Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
All in A Missionaries Day: Baptizing Four Then Hearing President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
You know what? Yesterday Dieter F. Uchdorf came to our mission...and spoke to us...and between the meeting with us missionaries and the member meeting, it hit me that I am going home. I guess it hit with perfect timing because I had promised my companion we would not even focus on that I was going home until after all the baptisms...and, they all happened. The baptism by water and the baptism by fire...and only hours later listening to a prophet of the Lord speak to us about how going home was both a happy and a sad thing...and to not waste;our time, it hit me that my time was one more week. Don't get me wrong, it's not like that I think that my mission is over...I will put my heart into this week as much as I can...but now with this Preparation day, and me interviewing with President Sunday...I have the exit interview letter to write...stuff to pack...and about10 people who have reminded me a couple times that if I don't write for their mission bye bye books they will be sad...I've got my lunches and dinners...nights and mornings all cut out for me! But yeah, it hit me yesterday and it was kind of a weird feeling. The last two weeks I said I'd let myself feel that way, but it didn't dawn on me that I really WOULD until it happened. Crazy crazy. I'll have a lot of decisions encountering me when I get home, with the news of the economy, etc etc....but all and all, if I have learned one thing on my mission, it is that Heavenly Father loves me and I will be okay. So onto the stuff you guys all actually want to hear instead of my whole mind thought process...That stuff is boring.
This week was a pretty good week, but it really gave me a testimony about just how many people are prepared to hear this gospel. At this point, everyone who we meet with who starts progressing are given baptismal dates...they almost all are progressing, and a good portion of them are getting into coming to church habits. We met a lady named Huang Shijin just 2.5 weeks ago. She's already come to church twice, and came with her son to the Uchdorf member meeting yesterday. After attending the baptism Saturday, felt she was ready to set a date and prepare for it. Her son set a date as well. He was the cutest kid I ever met. He'd really never heard of Heavenly Father before. So we explained to him prayer and Heavenly Father...to which mother had to speak in very very layman terms and explain to him that there was a spirit inside of him and that Heavenly Father was his father of that, and that she was the mother of his body. I guess he prayed in the car all the way home to get to know Heavenly Father, then when he got home he told his father he had something called a spirit and that it was inside of him and that's what helped him think and went on and on about it. Haha. His dad was pretty much just like...okay...but to hear Shijin tell us about her son I was just super touched. To know that we are teaching a 9 year old child about his Heavenly Father is amazing. I know this knowledge will help him for the rest of his life. This gospel is TOO amazing. Seriously.
On Tuesday we had the fun experience on going on splits with the members. I've heard this happens a ton in the states, but here in Taiwan it is a rare thing. I've only done it twice. We have members come and attend our lessons a good amount...but splitting is something that is rare...However, especially back when we were three people, President had told us we had 2 very experienced missionaries in one area and we should use this to help the area grow...so we arraigned with a member going on her mission soon...and with one of my recent converts Whitney to do splits. That day we had too many appointments to cover ourselves so it seemed perfect. We gave Whitney and I all the church appointments, and the responsibility to go drop off some notes not too far from the church...and my companion and Caitlin Zhuo (who is going to Manchester England) took the bikes and did some house visits. In the end, quite a few people ended up canceling and changing appointments...but it was still a super great exchange. I think Whitney had a really good time. They attended District Meeting with us...which was fun, 10 people in our district that week! We already have a huge district...hehe. Then, we did role plays during District of course. Me, I'm not a HUGE role play fan. I'll do them, because they help your teaching and your plans and they are an improvement opportunity...but I'm never like...YES..role play time. I'm just like...okkkaaay role play. But Whitney loved them. Haha, so cute, it helped me appreciate role plays more, because she was like, "Is district meeting always like that? It was so fun! They taught us how to be missionaries and all those games were super fun." Haha and then role plays were games. So yeah, Tuesday was a really good experience. It helped our week a lot, because we weren't in our area most of Wednesday or Sunday...because we had Zone Conference this week, as well as the Uchdorf thing.
So yeah, Wednesday was my last Zone Conference. It was a little strange to me to be in the zone conference I was in. My name wasn't even on there to give my farewell testimony...but President announced that my name was on Xinzhu's list and I would be up there with the other 16 missionaries going home to bear our testimony. He also asked us to all have good attitudes about the emergency transfers taking place in our mission. He clearly announced that they would still be taking place and that you should love your area and cherish it, because you could be leaving tomorrow. I learned a lot from this last 2 weeks. I can safely say this changed my entire mission. So I really respected that President came out and told us that transfers were happening, would continue to be happening..and to trust him. I think that helped a lot of people who kept wondering what was happening. It helped me too. It was really cool to have 17 of us bearing our testimonies....out of the 25 leaving, there was a large chunk in that conference. I listened attentively to these Elders and Sisters. I felt the spirit strongly as they bore their testimonies. I was a little nervous myself to get up because I felt like I was going to cry...and I hate crying!...but I just teared up for a minute...was silent for a second, then pulled myself together...haha. I was SO not a crier before my mission, but I am totally more prone to crying these days. I wonder if it's a growing up thing, or a missionary thing. We'll see.
And then Saturday....Saturday was a special day. SO much stress...but exciting too! It was a little cramped for time with a baptism scheduled for 4 at one church, and the next one at 6...but a member took us to the church and we got there by 5:15. Everything worked out pretty good. It was an special day. It was the first time on my mission I saw so many baptisms in one day. I'm sure other missionaries have...but it was my first time...and the ward was excited. Especially Xinpu, because 3 of the baptisms were in Xinpu and the ward members were just really excited...and you could feel their excitement. I felt so much love on that day...and it was a special experience to be a part of, I felt the spirit strongly as they got up and shared their testimonies after their baptism...but hands down my favorite part was the next day, as they got the gift of the Holy Ghost, to hear the blessings that Heavenly Father had in store for three of his beloved daughters who had entered in by the way. I was a little sad we didn't get to see Wu Sijing's confirmation...but there was no way to be at both wards that day, because we had to leav Missionary meeting with Uchtdorf...but that was probably pretty super awesome too.
Well, I would tell you all about what Uchtdorf told us missionaries...but there is too much. I'll give dad my planner with the notes in it next week and he can transcribe if he so wishes. But I will mention one thing he said that actually, I strongly agree with, because in my first interview with President Nielson...back in the day...he told me that we were all God's Investigators. I spent a long time understanding lesson one principle one in relation and terms to me. I wanted to know that my life and what I did was because I loved God...and to love God, I needed to truely understand my relationship with him. It was an interesting thing, and I'm still learning...but it really struck me when Uctdorf said, "Be your first and strongest convert. I know that I do not want to be a Sunday Latter-day Saint. I don't want to just act like a member, but BE a member. I'm still in a process. I think it will take a lifetime. I'm more used to reading my scriptures and praying daily, but sometimes it still isn't the most earnest I could be. I still have TONS of room for improvement. My whole life, I've believed that a mission is just another step in our spiritual growth. I doubt I will think this mission is the most spiritual stage of my life...because I believe every day I become better, but I've definitely learned a lot. I'm still the basic core of who I am and was in the past, but I'm better in some ways, and more experienced in others. This is a wonderful work. I'm grateful for my time here in Taiwan. I'm grateful I still have some time left.
I'll see you all next week. I love you. Make sure you are at the airport in time. We leave Taiwan at 11:30 at night on Tuesday. I have a layover in California and then another one in North Carolina...then last I fly into Charleston I believe I should arrive at 10ish on Wednesday morning after about 22 hours of travel...That is not good if you do not have that information. They have the tenbrunos@yahoo.com email....it should have been sent there. If you do not have it yet, please call the mission home as soon as possible and get that information. Also, please inform the bishop and stake president of my coming home. I would like to be released on that Wednesday if possible, I think it would be weird to just bum around home as a missionary too long. Missionaries don't bum around, but I'd like to for a day or two. HAHA. Also I want to make sure everything is good for my homecoming on Sunday. I want our family to do a musical number too. Is that possible? Can you ask?
Xiexie nimen!
Ai ni!
Sister Flora Bruno
This week was a pretty good week, but it really gave me a testimony about just how many people are prepared to hear this gospel. At this point, everyone who we meet with who starts progressing are given baptismal dates...they almost all are progressing, and a good portion of them are getting into coming to church habits. We met a lady named Huang Shijin just 2.5 weeks ago. She's already come to church twice, and came with her son to the Uchdorf member meeting yesterday. After attending the baptism Saturday, felt she was ready to set a date and prepare for it. Her son set a date as well. He was the cutest kid I ever met. He'd really never heard of Heavenly Father before. So we explained to him prayer and Heavenly Father...to which mother had to speak in very very layman terms and explain to him that there was a spirit inside of him and that Heavenly Father was his father of that, and that she was the mother of his body. I guess he prayed in the car all the way home to get to know Heavenly Father, then when he got home he told his father he had something called a spirit and that it was inside of him and that's what helped him think and went on and on about it. Haha. His dad was pretty much just like...okay...but to hear Shijin tell us about her son I was just super touched. To know that we are teaching a 9 year old child about his Heavenly Father is amazing. I know this knowledge will help him for the rest of his life. This gospel is TOO amazing. Seriously.
On Tuesday we had the fun experience on going on splits with the members. I've heard this happens a ton in the states, but here in Taiwan it is a rare thing. I've only done it twice. We have members come and attend our lessons a good amount...but splitting is something that is rare...However, especially back when we were three people, President had told us we had 2 very experienced missionaries in one area and we should use this to help the area grow...so we arraigned with a member going on her mission soon...and with one of my recent converts Whitney to do splits. That day we had too many appointments to cover ourselves so it seemed perfect. We gave Whitney and I all the church appointments, and the responsibility to go drop off some notes not too far from the church...and my companion and Caitlin Zhuo (who is going to Manchester England) took the bikes and did some house visits. In the end, quite a few people ended up canceling and changing appointments...but it was still a super great exchange. I think Whitney had a really good time. They attended District Meeting with us...which was fun, 10 people in our district that week! We already have a huge district...hehe. Then, we did role plays during District of course. Me, I'm not a HUGE role play fan. I'll do them, because they help your teaching and your plans and they are an improvement opportunity...but I'm never like...YES..role play time. I'm just like...okkkaaay role play. But Whitney loved them. Haha, so cute, it helped me appreciate role plays more, because she was like, "Is district meeting always like that? It was so fun! They taught us how to be missionaries and all those games were super fun." Haha and then role plays were games. So yeah, Tuesday was a really good experience. It helped our week a lot, because we weren't in our area most of Wednesday or Sunday...because we had Zone Conference this week, as well as the Uchdorf thing.
