Commitments on the Street: Missionary Letter

Tuesday, September 1, 2009 9:20 PM

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

This week really has been something else. And exciting is one of the words you could definitely use. This last week was zone conference. Monday morning our district met up at the Zhongli train station and headed off to Taipei. Zone conference was really good, but I have to admit I was a little apprehensive initially at the message, but now I'm really excited. We talked about how President Grimley had went to this conference last week in Hong Kong, and they asked them, "Have you Become it?" So President asked us all if we had become it? So that's something I've been pondering lately. They also talked a lot about the baptism commitment. With the converging of Xinzhu to our area, we got a lot of missionaries from Taizhong into the Taipei mission. Taizhong does things a little differently than we had been and I think they want us to be bolder missionaries, so they had 2 of the Xinzhu sisters do a role play, then our zone leaders E. Worthen and Lu on how to invite someone to baptism on the street. They talked about make commitments as a tool to bring souls unto Christ. They taught us how to help someone understand in 3 minutes the importance of the Restoration and being baptized with correct authority. It was really amazing, because actually people have had a lot of success with it.
I'd never even THOUGHT about ever explaining the purpose of baptism and starting to prepare someone for that ordinance in my initial contact with someone, but I started to see how that could be very effective, that they were working towards their first covenant with the Lord from the very beginning. Especially since some of our biggest problems are a lot of our investigators who we end up stop meeting with is due to the fact that they are too scared of that first covenant and as that fear gets stronger, they lose hope and stop keeping commitments at all...so we end up having to spend less time meeting with them and focusing on people who are keeping commitments, and hope they will keep coming to church and one day be willing to make that jump. So yeah, I have to admit, when I first heard them giving us these examples I was apprehensive, but they had us do roleplays, and Sister Andreason who was with me in the MTC was my partner. She was great for me because she knew me and she's similar to me in personality. She got transferred to Xinzhu this transfer, so in the 3 weeks she's been with her companion she's gotten a lot of practice on this kind of contacting, so she gave me a really great example, then I was able to do it following her example. It made me excited to have a new way of contacting, and I told my companion yesterday (Tuesday) we should invite at least one person to baptism. So even though we barely had time for dinner at all, we grabbed a really fast meal, and invited someone to baptism on the side of the street before we went back into the church to shove the food down really fast before MM meeting. It was cool. She didn't accept, she was too busy with school, but I think maybe one day she'll remember that when she has more time and maybe come back. I invited her to English class if she ever needed help with her English, so maybe we'll see her again! She said her brother is a member who stopped coming because of the lifestyle of a student in Taiwan. But the point is, I felt good about it. It may sound like some crazy thing us Taiwan missionaries are doing, inviting people to baptism on the street...but its an effective way to find people genuinely interested in learning about the gospel and getting to know their Savior Jesus Christ. And fulfills our purpose to invite people unto repentance. It's not like I'll use it every time I contact, especially not when I have maybe 15 seconds on my bike talking to the scooter next to me to get out an invitation, but now that I know, I can use it and slowly ease more into letting the Spirit tell me which way to use to contact each person. My goal is eventually be able to have a different contacting experience with every person I contact, but right now my Chinese isn't all that great, so a pretty similar one each time is okay, adapted to their comments and questions. And as my Chinese improves, I'll be able to be molded into a more effective tool in the Lords hands.

So in other news besides a new contacting method I thought Dad would be interested in hearing, yesterday we went over to Huang Yujun1's house and met with Petrea and her sister Leilani. Leilani has been coming to church with her little sister most of the time and has been progressing, just a little slower than her younger sister. Yesterday we talked to her and she decided she also wanted to be baptized. So we moved back Petrea's date a week to help prepare her sister to do it with her. Mom is very excited. Leilani is a very sensible girl. Yesterday when we invited her to be baptized on a Friday, because the mom said that's the most ideal day for a baptism for her work...Leilani was like...Hmm I get off school at 4:45, then I have to do some homework so I won't have too much over the weekend and I need some time to watch TV for about 30 minutes, since I'll be very tired...baptism at 7..."It won't go over an hour will it?" She also had a quick conversation about baptism with her mother I really expected. She asked if baptism would be good for her? And her mom said, yes. And she said, " Super good?" And I told her, oh yeah, you weren't here last week when we taught the 3rd lesson to your sister, let me tell you about the gift of the Holy Ghost. So yeah, that's why it's pushed back for a week. She needs to hear the 3rd and I don't want to rush it too much. But she's awesome, she was willing to keep every commandment we taught, and totally had a testimony of Joseph Smith and everything. Leilani reminds me a LOT of Francesca. So yeah! Now if only Jasmin, the oldest would listen to our lesson and just even try to see what it's like to pray...but I think she'll start coming a long a lot more when her younger sisters both are willing to keep commandments and pray together.

