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: People Learn in Steps

Tuesday, June 2, 2009 11:59 PM

Hello, and welcome to another Preparation day in the hot and humid little island of Taiwan. This week was kind of discouraging if you think transfer wise, but happy if you think long term wise. Both of our people with dates for Saturday reset them for next transfer in week 2. I'm just glad they reset their dates and that they are still progressing and growing. Because that matters more than if we are here or not. I might still be here next transfer though, since my companion is going home in the middle of next transfer. But you just never know. There's still 3 weeks before I have to worry about it.

I'm getting used to Zhongli... I know how to get to all the places we go regularly. The first transfer here, I didn't really pay attention and everything just seemed different and I watched the stuff on the side of the road more than the paths. But now I can ride in front sometimes if I'm in a petal fast mood...and if we are going down hill. Going uphill no way...I'm slow.

So this Friday is my companions birthday. Not really sure what I'm going to do for it since we are going on exchanges...so I'll only be there in the morning for it anyways. We'll see.

Hmm, I have my planner in front of me to try to figure out what to write but it all seems pretty boring and repetitive. Even though each person and lesson is unique, hearing about what missionaries are up to probably isn't SUPER interesting. We are in lessons, riding bikes, etc etc all day.

On Tuesday Yvonne's baby piao piao had her 2nd birthday. It was us and the Neili Elders, and Lin jiemei and 2 of her 3 sons. We thought it was pretty convenient that Yvonne invited a peike (member) for us. :) It was a little ... for her husband though, because S. Lin tried to commit him to baptism, but I'm sure it's fine. It never hurts to hear about baptism. We didn't know if he was ready for it yet though. Well, we know he wasn't. We had to explain to Yvonne that you have to learn principle by principle, and we met with her a lot to prepare her for baptism...and that we could still prepare her husband, but we just had to meet with him more often and teach him principles. You can't just in one day say...you can't drink coffee or work on Sunday and you need to pay tithing all in one day. Or at least not generally. Of course their will be the exception. But that's an exception. Most people learn in steps. I know I do. So yeah, the birthday party was a lot of fun. The baby was really cute and we had a lesson with the Elders. Ate cake...Wooo. Yeah then we met with Yvonne again later in the week about baptism. Her date was set for Saturday, but we already knew she wasn't ready for that, she had told us on Sunday. We reset it for her husbands birthday. It's still over a month away, so I know that if we are really diligent we can get her husband ready for that date as well. We might give him to the Elders. We are waiting to see how that works out, because it's easier for them to get over there, but he's not there that often, and his wife is always there when he is, so it might be better to just keep teaching them together. We'll see what happens though. We set up to meet on Thursday with the both of them.

Our other person with a goal, Wang Zixia missed church on Sunday. Her husband had family over and wouldn't let her go. She also talked about how she didn't feel ready. We talked about teaching her smaller lessons over again and meeting twice a week so she could remember everything. She said that sounded okay as long as it was times when her husband wasn't home. We tried to set a date at the end of the transfer, but she thought that sounded fast. We told her to pray about it and told her that Yvonne had a date for 7/14 next transfer, and she could do that if she wanted too, since she knows Yvonne. So we just had her commit to pray and we'd set a goal on Saturday at Eddie's baptism. Which she is coming to. Woo. Eddie is a really amazing investigators the Elders have been teaching. We are all excited for Saturday.

We had a really amazing Sunday. We had 10 investigators show up to Zhong1, or afternoon church. It was a miracle really. We invited one girl to try to come on the bus, and she came! With 2 friends too.

We are also meeting with this young mother who I already love a lot. She's married to a Canadian. Her name is Rita. She came and brought her baby to church. She said that she really loves the feeling singing hymns brings. And that she just is happy at church. She has a big testimony of prayer because once her husband lost his dogs 30 minutes from their house, and he prayed and promised God he would go to church for a month if he could find his dogs, and his dog found his way home. He really loves his dogs. And he said the dog was kind of a stupid dog so it was amazing he didn't get hit by a car and found his way home. He's a nice guy. And Rita is really cute and sweet. He is also a blogger. He recorded me and my companion singing a hymn in Chinese, so somewhere out there is me messing up a couple times a hymn in Chinese. That's the only English I'm aware of, but I also know there are a lot of people here that take pictures of us and say they will put it on their blog. Yikes. I'm on Chinese blogs. Ooooh blogs...haha.

It's really hot and humid here lately. It's definitely getting to be summer. We go to Taipei twice a transfer and do the temple tours. We went this last week and it was really hot in Taiwan. As I walked to the church from the train station, I noticed how even breathing here is different because it's just really thick. The smells are new, the people look different. There isn't even a lettering system. Just characters. So I understand now why my teacher in the MTC said that life seemed a little surreal sometimes. In Taipei, for a few minutes it really did seem surreal. I was in a place completely foreign and it seemed like a dream for about 15 minutes. Then I remembered how I can't see objects or color in a dream, so clearly it wasn't. But I'm starting to understand that feeling. haha.

Today we are going with the Taoyuan Sisters to make pots in Yingge. It should be fun.

Anyways, there are only 4 minutes left and 2 weeks ago I think my letter didn't send because I waited too long...so I will now send this! Byebye.