Having Fun Doing Missionary Work in Taoyuan City, Taiwan

Okay. Welcome to the writings of my week two in Taoyuan City. Still getting used to the area and I still am not super familiar with where we are going or the investigators yet, except 2 who we have just chanced to see a lot lately...but it's been pretty fun. Still getting back into the whole bicycling thing. I forgot how much I hated hills. Haha. Luckily the hills here are not like Jilong, and I think in another week or two after getting back into shape, they will be no problem.

Missionary Letter: EarthQuake!!!!

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:13 AM

So, this week has been a pretty fast one. I mostly say that because a lot of things have started to meld together and when I sit here to write my weekly email, I'm unsure of what happened this week and what happened last week for a lot of happenings. Other things I'm sure were this week. But time on a mission is a little bit different. I opened Paul Freeman's wedding announcement this week and I was shocked to see he was getting married in like 15 days, my initial thought was that they didn't have a long time being engaged at all...but I realized I shouldn't be shocked because it was almost 2 months ago I got the letter saying he was engaged. It's just the time has been so filled that it felt like a week and then I got the announcement. So that's just a pretty normal engagement period from what I experienced back in college. But it was funny how I felt like it was like 3 weeks. I was sooo excited though. It was a lot of fun back when Kimmy and Rocio got married to see that change happening. Now I'm getting to see it happen to my male friends who went on missions and come back experiencing the same thing. So yeah, the point of this story is to same time on a mission is not the same as it used to be.

My happening for the week though that I clearly can distinguish as this week, is that yesterday morning at 2am we experienced an earthquake!!! It wasn't too bad of an earthquake. But it was just funny hearing everyone experiences about how they woke up. And mine is one of the least funny. But for me, I was shook awake, and as my mind processed that it was an earthquake my companion screamed "EARTHQUAAAAAKE!!!" And my response was just..."yep." After that she wanted to know if we should stand in the doorway or get under the desks, but I just said, "Nah, lets stay in bed." The whole time I didn't move, I just laid there, to me it was just not too unordinary for some reason. It was bad enough to shake me awake, but it wasn't shaking things up and down, just side to side, so I figured I was fine. It got over pretty quick after that. Maybe another 30 or so seconds. Then my companion talked for a few minutes, and I didn't say much, I just tried to fall back asleep because it was 2 am and I was incredibly tired. The next morning though, it was so funny to hear the Elders stories. We has assumed some of them wouldn't wake up...but Elder Smith said he woke up thinking Elder Mauldwin was shaking his bed and he sat up, and the next thing he knew he was on his hands and knees on his bed, trying to hold balance, like a cat or something. And he woke up his companion, who probably would have slept through it. And E. Lord's also thought his companion was shaking him awake. So they had funny experiences. I feel like mine was boring, because my brain processed earthquake as my companion screamed it. I didn't think someone was shaking me awake and I didn't sit up and have to hold my balance...Sister Hill said she did too...but me...I was just rocked in bed...I guess I'm more used to natural disasters. It's probably from living in California. We used to have small earthquakes there too huh? From what I remember. And then the flood in Houston. I've been in Hurricanes, earthquakes...I just remain calm. I hear I'll experience some Typhoons here in Taiwan too. We'll see. In the morning though, I did notice our walls were slightly more cracked up than they had been the day before. But our apartment is still solid. Compared to cracks in some places I've seen, we have very few.

In other news, we've been getting fed a lot here in Taiwan lately. My companion leaves in like 3 weeks or something, and everyone wants to feed her before she goes. So we've been very blessed this week. Our schedules are pretty full and our stomachs too. Taiwan is a little different than other missions in America and stuff because a large majority of our meals are actually generally out. We eat breakfast at our apartments before studies, but then we eat at a stand/shop/restaurant for lunch and dinner...and then occasionally people will want to fed us, but mostly on Sunday. So it's been nice to get fed all the time this past week.

A lot of our investigators have been progressing towards baptism. They still have trials and obstacles, but they are slowly coming to know their Savior, and you can see the change occuring in their lives, and it's really amazing to be blessed to watch people change.

We had 14 people at church this week and most of our key indicators have went up, so Zhongli really is seeing miracles...

But I don't expect them to stay this high always because we will be in Taipei over and over, for things like Zone Conference, Sister Hill's last mission fireside, going home seminars...so yeah our schedules should continue to be pretty packed since we have less time during the week to meet with people and we have a lot to do with my companion going home. But it's been so neat to see them going up. Vacations coming up and people are leaving town. So there's a lot more change we are going to see this transfer. And the biggest change will be the companion one...but until that time comes, we are busy little bees working in earthquakes, temperatures over 90 one day, and an incoming typhoon with lots of wind and beating rain the next. The air is filled with humidity, and the streets are filled with thousands of people. There's a lot to do, and more lessons than I think my brain can fit sometimes occurring every day. Life is fun!

