Monday, March 8, 2010 12:07 AM
First off, question, around Christmas time I sent a big envelope to the bishop, and wrote letters back to everyone in our ward who wrote me during Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas time, like to every priest and young woman who wrote, and to a cute little Griffin family, to the ward, and the bishop, etc...but I wasn't so positive I could read his handwriting on the address...but it never came back to me, did the ward get my letters? Nobody ever told me.
Showing posts with label Elder Worthen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elder Worthen. Show all posts
Monday, March 8, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
New Cellphone Referral System
Hello again from Danshui (or technically I live in Zhuwei, but whatever).This week was quite the interesting week! This area is way different from my other areas, as that we do a LOT of traveling, so instead of finding ourselves booked at the church all day when we are busy, we find ourselves traveling the MRT from Shipai, to Danshui, to Beitou, etc. It's a new type of busy, and I'm getting way better at contacting.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Speaks at Zone Conference in Chinese
Hello, Hello from Keelung City, Taiwan. This week has been going really good! Yesterday we had Zone Conference and it was very touching. Not even kidding. I think it was my favorite zone conference with the new President. President changed his method of people giving talks. In the past, you were usually called on the phone and told you would give one, then there was one person who was surprised every time and asked to give one on the topic they asked us to prepare. However, Elder Watson came and did a Zone Conference a couple weeks ago, and he picked names from a hat, and he had anyone on a mission longer than 6 months give their talk in their second language. Well, this zone conference, we all had an assignment to read one of the four gospels studying how Christ taught, what kind of questions he asked, what revelations we received reading it, and record it in a study journal. I had the gospel of Mark. I had just finished Matthew when the call came telling us the assignment, so it was perfect. The talks were to be on what we learned in the process, or what we learned because we were studying the Savior. Well, I wasn't expecting to have to give the talk in Chinese, and in my personal opinion, the old language in the Bible is a little more complicated of vocabulary. So, I was a little scared of being called. But, well! I was! Haha, actually he said "Elder...well, this says Elder Bruno, but we don't have one! So we will hear from Sister Bruno!"
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Commitments on the Street: Missionary Letter
This week really has been something else. And exciting is one of the words you could definitely use. This last week was zone conference. Monday morning our district met up at the Zhongli train station and headed off to Taipei. Zone conference was really good, but I have to admit I was a little apprehensive initially at the message, but now I'm really excited. We talked about how President Grimley had went to this conference last week in Hong Kong, and they asked them, "Have you Become it?" So President asked us all if we had become it? So that's something I've been pondering lately. They also talked a lot about the baptism commitment. With the converging of Xinzhu to our area, we got a lot of missionaries from Taizhong into the Taipei mission. Taizhong does things a little differently than we had been and I think they want us to be bolder missionaries, so they had 2 of the Xinzhu sisters do a role play, then our zone leaders E. Worthen and Lu on how to invite someone to baptism on the street. They talked about make commitments as a tool to bring souls unto Christ. They taught us how to help someone understand in 3 minutes the importance of the Restoration and being baptized with correct authority. It was really amazing, because actually people have had a lot of success with it.