So yeah, Wednesday was my last Zone Conference. It was a little strange to me to be in the zone conference I was in. My name wasn't even on there to give my farewell testimony...but President announced that my name was on Xinzhu's list and I would be up there with the other 16 missionaries going home to bear our testimony. He also asked us to all have good attitudes about the emergency transfers taking place in our mission. He clearly announced that they would still be taking place and that you should love your area and cherish it, because you could be leaving tomorrow. I learned a lot from this last 2 weeks. I can safely say this changed my entire mission. So I really respected that President came out and told us that transfers were happening, would continue to be happening..and to trust him. I think that helped a lot of people who kept wondering what was happening. It helped me too. It was really cool to have 17 of us bearing our testimonies....out of the 25 leaving, there was a large chunk in that conference. I listened attentively to these Elders and Sisters. I felt the spirit strongly as they bore their testimonies. I was a little nervous myself to get up because I felt like I was going to cry...and I hate crying!...but I just teared up for a minute...was silent for a second, then pulled myself together...haha. I was SO not a crier before my mission, but I am totally more prone to crying these days. I wonder if it's a growing up thing, or a missionary thing. We'll see.
And then Saturday....Saturday was a special day. SO much stress...but exciting too! It was a little cramped for time with a baptism scheduled for 4 at one church, and the next one at 6...but a member took us to the church and we got there by 5:15. Everything worked out pretty good. It was an special day. It was the first time on my mission I saw so many baptisms in one day. I'm sure other missionaries have...but it was my first time...and the ward was excited. Especially Xinpu, because 3 of the baptisms were in Xinpu and the ward members were just really excited...and you could feel their excitement. I felt so much love on that day...and it was a special experience to be a part of, I felt the spirit strongly as they got up and shared their testimonies after their baptism...but hands down my favorite part was the next day, as they got the gift of the Holy Ghost, to hear the blessings that Heavenly Father had in store for three of his beloved daughters who had entered in by the way. I was a little sad we didn't get to see Wu Sijing's confirmation...but there was no way to be at both wards that day, because we had to leav Missionary meeting with Uchtdorf...but that was probably pretty super awesome too.
Well, I would tell you all about what Uchtdorf told us missionaries...but there is too much. I'll give dad my planner with the notes in it next week and he can transcribe if he so wishes. But I will mention one thing he said that actually, I strongly agree with, because in my first interview with President Nielson...back in the day...he told me that we were all God's Investigators. I spent a long time understanding lesson one principle one in relation and terms to me. I wanted to know that my life and what I did was because I loved God...and to love God, I needed to truely understand my relationship with him. It was an interesting thing, and I'm still learning...but it really struck me when Uctdorf said, "Be your first and strongest convert. I know that I do not want to be a Sunday Latter-day Saint. I don't want to just act like a member, but BE a member. I'm still in a process. I think it will take a lifetime. I'm more used to reading my scriptures and praying daily, but sometimes it still isn't the most earnest I could be. I still have TONS of room for improvement. My whole life, I've believed that a mission is just another step in our spiritual growth. I doubt I will think this mission is the most spiritual stage of my life...because I believe every day I become better, but I've definitely learned a lot. I'm still the basic core of who I am and was in the past, but I'm better in some ways, and more experienced in others. This is a wonderful work. I'm grateful for my time here in Taiwan. I'm grateful I still have some time left.
I'll see you all next week. I love you. Make sure you are at the airport in time. We leave Taiwan at 11:30 at night on Tuesday. I have a layover in California and then another one in North Carolina...then last I fly into Charleston I believe I should arrive at 10ish on Wednesday morning after about 22 hours of travel...That is not good if you do not have that information. They have the tenbrunos@yahoo.com email....it should have been sent there. If you do not have it yet, please call the mission home as soon as possible and get that information. Also, please inform the bishop and stake president of my coming home. I would like to be released on that Wednesday if possible, I think it would be weird to just bum around home as a missionary too long. Missionaries don't bum around, but I'd like to for a day or two. HAHA. Also I want to make sure everything is good for my homecoming on Sunday. I want our family to do a musical number too. Is that possible? Can you ask?
Xiexie nimen!
Ai ni!
Sister Flora Bruno
Monday, July 5, 2010
Staying Focused and Finishing Strong at the End of Her Mission
Okay, we are coming into the end of my mission and everyone who emailed this week told me to focus at the end of my mission, so that's nice of you all to try to help me focus but I thought you should know you don't even need to tell me that because I am SUPER FOCUSED. And do you want to know why? Because this area is CRAZY busy. Haha. It's actually a really good area to end my mission in, because I have no idea when I'm going to have time to start to worry about going home, and my companion and I agreed we won't even think about it until next week on Preparation day. Plus I have a surreal view on time, so even though I know I'm going home soon, it still feels kind of as far away as it did back in transfer 1. Kind of like leaving the MTC, I didn't quite believe it would ever happen, until I was in Taiwan and with my trainer, and not understanding anything anyone was saying.
Sister Zheng was transferred this Wednesday to a new area not far from here called Shuanghe. A lot of people have been moving in the middle of the transfer. Today we were called and they needed the extra bed because someone else is moving in in another area as well, so there are moves like crazy, and my only Taiwanese companion was only with me for 4 days. Haha. Now it is just Sister Andreasen and me.
Okay, funny thing about my companion and me. We have a connection. Yes, I know this is a small Mormon world, but I rarely actually find my connections with people. Thursday we were the Temple Tour Sisters...and Thursday is a slow day, so we got some time to chat, as a threesome that was a little harder to get done...but Thursday we just sat and chatted, and she was telling me about how she feels about her future..and at one point she said..."It's not like I need to be the future Supreme Court Justice's wife..." And I said, "Ha, I had a good friend in High School who had that ambition." And she said, "Actually in college I did too...Wait...what is your friends name?" And I just knew she was expecting the exact name I said, for some reason...and I was like David James.... And of course she freaked out and said she knew exactly what I was going to say because she knew I went to high school in Texas. It was crazy...because I guess they were super good college friends, he was her home teacher and all, and spent a lot of time with her and her roommates...So then that started a good conversation with a couple David James stories, and I showed her the thing Gigi sent me with his wedding picture that night...and then from there we talked about other things...and now we are super good friends and maybe just maybe chat TOO much in companion study and before bed (my journal is getting neglected, my companions are just too fun to talk to in that 30 minutes at night and in the morning time). But it's super fun and we have been working like crazy and seeing a lot of miracles in Banqiao. That is the next topic.
This week we have been having lessons like crazy, and have been rushed and just...BUSY...and it's a super good busy, because this week, we have had 4 people pass their baptismal interviews. If that's not a miracle, I don't know what is. The sisters here have been doing super good work, and now we are just seeing everything set up...Heavenly Father is really blessing this area and these people are solid people too. Three people will get baptized Saturday at 6...and 1 person at 4. So Saturday is going to be quite an experience...a member has to drive us from one church to the other so everything can happen in correct timing.
One is a Yan Jingmin. She just got married recently to a member...and at first I guess she moved slowly with being busy with the wedding and all, but now she is pregnant and really has a desire for eternal families. She was met with missionaries 6 times only..the large part of her fellowshipping was by her husband of course. I was there for the last lesson and going over the interview questions. She passed with no problems and is excited for her husband to baptize her this Saturday at 6.
The next one is Wu Chunmei. Elder Wolfley, from my Xinzhu district actually found her last transfer with his trainer Elder McNair. It was the first door he ever knocked. This lady is a cute old lady. They've been working with her quite awhile, because her memory is not the best, but she's really good, she remembered everything for the baptismal interview, as long as she could use her pictures. I think she is actually super cute and has good starting of a testimony. She is super willing to come to church, and I'm sure they will be seeing her at church every week, because she loves church. I think it's really amazing when investigators love church because I think that is an important thing for the conversion process is a desire to go to church.
Also, Wu Sijin passed her interview. She is a really cute girl who is the girlfriend of a returned missionary from the Taizhong mission. So, like Jingmin, her boyfriend will baptize her and is the big fellowshipper in this happening. I think she is really strong because Sijin had to give up smoking to be baptized. I know that is not an easy thing to do, but she is a strong girl and she has a lot of faith, so she has been doing it now...and is prepared to not smoke again.
The last one is the one I feel the most personal connection to, her name is Huang Yawen....I've been here for all but two of her lessons...I just missed lesson 1 and 2/WOW. Her getting baptized this week is actually super fast she's been to church just the required three time and this week is a week earlier than her date, but after what happened yesterday, I know she is ready for it. I've never had someone baptized this fast, but Yan Jingmin and Wu Chunmei are also in the same ward as Yawen. The Xinpu ward. This is the ward my companion and I decided I would just go to for the 4 Sundays I was here in Banqiao, because that way I could be closer to the ward members. So, I went alone to Xinpu on Sunday...and had some scheduling issues, with Chunmei not being able to do it too late at night, and Jingmin's husband not getting off work until later at night, so finally after some stressing scheduling conflicts, I was able to figure out 6. At this point (I kept being pulled out of class by the bishop, MM leader, etc) they asked me about Yawen's baptism...which was scheduled for the 15th...because the ward has a camping activity the 16th and 17th, so that week baptisms have to be Thursday. They asked me if we could just move up Yawen by 5 days. They thought it would be nice to have all the Sisters in that ward get baptized the same time. I said I could see what I could do...but I was a little nervous. I called my companion and she said to just ask Yawen how she felt and if she was ready, interview today, and if not, we'd interview Thursday...and call for permission at that point to see if she could get baptized or not...
So I sat down with Yawen after Relief Society and asked her how she was feeling about baptism. She said the closer she got the more nervous she felt, and she was scared of enduring to the end a little bit. I was honest with her and told her that the leaders in the ward wanted her to think about being baptized with the other two sisters that Saturday. She asked what she would have to do in order to do that...and lucky, by inspiration I'm sure....we were not going to teach fasting the time before we'd met, but she ended up asking what it was when she saw it on the tithing slip, so my companion and I split so I could finish teaching her about fasting..so she had finished the discussions at that time....well, since she'd finished the lessons, I told her we could go over the interview questions and see how we felt...so we discussed the interview questions, and her only problem was the last question about enduring to the end. So, I told her about what baptism was, and had a baptism and confirmation lesson with her, sharing in 3 Ne 11 exactly what would happen...and the Spirit was just there really strong, because after we prayed, she said she felt ready to have the interview, whenever we could schedule it with Elder McNair...so we waited for him to come out of his lesson, and before he went home for lunch...he interviewed with her....