Missionary Letter: Becoming a New Person

Sunday, June 28, 2009 11:28 PM

Hello again from Zhongli. From the looks of it, I will be here forever...my companion leaves two weeks early during this transfer, so either I will go senior for 2 weeks with a native Taiwanese who will become a missionary for 2 weeks, or I will become a three-some with other sisters. That would be hard though because the closest sisters are Bade and Taoyuan. Both are a train ride and then like 10-15 more minute bike ride. So it wouldn't be easy to visit my investigators during that time. But it would be hard to be with a native Taiwanese who doesn't really know the missionary lessons and would be unable to speak to me in English. My Chinese is not at par to be able to handle that yet, and I highly doubt it will until I change companions....But yeah, I think white washing isn't a super common affair, so unless something uncommon happens, I'll be in Zhongli this and next transfer. But that's just my personal opinion...you never know.

President Grimley will be here on Wednesday. We saw President and Sister Nielson for the last time here in Zhongli on Sunday. They came and spoke in the 2nd ward. It was nice to see them for the last time...and we finally got those letters we wrote to them...My companion lost the letters twice...so we had to bike all over the world and waste a lot of time and energy both times just to get them...but I put a lot of effort into them, so that really was a blessing that we were able to find them again both times. The Nielson's told me I looked good and had a light in my eyes and stuff. I guess I was happy to hear that, because its true. I really have changed a lot from when I first got here and I'm a lot better. Still a lot of things I need to change, but as long as I'm making steps and becoming a better person a little every day, I figure that's what really matters. You can't become a new person in one day. I used to want to, and tried, and failed. I mean, maybe some people can, but for me, it's just step by step.

But yeah, it was really cool, President had us missionaries get up and we sang I am a Child of God. It was a really neat experience. I saw a lot of woman crying in the crowd. I think it was a good thing for our ward.

Then later that night, we had a missionary fireside for the other ward. So this was a good week for the wards.

This week has been pretty slow. It hasn't even been a week since we wrote. I guess the cool thing of the week is that 11 people were at church. So that's really good. Especially since we only have 2 people with dates. But honestly, I was still a little :( because I had a goal for 15, since 20 people said they were coming. My companion said she highly doubted that many would come. She was suprised 11 came. So I guess wo de xinxin bu gou. My faith wasn't enough. Maybe one day.

Mom and Dad...I need you guys to send me a family picture I asked for forever ago! Also I need a way to get my pictures from my camera to the computer...I've been borrowing my companions and she leaves in a couple weeks. I told dad forever ago for just a couple bucks you can get something that converts my sd card to a jump drive. So if you could find that really soon so I can keep sending pictures that would be great!

And gigi, can you try to get me the following addresses, I would like to write....Amanda Lowder, Sara Medina, Nick Drake, and Cole. Matt Moses will probably have Cole's address, the other ones have facebook. So if you could do that for me, it would be great. I thought of other ones before, but now that's all I can remember.

Okay well time is up, byebye.

Missionary Letter: Investigator Commits to Baptism after Randomly Reading a Scripture

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 12:59 AM

There isn't a lot to really say about this week, I'm spending most of my time on the computer sending pictures this week.

This week went by kind of slow, but it's weird because most days I don't remember what happened. Probably because I was lazy about writing in my journal this week, so I don't really remember what happened in the days.

Yesterday we rode around on our bikes for like 3 plus hours because plans ended up falling through, and then all of the things we did were on the opposite sides of our area. It put me in kind of a bad mood because I was so hot and tired and just didn't even want to bike to our last appointment by the end of the night. But I'm glad we did because we went and saw Rita. I love that lady. She's just so happy and nice she helps make me happier. We talked about keeping the commandments and the importance of baptism. So yeah our last appointment was really good.