I'd never even THOUGHT about ever explaining the purpose of baptism and starting to prepare someone for that ordinance in my initial contact with someone, but I started to see how that could be very effective, that they were working towards their first covenant with the Lord from the very beginning. Especially since some of our biggest problems are a lot of our investigators who we end up stop meeting with is due to the fact that they are too scared of that first covenant and as that fear gets stronger, they lose hope and stop keeping commitments at all...so we end up having to spend less time meeting with them and focusing on people who are keeping commitments, and hope they will keep coming to church and one day be willing to make that jump. So yeah, I have to admit, when I first heard them giving us these examples I was apprehensive, but they had us do roleplays, and Sister Andreason who was with me in the MTC was my partner. She was great for me because she knew me and she's similar to me in personality. She got transferred to Xinzhu this transfer, so in the 3 weeks she's been with her companion she's gotten a lot of practice on this kind of contacting, so she gave me a really great example, then I was able to do it following her example. It made me excited to have a new way of contacting, and I told my companion yesterday (Tuesday) we should invite at least one person to baptism. So even though we barely had time for dinner at all, we grabbed a really fast meal, and invited someone to baptism on the side of the street before we went back into the church to shove the food down really fast before MM meeting. It was cool. She didn't accept, she was too busy with school, but I think maybe one day she'll remember that when she has more time and maybe come back. I invited her to English class if she ever needed help with her English, so maybe we'll see her again! She said her brother is a member who stopped coming because of the lifestyle of a student in Taiwan. But the point is, I felt good about it. It may sound like some crazy thing us Taiwan missionaries are doing, inviting people to baptism on the street...but its an effective way to find people genuinely interested in learning about the gospel and getting to know their Savior Jesus Christ. And fulfills our purpose to invite people unto repentance. It's not like I'll use it every time I contact, especially not when I have maybe 15 seconds on my bike talking to the scooter next to me to get out an invitation, but now that I know, I can use it and slowly ease more into letting the Spirit tell me which way to use to contact each person. My goal is eventually be able to have a different contacting experience with every person I contact, but right now my Chinese isn't all that great, so a pretty similar one each time is okay, adapted to their comments and questions. And as my Chinese improves, I'll be able to be molded into a more effective tool in the Lords hands.
So in other news besides a new contacting method I thought Dad would be interested in hearing, yesterday we went over to Huang Yujun1's house and met with Petrea and her sister Leilani. Leilani has been coming to church with her little sister most of the time and has been progressing, just a little slower than her younger sister. Yesterday we talked to her and she decided she also wanted to be baptized. So we moved back Petrea's date a week to help prepare her sister to do it with her. Mom is very excited. Leilani is a very sensible girl. Yesterday when we invited her to be baptized on a Friday, because the mom said that's the most ideal day for a baptism for her work...Leilani was like...Hmm I get off school at 4:45, then I have to do some homework so I won't have too much over the weekend and I need some time to watch TV for about 30 minutes, since I'll be very tired...baptism at 7..."It won't go over an hour will it?" She also had a quick conversation about baptism with her mother I really expected. She asked if baptism would be good for her? And her mom said, yes. And she said, " Super good?" And I told her, oh yeah, you weren't here last week when we taught the 3rd lesson to your sister, let me tell you about the gift of the Holy Ghost. So yeah, that's why it's pushed back for a week. She needs to hear the 3rd and I don't want to rush it too much. But she's awesome, she was willing to keep every commandment we taught, and totally had a testimony of Joseph Smith and everything. Leilani reminds me a LOT of Francesca. So yeah! Now if only Jasmin, the oldest would listen to our lesson and just even try to see what it's like to pray...but I think she'll start coming a long a lot more when her younger sisters both are willing to keep commandments and pray together.
This week was a lot of fun with Sister Chen. We laugh a lot together and just have a lot of fun doing normal missionary things. Also it is always fun to go to Taipei and see missionaries who I was in the MTC or in my district or zone in the past. See how they are doing outside of Zhongli. I'm lucky to have spent my whole life in Taiwan in Zhongli, but a little naive in some ways because I've never experienced leaving one area. I was just put here, and have been here since. I'm sure I'll get that experience one day, but for now, I'm happy in Zhongli. We have a lot of people progressing and doing really awesome, and I know Heavenly Father left me in Zhongli to help my new members continue to endure to the end and to help people I've known since transfer one, especially Gu Junru, and the Ge sisters (Jasmin, Leilani, and Petrea) my four kid investigators with mother members prepare to make their first covenant with Heavenly Father. Maybe I won't see all of them baptized, but I know they all will be one day, and I'm glad to be working with them right now.
Also! Chen Yiting is doing great! She's going to come with us on Preparation day today and hang out with us and the Elders...she's really excited...so yeah, now we have to go catch a bus! Later!
Sister Bruno
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam/Dan Jonesing
Hello from Zhongli! This week is going pretty good. We met some amazing investigators lately, and even though in some ways for a little while it felt like I was like, not really able to do anything here in Zhongli for the area anymore...i'm starting to see why I'm still here. That's something Satan likes to tell most missionaries, that their area is dying and blah blah blah. But it's just hard to see your numbers take a drastic drop, but as they say in Mandarin, mei guan xi. No problem...that's okay.