This week was a lot of fun with Sister Chen. We laugh a lot together and just have a lot of fun doing normal missionary things. Also it is always fun to go to Taipei and see missionaries who I was in the MTC or in my district or zone in the past. See how they are doing outside of Zhongli. I'm lucky to have spent my whole life in Taiwan in Zhongli, but a little naive in some ways because I've never experienced leaving one area. I was just put here, and have been here since. I'm sure I'll get that experience one day, but for now, I'm happy in Zhongli. We have a lot of people progressing and doing really awesome, and I know Heavenly Father left me in Zhongli to help my new members continue to endure to the end and to help people I've known since transfer one, especially Gu Junru, and the Ge sisters (Jasmin, Leilani, and Petrea) my four kid investigators with mother members prepare to make their first covenant with Heavenly Father. Maybe I won't see all of them baptized, but I know they all will be one day, and I'm glad to be working with them right now.

Also! Chen Yiting is doing great! She's going to come with us on Preparation day today and hang out with us and the Elders...she's really excited...so yeah, now we have to go catch a bus! Later!

Sister Bruno

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: 13 Investigators in One Week at Church

Wednesday, July 8, 2009 12:11 AM

Hello again from Zhongli. This week was a pretty good week. My companion and I are busy and we love it. This week was a really good week for us. We have definitely been seeing miracles. We had 13 people come to church. On Sunday our MM leader for Zhongli 1st ward, was like, Wow, you sisters have had a really amazing week. And I just realized, he's right! This was an amazing week.

Yesterday was quite the day, we biked all over our area, we started in central Zhongli, and went out to a place that almost is by Guanying 30 minutes away, back to Zhongli and up to Pingzhen, back down to the place by Guanying, then out to Neili, up to Pingzhen, and then back to central Zhongli for our MM meeting for Zhongli 2nd ward. So we spent quite a few hours on our bikes yesterday. I was so exhausted! I'm glad that today is Preparation day! But yeah actually yesterday was a lot of fun. My companion and I got fed both lunch and dinner. And dinner was super fun. One of our investigators is a 10 year old girl named Gu Junru whose mother is a member, Zhang Yutong. We went over to her house and we made pizza like things. We just bought bread that looks like the shape of garlic bread, and put cheese and sauce, and random assortments of toppings on it. It was a lot of fun. Even her sons, who are always unhappy and angry, for awhile came and made pizzas with us. Personally, I get the vibe her sons are depressed..but it's not my place to counsel her. We just told her maybe if she thought her sons had a problem to take them to the doctor or talk to the bishop, because she told us how her sons are always frowning and unhappy, and if she laughs, they yell at her, so she can't laugh or smile too much at home. Yikes. But they are slowly becoming accustomed to us, and even though they never smile, at least they aren't mean to us. And they acknowledge our existence. The first time I met her sons, they pretended I didn't exist. And sat there like a frowning stone. It's just a weird situation because their fathers parents super oppose her being a Mormon, they tell the sons that it is the devils church...and so sometimes her sons get angry and say she is possessed with devils. And even weirder, they don't believe in God. I don't get how people don't believe in God, but believe in devils. So yeah, interesting situation, but I really respect her. She has a really strong testimony, and is really trying to help her children. She has more patience than anyone I've ever seen. She never forces her kids to do anything and is very patient with them.

On July 4th had a dinner appointment with a Vietnamese girl...and we listened to people karaoke in Vietnamese, so that was interesting. We also drank a watermelon drink..so I had some watermelon. woo. They put watermelon in the blender here, and then a little sugar and flavoring and sell it for 20 kuai. It's really nice on a super hot day.

We also went to a fireside in Taipei on Sunday. It was fun, a young woman's from Zhongli came and some investigators, etc. President Grimley had all the missionaries that were going home yesterday get up and bear their testimony. I was happy to be there. I got to see Elder Atwood, my old district leader, and Elder Rice, my old Zone leader bear their testimonies as they prepared to head back home and start life in America. The spirit was really there, and it dawned on me that I understood pretty much every word they said...that their testimonies were something I learned how to understand in the MTC. They prepared us in the MTC for the most important and basic part of a missionary, bearing testimony of truths and principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ and how it came to be in this age and generation. And so, I know that my Chinese isn't anything amazing, but I'm getting to the point I need to be. I know how to bear testimony of basic principles, and I can teach things on a simple understanding. So yay. It also dawned on me that a mission is pretty fast. Pretty soon here, I'll only have a year left. It doesn't feel like 6 months have passed in a lot of ways...but I've been in Taiwan for 3 months today. It's crazy. But yeah, I've learned a lot and I still have oh so much to learn...