I'm just going to tell the highlight story of the week, then the rest of my time i'm using to send pictures. This week we had an investigator, Zhen Peiyu. She's a really cute 28 year old girl who works at the Herbal Life store with her mother. She hasn't really been progressing a lot, so we didn't schedule to really meet with her that often, we would just see her when we went to visit her mom, and just encouraged her. But back a couple months ago, she said she couldn't be baptized until the 6th month. Well, we went over the other week and said, Peiyu, June is almost here, are you ready to start keeping the commandments? And she said maybe she'd try. She said she still remembered to pray sometimes. So we decided to set up with her, which we hadn't set up with just her in a long time. So this week we had an appointment with her Sunday night. We weren't really positive what we were going to discuss because Sundays we don't usually have time for companion study. So we went into the lesson, and my companion asked her if she had prayed about the Book of Mormon yet, they met missionaries back in March. And she said she still hadn't. So S. Hill was like, (and this is me translating to my best ability) well what great luck (geng2 hao3)! We have time right now. Let's pray and ask God to give you an answer if the Book of Mormon is true, since he sees that you have faith and pray. And so we kneeled down and my companion prayed, and while she was praying I was praying that Peiyu would get her answer and feel the spirit. And after the prayer we got the Book of Mormon off the table and told her to suibien flip and see what answer God had for her. She turned to Jacob 5. She started reading towards the end of the chapter about how this was the last time he was going to labor in his vineyard, until I think vs. 75. We weren't so into reading the end about burning in the fire. The spirit was so strong and all the while, still on our knees we talked about how the Lord was speaking to her, and she was sooo excited because she said it answered the question she'd been looking for an answer to about work for a long time, about how she needed to be more diligent and other things. And then after about 15 minutes on our knees, or more...they hurt so bad...we extended the baptism commitment and told her God wanted her to keep his commandments. She said okay and we got up, figured out a good date, and had Peiyu say a closing prayer and thank God for answering her question. After the closing prayer, she still had a question. She said the reason she was willing to commit to baptism was because we didn't' give up on her, even though she wasn't progressing like Daidai or her mother who came to church, but we still wanted to meet with her. So we both shared about how we loved her and gave our reason for being out here in Taiwan and willing to not give up on her. We shared quite a few scriptures, mostly in Alma 26 about glorifying in God and about being comforted when people didn't want to listen, but knowing that this is what will bring them the most happiness in their life. It was a really neat lesson. Seriously the best one I've been in so far. So now Peiyu who wasn't progressing since I got here in Zhongli is progressing! And when she gets back from Korea, she just went to Korea yesterday, then she will start coming to church! YAY! :)

So yeah, now I will go send pictures, if I have more time, maybe I'll write more later. Probably not though! Bye!

Fu jiemei.

Missionary Emails: Barf-a-rama

Sunday, May 24, 2009 11:52 PM

Well, it looks like last weeks letter didn't send through. Maybe it was because the computer had only one minute left, I don't know, but lucky you because now you get two letters from me this week! And in less than a week too, so it's okay that I only got one letter from dad a paragraph long telling me how disappointed he was I didn't email him today, when I tried to..haha. Because that's KIND of my fault. I didn't expect much today because I didn't mention that we were getting move calls and so this P-day is a different day. I'm kind of sad though because I was hoping someone would tell me about why my investigator thought that about the DaVinci Code. And mom was probably really confused about that letter I forwarded to her, but now it will make more sense.

This week has been quite the week. Saturday night was a not so great experience. I got a really bad migraine during our lesson at 2. And I had a hard time focusing...but we got through the lesson without it being AWFUL bad...but then it started being a pounding headache once they left. We ended around 3:15 and we had a 3:30 brunch appointment with a lady in our English class, who isn't too interested in church, but she loves us and wanted us to come to her house to eat. But she ended up having a rushed day so she couldn't come to the church until 4. So anyways, we get to her house around 4:15, and I straightaway run into her bathroom and vomit up part of the xigua (watermelon, or literally western melon) drink that our 1 o'clock appointment had us drink. And I was grateful that our lunch was late that day so I didn't have too much to barf up. I thought I was done but was weary about eating anything at her house, because my headache was pretty bad and my stomach didn't seem like it would jieshou shiwu (accept food). So I was just upfront and told her I had just barely tu'ed and didn't think I could eat. She was nice about it. She gave me this drink with herbs and had me put this killer burning stuff on my head. It's like vicks for your head. It was really weird feeling and I wished I hadn't...but too late...hahaah. But it was an awful feeling. I didn't barf again at her house, but I just couldn't focus, and my head was like radiating from the Chinese medicine she had me put on my head. I felt bad because I like her a lot and wanted to talk, but it was hard. But she understood. She tried to get me to go rest, but I just wanted to get back to the church and I thought I would be fine as long as I wasn't barfing. She was in the car with us, driving us back to the church and telling me to take a rest...and I was like, I'm fine I'm fine...we have a 7 o'clock, I'll rest tonight. But then...we were one stoplight from the church and I barf in my mouth...but I didn't want to get it in her car, so I was just praying, please let me not barf anymore until I get out of the car...please please please...because I was just holding it in my mouth with my cheeks all puffed up. And the second we stopped in front of the church I dashed out of the car and barfed in the cute little bush right outside the church. I thought I was okay and went back to get my stuff and apologize, but then more barf came...and I barely made it to the bush..so my companion got my stuff and the lady drove off, and I proceeded to barf all over the bush, all over my shoes, all over myself. In front of everyone on the street because I couldn't make it inside the church. So after I was covered in barf on my arm, shoes, etc etc, we went in the church and called our 7 o'clock and rescheduled...I tried to clean up enough to ride my bike home...then we went home. And I took off all my barfy things, including my shoes and put them in the washer...then I got in the shower and washed off my legs and arms with soap...I mean it was sick because it was everywhere, my socks, my undershirt, you name it, it was covered in barf. Nice visual huh? :) And then my companion and I talked until bedtime because I was in too much pain to fall asleep. I took some Excedrin and it made it a little better, but I wasn't able to sleep after midnight. So that was fun for me! We had biked a lot that day, so it could have been heat exhaustion, it's just weird to think it was heat exhaustion though because I drink a LOT of water..? I have this huge herbal life water bottle and I drink it all day. But one other embarrassing thing too, is the lady whose house we were at was all asking me if I was on my period yet in front of her husband and 16 and 12 year old sons. They are just really open here?