I'm really excited because we are meeting with two people I really love with baptism dates, and I really think they will keep them. One is a little girl who is half Australian, half Taiwanese. Nine years old. Her name is Petrea and her mother is a member. Her mom is so excited. Petrea has been a little curious about baptism for awhile, since she's been really good about attending Primary every week, but Sister Hill and I just never had time right before the baptisms to go and pick her up and walk together all the way to the church...but I remembered she wanted to see one, so Sister Chen and I blocked out all the time it would take to walk from their house to the church together and back after the baptism and we did it. She got to see three people baptized, and then she was willing to make the commitment. But only in the summer, because she said fall is coming soon and she doesn't want to be in cold water! Kids are so cute So S. Chen and I will make sure to turn on the water heater in sufficient time that she doesn't have to worry about cold water. She made her date for 9/12. So two weeks from Saturday. I wish her 2 older sisters could be as good and willing to go to church and listen to the lessons, but they are moving along slowly but surely, and we will continue to work with them. I'm sure they will eventually be willing to read and pray, but it will just take a little bit longer to soften their hearts, and find a really solid friend for them. They are all so shy. But we are working on it.
The other girl is Chen Yiting. Her English name is Joanna, so maybe for the sake of not having to type in tones every time I type her name, I'll refer to her as such. Our zone did an activity together where we all did Dan Jones ing...Well, most of us did Dan Jonesing. I didn't. I prefer to contact people who listen, but for some reason I'm a little bit wary of using screaming at the top of my lungs as a contacting method. I fully support others doing it, and will contact all kinds of people on the side lines. Anyways, while our zone leader E. Worthen was up on a bench testifying, my companion and I contacted this cute 19 year old girl. She ended up loving us and asking us if she could help, so while we were doing the Dan Jones activity, she passed out our pamphlets to people listening. We also were able to teach her prayer and reset up with her for that Saturday. Well, she ended up coming to English class that Wednesday...and she's just calls us sometimes and sees what our schedule is like...Monday she wanted to see us and for us to teach her friend who was going into the military this morning about our church before he left. We taught him the first lesson and he was really excited. He was like, of course it's true! I've already seen Joanna change so much since she got to know you guys, she's a lot more patient, and has just changed so much! We asked Joanna if she wanted to be baptized, and she said yes. So we set a goal for the end of September so she could prepare for a month and get herself ready. Then, we had planned to meet with her the next day and invited him along so we could give him the church address down in Kaoshiung where he was...so then yesterday we met with him, and it was really good. We invited Joanna to keep the Sabbath Day holy after teaching the 2nd. We knew that would be a problem since she is coming to church after work Sunday. But her friend ended up being a great help, he is actually her co-worker, and he was like, if you want to "xin momen jiao" or a good translation would probably be.."believe as the mormons do", she needed to be willing to keep God's commandments and be diligent about it. So he said their boss would understand if she needed Sunday's off, since he's Catholic. So she said she'd be more diligent and ask Sunday's off starting next Sunday. Haha, Dai Bang xiu is something else. He also said throughout the space of the time we were together, that his whole family is Buddist, but he decided he wants to be LDS, and be baptized, but he can't until his military time is over. The Elders told him he could come to church on his vacations. He said okay. And that he'd look for the church in Kaoshiung if they let him have a few hours off on Sunday. He said after he finishes military service, he's going to get baptized and then prepare to go on a mission. He has a book of mormon now though. So he said he'd read it so he could be prepared to get baptized next year. Haha. Yeah that was a fun experience to teach him for 2 days! And now we'll continue to meet with Joanna. She's really cute. We'll see her tonight and Thursday, we've been seeing her a lot lately. She's already good friends with the boys who hang out at the church for a couple hours every night, so she's becoming what E. Worthen calls a church rat. haha. I don't think that was a thing in America...but here in Zhongli, there are a group of young single adults who hang out at the church most nights of the week for a couple hours. It's like the social activity to come to the church and hang out.
And yeah! Now I have 9 minutes so I'll try to send a few pictures, if i can move fast enough, if not I'll write a short email next week and send pictures! K bye!
Fu Jiemei
S. Bruno
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)