I felt further that she was ready after the interview, she had told E. McNair (poor Elder, he had to do 4 interviews for us this week!)that her favorite part of the week was Sunday at church. I love that these investigators love church. They are too awesome! Her weakness he said was that she hadn't really prayed about the Book of Mormon yet. So, as she was leaving, we had a 5 minute conversation, and I in addition to Elder McNair invited her to pray about the Book of Mormon...and it's truth. That night, she went to the fireside in Taibei with us, and walking there, she shared with me that she had been fasting that day (she ate breakfast and then started fasting) and that when Elder McNair and I both asked her to pray about the Book of Mormon, she felt it was something she needed to do during her fast...so she went home and knelt and said a prayer...and then continued reading where she was...which happened to be 2 Ne 3...and she found her answer in vs. 11 and 12. I was amazed that she understood those those verses in the scriptures...she is too amazing...and the Fireside was on the Holy Ghost that night, and just just felt like everything that happened on Sunday was Heavenly Fathers answer to her that is is ready to get baptized and continue preparing to go to the temple one day. I'm super excited about this week, we have hardly any spare seconds and lessons scheduled by the half hour...but I know that we have a lot of work to do to make sure that these people have a good day on Saturday and everything continues to go through. I saw so many miracles this week, but it's been an hour and so I can't even write them all! This is a great area and I'm glad to be here for the last couple weeks. I'll write again next week...see you then!
Love you all!
Sister Flora Bruno.
Sister Zheng was transferred this Wednesday to a new area not far from here called Shuanghe. A lot of people have been moving in the middle of the transfer. Today we were called and they needed the extra bed because someone else is moving in in another area as well, so there are moves like crazy, and my only Taiwanese companion was only with me for 4 days. Haha. Now it is just Sister Andreasen and me.
Okay, funny thing about my companion and me. We have a connection. Yes, I know this is a small Mormon world, but I rarely actually find my connections with people. Thursday we were the Temple Tour Sisters...and Thursday is a slow day, so we got some time to chat, as a threesome that was a little harder to get done...but Thursday we just sat and chatted, and she was telling me about how she feels about her future..and at one point she said..."It's not like I need to be the future Supreme Court Justice's wife..." And I said, "Ha, I had a good friend in High School who had that ambition." And she said, "Actually in college I did too...Wait...what is your friends name?" And I just knew she was expecting the exact name I said, for some reason...and I was like David James.... And of course she freaked out and said she knew exactly what I was going to say because she knew I went to high school in Texas. It was crazy...because I guess they were super good college friends, he was her home teacher and all, and spent a lot of time with her and her roommates...So then that started a good conversation with a couple David James stories, and I showed her the thing Gigi sent me with his wedding picture that night...and then from there we talked about other things...and now we are super good friends and maybe just maybe chat TOO much in companion study and before bed (my journal is getting neglected, my companions are just too fun to talk to in that 30 minutes at night and in the morning time). But it's super fun and we have been working like crazy and seeing a lot of miracles in Banqiao. That is the next topic.
This week we have been having lessons like crazy, and have been rushed and just...BUSY...and it's a super good busy, because this week, we have had 4 people pass their baptismal interviews. If that's not a miracle, I don't know what is. The sisters here have been doing super good work, and now we are just seeing everything set up...Heavenly Father is really blessing this area and these people are solid people too. Three people will get baptized Saturday at 6...and 1 person at 4. So Saturday is going to be quite an experience...a member has to drive us from one church to the other so everything can happen in correct timing.
One is a Yan Jingmin. She just got married recently to a member...and at first I guess she moved slowly with being busy with the wedding and all, but now she is pregnant and really has a desire for eternal families. She was met with missionaries 6 times only..the large part of her fellowshipping was by her husband of course. I was there for the last lesson and going over the interview questions. She passed with no problems and is excited for her husband to baptize her this Saturday at 6.
The next one is Wu Chunmei. Elder Wolfley, from my Xinzhu district actually found her last transfer with his trainer Elder McNair. It was the first door he ever knocked. This lady is a cute old lady. They've been working with her quite awhile, because her memory is not the best, but she's really good, she remembered everything for the baptismal interview, as long as she could use her pictures. I think she is actually super cute and has good starting of a testimony. She is super willing to come to church, and I'm sure they will be seeing her at church every week, because she loves church. I think it's really amazing when investigators love church because I think that is an important thing for the conversion process is a desire to go to church.
Also, Wu Sijin passed her interview. She is a really cute girl who is the girlfriend of a returned missionary from the Taizhong mission. So, like Jingmin, her boyfriend will baptize her and is the big fellowshipper in this happening. I think she is really strong because Sijin had to give up smoking to be baptized. I know that is not an easy thing to do, but she is a strong girl and she has a lot of faith, so she has been doing it now...and is prepared to not smoke again.
The last one is the one I feel the most personal connection to, her name is Huang Yawen....I've been here for all but two of her lessons...I just missed lesson 1 and 2/WOW. Her getting baptized this week is actually super fast she's been to church just the required three time and this week is a week earlier than her date, but after what happened yesterday, I know she is ready for it. I've never had someone baptized this fast, but Yan Jingmin and Wu Chunmei are also in the same ward as Yawen. The Xinpu ward. This is the ward my companion and I decided I would just go to for the 4 Sundays I was here in Banqiao, because that way I could be closer to the ward members. So, I went alone to Xinpu on Sunday...and had some scheduling issues, with Chunmei not being able to do it too late at night, and Jingmin's husband not getting off work until later at night, so finally after some stressing scheduling conflicts, I was able to figure out 6. At this point (I kept being pulled out of class by the bishop, MM leader, etc) they asked me about Yawen's baptism...which was scheduled for the 15th...because the ward has a camping activity the 16th and 17th, so that week baptisms have to be Thursday. They asked me if we could just move up Yawen by 5 days. They thought it would be nice to have all the Sisters in that ward get baptized the same time. I said I could see what I could do...but I was a little nervous. I called my companion and she said to just ask Yawen how she felt and if she was ready, interview today, and if not, we'd interview Thursday...and call for permission at that point to see if she could get baptized or not...
So I sat down with Yawen after Relief Society and asked her how she was feeling about baptism. She said the closer she got the more nervous she felt, and she was scared of enduring to the end a little bit. I was honest with her and told her that the leaders in the ward wanted her to think about being baptized with the other two sisters that Saturday. She asked what she would have to do in order to do that...and lucky, by inspiration I'm sure....we were not going to teach fasting the time before we'd met, but she ended up asking what it was when she saw it on the tithing slip, so my companion and I split so I could finish teaching her about fasting..so she had finished the discussions at that time....well, since she'd finished the lessons, I told her we could go over the interview questions and see how we felt...so we discussed the interview questions, and her only problem was the last question about enduring to the end. So, I told her about what baptism was, and had a baptism and confirmation lesson with her, sharing in 3 Ne 11 exactly what would happen...and the Spirit was just there really strong, because after we prayed, she said she felt ready to have the interview, whenever we could schedule it with Elder McNair...so we waited for him to come out of his lesson, and before he went home for lunch...he interviewed with her....
I felt further that she was ready after the interview, she had told E. McNair (poor Elder, he had to do 4 interviews for us this week!)that her favorite part of the week was Sunday at church. I love that these investigators love church. They are too awesome! Her weakness he said was that she hadn't really prayed about the Book of Mormon yet. So, as she was leaving, we had a 5 minute conversation, and I in addition to Elder McNair invited her to pray about the Book of Mormon...and it's truth. That night, she went to the fireside in Taibei with us, and walking there, she shared with me that she had been fasting that day (she ate breakfast and then started fasting) and that when Elder McNair and I both asked her to pray about the Book of Mormon, she felt it was something she needed to do during her fast...so she went home and knelt and said a prayer...and then continued reading where she was...which happened to be 2 Ne 3...and she found her answer in vs. 11 and 12. I was amazed that she understood those those verses in the scriptures...she is too amazing...and the Fireside was on the Holy Ghost that night, and just just felt like everything that happened on Sunday was Heavenly Fathers answer to her that is is ready to get baptized and continue preparing to go to the temple one day. I'm super excited about this week, we have hardly any spare seconds and lessons scheduled by the half hour...but I know that we have a lot of work to do to make sure that these people have a good day on Saturday and everything continues to go through. I saw so many miracles this week, but it's been an hour and so I can't even write them all! This is a great area and I'm glad to be here for the last couple weeks. I'll write again next week...see you then!
Love you all!
Sister Flora Bruno.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Emergency Transfer: 7th and Final Area for Taiwanese Sister Missionary
Hello everyone! Well....this week has been quite the experience. Not even kidding you. There's a new feeling to this transfer...because I just got moved to my 7th area on my mission! How's that for a kicker. Haha. I'm now in Banqiao...in Taipei county again. It's the closest to the city I've ever been, and it's a unique experience. I really loved my old area and district and I had a really hard time leaving, I won't lie. I've been a little emotionally up and down lately, but today I talked to President, and I'm really grateful because now I know that this is the right thing for me...and that it was Heavenly Father's very unique way of answering all my prayers, hopes,and dreams. I miss Sister MacIsaac, we were able to become really good friends in the time we were together...and so it was crazy to only have been together for such a short amount of time, but I will see her in 3 weeks when we both are on the way home. It's a little hard to leave an area in the middle of a transfer, but I feel like this area is a really great area as well and we can see a lot of really awesome things the last couple weeks of my mission.
Right now I am in a threesome companionship with Sister Andreason and Sister Zheng. Sister Andreason and I were together in the MTC, and there was one night we had a very special bonding experience that I still remember. I am excited to get the chance to work with her. She is such an amazing teacher! We had a lesson on Sunday right after church, and were were able to teach the entire 1st lesson clearly and simply in only 18 minutes! It was kind of a miracle to me. I've always struggled to get the whole lesson out in the 30 minutes they invited us to do...so when we were able to do it in 18...I was shocked...in the best possible way. I'm going to learn a lot about how to be a better teacher this week. There is also Sister Zheng she is my first Taiwanese companion. She turned in her mission papers when I was in Zhongli from that ward! She is a super diligent and enthusiastic missionary. I'm excited to be their companion. I think I can learn a lot. Also, I think we can try to get the members involved and help this area grow even more. There are two wards in different chapels, so having 3 will make it a lot easier to get someone to each church every week. We've decided I'll just stay at the same ward...since I have 3 more Sundays left, and that's okay with me. They all were super nice to me and I think I'll like it a lot.