Friday night we got move calls. The new transfer starts today. This transfer is only 5 weeks long. We'll get a new mission president on July 1st. So they will do the transfers with the new president. It will be sad to see the Nielsons leave, but I'm sure our new president and his wife will be really great! I'm excited to meet them. Our mission will also grow and get some of the Taizhong (Taichung? depending on your pinyin) mission. Kaosiung will officially close. So this will be a fast transfer. I'm excited because my companion is coordinating sister and coordinates splits, and both the Bade and the Taoyuan sisters are training, so I'll get to see my old MTC friends Sister Watts and Sister Olsen. Oh! And I guess it's important to mention in the move calls, I found out I'm staying here in Zhongli with the same companion. Our district leader got moved, Elder Atwood to Banciao. Sad, it's hard to move when you only have one transfer left! Our zone leader E. Huang went home. And Elder McGee got transferred to Taipei 2nd. It was weird to see so much change. E. Atwood was really unique and a fun district leader. We were sad to see him go. And E. McGee has been here in Zhongli a LONG time. The members really love him, and they will miss him a lot. They were all really sad to hear he was going, but they are great, they'll probably love the new missionaries coming in.

I really loved our district and zone! I realize every time I have to say goodbye to people, I get a little sad, but I'll get to see E. Atwood at zone conference once more, and E. McGee has a little while left. So he'll be around. I guess it will be nice because at conference my companion was so excited to see all these people she knew, but I wasn't that excited because I only knew a select few people. I was excited to see them, but S. Ackerson is down in Hualien so I don't get to see her, so that just made me sad to see some of our MTC district and her to be missing. But each transfer I'll know more people and get more and more excited to see old district/zone members when I do! haha. Like now i get excited to see the 2 girls I went on splits with last transfer too. Woo. Now I'm old. Or at least not a trainee. Older than the brand new olds. And now my Chinese is improving lately. At first it didn't feel like it was, but this last week I feel like I'm understanding a lot more. I'm trying to participate in the lessons more. It's coming really slowly, but surely.

The last event I will talk about this week is exciting news...Li Yufeng, or Sister Lee as my companion calls her in her family emails, I just pinyin the Chinese instead of make it into English, but she actually speaks English REALLY well, so her name in English is Yvonne Lee. But like I was saying, Yu1feng made a baptism goal this week! WOOOO. I was really excited because she is special. Even our bishop and mission leader told us her family is special. She had a goal before and it passed, then she didn't want to make another goal for a long time. It was really nice she was willing to try her faith and make a goal. I don't know if she'll actually get baptized on that goal, which is in 2 weeks, because we want to wait for her husband who might a little longer, but we talked to the Elders and they are going to team up with us on this family since they live closer and can therefore follow up in person more often with him at nights. And they are Elders...So I have a feeling he'll start progressing a little faster and I can totally see them being baptized together this transfer. I have high hopes for them. I really love them a lot. And even if it doesn't happen this transfer, I know they will be baptized.

