Overcoming Addiction

This week, I hit my year on island mark. Now when people ask me how long I've been here, I can say over a year. I got my Alien Residence Card Renewed, and my companion bought me a cheese-bake (rice with stuff in it covered in cheese, so the closest you come to a casserole in Taiwan) for my anniversary marker. I remember when I first got here, and Sister Hill would tell everyone she was just over a year in Taiwan, and they'd praise her Chinese. I remember back then, I didn't think I'd ever be able to understand what the teenage girls were gossiping about on the bus/train next to me were saying, or what people asked me in a basic sentence even at times...but here I am, understanding a large majority....watching the young woman's broadcast in Chinese...and still getting most of what they were saying. There are still works I don't understand, but when I'm diligent, I just write them down and they commit to memory after looking them up, they usually are just there. That is not how it was to start with...so I'm just here to testify that the gift of tongues is real, and that Heavenly Father really does bless us when we are doing his work.

Poop Story: Swallowing A Tooth on Its Sanitzation and Recovery

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 3:43 AM

It's week 6 of the transfer! That means next Preparation day is Monday, not Wednesday so you need to email me by Monday night. And I need everyone's phone numbers. I don't know them. And how it will work when I call. Like will you guys three way? I used to be the one to figure all that out, does anyone else know how? Who should I call first? Who will be together?

Jasmine's Baptism

Sunday, December 27, 2009 11:32 PM

This week has been fine, not a whole lot to update on. This week has not exactly been the most productive and we have the lowest numbers of my whole mission, but when I got here my companion was SUPER sick. She felt really bad about being so sick, but the thing about a missionary, is if you go out in the wet and cold when you can't even talk in the first place day after day, it never gets better. Which, is what she'd been doing for 2 weeks and kept getting worse. We went and saw a doctor who put her on a lot of drugs and stuff, and now, a week later, she's a lot better, so next week should be a lot more busy, at least I hope so...I'm not sure what it is, but a lot of times I move to areas that aren't exactly dead, but they are in transitions, so I get there and it's a rare investigator or 2 that are coming to church or progressing.

Transfer 7 Week 1: Moving to Danshui (near Taipei)

Monday, December 21, 2009 2:53 AM

Okay, not a lot of time to write this week, especially because I'm MOVING IN................Yeah. So I have quite the news to tell you all this week. That is, my area is being whitewashed! Okay, well half way, because both my companion and I moved.Sister Chen Shuting stayed in the area to take care of it. Sister Olsen is her new companion. They are going to do great, My area was not REALLY white washed, Chen Jiemei was in half the area, but she is a little stressed because she wasn't teaching a lot of our investigators, but she has met them, so it's a little better than white wash, and they are doing great! President Grimley is the best and he gave me permission to go up to my area this Saturday for Jasmine's baptism, especially since Sister Kunzler went to Xinzhu's Jubei, so she's too far away to come back.

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!"

Thanksgiving Report from Jilong

Gigi, thanks for giving me Nena's address, I actually finally got her letter yesterday with the address on it.  haha.  But the thing is I wrote her like 3 transfers ago, and keep seeing the letter sitting there every week, so I kept asking.  Yeah, I realize there are a couple people I'd like to write I don't have addresses for every now and then...but my opinion on writing letters has changed completely from when I first started a mission.  I used to want to write people I was used to communicating with often...Not sure why, probably because I wanted to still feel an attachment to the outside world or something...Now as my time is more pressed (the older you get on a mission, the more responsibilities you have to take on) I focus on taking the time to write those I know are wondering how I am, so I put the letters I get in a pile, and slowly work on responding.  It is nice to hear that a large majority of my friends keep up on my blog from time to time.

Missionary Care Package Make A Difference in the Morale of A Missionary

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 2:38 AM

Okay I'm writing you like a 2 paragraph email this week, I spent my time online reading emails this week, and it was very nice to get to spend some time looking at Gigi's pictures she sent me, i was very happy and laughed a lot, especially since the longer you are on a mission, they less people write you. But who can blame them, you've been gone a long time, and you take awhile to write back because you eventually go senior companion (well, i haven't yet, but i know I will in the next few transfers, 3 at the most) and as your Chinese gets enough to communicate in complete stories and sentences and ideas, you start to get to help your senior companion out a lot more..

Transfer to Keelung in the Mountains of Taiwan

Monday, September 28, 2009 3:12 AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time to go!

Fu Jiemei