This Saturday, Hong Ruiyin got baptized. It truly was a miracle. We didn't know all week if her mom would sign the permission form or not. But she did! I left Xinzhu Saturday afternoon, so I didn't get to attend the baptism...but I was grateful for the opportunity to see that miracle. I've met a lot of Young Women who investigate the church...in my experience if the parents opposed, they had to wait until 20. This was the first time I saw a parents opposition be overcome. It was amazing when we met with her mom and I felt the Spirit really strong at that time. I know that Heavenly Father's plan was for her to get baptized and I'm so very excited for her. My companion was estatic. I think she needed that miracle. I know God loves her and is watching over Xinzhu and the work.
I had a super cool contacting experience In Xinzhu when we were out contacting this week. I think Tuesday...my companion was writing a card for an investigator and we went to Xiangshan because when I was there in Xinzhu, I had a special feeling about that area...and I saw a girl locking up her bike, and I felt impressed to go talk to her. We ended up talking for 15 minutes and she agreed to come to church on Sunday. She was sincerely interested...and it was just a cool experience. I hope she came to church on Sunday. I think she probably did!
Well, I'll tell you more about this area next week, I just got here Saturday night and don't know a lot, but I'm sure next week there will be a ton to talk about.
Love you all!
Sister Flora Bruno.
Right now I am in a threesome companionship with Sister Andreason and Sister Zheng. Sister Andreason and I were together in the MTC, and there was one night we had a very special bonding experience that I still remember. I am excited to get the chance to work with her. She is such an amazing teacher! We had a lesson on Sunday right after church, and were were able to teach the entire 1st lesson clearly and simply in only 18 minutes! It was kind of a miracle to me. I've always struggled to get the whole lesson out in the 30 minutes they invited us to do...so when we were able to do it in 18...I was shocked...in the best possible way. I'm going to learn a lot about how to be a better teacher this week. There is also Sister Zheng she is my first Taiwanese companion. She turned in her mission papers when I was in Zhongli from that ward! She is a super diligent and enthusiastic missionary. I'm excited to be their companion. I think I can learn a lot. Also, I think we can try to get the members involved and help this area grow even more. There are two wards in different chapels, so having 3 will make it a lot easier to get someone to each church every week. We've decided I'll just stay at the same ward...since I have 3 more Sundays left, and that's okay with me. They all were super nice to me and I think I'll like it a lot.
This Saturday, Hong Ruiyin got baptized. It truly was a miracle. We didn't know all week if her mom would sign the permission form or not. But she did! I left Xinzhu Saturday afternoon, so I didn't get to attend the baptism...but I was grateful for the opportunity to see that miracle. I've met a lot of Young Women who investigate the church...in my experience if the parents opposed, they had to wait until 20. This was the first time I saw a parents opposition be overcome. It was amazing when we met with her mom and I felt the Spirit really strong at that time. I know that Heavenly Father's plan was for her to get baptized and I'm so very excited for her. My companion was estatic. I think she needed that miracle. I know God loves her and is watching over Xinzhu and the work.
I had a super cool contacting experience In Xinzhu when we were out contacting this week. I think Tuesday...my companion was writing a card for an investigator and we went to Xiangshan because when I was there in Xinzhu, I had a special feeling about that area...and I saw a girl locking up her bike, and I felt impressed to go talk to her. We ended up talking for 15 minutes and she agreed to come to church on Sunday. She was sincerely interested...and it was just a cool experience. I hope she came to church on Sunday. I think she probably did!
Well, I'll tell you more about this area next week, I just got here Saturday night and don't know a lot, but I'm sure next week there will be a ton to talk about.
Love you all!
Sister Flora Bruno.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Taiwanese Missionary Preparation for Speaking in Church
Okay...so for the update this week...it can't be super long because we are just emailing in two sessions today. We had like 15 minutes earlier, and now we have 30 more minutes right now...today was kind of a crazy day. But fun and we did a LOT. Not even kidding, we did like 4 appointments. We didn't want to disappoint anyone.
This week, it has definitely become hot in Taiwan. The concrete jungle is back in full force. I'm not sure why, but I sweat like CRAZY this summer. Last summer I was not that bad. Today, we biked from Zhubei into Hsinchu(Xinzhu) pretty quick to get to lunch with the Elders, and when I got there, Elder Du took one look at me and was like, "Fu Jiemei, zao an! Ni ganggang xizao le ma?" "Sister Bruno, Good morning. Did you just shower?" I was a little embarrassed and super hot, so I went to the bathroom, where I discovered my face was COMPLETELY red and literally dripping with sweat. I looked like I just stuck my face in a bucket of water. Even my hair (just newly cut) was dripping with sweat and windblown kind of crazy.
It was pretty nasty. Even now as I write this, my hair is kind of wet from sweat. Basically, summer is here.
Getting to know this area for me has been a little bit of a trial. I don't know the roads or the people...and I struggle a lot trying to know what to do to help in my last month here...but I'm trying to do the best I can. I have a lot I can still improve. I remember talking to a senior sister last transfer about the end of my mission, and she suggested that I get a priesthood blessing. Last transfer, I kept putting it off and thinking I'd ask later. This last week, my zone leader and I were talking about desire and determination and stuff, and some of the stuff he said reminded me of what the senior sister said last transfer...so I asked for a Priesthood blessing from the zone leaders. At the time, I felt impressed to ask it from a Taiwanese Elder, who has pretty amazing English. Of course it is not perfect, but mine isn't either. It was a very unique experience for me. Sometimes it's hard for me to communicate in a language not as close to my heart...but to hear someone else doing it was really touching to me. Through the power of the priesthood, Heavenly Father told me a lot of things that are helping my desire and determination to endure to the end. My whole mission I've thought as the first 3 weeks of a transfer period as up weeks, and the last 3 weeks as down weeks....so I focus on different things accordingly. This week I'm going to do my best to talk to as many people as I possibly can and help this areas investigator pool the best I can. I don't know what kind of success I will see, but I'm sure Heavenly Father will give this area what it's needs....so I'm going to trust in that and let finding be my focus for this week. After that of course I will find, but I will not let this be my prime desire and focus. I think we need to do a lot of less active work in following weeks to prepare this area for the possibility of no sisters. We still don't know what will happen.
This week my focus was more on member work. Elder Yeh our zone leader, and one of the 3rd ward missionaries was asked to select a missionary to talk on church on Sunday about missionary work. He said he prayed about it and felt impressed to ask me. I spent the following three days in personal study trying to prepare the 12 minute talk I was asked to, but I was still far from finished. I really felt a lot of pressure and just wanted to pass it over to someone else. But of course I couldn't. Saturday and Sunday morning, I spent pretty much any spare time we could afford to give me writing and translating the talk. I usually would just write a testimony in straight Chinese, because my English being so advanced in a writing setting...and I can't speak Chinese quite like I do English...But I was impressed to write it first in English, as to clearly frame what I was trying to say in order to help the members desire. This area has changed mission (between Taiwan mission and Taizhong mission) quite a few times. Thus standards change and also there is a lot of people who were baptized and later become inactive...so the members just need a little bit of support and help with their missionary work and desires. So I felt some pressure to try to help them. I really felt like this could be something in the small time I'm here to help this area. I stressed over the talk a lot. I even stayed up for awhile Saturday night to make sure I could get it done. I had a lot of help from my district members and Sister Zou and Maddassay (sp?). I don't think it would have been possible to finish without all of their help...but in the end it turned out okay. I definitely felt that the talk I prepared had a lot more power in English, but maybe that is just because English is the language of the heart, so I understand and feel the power of the Holy Ghost in my own tongue. Elder Yeh said he watched people and that he thought it turned out really well. I was so nervous I was having trouble following the lines of pinyin and scribbles I had on the paper, so I'm not sure my audience effect, but I definitely learned a lot from writing the talk, and I feel like I accomplished something, getting up in front of the ward and talking to them for 12 minutes. I spoke about the Love of God and how when we honestly feel this love that God has for us, we desire to share it..So we must first find within ourselves the desire to be worthy and believing enough to feel of God's love...so that we can through this love obtain a desire to share. It was interesting to me...I probably spent over 12 hours in a couple days pondering and pouring over what I could share...and in a quick 12 minutes...it was just done with. It's interesting how that happens, but I'm glad for the talk at conference that talked about how his mother used what she prepared in the lessons teaching. I think I can continue to use what I learned as I teach my investigators...so that's really good.
Something else I thought was amusing this week on Sunday...In Relief Society in the 3rd ward, at the very end of class (it was going over and the teacher was trying to end it) a girl asked if she could please comment and went OFF...about reading scriptures and praying..but it was a totally legit and GOOD comment. She talked about how more and more Latter-day Saints are becoming Sunday members. They don't read their scriptures, they sometimes remember to pray...and then Sunday comes and they go to church and read and pray that day...and then forget the rest of the week. I realized that's been true of me in the past, and it's an easy pattern to get into. It was unique to watch this sister comment because she was SO passionate about it, it was impossible not to sit there and listen. It really impacted me. I was grateful for her comment...even if I was laughing as the teacher tried to wrap up the lesson and people kept going. Hehe. Being a teacher is hard!
In other news, this week, Hong Ruiyin (Ranae) went to interview. She passed her interview, but her mother still has not signed the baptism form...and we don't know what's going to happen with that...So we are doing our best to encourage open communication, and just hope that Heavenly Father will help Ranae communicate the feelings of her heart, and that her mother will be softened. She is supposed to get baptized Saturday, but because of permission, things are entirely up in the air still.
This week, I have really realized how blessed I have been blessed this transfer with people. I have an amazingly supportive district. They really helped me out a lot with my talk, and just are super supportive all the time. They are always willing to help us out and really look out for my companion and me. It's definitely interesting because every companionship has two people with really unique and different personalities...but we function and help each other....and I really love my district a lot. I realize that your whole life people are going to be different, and not every personality is your zui xihuan de (favorite) but you can get along with everyone, if you are willing to love people for their strengths, and just laugh at or excuse their weaknesses. Last transfer I used to get mad at the Elders being perpetually late...but I realize I'm less easily angered as I used to be. God's beautiful gift to me. I actually improve in my Christlike attributes after all! And this transfer I think it's kind of funny to know that even if we are ten minutes late, we'll be there before them, so no problem. Haha. Okay little problem because I hate being late...but it can be amusing if you change your attitude is all I mean. Poor Elders are just SUPER busy. (and stuff always comes up) They are good missionaries.
Well, it's time to get out there and work for awhile. See you again next week! Don't forget to write!
Love you,
Sister Fu.
A funny quote for the week that you might not understand, but Elder Weinberger wanted to know if it would be in my blog, so I decided to do it, and start a quote of the week before it's too late...
"Sister Bruno, you could never be a prerserver!!!"