So yeah, those are the things I remember this week, other than that investigators are pretty much the same, coming along slowly. Not progressing in a lot of ways, church is one of the biggest problems. We are starting to feel like we need some new investigators because some of our old ones are less and less interested. We've been praying for new investigators. I'm sure we'll be blessed this transfer and see miracles. We've already met a lady married to a Canadian who is willing to meet with us, and even her husband said he'd meet with us too. She's funny because she said S. Hill's Chinese is better than her husbands, but her husbands Chinese is pretty good when we spoke to him! It's just probably hard to have the language barrier in a marriage and want to talk about your feelings and not being able to. It should be interesting because we talked about it, and he needs the lessons in English and she needs them in Chinese! So we'll just...um translate everything or something!? We'll figure it out. Maybe after a lesson or two with him he'll be willing to meet with Elders too? We'll see. He said he could see about coming to church next week when we told him there was a translation into English.

Okay I'm going to see how much time I have to send pictures now! bye!

Missionary Email: Crazies

Sunday, May 24, 2009 10:51 PM

PRENOTE...I don't know what's wrong with the computer, but dad said this email didn't get to him last week, so i'm resending it. But this is what I wrote last Wednesday! I didn't skip a week. I would at least say Hi and I have no time if I wasn't going to send a long email!

Sister Bruno
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey dad,

Can you please take my email off the website you are posting on? I have received emails from various people asking for help in their young woman's and some other things, although I would love to help and will think about if my ward could possibly do what that lady asked and appreciated hearing from other people, it is against the rules of the white handbook to receive letters from non family members, and to reply to them. So I can't reply...their emails would have to be filtered through you guys. If people want to write me, it has to be forwarded through you or handwritten. So thanks to everyone who wrote me, but please realize I am just trying to be in compliance with my mission rules when I ask not to receive letters from others directly to my mission email! Thanks.

In other news, thanks for all the letters this week. It's fun to hear from everyone. I liked seeing the pictures of Gen and Stuart and Gigi. I wanted to see Gen's pregnant belly but it was covered in all the pictures! Boo. But I did notice she was wearing my sweater! Haha. So yeah, I'm guessing she's probably starting to fit into my bigger sized clothing as she grows.

This week was interesting. I really need to start bring my diary to the computer cafe place though, because weeks start to meld together and I have no idea what happened when. This week was Xie DaiDai's confirmation. She was so excited about it. She got a really amazing blessing and she was just so happy. She's been really excited about having the gift of the Holy Ghost for awhile...it was so nice to see how happy she was about it. She even wore a skirt, which is a big deal for her, she really isn't the type to wear skirts, but we told her she needed to start wearing a skirt to church, so she went out and bought one. I'm so proud of her! She is one of the most happy people. I really love her a lot.

We met with Wang Zixia yesterday. She won't be able to keep her baptism date. Her husband opposes her being Christian, so it might take a little while to get his signature. She is terrified to even ask him for it, so the next step is going to be getting her to let us meet him, or getting her to have enough faith to at least even ask. I think meeting Wei Yan would be really good for her. It's really sad about that culture problem. She's willing to keep all the commandments, and was even excited about it. She prayed about Joseph Smith and everything...But we've ran into the problem of people from Mainland, like Wei Yan and Wang Zixia marry Taiwanese men who went to China to find a wife. The men very controlling of their wives. They don't respect them a lot, and need to always know where they are at. Wei Yan has been coming to church every week for a long time, and really wants to be baptized, but first she needs to be able to overcome the Sabbath Day problem, because even though she comes to church, her husband and her work together and he won't let her have Sunday's off. After she can find a way to keep the Sabbath, she can start trying again to get her husband and husband's mother to let her get married.

And those aren't our only 2 investigators with an opposition problem. We also are meeting with a 10 year old girl whose mother is a member and really wants her daughter to get baptized, yet because of the husband's opposition, she's also scared to let us come over when her husband is home. It was really sad when we met with them last time, she told us about how her husband had threatened to kill himself if she didn't marry him, so she did because she felt bad for him. And we had to just listen to her story, because we can't give people marriage advice.

