday, so I'll write about that next week perhaps!

Oh! And by the way, I invited someone to baptism on the street yesterday, just to practice, um I think I confused her a little, so I need more practice at explaining it, she said "next time there's an chance.." whatever that means! But at least I did it, and I got her number, so I'll call next week and see if she'll set up. she was cute. Haha.

Bye bye!

Transfer to Keelung in the Mountains of Taiwan

Monday, September 28, 2009 3:12 AM

I have come to the conclusion that this transfer, is going to be incredibly xingku and tongku.  I don't even know if that's the right pinyin and i'm too lazy to try to think of what tones those really are, so I think even people who speak Chinese might not know what the heck I'm trying to say.  So I'll try to explain.  In Chinese, when they say this xingku word, they mean to say that what someone is doing is incredibly hard and admirable because of it's hardness, so it's xingku.  Tongku is something incredibly painful. Now, in all reality if you want you can say this is an extremely bad view on it, but it just happens to be my first impression of the surroundings I am put in. 

Oh, by the way, I've moved to a new area, it's called Keelung.  Well, correct pinyin is Ji1long. I've had to say it so many times over the last couple days telling everyone I was leaving, I don't even have to think twice to just know tones.  Most words I just say them and have to say them like 10 times to remember the tones.   It's a port town, and supposedly very beautiful.  I haven't seen much besides our super huge apartment with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms...yeah I get my own bathroom.  I liked my little apartment though, this one is going to be killer to clean..but on the plus side, since we have to sleep in the same room, my clothes get their own room!  They are very happy and get a lot of air.  My suitcoats even got their own closet.  They look very dark and missionary like.  I have more suitcoats than any other sister in this whole mission...Not kidding.  And it's too hot to wear them until December I hear.  But they do get used at mission conference and when we do temple tours.  They called in on Friday and told me I'd be moving to Jilong.  My initial response was not exactly excitment.  I believe I told my companion that God wanted me to be incredibly sore and learn something from it.  You see, something I was told I'd learn from my mission is humility.  In transfer one I was told to pray for it every day.  I can't say I'm exactly a very humble person.  I've probably changed a little...but I'm still very me...like...

So yeah, my area is known for having ridiculous hills/mountains...this is because it's...mountains.  I'm living in mountains and biking up and down them.  I live uphill and it's just ridiculous!  I have to shift from first geer to third geer all the time, i've only been here one day, and I was switching back and forth the 2 times I've gotten on a bike.  So yeah, when people heard where I was going, they told me it was the most hard area in the North.  This sweet member drew me biking up a 45 degree angle with the sun scortching hot, and rain in the distance...rain here, is often.  But I have to admit, it was an exaggeration, because I haven't biked up any 45 degree angles YET. Mostly just like 25 or 30.  But yeah, needless to say, it is not going to be easy to bike anywhere here in this new area, but Sister Kunzler says I'll get used to it if I make sure to run every morning?  That's how her last companion got used to it, but her last companion is not exactly as fat as me...haha.  Her companion was Taiwanese, so she was actually quite little and skinny. So we'll see if that helps.  Zhongli probably trained me a little since it was a HUGE area...and we had to bike up some pretty nasty hills...but usually only once a week, not every day, and I would walk up some of it if I got too tired!

Hmm..My new companion is a Sister Kunzler.  In meeting, we had a very awkward situation...you see, she's from South Carolina...and she has this best friend...well, this best friend of hers lived at my apartment back that semester I was graduating...well, not literally, but he was engaged to my roommate, so he was always there...and, as some of you might remember, the relationship that ended up occurring between me and those roommates and the fiance was one of I deleted them as my friends on Facebook right before my mission, because he was really mean to me and would mock my statuses.  And I wasn't  sad about it, because to be honest, I didn't know them that well and didn't feel too close.  I just felt sad we were all immature and unable to get along. 

So I'm sure we'll be fine, especially since this companion is an SYLer...so I think my chinese will get better...but it was just an awkward beginning, at least in my mind.  I was excited to hear though, that roommate of mine married that fiance of hers...they had a date and hadn't married, then were like, not boyfriend girlfriend, then like girlfriend boyfriend during that semester.  Quite complicated, so it's good that they figured it out.  Yeah!  She's a lot different from me, at least I get that impression initially, but nothing like my other 2 companions, so this transfer should be a blaaaaast. totally new people and area (minus my zone leader was with me back in Zhongli transfer one and 2...Elder Carter, a native...he's fun so it's good to be back in his district).  woo. That is, if I live through all the death biking. 

This areas investigators and numbers aren't exactly what I was used to in Zhongli, so I believe I will be seeing more what contacting is like in this area...I didn't really do it, hardly ever in Zhongli.  Maybe just talk to the person next to you on the scooter, or a couple really down days we'd go out there to try to find investigators in the ward we had like none in...but I have to be honest, I haven't seen a ton of success with the whole self contacting method of finding, but maybe I'll see more this transfer...if I remember I'll tell you next week...which, next week will be a normal so Preparation Day will be your Tuesday night. 