This week, it has definitely become hot in Taiwan. The concrete jungle is back in full force. I'm not sure why, but I sweat like CRAZY this summer. Last summer I was not that bad. Today, we biked from Zhubei into Hsinchu(Xinzhu) pretty quick to get to lunch with the Elders, and when I got there, Elder Du took one look at me and was like, "Fu Jiemei, zao an! Ni ganggang xizao le ma?" "Sister Bruno, Good morning. Did you just shower?" I was a little embarrassed and super hot, so I went to the bathroom, where I discovered my face was COMPLETELY red and literally dripping with sweat. I looked like I just stuck my face in a bucket of water. Even my hair (just newly cut) was dripping with sweat and windblown kind of crazy.
It was pretty nasty. Even now as I write this, my hair is kind of wet from sweat. Basically, summer is here.
Getting to know this area for me has been a little bit of a trial. I don't know the roads or the people...and I struggle a lot trying to know what to do to help in my last month here...but I'm trying to do the best I can. I have a lot I can still improve. I remember talking to a senior sister last transfer about the end of my mission, and she suggested that I get a priesthood blessing. Last transfer, I kept putting it off and thinking I'd ask later. This last week, my zone leader and I were talking about desire and determination and stuff, and some of the stuff he said reminded me of what the senior sister said last transfer...so I asked for a Priesthood blessing from the zone leaders. At the time, I felt impressed to ask it from a Taiwanese Elder, who has pretty amazing English. Of course it is not perfect, but mine isn't either. It was a very unique experience for me. Sometimes it's hard for me to communicate in a language not as close to my heart...but to hear someone else doing it was really touching to me. Through the power of the priesthood, Heavenly Father told me a lot of things that are helping my desire and determination to endure to the end. My whole mission I've thought as the first 3 weeks of a transfer period as up weeks, and the last 3 weeks as down weeks....so I focus on different things accordingly. This week I'm going to do my best to talk to as many people as I possibly can and help this areas investigator pool the best I can. I don't know what kind of success I will see, but I'm sure Heavenly Father will give this area what it's needs....so I'm going to trust in that and let finding be my focus for this week. After that of course I will find, but I will not let this be my prime desire and focus. I think we need to do a lot of less active work in following weeks to prepare this area for the possibility of no sisters. We still don't know what will happen.
This week my focus was more on member work. Elder Yeh our zone leader, and one of the 3rd ward missionaries was asked to select a missionary to talk on church on Sunday about missionary work. He said he prayed about it and felt impressed to ask me. I spent the following three days in personal study trying to prepare the 12 minute talk I was asked to, but I was still far from finished. I really felt a lot of pressure and just wanted to pass it over to someone else. But of course I couldn't. Saturday and Sunday morning, I spent pretty much any spare time we could afford to give me writing and translating the talk. I usually would just write a testimony in straight Chinese, because my English being so advanced in a writing setting...and I can't speak Chinese quite like I do English...But I was impressed to write it first in English, as to clearly frame what I was trying to say in order to help the members desire. This area has changed mission (between Taiwan mission and Taizhong mission) quite a few times. Thus standards change and also there is a lot of people who were baptized and later become inactive...so the members just need a little bit of support and help with their missionary work and desires. So I felt some pressure to try to help them. I really felt like this could be something in the small time I'm here to help this area. I stressed over the talk a lot. I even stayed up for awhile Saturday night to make sure I could get it done. I had a lot of help from my district members and Sister Zou and Maddassay (sp?). I don't think it would have been possible to finish without all of their help...but in the end it turned out okay. I definitely felt that the talk I prepared had a lot more power in English, but maybe that is just because English is the language of the heart, so I understand and feel the power of the Holy Ghost in my own tongue. Elder Yeh said he watched people and that he thought it turned out really well. I was so nervous I was having trouble following the lines of pinyin and scribbles I had on the paper, so I'm not sure my audience effect, but I definitely learned a lot from writing the talk, and I feel like I accomplished something, getting up in front of the ward and talking to them for 12 minutes. I spoke about the Love of God and how when we honestly feel this love that God has for us, we desire to share it..So we must first find within ourselves the desire to be worthy and believing enough to feel of God's love...so that we can through this love obtain a desire to share. It was interesting to me...I probably spent over 12 hours in a couple days pondering and pouring over what I could share...and in a quick 12 minutes...it was just done with. It's interesting how that happens, but I'm glad for the talk at conference that talked about how his mother used what she prepared in the lessons teaching. I think I can continue to use what I learned as I teach my investigators...so that's really good.
Something else I thought was amusing this week on Sunday...In Relief Society in the 3rd ward, at the very end of class (it was going over and the teacher was trying to end it) a girl asked if she could please comment and went OFF...about reading scriptures and praying..but it was a totally legit and GOOD comment. She talked about how more and more Latter-day Saints are becoming Sunday members. They don't read their scriptures, they sometimes remember to pray...and then Sunday comes and they go to church and read and pray that day...and then forget the rest of the week. I realized that's been true of me in the past, and it's an easy pattern to get into. It was unique to watch this sister comment because she was SO passionate about it, it was impossible not to sit there and listen. It really impacted me. I was grateful for her comment...even if I was laughing as the teacher tried to wrap up the lesson and people kept going. Hehe. Being a teacher is hard!
In other news, this week, Hong Ruiyin (Ranae) went to interview. She passed her interview, but her mother still has not signed the baptism form...and we don't know what's going to happen with that...So we are doing our best to encourage open communication, and just hope that Heavenly Father will help Ranae communicate the feelings of her heart, and that her mother will be softened. She is supposed to get baptized Saturday, but because of permission, things are entirely up in the air still.
This week, I have really realized how blessed I have been blessed this transfer with people. I have an amazingly supportive district. They really helped me out a lot with my talk, and just are super supportive all the time. They are always willing to help us out and really look out for my companion and me. It's definitely interesting because every companionship has two people with really unique and different personalities...but we function and help each other....and I really love my district a lot. I realize that your whole life people are going to be different, and not every personality is your zui xihuan de (favorite) but you can get along with everyone, if you are willing to love people for their strengths, and just laugh at or excuse their weaknesses. Last transfer I used to get mad at the Elders being perpetually late...but I realize I'm less easily angered as I used to be. God's beautiful gift to me. I actually improve in my Christlike attributes after all! And this transfer I think it's kind of funny to know that even if we are ten minutes late, we'll be there before them, so no problem. Haha. Okay little problem because I hate being late...but it can be amusing if you change your attitude is all I mean. Poor Elders are just SUPER busy. (and stuff always comes up) They are good missionaries.
Well, it's time to get out there and work for awhile. See you again next week! Don't forget to write!
Love you,
Sister Fu.
A funny quote for the week that you might not understand, but Elder Weinberger wanted to know if it would be in my blog, so I decided to do it, and start a quote of the week before it's too late...
"Sister Bruno, you could never be a prerserver!!!"
Monday, June 14, 2010
Missionary Report from Xinzhu, Taiwan Taipei Mission
Okay! This week I'm spending time stealing pictures from other peoples cards and memory gidgets and gadgets, so not much time to write, but it's better that way because there is not that much to say.
Still getting used to my new area. We have 3 wards we go to on Sunday, so it was a little interesting giving my testimony a bunch of times, and knowing that in just a couple weeks I will be doing that all over again...And I just did it last week too...to say goodbye to Taoyuan. Moving a lot makes you bear your testimony a lot. I guess that's a good thing :) I get to practice my Chinese. I've never had a Taiwanese companion on my mission, so my Chinese is kind of up to my own efforts (and God's blessings of course...but he won't give me those without my own efforts).
As for investigators and stuff, still getting used to the area and such, but we are teaching a couple people I'm excited about. One is a girl named Ranae (Hong Ruiyin). My companion gave her that name, so spelled the Sister Mac way.:) Well, she's really great. She's really willing to keep the commandments and is really taken care of in the ward and everything. She really wants to be baptized, but she's 18, so she has to have parental permission. In Taiwan you have to be 20 to be baptized without permission, because of the culture. So, we are working on getting mom on board with understanding and giving her permission. Mom has agreed to meet with us this Tuesday...and if all goes well, Ranae will go to interview at the end of this week. So that's what we are hoping for. This week, because her mom can't go to her High School graduation, due to work, we are going to attend. It should be fun. I haven't been to a high school graduation in Taiwan before. Hehe.
The only other investigators that I really remember to write about this week is a really cute family. The Fan family. My companion met with them once before they moved here. It is a mother and 4 daughters. She has a son as well, but he's really young, and so he didn't even come to the store when we went by. They are a referral from the Xiangshan Elders, because I guess the husband is really shy. I've never met him myself. The mother works in a small Avon store, and we met with her and her 4 daughters in her store. We taught them a first lesson, using the cup game. I've only done that game twice my whole mission, but I think kids like it...so it went pretty well. I'm excited to teach this family. They have been doing family prayer ever since Sister MacIsaac and Sister Collyer (who I switched places with)taught them about it. So that's really good to hear that they are doing it and seeing blessings. There are a lot of people and thus a lot of concerns, not to mention they can't meet super awesome, but we think they are a really good family and we are doing what we can to help them see the blessings of this gospel.
That's pretty much it in the area of people I feel like writing about....pretty much nothing super worthy of writing home about happened this week. Today,we are going to go out to eat with the Elders for lunch...it's raining and has been raining this whole week, so as the elders say,bu hao wan. We were going to go to the beach, but that's not the best thing to do in the pouring rain right?
But, as for my feelings on the the rain, even though it is true, it's a little hard to be soaking wet because the on and off heavy rains, I'm just grateful I haven't been dying from heat. Last year this time of the year I thought every day was deathly hot! Haha, I'm sure I'll be there for a little of the deathly hot, but for now it's been pretty mild...thanks to the extremely heavy rains. So yeah. That's this week! Until next time. Love you.
Sister Flora Bruno
Still getting used to my new area. We have 3 wards we go to on Sunday, so it was a little interesting giving my testimony a bunch of times, and knowing that in just a couple weeks I will be doing that all over again...And I just did it last week too...to say goodbye to Taoyuan. Moving a lot makes you bear your testimony a lot. I guess that's a good thing :) I get to practice my Chinese. I've never had a Taiwanese companion on my mission, so my Chinese is kind of up to my own efforts (and God's blessings of course...but he won't give me those without my own efforts).
As for investigators and stuff, still getting used to the area and such, but we are teaching a couple people I'm excited about. One is a girl named Ranae (Hong Ruiyin). My companion gave her that name, so spelled the Sister Mac way.:) Well, she's really great. She's really willing to keep the commandments and is really taken care of in the ward and everything. She really wants to be baptized, but she's 18, so she has to have parental permission. In Taiwan you have to be 20 to be baptized without permission, because of the culture. So, we are working on getting mom on board with understanding and giving her permission. Mom has agreed to meet with us this Tuesday...and if all goes well, Ranae will go to interview at the end of this week. So that's what we are hoping for. This week, because her mom can't go to her High School graduation, due to work, we are going to attend. It should be fun. I haven't been to a high school graduation in Taiwan before. Hehe.