It seems to be the never-ending story. I have at least 5 or 6 other people I could talk about that are amazing individuals, but their life is really hard because their husbands "fan dui" (oppose). :/

Another one of our great investigators either a. was possessed yesterday, or b. is bipolar or some sort of crazy. We rode the train all the way out to Yangmei yesterday, which is in our area, but we hardly ever go because it is so far away. And this really nice lady we've been meeting with was acting crazy and saying weird things. When we would ask her to read a scripture aloud, she'd read it out of word order, or put her own words into it. It was really really strange. I felt really uncomfortable and didn't say anything. I just wanted to get out of that place. Some lady approached us in the middle of the lesson and asked about how our church was different, and Zhu di had just had the same question about how she was confused because she didn't have time to go to different churches on Sunday, so I told her about Joseph Smith and when I was reciting his vision...this crazy man came up and like got REALLY close to us. And even though I ignored him and kept talking, he kept interrupting and asking for our surname. He scared the lady who was normal away. And then my companion, who is really nice told him her name...but I was thinking about how the bishop had just told us that Sunday that if men who are sick come up to us, not to feel bad about being honest and telling them to go away...so I told my companion not to talk to him and tell him to go away. So she told him we were in a lesson and he had to leave. And he did. So that was good. There are a lot of crazy men in Taiwan. Men who come up to me on their scooters and try to get me to come over to them. One did this week and I gave him a tract and said I was busy and he could wait, because my companion was setting up with a nice lady named Rita. So I just pretended to be really intent on what they were saying, but he was freaking me out. I locked my bike and put my backpack on my bike and everything. And when he saw I wouldn't go near him until my companion was done, he gave me back the tract, I told him he could keep it, but he wasn't interested in the tract and rode away. I was glad. Men like that are just no good. They eat this drug plant here that makes their mouth all red, and then they are always calling out to us and stuff. I just pretend I don't understand them when I get people like that talking to me. But yeah, Zhu di didn't even see how he was weird, she just was saying we were popular. Then when we asked her to read something, she said she wouldn't because we commanded her? And we told her she had her agency...but we were not feeling comfortable in Yangmei anymore and prayed to end the lesson and left. I hope she was just in a weird mood because I really like her. She was such a sweet nice lady until that encounter where she went weird?

Today for P-day we are going to Li Yufeng's house to make dumplings. She is really great. At FHE this week she finally came out and said why she wasn't getting baptized yet, she doesn't feel ready to give up coffee. She talked about how her husband would make it and she would smell it and couldn't not drink it. So we need to just find time to meet with her super busy husband and commit him to live the Word of Wisdom, and that will help his wife out a lot! He's progressing a lot slower because he works a lot, and his job requires him to golf on Sunday to have a good word with the boss, so he hasn't been able to come every Sunday...But they are a great family. They are really special. Just progressing slowly along. They are really happy and love one another a lot. They are both always smiling. It's really great. It's rare to see someone smile as much as they do. They are completely sane. Although something hard for me is recently Li yu feng has read DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons, and her English is amazing, and my companion hasn't read them, so she's always asking me questions that aren't important to progress, but I guess she's interested. She wants to know what mormons believe about the book and all this other stuff I never researched. I just read the book as fiction. And that's all. I forget a lot too. She wants to know about when Christ was born and about how science works with the book and mormonism.

My computer is turning off in 1 minutes! So i'm going to go now! Have a great week, ttyl!

Fu jiemei

Missionary Letter: Need to Learn Scriptures Better

Tuesday, May 5, 2009 11:08 PM

Not a lot of time this week, so sorry. I just sent a picture of Chen Huiping's baptism. It takes a long time to get pictures on here. Daidai is getting baptized this Saturday. We are also meeting really amazing investigators who are ready to hear the gospel. I'm having a lot of fun. My district is really fun. The Elders are very willing to help us if we ask for something. My companion is working on a list to help make a video for the deaf sign language here and they are coming to the church on their p-day in a couple minutes so that we can make the list on Brother Li's computer, since the sisters can't meet with him alone. We are going to Taipei this Saturday after the baptism to tape the video. She's excited.

We met with two investigators this week. It was very cool. One of them, Zhu Di, or Judy in English...was willing to come to every church activity we have. She's amazing. She was contacted by the zone leader here in Zhongli, Elder Rice, and he passed her over to us. The only problem is she has no job and is living with Jehovah's Witnesses, who give her clothes and a place to live for now...so I don't know what their reaction would be if they knew. She wants to find a job and live independently though, so I'm praying for that. She already made a baptism date.

We also have Wang Zixia who showed up at church last week. We gave her another first lesson and she has her baptism date for the 23rd. She's from China and really nice. She just doesn't really understand why our church is different yet. Hopefully she understands a little more now.

This week was zone conference. It was really good. Our President Nielson is such a nice man and his wife is amazing. She knows her stuff. I learned a lot. They told us to teach our investigators the doctrine, not just the principles and applications, so we need to work on that more.