In last weeks news, Chen Yiting got baptized and it was a HILARIOUS story...well, you see...first of all, someone giving a talk didn't know and freaked out when they called her up...then we went downstairs to baptize her, and the water was only up to the first stair...the chain on the plug got caught underneath and so the water had been draining while we were upstairs!!!  So we went back upstairs while it refilled and had a testimony like meeting, then finally she was able to get baptized...but man!!!  So crazy!  But a lot of fun because I've never seen someone so excited about being baptized.  She was like jumping around and so excited.  I loved it.  It made the night totally fun.  She was sad I was leaving so soon after her baptism, but she has such a strong testimony, she'll be fine.  She wrote a cute note in my bye bye book and I promised I'd write her a letter.

Sunday was hectic packing and saying goodbye, but I survived through it and a nice member took me all the way here to Jilong!  She even took work off just to take me.  Aww Zhongli members are so great!  If you can't tell, I'm a little weary of the change, but excited at the same time.  It was hard to leave my district.  Some of us had been together 6 months.  But Elder Lords and Smith also moved!  So yeah, lots of change.  :) :/ Maybe I'll have a better attitude next week, probably!  Don't forget to write!

Time to go!

Fu Jiemei

Week 23 in Zhongli or Transfer 4 Week 5: 4 Baptisms Slated

Hmm...let's see, well, this is currently week 23 in Zhongli and not a lot has really happened that week that I have to talk about.  Most interesting though I guess, would be the situation with the Ge Girls, or the Huang girls, depending on your take.  Their mom is Huang but they are all xin'ed Ge.  It took me like 3 transfers of knowing them to figure that out though...I never knew their Chinese names until recently.  They wanted me to just call them by their English names like Mom did.  Well, this Sunday was their baptism interview with Elder Lords, since their baptism is this Friday.  In the morning, mom couldn't take them to church because she had something going on, so we went to their apartment and picked them up, but only 2 of them came and met us downstairs for their interview.  The 2nd child, Leilani, didn't come.  They said she'd come to church later with mom.

I was so sad, she was the most awesome about reading and everything...she was in Jacob in no time, but because of that responsible personality, she stressed herself out about the interview and didn't want to do it...So Jasmine and Petrea did it and passed fine.  I was excited but still really sad about Leilani.  I sat next to her at church, and she wouldn't talk to anyone, she just cried and slept the whole meeting.  I'm not sure what the situation was.  Then, in Sunday school, I saw her in there sitting alone, so I had Su DX go see why.  The kids here are all really shy and our awesome Young Woman's who comes with us to their lesson, Wu Mujun was sitting by her sister.  I really wanted her to have a good experience at church so maybe we could talk to her and she could interview later.  Well, Su DX figured everything out, and I don't know how Sunday School was, but I went in there during the last hour and her sister and Mujun and I all sat together and Young Woman's was really fun.  We ate prezels and cheeto puffs and talked about how to control our thoughts, and everyone was just being really silly, and Leilani was smiling a lot.  Then, mom and Leilani were together with a counselor in the bishopric after church when we were in our meeting we have every sunday after church, and towards the end of the meeting, Huang jiemei and Leilani come downstairs and Leilani says she wants to meet with Elder Lords.  So yeah!  Then after the meeting, he interviewed her.  It took about an hour, but she passed fine and Elder Lords says her testimony is really amazing and he was so happy after that interview, because he was really able to help her, and he said that's the best kind of interviews, the ones where you really see a change with them from the beginning to the end...so I'm glad for Elder Lords...he helped her a lot, and she looked SO happy after her interview, where as the rest of the day earlier she looked so happy and stressed out.  So I'm REALLY excited for Friday.  I've known these girls for almost my whole mission and now they are getting baptized...

Also coming up on Friday is Chen Yiting's baptism interview.  She's so awesome, she's always like, I'm so excited to be baptized!  I'm so excited to come to church on Sunday!  I'm so excited to get to be interviewed for my baptism!  So yeah.  She's excited for Friday.  Her date is that following Saturday.  Move calls are Friday the 25th for a heads up, so if I forget to tell you next week, Preparation day will change to Monday not next week, but the following one.  People have already started talking about them, maybe I'll be more wondering about them by next Wednesday, but for now I have a super busy week until Sunday with Temple day in Taipei today, then we are going to Taipei tomorrow to do the temple tours, and biking out to Shanziding on Saturday...which is about a 55 minute bike ride straight uphill we've been doing once or twice a week these days for some investigators.  But since it's such a long bike ride...it takes quite a bit of time.  Like yesterday, we went all the way out to Yangmei for an appointment.  It was a 3 hour affair.  Shanziding is like that, but luckily we keep meeting people out there, and now have 3 lessons for our hard bike ride, instead of just 1 like it originally was.  So yeah, I thought briefly about it, but not too in-depth.  I feel super busy, but next week is probably not going to be nearly as busy.  Week 6 doesn't have many activities that happen, so we have nothing but time to try to fill in.  We'll do our best!  That's pretty much it though...not too many out of the ordinary things happened this week, we are just preparing for Friday, and our main focus next week will be Saturday.  We are very blessed here in Zhongli.  I've seen a lot of success.  Not to say we don't have trials, we have a lot, sometimes we have days where everyone cancels the night before and we have like 4 hours to fill in, in really hot weather, but it all ends up okay, and time passes by pretty fast.  Time really isn't the same on a mission as it was before the mission.  It's hard to explain, but yeah...time, it's warped.