The only other investigators that I really remember to write about this week is a really cute family. The Fan family. My companion met with them once before they moved here. It is a mother and 4 daughters. She has a son as well, but he's really young, and so he didn't even come to the store when we went by. They are a referral from the Xiangshan Elders, because I guess the husband is really shy. I've never met him myself. The mother works in a small Avon store, and we met with her and her 4 daughters in her store. We taught them a first lesson, using the cup game. I've only done that game twice my whole mission, but I think kids like it...so it went pretty well. I'm excited to teach this family. They have been doing family prayer ever since Sister MacIsaac and Sister Collyer (who I switched places with)taught them about it. So that's really good to hear that they are doing it and seeing blessings. There are a lot of people and thus a lot of concerns, not to mention they can't meet super awesome, but we think they are a really good family and we are doing what we can to help them see the blessings of this gospel.
That's pretty much it in the area of people I feel like writing about....pretty much nothing super worthy of writing home about happened this week. Today,we are going to go out to eat with the Elders for lunch...it's raining and has been raining this whole week, so as the elders say,bu hao wan. We were going to go to the beach, but that's not the best thing to do in the pouring rain right?
But, as for my feelings on the the rain, even though it is true, it's a little hard to be soaking wet because the on and off heavy rains, I'm just grateful I haven't been dying from heat. Last year this time of the year I thought every day was deathly hot! Haha, I'm sure I'll be there for a little of the deathly hot, but for now it's been pretty mild...thanks to the extremely heavy rains. So yeah. That's this week! Until next time. Love you.
Sister Flora Bruno
Monday, June 7, 2010
Invited to Dragon Boat Festival 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.
This week, we went through another move call. And, no suprise...I'm.....MOVING. Ha. That's my life! 我是一个很会搬家的传教士姐妹。 I think I've moved more than any sister on our mission right now, even more than the Taiwanese who have an extra two transfers thanks to their excellent Chinese language skills. They graduate from MTC status in just a mere 3 weeks. Maybe not, but I sure know I have moved a lot. This last 6 weeks, I'm going to Xinzhu to be with Sister MacIsaac from the MTC. It should be an interesting transfer. Missionaries are already buzzing about the dynamics involved, since there is a group of 7 sisters going home with us, and not nearly as many coming in. But no matter, no matter, whatever happens,Sister MacIsaac and I will make sure that we leave Xinzhu with a bang I'm sure. Another interesting fact from move calls, one of the Elders moved here 6 weeks ago with me into the Taoyuan ward. I refused to write in his bye bye book because it was more assumed he and I would stay since we are going home in only one transfer...well, 不用写。 No need, no need. We are moving to the exact same place together. Ha. So that will be pretty sweet. I've already met two of my district members, plus from what this Elder has told me (he's Taiwanese, he knows things...Taiwanese people know everything about everyone...they are cool like that....) our district should be super fun. And super mixed. We are 4 Americans, 4 Taiwanese. Yeah. How's that for diverse?
Okay, enough about all that business, this week was really an interesting week. On Friday afternoon, we were at the church, trying to get in some WPS before MM meeting since we were in Taipei doing Tours on Thursday, when we hear two strange voices calling to see if anyone was in the church. Well, it ends up the that Immigration Agency next door was having a cultural celebration for the Dragon Boat Festival, and they wanted us and some other Americans to come to their party. So I called President, and he said that would be a good thing for us missionaries to go to, since we work with that building very closely getting our ARC (Alien Resident Card) from them. So he gave me the names of what missionaries he wanted me to call and invite... So, my companion and I with some of the Elders went and attended their cultural event. They had us go and learn how to make zhongzi...this thing they eat during the Dragon Boat Festival...and my companion and I were completely the center of attention. It was a little embarrassing for me, it was at 9 in the morning, and we had to bike there in the rain, so my hair was wet, and I didn't have a lot of time to get cute in the morning, you know, since I'm a missionary and everything, and we had cameras of all sorts in our faces. So that was interesting. Later that day, the ARC lady called us and got our Chinese names....so I know we will be in the news somewhere. I'm not sure I'll ever see it since I'm moving, but I told my companion if she finds out where they publicize to get me a copy even if I do look bad. And one of the Elders was really good, and took some pictures with my companions camera...so it's mostly my companion, but there are a couple good ones I'm in I'll send. I have to say though, it was one strange to be filmed and people shoving me to stand in the right place and taking a million pictures....I was glad when it was done. Although, I guess it was cool in some ways...they had some really cool cultural performances, and we got to eat the zhongzi...and it was a unique day in the life.
This week, we went and saw a lady from my English class named Joyce. We have visited her before and I really like her a lot. When I first met with her, it was because Elder Lin told me she had cancer and that she could really use visits, so a member helped us set up with her. The first lesson went pretty smooth and she had to go back to work, so she got busy for awhile, and I wondered if it was really true or not that she was sick because she seemed so healthy. Well, when I found out I was moving, I wanted to see Joyce. I felt a connection to her and I really love her. I called. She said we could come over Sunday when she found out I am moving, but told me she was not doing very good lately, and she was very sick and had cancer. She sounded awful. We went over, and it was incredibly hard for her to even meet with us a half hour. It was hard for her to sit up. We shared a brief lesson on the plan of salvation with her, but she is really doing bad right now. She said her body is not reacting well to chemo, and she has not been able to keep anything down. I was really grateful she let us come over...she is very humble and said she has been reading the Book of Mormon and praying, and that her doctor said it's really good she has this religion at this time in her life. I didn't know how to help her, but I just felt the spirit so strongly while I was there. We exchanged information and I said I'd keep in touch with her and see what happens. Since her condition is not good, she said she'll rest for a couple weeks, and then when she starts to feel better, she'll let more sisters come and visit her. I was just greatly humbled at that woman's strength. Her trials are big, but she hardly complains. She will just admit it is hard, but she said her mind is still optimistic. She's a rock.
It's been sad to have to be saying goodbye to another area. The members once again barely know who I am or what I am like, but I really like Taoyuan 2nd ward. We were invited over to eat with a member last night. That's never happened that a member wanted to feed us on my last night here. A lot of my companions had that because of their great relationships with the ward, but I was the younger missionary for a long time, and nobody knew what I was saying, and then after that, I was just moving moving moving. A really cute member, Sister Xin, and her daughter fed us. And it was really cute, a Bade member Brother Qiu went over and helped Sister Xin cook from 2 in the afternoon until 6. It was super good food! I don't know if they realize how touched I was to go over there and spend my last meal in Taoyuan with them, but I really was. I really love this Taoyuan ward. Elder Du and I both talked about how sad we were to have to leave it, but I have hope that Xinzhu will be a good place for me to be at for the end of my mission. I'm going to take it week by week. I think this transfer will be a further testimony to me that Heavenly Father loves me and answers my prayers and knows my needs. I have a lot of prayers and hopes and desires for my last transfer...And now, I'm going into it. Wish me luck. Write again next week!
Love you all,
Sister Flora Aimee Bruno 傅文馨姐妹
This week, we went through another move call. And, no suprise...I'm.....MOVING. Ha. That's my life! 我是一个很会搬家的传教士姐妹。 I think I've moved more than any sister on our mission right now, even more than the Taiwanese who have an extra two transfers thanks to their excellent Chinese language skills. They graduate from MTC status in just a mere 3 weeks. Maybe not, but I sure know I have moved a lot. This last 6 weeks, I'm going to Xinzhu to be with Sister MacIsaac from the MTC. It should be an interesting transfer. Missionaries are already buzzing about the dynamics involved, since there is a group of 7 sisters going home with us, and not nearly as many coming in. But no matter, no matter, whatever happens,Sister MacIsaac and I will make sure that we leave Xinzhu with a bang I'm sure. Another interesting fact from move calls, one of the Elders moved here 6 weeks ago with me into the Taoyuan ward. I refused to write in his bye bye book because it was more assumed he and I would stay since we are going home in only one transfer...well, 不用写。 No need, no need. We are moving to the exact same place together. Ha. So that will be pretty sweet. I've already met two of my district members, plus from what this Elder has told me (he's Taiwanese, he knows things...Taiwanese people know everything about everyone...they are cool like that....) our district should be super fun. And super mixed. We are 4 Americans, 4 Taiwanese. Yeah. How's that for diverse?
Okay, enough about all that business, this week was really an interesting week. On Friday afternoon, we were at the church, trying to get in some WPS before MM meeting since we were in Taipei doing Tours on Thursday, when we hear two strange voices calling to see if anyone was in the church. Well, it ends up the that Immigration Agency next door was having a cultural celebration for the Dragon Boat Festival, and they wanted us and some other Americans to come to their party. So I called President, and he said that would be a good thing for us missionaries to go to, since we work with that building very closely getting our ARC (Alien Resident Card) from them. So he gave me the names of what missionaries he wanted me to call and invite... So, my companion and I with some of the Elders went and attended their cultural event. They had us go and learn how to make zhongzi...this thing they eat during the Dragon Boat Festival...and my companion and I were completely the center of attention. It was a little embarrassing for me, it was at 9 in the morning, and we had to bike there in the rain, so my hair was wet, and I didn't have a lot of time to get cute in the morning, you know, since I'm a missionary and everything, and we had cameras of all sorts in our faces. So that was interesting. Later that day, the ARC lady called us and got our Chinese names....so I know we will be in the news somewhere. I'm not sure I'll ever see it since I'm moving, but I told my companion if she finds out where they publicize to get me a copy even if I do look bad. And one of the Elders was really good, and took some pictures with my companions camera...so it's mostly my companion, but there are a couple good ones I'm in I'll send. I have to say though, it was one strange to be filmed and people shoving me to stand in the right place and taking a million pictures....I was glad when it was done. Although, I guess it was cool in some ways...they had some really cool cultural performances, and we got to eat the zhongzi...and it was a unique day in the life.