I realize I don't know the scriptures that well, so I'm going to work on getting to know them more...okay, that's all for this week, I'm calling for mother's day but I still don't have everyone's phone numbers and won't check my email again...So I'll see what I can figure out...I have this phone card with 20 dollars on it it's pin number is xxxx and the toll free number is xxx so if i figure out my phone number I can call you and maybe you guys can call me back with that since I can't use it and it expires in 180 days. We'll see how that all works, I'm not sure yet?

Okay! Time is running out I better send this.

Missionary Letter: Missions to Collapse from 3 to 2 in Taiwan

Monday, April 13, 2009 12:22 AM

Hey, could someone ask the following people for their current addresses, since school is getting out and I just have people's schools address: Felicia, Matt, Amanda Lowder (I don't have her address at all) ...that's all I can think of for now.

This week was okay. Long because P-day was different last week, so we had to go a lot longer without a little break, but it was fun in a lot of ways too. I'm going to update you in reverse order because that is the easiest to remember. This morning we went to Taoyuan to do our ARC residence cards. It took awhile since we had lunch really quick, and now emailing at 1 is the next thing we are doing. My companion has to register for school, so by the time we get out of here, it will probably be 2:30 and only 3 hours will be left of preparation day...so much for having time to both shop and write the letters I feel like I should...seth, paul, christian, amanda, matt, felicia...I don't have most of their addresses anyways though, so next week will have to suffice for most of them. Oh yeah, I opened my first snail mail letter in Taiwan today. All that it had was one picture. From Christian. Man, some Elder's are so lazy, they send a picture and expect to get a letter in return, my friend James did the same thing back at the MTC, and some of my friends in college had the same thing happen...but I'm thinking he'll get a picture in return. It was actually pretty thoughtful though...it was Christian Burstall downing a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Given that I still have a bag in my suitcase it was funny and I wasn't envious, but if i got a picture like that in 6 months, it might be a different story.

Yesterday we went down to Taipei...we actually spent since last Sunday in Taipei..we spent the night Sun-Mon, but Yeah Tuesday morning we went into Taipei to do temple tours. It was a lot of fun because it's a different pace, and you aren't rained on all day. We got a really awesome guy, and he came in and he was like..."I'm Buddhist but I believe in Jesus Christ (in Chinese mostly of course), history shows he exists." We walked him through the chapel and showed him pictures of Jesus and he talked to us about how one day he started to wonder his purpose on earth and all these other GREAT questions that we happen to have the answer to. We didn't get to talk about everything because he had stopped in on his way to class, but we told him about Joseph Smith being similar to him and got his number. The obstacle (zhang'ai) though is that his mother fandui's (opposes). That's a word I had to learn here my first day. A lot of mother-in-laws or mothers fandui...so people who even want to be baptized never are because they are very respectful of what their elders say. We have a lady who is pretty much a member, minus being baptized because the mother-in-law won't allow it. Hopefully one day she will soften her heart...But if not, I'm sure as long as she stays strong, the time will come that she will be baptized.

So, now to go further back in history...Elder Bednar came to Taiwan and did meetings with all the missions here, and also he did a broadcast for the members in the cities the mission offices are at, so Kaohsiung, Taichung, and Taipei with the members (which by the way, next month, Kaohsiung and Taichung missions are combining and Taipei will expand and take part of the current Taichung mission if you hadn't heard, so there will only be 2 missions in Taiwan...I'll have to write my friends in Kaohsiung and see what they think of the change and what exactly has been going down...when I have time to write hand letters at all that is)...so anyways, us Zhongli missionaries were told that we weren't exactly allowed to go to the member meeting, since we would go on Monday to mission conference, so we had no plans to go, but on Sunday after going to our 2 wards that our area covers, we went home to eat and do personal study...and we got a call from the assistant's saying that they needed sister Hill to come interpret for a deaf girl at the conference, so we packed our bags and went to Taipei. We spent the night in the mission housing, then the next day we listened to Elder Bednar and asked questions at mission conference. It was amazing. Both nights he let the audience ask questions and answer them. The time went by really fast, and I was totally intrigued. It was a really spiritually uplifting time. He said a lot of things that I need to improve on. OH! and after mission conference, a man in the front, so some kind of bishop or VIP in Taiwan who had spent the last week with Elder Bednar turned to me and was like "Sister Bruno, so nice to meet you!" Or something to that effect...so basically from the conversation with him I found out he is a nice man from Taiwan...who happens to know me through my online blog. EMBARRASSING. I mean, he was nice, he said he had wanted to answer some of my questions about Taiwan he had seen, but it was still embarrassing. And the second time some stranger told me they had seen my Taiwan blog. Gaaah.