Now I have to go though! byebye!

Loveya!

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.

This Week: Missionary Letter

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 10:45 PM

Hey everyone!

I don't have as much time to write this week because first I took care of some business for my ward mission leader and an activity that I hope works out for our Young Women's, but since I can't email non-family members, I had to send it to gigi to have her forward it to the people I needed it sent to. Haha. So funny how many paths I had to go through to send 2 short emails. Thanks for doing that for me Gigi! But yeah I told our ward mission leader about having this testimony sharing opportunity with a ward from America, so I hope that it ends up being something they are able to do, because I know it will help them to be able to express their testimonies and everything. Some of the mothers here have expressed a concern about their children not having testimonies of the gospel, so it would be a good way for their parents to see that they really do have testimonies, written out and all. The only concern is time, so we will see what time frame she's on.

So just a really fast overview since I have only a couple minutes remaining, this week we had zone conference. It was our last one with President and Sister Nielson. It was very touching. There were a lot of tears. But good tears too. Everyone was sad to know this was our last one with them, but there were so many very strong testimonies. I really loved the two zone conferences and one mission conference I had with the Nielson's. Even though I was only here 2 transfers with them, I feel like they really love their missionaries and they are really amazing and great to us, so I am sad to see them go. But I'm sure our new mission president, Grimley will be great. We still have 3 more weeks with the Nielson's, then our mission will change. Taiwan will go down to two missions instead of three, and Taipei boundaries will change. It's kind of bittersweet, you know? Because change is a lot of fun it makes life interesting and each new day unique. But then at the same time change is incredibly hard because you learn to love people a lot. And then in seconds they are gone. Everyone always says the reason a mission prepares you for marriage is because you are with a companion all the time. But I've started to think a big reason people are more ready to get married after a mission is because they know what change is like. You change areas, companions, investigators. Your life changes a lot on a mission. Every transfer. Things aren't stable. I think it makes you feel like when you get home, you are ready for stability. Or at least, in my personal opinion it would. Everyone is different. Haha, just since President and his wife are leaving and wont be able to give everyone parting advice, they have been asking them to give them advice before they leave. So then it was on my mind for a couple minutes during zone conference and that's the conclusion I came to. Although I don't see myself getting married really soon after my mission. But I'll definitely be more ready than I was back in college, when a lot of people my age were getting married.

Okay that subject is boring now for another year at least...lets see something else at zone conference was just they talked about the fire with the baptism covenant. They talked about how we would have fire of adversity/trials. That brought a new meaning to the baptism of fire to us. In District meeting yesterday, Elder Lords asked us why it was that after baptism, it seemed like more adversity was prevalent (sp?) in our lives. The response I gave that came to my mind, although I'm not sure I'm completely right or wrong, was that with the gift of the Holy Ghost, we were then more accutely able to feel the power of the adversary working in our lives. That it was an awareness thing partly. And I said some other stuff I don't remember, but E. Lords responded that what I said sounded good, and another reason he thought it was that way is because when we make correct choices, the adversary isn't happy and is going to work doubly as hard to make us transgress, because he doesn't want us to be happy. He read to us from Moses chapter 1 about Satan. Satan is creepy in the Pearl of Great Price. I read PoGP in my first transfer and decided that. So yeah. That was neat that President and Sister Nielson talked about that and brought it to our attention.

So last Preparation day, we went down to Yingge and made pots. It was a lot of fun. I have some fun pictures I'll send one of these Preparation Days where we have time to pay for more time on the computer so we can send pictures, but today isn't one of them because in 8 minutes we are headed over to Taipei for Temple day. We get one every transfer. How lucky am I to be in this mission and get a Temple day once a transfer on preparation day. Pretty lucky I think :). The other mission gets to come once a yearish. And people in our mission too far away don't get to either. So I'm lucky to be in Zhongli, far enough from Taipei that it's a TAD cooler...but close enough it's not impossible to go for temple tours and temple day. By the way, I found out Taipei is nicknamed the concrete jungle...for good reason. It's hot here and it's not even summer yet! I'm so glad that when it's starting to get this hot next year I'm going home! I think it would be very hard for me to get through two summers here. AHHH. Me, accustomed to Idaho sent here to Taiwan. Haha. I'm hot! And it's really humid. Some days right before and after the rain it's hard for me to breathe. People used to say that about Rexburg, but I didn't feel that way. But now I do in the humidity. :)

Our investigators are doing okay. We found 6 new ones last week so I'm really excited about a new pool of investigators. My companion and I have been praying for new ones. We also fasted for them to come to church and the one we wanted most to come did! So our prayers and fasts are being answered. It's hot and the work is progressing. Life is good!

I didn't hear from mom and dad this week, don't forget to write me!

K bye!