This week, we went and saw a lady from my English class named Joyce. We have visited her before and I really like her a lot. When I first met with her, it was because Elder Lin told me she had cancer and that she could really use visits, so a member helped us set up with her. The first lesson went pretty smooth and she had to go back to work, so she got busy for awhile, and I wondered if it was really true or not that she was sick because she seemed so healthy. Well, when I found out I was moving, I wanted to see Joyce. I felt a connection to her and I really love her. I called. She said we could come over Sunday when she found out I am moving, but told me she was not doing very good lately, and she was very sick and had cancer. She sounded awful. We went over, and it was incredibly hard for her to even meet with us a half hour. It was hard for her to sit up. We shared a brief lesson on the plan of salvation with her, but she is really doing bad right now. She said her body is not reacting well to chemo, and she has not been able to keep anything down. I was really grateful she let us come over...she is very humble and said she has been reading the Book of Mormon and praying, and that her doctor said it's really good she has this religion at this time in her life. I didn't know how to help her, but I just felt the spirit so strongly while I was there. We exchanged information and I said I'd keep in touch with her and see what happens. Since her condition is not good, she said she'll rest for a couple weeks, and then when she starts to feel better, she'll let more sisters come and visit her. I was just greatly humbled at that woman's strength. Her trials are big, but she hardly complains. She will just admit it is hard, but she said her mind is still optimistic. She's a rock.
It's been sad to have to be saying goodbye to another area. The members once again barely know who I am or what I am like, but I really like Taoyuan 2nd ward. We were invited over to eat with a member last night. That's never happened that a member wanted to feed us on my last night here. A lot of my companions had that because of their great relationships with the ward, but I was the younger missionary for a long time, and nobody knew what I was saying, and then after that, I was just moving moving moving. A really cute member, Sister Xin, and her daughter fed us. And it was really cute, a Bade member Brother Qiu went over and helped Sister Xin cook from 2 in the afternoon until 6. It was super good food! I don't know if they realize how touched I was to go over there and spend my last meal in Taoyuan with them, but I really was. I really love this Taoyuan ward. Elder Du and I both talked about how sad we were to have to leave it, but I have hope that Xinzhu will be a good place for me to be at for the end of my mission. I'm going to take it week by week. I think this transfer will be a further testimony to me that Heavenly Father loves me and answers my prayers and knows my needs. I have a lot of prayers and hopes and desires for my last transfer...And now, I'm going into it. Wish me luck. Write again next week!
Love you all,
Sister Flora Aimee Bruno 傅文馨姐妹
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Ups and Downs of Missionary Work: A Small Miracle
AHHHHHHHHH. Last week of the transfer excitement happening already. Since it's the last one I'll ever go through, I'm kind of apathetic about it, but I don't mean that in a negative context. What I mean is that I honestly couldn't care less about what happens to me. No matter what, I've already determined I'm going to work really hard, but have a lot of fun. The other details will work out themselves by inspiration and revelation this week as President decides who to put where. But it's fun to watch the excitement other people get because of it. There are 2 Elders who serve with us in the Taoyuan second ward. Just us 4. The ward in Tao 2 is super supportive. So, even though I've only gone to the Taoyuan church once for church because the way things just worked out, I know a lot of the members and love them a lot...they sign up to feed us, and I know it's important to them that we come, so I've done my best to make every appointment I possibly could. Because of it, I know tons of the members right now, and on a more personal level than just church. Well, one of the Elders is already passing around his Bye Bye book like he's moving. Haha. I personally told him I wouldn't sign it until he was sure he was moving. But I'm just lazy like that. :)
So yeah, other then the normal slight buzz of excitement from the uncertainty of where you will be and what you will be doing in a very week from now, this week has been really unique and full of some lowest of lows and highest of highs.
Saturday was a particularly interesting day. In the morning, we went out and bought some flowers for Jian Jiaying's baptism. Well, because there is no way that the flowers will fit in my basket, my companion clipped her bag to the back of the bike, and put the flowers in her basket. It was raining and we had spent forever getting ready so we could look nice for the baptism...but were prepared too..I brought my straightener to fix my hair during the lunch hour if necessary. Well, somewhere from the flower shop to the church, my companions bag disappeared. That bag had a lot of important stuff in it. Because she carries a bigger bag, she carries all our stuff. She had potential records for the area for the last 6 months or so, that we call on spare time...she had all our DVDs we both had bought, pictures we use for our lessons, and just a lot of stuff important to her personally as well. She claimed in the bag, it was probably about 200 dollars worth of things. (American dollars) So, of course, even though we were supposed to eat pizza with the Elders and a member of the bishopric buying us pizza, we decided we could be a little late for that, and went back to look for the bag. This time, I'd taken off my raincoat, and putting it back on and going back out, I got really soaked...and when we went back, my companion went all the way back to the flower shop super fast....I even lost her for a couple minutes, but in the end, neither of us could find the bag. We thought someone probably threw it away. It had no cash in it and since it was raining it was just put in a pink garbage bag. Well, we came back to the church a little sad, and the Elders were/ being quieter than usual as well. We didn't end up eating the pizza until a lot later than scheduled, but Brother Wang just messed around on his computer until we were ready...and so it ended up being good. I was really sad about the bag, and I took it out on my hair. I was really frustrated the rain made my hair SUPER frizzy, and the straightener wouldn't fix it. Haha, so we were all not in the best moods at the baptism, but I'm grateful for Brother Wang, finally, we ate the pizza and it helped our mood to talk to him and eat with all the people who arrived early for the baptism.
Eventually, Jian Jiaying arrived. She was really cute. I felt bad because she was a little weary about the fact that she had to be baptized 4 times, which is really bad luck in this culture, but I think despite that, she was happy. She got to talk to a couple friends and really liked the food at the end...a return missionary from (Yuanbo) did an awesome job at preparing snacks for after, and she really liked them. Also, I just really was able to feel the spirit during her baptism. Even though most of us are trained singers, meaning we can sound really nice after practice...and we didn't really have a bunch of time to practice, we sounded really nice in the end (I thought) and I was just really excited for Jiaying. She's really cute, and even though she doesn't say a lot and I haven't known her for a long time, I really love her. I think she's a really good child to her mother. Her mom is a little bit of a pusher, and probably gives her a lot of stress, but she works so hard to do well in school. She has a lot of strength and intelligence. So it was a really exciting experience.
Also super exciting, we invited Sandy and her 3 kids to the baptism, and they all came, all the way from Daxi to Taoyuan! Because they live in the other ward, but they really wanted to see a baptism...And they liked it a lot too. They stayed after eating desserts for a good 30-40 minutes. Sandy told me when she left, that she really loved the feeling during the baptism. Our investigator Shirley came as well, and said she was touched by Jiaying's mom's testimony. I too really felt the Holy Ghost during the baptism. A lot of people mentioned that they could, and so I thought it was a super successful baptism...the best ones are the ones with the Spirit. That's how you can know it was good, is when people were able to come and be edified by the Spirit. So, despite our sadness over our lost bag, we were able to forget it for awhile, and focus on Jiaying and have a really good experience.
After the baptism, we had told the Elders we lost the bag, and they were really insistent that they help us look. We had already looked and weren't sure if it was worth it to take up the Elders time and go look again...and we told one of the Elders...to which he responded by telling me since they were Taiwanese they understood the culture and what would happen to a random bag on the side of the street. So, because they were really positive and hopeful that we could find it, we told them we could go, and kind of partly for their sake because they seemed to want to help so bad...So we waited until everyone left the church, locked it up, said a prayer, and with the Elders and went to go look for the bag again with their assistance. To be honest, my companion and my faith was a little low. We had already looked for quite some time and hadn't been able to find it, and we had just hoped someone would find a way to return it to us. But the Elders faith was really strong! And because of it, we saw a miracle.
We biked back down Xianfu street, the street the church is on, and went the wrong way down a one way street, and only a block from the church, my companion and I biked right into a pink bag set on an overhang out of the rain on the side of the road. It was seriously a miracle. I felt the Spirit so strongly in that moment, the Elders claimed they didn't do anything (they only biked with us for like 90 seconds before we found it) and went on their way, but my companion and I decided they were our heroes. We were really grateful for their faith and example to us, to show us there is hope, and like it says in 3 Nephi 18:20, Heavenly Father will give us things that are right. And lets be honest, most Elders would not go searching for a lost bag with the sisters. They are just classy. So, after the Elders went on their way, my companion and I said a prayer of gratitude standing there under the overhang. We both were laughing and really happy, and all the stress and sadness we'd felt that whole morning just totally evaporated. And it was funnier we both were really touched by the Spirit, so I think our eyes were a little watery and such. Cool experience.
Then, we had a feeling to go see Fang Lizhen. We've been trying to meet with her since I got here, but it's been impossible, and she's not there a lot when we stop by, or if I call and tried to set up, she would say she'd call me, and never did. And she stopped coming to church like she used to...but we stopped by just to see, and she was there! We were able to tell her church was changed to a different building and she said that she'd come. We found out that she is moving to China in two days...and so has been super busy preparing to move...we were so we were glad we told her about church, she wanted to go and tell everyone goodbye. So, she did come to church Sunday towards the end, and was able to say her goodbyes. I was really sad we never got to teach her, but I'm glad she found friends at church and she has a good impression of the church. When the church goes to China, I have her address and phone number to send her in as a referral. Plus, the members love her, so I think they will keep in touch.
That night, we were scheduled to take an investigator to the Taoyuan chapel for stake conference, but it was raining and she didn't want to go...so we just had a lesson with her at the church, but I was really disappointed I really had my heart set on going to stake conference, so again, I was a little sad. I won't lie.
Last, that night, after a lesson with the investigator at that church and dinner, as we took our bikes out to head home, my bike tire popped! Well, this may not sound dramatic, but I forgot to tell you how last week on the way home from MM Meeting, my back tire popped, and they thought it was the inner tube, so they changed that only, then as Sister Lai (we were on exchanges) were biking down, 15 minutes down the road, it popped again. We were across the street from a store, and so we went in and they changed the inside again, they said the tire would probably be fine, so we went out again and within 5 minutes it had popped again! So, then we walked to the church, the rest of the way. We had MM meeting there and had to be at the church. After MM meeting, our awesome MM leader Youan found us and our bikes a ride back to our house, and we walked to a bike store down by our house and were able to get everything fixed perfectly. It took like almost the whole day and was kind of a dramatic process for me to keep blowing out my tires...(back) so when my front tire popped I was NOT happy. And we were in Taoyuan again, and we don't know any close bike stores.
So we called the Zone Leaders for permission to call the Tao 2 Elders, and Elder Lin was really patient with us and explained to me in half English half Chinese how to get there...but I was just really stressed with everything that had been happening and I forgot the difference between right and left, and he kept saying youbien and zuobien, and I didn't know what way I was supposed to be going, so there on the phone with Elder Lin I just started sniffling and he'd be like "do you understand (in Chinese)" And I'd be like "sniff sniff...no, no problem...I'll just ask people on the road" but he was good and explained it like 2 times in Chinese, and even if I thought I wasn't understanding, I think I must have, because I lead us straight there, all the while not knowing exactly what I was doing, I just tried to remember his words....we got home really late, and had to call President, but everyone was patient with me, and things worked out...and we biked home in the falling rain...and I felt like the world was sad with me, so it made me feel better about being sad, because the world was too. Haha.