This Week: Missionary Letter

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 10:45 PM

Hey everyone!

I don't have as much time to write this week because first I took care of some business for my ward mission leader and an activity that I hope works out for our Young Women's, but since I can't email non-family members, I had to send it to gigi to have her forward it to the people I needed it sent to. Haha. So funny how many paths I had to go through to send 2 short emails. Thanks for doing that for me Gigi! But yeah I told our ward mission leader about having this testimony sharing opportunity with a ward from America, so I hope that it ends up being something they are able to do, because I know it will help them to be able to express their testimonies and everything. Some of the mothers here have expressed a concern about their children not having testimonies of the gospel, so it would be a good way for their parents to see that they really do have testimonies, written out and all. The only concern is time, so we will see what time frame she's on.

So just a really fast overview since I have only a couple minutes remaining, this week we had zone conference. It was our last one with President and Sister Nielson. It was very touching. There were a lot of tears. But good tears too. Everyone was sad to know this was our last one with them, but there were so many very strong testimonies. I really loved the two zone conferences and one mission conference I had with the Nielson's. Even though I was only here 2 transfers with them, I feel like they really love their missionaries and they are really amazing and great to us, so I am sad to see them go. But I'm sure our new mission president, Grimley will be great. We still have 3 more weeks with the Nielson's, then our mission will change. Taiwan will go down to two missions instead of three, and Taipei boundaries will change. It's kind of bittersweet, you know? Because change is a lot of fun it makes life interesting and each new day unique. But then at the same time change is incredibly hard because you learn to love people a lot. And then in seconds they are gone. Everyone always says the reason a mission prepares you for marriage is because you are with a companion all the time. But I've started to think a big reason people are more ready to get married after a mission is because they know what change is like. You change areas, companions, investigators. Your life changes a lot on a mission. Every transfer. Things aren't stable. I think it makes you feel like when you get home, you are ready for stability. Or at least, in my personal opinion it would. Everyone is different. Haha, just since President and his wife are leaving and wont be able to give everyone parting advice, they have been asking them to give them advice before they leave. So then it was on my mind for a couple minutes during zone conference and that's the conclusion I came to. Although I don't see myself getting married really soon after my mission. But I'll definitely be more ready than I was back in college, when a lot of people my age were getting married.

Okay that subject is boring now for another year at least...lets see something else at zone conference was just they talked about the fire with the baptism covenant. They talked about how we would have fire of adversity/trials. That brought a new meaning to the baptism of fire to us. In District meeting yesterday, Elder Lords asked us why it was that after baptism, it seemed like more adversity was prevalent (sp?) in our lives. The response I gave that came to my mind, although I'm not sure I'm completely right or wrong, was that with the gift of the Holy Ghost, we were then more accutely able to feel the power of the adversary working in our lives. That it was an awareness thing partly. And I said some other stuff I don't remember, but E. Lords responded that what I said sounded good, and another reason he thought it was that way is because when we make correct choices, the adversary isn't happy and is going to work doubly as hard to make us transgress, because he doesn't want us to be happy. He read to us from Moses chapter 1 about Satan. Satan is creepy in the Pearl of Great Price. I read PoGP in my first transfer and decided that. So yeah. That was neat that President and Sister Nielson talked about that and brought it to our attention.

So last Preparation day, we went down to Yingge and made pots. It was a lot of fun. I have some fun pictures I'll send one of these Preparation Days where we have time to pay for more time on the computer so we can send pictures, but today isn't one of them because in 8 minutes we are headed over to Taipei for Temple day. We get one every transfer. How lucky am I to be in this mission and get a Temple day once a transfer on preparation day. Pretty lucky I think :). The other mission gets to come once a yearish. And people in our mission too far away don't get to either. So I'm lucky to be in Zhongli, far enough from Taipei that it's a TAD cooler...but close enough it's not impossible to go for temple tours and temple day. By the way, I found out Taipei is nicknamed the concrete jungle...for good reason. It's hot here and it's not even summer yet! I'm so glad that when it's starting to get this hot next year I'm going home! I think it would be very hard for me to get through two summers here. AHHH. Me, accustomed to Idaho sent here to Taiwan. Haha. I'm hot! And it's really humid. Some days right before and after the rain it's hard for me to breathe. People used to say that about Rexburg, but I didn't feel that way. But now I do in the humidity. :)

Our investigators are doing okay. We found 6 new ones last week so I'm really excited about a new pool of investigators. My companion and I have been praying for new ones. We also fasted for them to come to church and the one we wanted most to come did! So our prayers and fasts are being answered. It's hot and the work is progressing. Life is good!

I didn't hear from mom and dad this week, don't forget to write me!

K bye!