But I want to send videos from the MTC and pictures so I'll do a quick quick thing on what Elder Bednar talked about...he told us that our goals as missionaries were to eventually have our members be independent in their faith. That they relied on the Lord and not the missionaries or anyone else. I think that was something really good to hear at the beginning of my mission, because he said we need to teach our investigators one by one...like Jesus did when he let people feel his wounds one by one...it was unique for everyone. So right now before I've ever been able to coherently teach a lesson in Chinese, I already want to be able to make my lessons unique to individuals, because E. Bednar is right, the gospel is a unique experience for everyone, everyone gains and individual testimony, so we need to let our investigators do that by giving them lessons unique to their needs.

And then the other biggest highlight I'll mention is he talked a lot about the natural man, both to the members Sunday night and to us missionaries Monday. He mentioned the scripture about the natural man being an enemy to God when a sweet Chinese girl asked how she could be bold yet meek, and he told her that you could be bold because you KNOW the work you are doing is of God, so you aren't scared to do it, but meek because you know it is the Lord's work and you are weak and dependant on him. And he told the missionaries that we needed to teach the lesson, bring the spirit...and then GET OUT OF THE WAY. To get our natural man out of the way of the investigators feeling the spirit. To teach them not just applications, but the principles and correct doctrine behind applications so they understand what they are doing and why...he mentioned how this is necessary to teach children as well, otherwise they won't understand and be more likely to fall away because they don't have as strong of spiritual power to withstand if they don't understand the doctrine and principle behind the things they are asked to do.

Oh and to Michael, (and my other Priesthood holding readers) a question was asked by a sister about the keys of ministering angels...and E. Bednar said that God won't send literal angels to do stuff that worthy priesthood holders can do, because the priesthood holders have the keys of ministering angels...so then he said that the Young Men's responsibility is to strenghten members, so you remember that is your responsibility, so make sure to serve the people who need help when they give you an opportunity and make sure to see if there is anything the missionaries can have you do like visiting inactive members or something so that they can spend their time on teaching lessons! Because the priesthood is really amazing and you are blessed to have it! A lot of people don't have the influence of the priesthood in their lives yet...and that's where I come in with my other fellow missionaries...telling people about it!

Also, give missionaries referrals! Like L. Tom Perry said in conference, a lot of time is spent looking. It would be really great if more referrals were given by members, try to pray about who would recieve the gospel in their lives that you know, and give the missionaries their information.

In other words, it rains a lot here, I'm always soaking wet when I come home, I'm either drenched in sweat because it was a hot day, and we cover 2 wards area (because we are sisters, and there are 2 companionships of elders in each ward, but we cover the 4 companionships areas! ...in Taiwan sisters teach girls and elders teach boys...well we both teach families, but for singles, it always works like that, we give our male contacts when we have them to elders, and vice versa so the sisters have a lot of appointments since our area is bigger and we have a lot of inactivity, and we try to go see inactives a lot because sometimes all they need is to know nobody cares)...or I am soaking wet. Weather here is def tropical! It's burning outside when it's not raining...but the rain comes a LARGE majority of the days. But i'll probably miss being drenched when summer comes and it's so hot it's ridiculous. haha.

Yeah now i'm going to try to send pictures, so I'll end with that. Taiwan is unique. The food my vegetarian companion eats is really not good to me yet, but I hear most Chinese food is an acquired taste, so maybe by the end of my mission I'll be sad to leave the food...but so far i've only been daring enough to try pigs feet (yes, not vegetarian, it was at a members, and my comp. didn't try it..haha) and dofu. They were both not so good, but bearable. Pigs foot more than dofu. Everyone wants their own businesses, so we have a lot of options and I've only been here a week, so not tried a lot...but i've also had some of the best food of my life here as well. Really good scones and these things that have bread on the outside and sausage inside, no idea the names for foods yet, maybe baozi? Not sure. Anyways yeah...it's fun. It's def. not like American food! I paid a little extra for my cereal and milk to have every morning for breakfast, but it was worth it to me to have one meal I'm used to a day :).

OH, and one last thing, as we were leaving temple tours last night, we ran into a boy who is in the top 14 of the Taiwanese version of American Idol, Super Idol. His name is Benji, Pan jie ming. I wish I knew how to type characters on a Chinese keyboard, but I can't. If you can figure out how to find the right characters, you can watch him on Youtube. He's LDS from Utah. I was going to have Desi tell me if he sang any good, but then I couldn't figure out how to use bopo mofo..

only 9 minutes to try to send pictures! bye!

Fu Jiemei