Invited to Dragon Boat Reception by Government Officials and Final Transfer

Hello and welcome to the wonderful life of Sister Flora Bruno. Starting today, I enter into last transfer on my mission here in the Taiwan Taipei Mission. Juicy information in following paragraphs can identify this weeks happenings and events. In later times, you can stay tuned for the last 4 letters from a missionary with her days numbered. But until then, you can be satisfied with this one.

Mock Sacrament Meeting

你好! What's up in the wonderful world of America? We have had a great week here in Taiwan. 太棒了。

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: 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: 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.

Missionary Letters: Exchanges are Great

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 10:54 PM

Hey everyone,

This week was fun! First I'll actually answer questions because I usually run out of time and don't. And ARC is an Alien Residence Card. So it's like my green card. A Dan Jones is when you get up like in the front of a bus or on some kind of thing that is high, and you start preaching the gospel in a really loud voice and testifying for everyone in the large group of people that the gospel is true. It's unique.

This week was pretty for finding investigators. We had a girl, Chen Zixia, show up at the church one day, and we invited her to come to Sunday church. She came! And stayed for all 3 hours too! Then we set up for Monday, she got there early (Woo that excited!) so our zone leaders taught her, and she already has a baptism goal for the last Saturday of the transfer! And she already plans on coming to church again, since last Sunday when a member asked her about next Sunday, and she said "of course I'll come." It was a miracle. One of the members saw her looking at the church and asked her if she wanted to come in, then we showed up with like perfect timing. But yeah, we have a couple members that are amazing missionaries! :) Having a really good ward is so nice in the missionary work. I'm blessed to be in Zhongli...

On Monday before I left for splits, we were on our way to a morning appointment and ran into a member, and she was just like, OH I'll go with you! And then we had a peike (lesson taught with member present). It was awesome. She was a great asset. Especially since my speech is very limited and it takes lots of time and effort for me to say things, so if we are on a time limit sometimes I'll talk less than I already do. I'm getting slowly better about talking though.

And not to worry about my health, because 4 of our investigators, which we call the "Herbal Life team" are concerned for me. Peiyu told her mom that at 6 at night before a lesson with her, I was eating chocolate, because she had showed up early and we were eating. She was like "BU XING!!!!" Or, that is not okay. They say it a lot. Lin Jiazhen has tried to commit me to drinking 4 of my water bottles worth of water a day, and that is a lot, because she gave me this HUGE water bottle that I carry around with me now. But I try, since we committed her to read the Book of Mormon. Her husband died from a heart attack, so they got really into health. She wants to help people who are overweight become normal. Her daughter was overweight and is now really thin. They are always trying to get me to buy the shakes and stuff for my "own health" and instructing me on how I shouldn't go to McDonalds and eat more vegetables. Haha.

Taiwanese people are really blunt. People always tell me "did you know you are fat? Riding that bike will help you lose weight." Or once even, a member spend a lot of money to take us to drink grass and other gross "natural foods" Then I'm supposed to say thank you for calling me fat. That's so kind of you to tell me riding my bike will help me lose weight. :) It makes me laugh a lot though. I love their bluntness. It's amusing.

However, the food is taking longer to adjust to. I've eaten some pretty nasty things...pig's foot, grass, weird fishes of every kind, gross slimy things that I've never even seen in america so I couldn't tell you if I wanted to...But there is also food that is amazing

You know Desi, I don't think I would have sat down and cried walking on some pioneer trek. I wish I could walk! Riding a bike to Neili and all kinds of other cities since the sister's area is huge is a lot worse...well for the straight uphill part. The return trips, or going trips depending on where we are going aren't bad.

I'm glad you guys already got my package. It came fast! I just sent it last p-day a week ago! That's amazing! Sending packages here is really cheap, so I sent one to the Sneddons too. It cost like 12 dollars (American), including postage to send both of them. That's less than sending some stuff from the MTC was. Give Annika that piano pencil! I didn't realize she'd be home already when I sent it. I'll send another one in a couple months with candy once I figure out what the good stuff is. Don't worry about sending me anything until I ask for it, oh except in an envelope I'd like a family picture please, sending stuff from America is way more expensive! Americas postage is bad I found out. For us to send a letter to America here, it is less than the equivalent of sending a letter in the US to another state in the US.

So exchanges in Taoyuan were really fun! It was like a party. And my Chinese improved a lot. I was with 2 other sisters, so a threesome for 24 hours. One was a bendiren, or native Taiwanese. So if I used English it generally had to be translated, so I was forced to try REALLY hard to express myself in Chinese when I wanted to. They were so good for me. Planning was like a party, and we ate junk food, even though my trainer lectures me when I eat at night about storing fat...but nobody lectured me...and we just had a lot of fun. It was pretty much like a sleepover with lessons and tracting, etc during the day. In Taoyuan, they had a very distracting boy, about 10, so they had me teach him the ABC's while they taught his mom. I felt useful and in my element. His ABC's aren't perfect, but now he has V down, so that's an accomplishment. His mom gave me mangoes for payment for my English lesson. We tried to refuse, but she insisted. I ate one this morning. So yummy! That's a plus on food for here, the fruit. So good!

Sister Zhang and Bernardo were really sweet! I love them! They snuck a candy bar in my suitcase when I left. I need to get them something today in Taipei when we go to our once a transfer temple trip right after this email...and leave it in their mail. Sister Shi, the companion that split and went to Zhongli is really cool too! She left me a note and a bookmark and some candy on my desk. Aww. They are so sweet. I love bendiren (natives).

Oh ...something kind of funny about Taiwan...the weather is crazy! One day I'm dripping sweat, the next I'm dripping soaked from the rain...and yesterday I almost got knocked off my bike a couple times the wind was blowing so hard. Ah the joys of the tropics!

Xie Dai Dai's baptism date is mother's day. I'm excited! I love her. She is so cute. we drew "I love dai dai" in characters on the white board and she was like "OHHHHHH I LOVE IT...and took pictures...haha!

Yeah, so a mission is fun. Hard, but fun! I miss you guys!

Congrats on your job Gigi! Thanks for getting addresses. That's good about Matt and Felicia. I'm glad you are updating me about them, since our p-days we keep getting random lunches and dinners and temple trips so thus far I haven't had a single second to write a hand written letter besides those packages I sent. Keep me updated on the SC boys Annika, and Desi...Maybe that way I can have friends when I come back indirectly by hearing about it.

Love ya

Fu jiemei

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