Work Progressing in Zhongli: Missionary Email

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 1:48 AM

Okay, I just wrote an entire email in an hour, then the website got all messed up, so this won't be nearly as long or detailed...and I had to spend another 25 kuai to type this. Sigh. We went and got lunch and now have to spend another hour in the internet cafe so I can write...But what can you do?

This week was really good. I had the best lesson of my life last night. Or at least it felt really good. Sister Hill will be excited to read about it if she reads by blog. We were at Huang jiemei's house, with Jasmin, Leilani, and Petrea, the Ge girls. Well, Jasmin has been getting really comfortable with the Young Woman's and attending the Friday activity, and Wu Mujun has been our pei ke and really being their friend, in fact, we went over last night, and Leilani was like, "mu jun jie jie zai nali? " Or, where is Mujun? We felt bad because we hadn't asked her to come that time, because we have been meeting with them twice a week these days, so we just wanted her to take time out of her busy schedule once a week, not every time, but now they are accustomed to her, so they were like, where is she? So yeah! When we meet with them on Friday, we will definitely see if she can come. But yeah! All three girls were there for the lesson, and it was just an amazing lesson. I was very STRAIGHT with them. At the beginning when nobody wanted to be the one to pray, I was like "Why are you guys so unwilling to pray?" and then eventually Jasmin repeated a prayer S. Chen said, then I taught them again how to pray, but I feel like they really listened this time. Then mom brought up a concern about them believing in God, so I had us read Mosiah 4:9-10 and I was like, "I don't want an I don't know answer from you..Do you believe in God?" and we went aroudn the room. Leilani and Petrea said yes, and Jasmin said she honestly was unsure. I said that was fair, and asked Leilani why she believed. Last week she was also testing it out. But we asked about her prayers and she said she prayed and prayed and prayed, to get a feeling to her prayers once or twice. And we talked about how you have to have a desire to prayer lots of times so you can get a feeling once or twice sometimes, and then you will know by that once or twice that God is listening. Leilani really progressed since last week, in a week since she committed to read the Book of Mormon, she read to the Book of Jacob. That's amazing for an investigator at all, but ESPECIALLY for a 12 year old girl. She's incredible. She was a great help in the lesson this week, because last week she went to unsure, but willing to commit to baptism because we told her it was really good for her, to this week, praying every day, so many times, and reading her scriptures. She still has a concern about Joseph Smith seeing God, but that will be easy to follow up on this week, because we told her about how the Book of Mormon connects to Joseph Smith, and she already believes in the Book of Mormon. She thinks it's "hai bucuo" which is really a compliment for her.

But yeah, so in the lesson we shared in Mosiah, then with Jasmin's concerns, I took us to Alma 32, and passed off to S. Chen who shared about faith is believing in something you can't see and how you just have to have a desire at first. Jasmin said she had a desire and was willing to start praying multiple times a day to find out if God was really there, but then talking about Leilani's concern about Joseph Smith really seeing God, Jasmin runs and gets out the children's book of Mormon and tells us that she read it all, and she believes it. She was showing us Joseph Smith's story in it. She said she believes he saw God and Jesus. So I think she believes in God, she just doubts whether or not he will seriously answer HER individual prayers. But she sounded very willing to find out now. It was just an amazing lesson! She committed to prepare to be baptized with her sisters also. So yeah! Now we just have created some very interesting lesson plans for this next week because they all attended different lessons, only Petrea has finished the missionary lessons, so now we just have to teach Jasmin part of a 3rd and Leilani part of a 1st, and a commandment here and there...but it's totally possible and I think they will be prepared for their baptism interviews in the coming week as long as we make sure to address all concerns on Friday and they keep their commitments like they said. So yeah! That's all I have time to talk about. I'm excited so excited for the Huang girls. I was really sad about Jasmin last week, and now I'm just so happy all three girls have this desire together. I felt like they were part of the reason I was still here in Zhongli, so I'm just really happy, like I mentioned like 10 times. :) They are doing really great! I remember when I first met them, they would hid behind mom, and not even say anything to me, or my companion. Now I can just act like I've known them forever and ask ridiculously bold questions, or if I hear one of them moving around during the prayer, I can just lean over and hit their knee to remind them to be more respectful...and when us missionaries come over, if they don't come straight out, I can just go in their room and be like, "We're here! Now we prepared a lesson and you guys will come listen" haha. I love it. People who respond well to my nice silly, bold personality.

Chen yiting is doing great too. She's on track for September 26th. She also is good for my attitude. She's sassy with me sometimes, because I'll be ridiculous and happy back. She went with my district last week on our P-day activity and had a lot of fun.

Gu Junru...I don't know about her, she has her goal for the 25th and we are excited, but I don't know what will happen there because mom says no way dad will agree if she has to ask, so it's up to the bishop. If the bishop says it's okay to baptize her without dad's permission, we will, our rules just say we need a guardians signature, so we left it up to bishop. Mom says it won't change their relationship, it's just if dad knows he has an option it will be no. Or something like that. So yeah, Zhang jiemei needs to talk to the bishop, and we'll see what happens, but if no, she can just get baptized at 18. She wouldn't be the first to have to do that.

My district is also doing good. This week I was concerned about set-ups. This Elder in my district gets like 4 a day, whereas my companion and I got 4 last week. It is what we need to improve, so the Elders really helped us, we did role plays in contacting people on the street in 30 seconds and stuff. So I don't see us getting 4 set ups a day or anything, but maybe this week we can get 5 or 6 set ups, instead of 4, and go from there. We don't want too ridiculous amounts, because then we lose focus on the investigators we do have because there is no time to meet with them, but we do want around 7 a week, so we can be filtering through and find progressing people, and have options instead of nothing to do for 2 hours on this day, and 2 hours on this day. Next week is going to be crazy though, we have 2 days we will be in Taipei, presidents interviews, regular district mtg and WPS...and a baptism to prepare for, so next week is going to be insane, we are trying to do as much this week to prepare for the craziness of next week. I'm excited! I love crazy weeks :)

Okay, until next time!

Fu Jiemei.

Commitments on the Street: Missionary Letter

Tuesday, September 1, 2009 9:20 PM

Hello and welcome to another exciting week in the life of Sister Flora Bruno. Please stay tuned as this is a very entrancing message about the gospel of Jesus Christ and his work in Taiwan.

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

Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam/Dan Jonesing

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 12:29 AM

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