Sunday I had a similar experience with feeling the most happy I've felt on my mission and really sad at the end too. We had an awesome lesson at a members after eating, and I was just really happy during the dinner and getting to know that member, and the Elders shared the spiritual thought, and S. Zhao started crying, and the spirit was really strong as my companion and I shared and the Elders added to it, and it was just a really a really spiritual lesson, and interesting too as one of the Elders talked about his Twin brother, raised by a different parent and how different they were. Basically the spirit was super super strong during the lesoon part...and I laughed a lot and just felt really happy during the dinner part. We all felt like a big happy family(no time to go into all the details) but then that night, I just had such hope to find a new investigator. We didn't have plans because our appointment was canceled, and I had a strong feeling to go track at a specific place...and the wife invited us in, then they husband came out and said he didn't need us, so then I was just really sad because I seriously put my ENTIRE heart into finding the perfect place to go contacting and I had childlike faith that they would let us in...and it was like, almost, but not quite...and we still had quite a bike ride, so we only had time for just like 3 doors, and that was the only one that opened. Then the whole way home, nobody would listen to me on the scooters, they just were like, no, we are busy, we are Buddhist...and my hope was just so big that we'd find someone. Not sure why. I guess I can just pray that the family will read the pamphlet and come to church...but I just had this STRONG feeling like I was supposed to find someone. That rarely happens, so I felt like my heart was broken when we didn't.
So basically this week, I've learned there is a lot of pain that comes sometimes when you go out and love too much...but even when it hurts, when the good times roll back around, they are so sweet it's ridiculous...so the bitter bads help us even more feel and appreciate the excellent goods...so yeah, this week has been a roller coaster, but I'm extremely happy. Well, no more time! I wrote too much! Ah, we are late. See you later! Love you.
Sister Flora Bruno. Sister Fu.
So yeah, other then the normal slight buzz of excitement from the uncertainty of where you will be and what you will be doing in a very week from now, this week has been really unique and full of some lowest of lows and highest of highs.
Saturday was a particularly interesting day. In the morning, we went out and bought some flowers for Jian Jiaying's baptism. Well, because there is no way that the flowers will fit in my basket, my companion clipped her bag to the back of the bike, and put the flowers in her basket. It was raining and we had spent forever getting ready so we could look nice for the baptism...but were prepared too..I brought my straightener to fix my hair during the lunch hour if necessary. Well, somewhere from the flower shop to the church, my companions bag disappeared. That bag had a lot of important stuff in it. Because she carries a bigger bag, she carries all our stuff. She had potential records for the area for the last 6 months or so, that we call on spare time...she had all our DVDs we both had bought, pictures we use for our lessons, and just a lot of stuff important to her personally as well. She claimed in the bag, it was probably about 200 dollars worth of things. (American dollars) So, of course, even though we were supposed to eat pizza with the Elders and a member of the bishopric buying us pizza, we decided we could be a little late for that, and went back to look for the bag. This time, I'd taken off my raincoat, and putting it back on and going back out, I got really soaked...and when we went back, my companion went all the way back to the flower shop super fast....I even lost her for a couple minutes, but in the end, neither of us could find the bag. We thought someone probably threw it away. It had no cash in it and since it was raining it was just put in a pink garbage bag. Well, we came back to the church a little sad, and the Elders were/ being quieter than usual as well. We didn't end up eating the pizza until a lot later than scheduled, but Brother Wang just messed around on his computer until we were ready...and so it ended up being good. I was really sad about the bag, and I took it out on my hair. I was really frustrated the rain made my hair SUPER frizzy, and the straightener wouldn't fix it. Haha, so we were all not in the best moods at the baptism, but I'm grateful for Brother Wang, finally, we ate the pizza and it helped our mood to talk to him and eat with all the people who arrived early for the baptism.
Eventually, Jian Jiaying arrived. She was really cute. I felt bad because she was a little weary about the fact that she had to be baptized 4 times, which is really bad luck in this culture, but I think despite that, she was happy. She got to talk to a couple friends and really liked the food at the end...a return missionary from (Yuanbo) did an awesome job at preparing snacks for after, and she really liked them. Also, I just really was able to feel the spirit during her baptism. Even though most of us are trained singers, meaning we can sound really nice after practice...and we didn't really have a bunch of time to practice, we sounded really nice in the end (I thought) and I was just really excited for Jiaying. She's really cute, and even though she doesn't say a lot and I haven't known her for a long time, I really love her. I think she's a really good child to her mother. Her mom is a little bit of a pusher, and probably gives her a lot of stress, but she works so hard to do well in school. She has a lot of strength and intelligence. So it was a really exciting experience.
Also super exciting, we invited Sandy and her 3 kids to the baptism, and they all came, all the way from Daxi to Taoyuan! Because they live in the other ward, but they really wanted to see a baptism...And they liked it a lot too. They stayed after eating desserts for a good 30-40 minutes. Sandy told me when she left, that she really loved the feeling during the baptism. Our investigator Shirley came as well, and said she was touched by Jiaying's mom's testimony. I too really felt the Holy Ghost during the baptism. A lot of people mentioned that they could, and so I thought it was a super successful baptism...the best ones are the ones with the Spirit. That's how you can know it was good, is when people were able to come and be edified by the Spirit. So, despite our sadness over our lost bag, we were able to forget it for awhile, and focus on Jiaying and have a really good experience.
After the baptism, we had told the Elders we lost the bag, and they were really insistent that they help us look. We had already looked and weren't sure if it was worth it to take up the Elders time and go look again...and we told one of the Elders...to which he responded by telling me since they were Taiwanese they understood the culture and what would happen to a random bag on the side of the street. So, because they were really positive and hopeful that we could find it, we told them we could go, and kind of partly for their sake because they seemed to want to help so bad...So we waited until everyone left the church, locked it up, said a prayer, and with the Elders and went to go look for the bag again with their assistance. To be honest, my companion and my faith was a little low. We had already looked for quite some time and hadn't been able to find it, and we had just hoped someone would find a way to return it to us. But the Elders faith was really strong! And because of it, we saw a miracle.
We biked back down Xianfu street, the street the church is on, and went the wrong way down a one way street, and only a block from the church, my companion and I biked right into a pink bag set on an overhang out of the rain on the side of the road. It was seriously a miracle. I felt the Spirit so strongly in that moment, the Elders claimed they didn't do anything (they only biked with us for like 90 seconds before we found it) and went on their way, but my companion and I decided they were our heroes. We were really grateful for their faith and example to us, to show us there is hope, and like it says in 3 Nephi 18:20, Heavenly Father will give us things that are right. And lets be honest, most Elders would not go searching for a lost bag with the sisters. They are just classy. So, after the Elders went on their way, my companion and I said a prayer of gratitude standing there under the overhang. We both were laughing and really happy, and all the stress and sadness we'd felt that whole morning just totally evaporated. And it was funnier we both were really touched by the Spirit, so I think our eyes were a little watery and such. Cool experience.
Then, we had a feeling to go see Fang Lizhen. We've been trying to meet with her since I got here, but it's been impossible, and she's not there a lot when we stop by, or if I call and tried to set up, she would say she'd call me, and never did. And she stopped coming to church like she used to...but we stopped by just to see, and she was there! We were able to tell her church was changed to a different building and she said that she'd come. We found out that she is moving to China in two days...and so has been super busy preparing to move...we were so we were glad we told her about church, she wanted to go and tell everyone goodbye. So, she did come to church Sunday towards the end, and was able to say her goodbyes. I was really sad we never got to teach her, but I'm glad she found friends at church and she has a good impression of the church. When the church goes to China, I have her address and phone number to send her in as a referral. Plus, the members love her, so I think they will keep in touch.
That night, we were scheduled to take an investigator to the Taoyuan chapel for stake conference, but it was raining and she didn't want to go...so we just had a lesson with her at the church, but I was really disappointed I really had my heart set on going to stake conference, so again, I was a little sad. I won't lie.
Last, that night, after a lesson with the investigator at that church and dinner, as we took our bikes out to head home, my bike tire popped! Well, this may not sound dramatic, but I forgot to tell you how last week on the way home from MM Meeting, my back tire popped, and they thought it was the inner tube, so they changed that only, then as Sister Lai (we were on exchanges) were biking down, 15 minutes down the road, it popped again. We were across the street from a store, and so we went in and they changed the inside again, they said the tire would probably be fine, so we went out again and within 5 minutes it had popped again! So, then we walked to the church, the rest of the way. We had MM meeting there and had to be at the church. After MM meeting, our awesome MM leader Youan found us and our bikes a ride back to our house, and we walked to a bike store down by our house and were able to get everything fixed perfectly. It took like almost the whole day and was kind of a dramatic process for me to keep blowing out my tires...(back) so when my front tire popped I was NOT happy. And we were in Taoyuan again, and we don't know any close bike stores.
So we called the Zone Leaders for permission to call the Tao 2 Elders, and Elder Lin was really patient with us and explained to me in half English half Chinese how to get there...but I was just really stressed with everything that had been happening and I forgot the difference between right and left, and he kept saying youbien and zuobien, and I didn't know what way I was supposed to be going, so there on the phone with Elder Lin I just started sniffling and he'd be like "do you understand (in Chinese)" And I'd be like "sniff sniff...no, no problem...I'll just ask people on the road" but he was good and explained it like 2 times in Chinese, and even if I thought I wasn't understanding, I think I must have, because I lead us straight there, all the while not knowing exactly what I was doing, I just tried to remember his words....we got home really late, and had to call President, but everyone was patient with me, and things worked out...and we biked home in the falling rain...and I felt like the world was sad with me, so it made me feel better about being sad, because the world was too. Haha.
Sunday I had a similar experience with feeling the most happy I've felt on my mission and really sad at the end too. We had an awesome lesson at a members after eating, and I was just really happy during the dinner and getting to know that member, and the Elders shared the spiritual thought, and S. Zhao started crying, and the spirit was really strong as my companion and I shared and the Elders added to it, and it was just a really a really spiritual lesson, and interesting too as one of the Elders talked about his Twin brother, raised by a different parent and how different they were. Basically the spirit was super super strong during the lesoon part...and I laughed a lot and just felt really happy during the dinner part. We all felt like a big happy family(no time to go into all the details) but then that night, I just had such hope to find a new investigator. We didn't have plans because our appointment was canceled, and I had a strong feeling to go track at a specific place...and the wife invited us in, then they husband came out and said he didn't need us, so then I was just really sad because I seriously put my ENTIRE heart into finding the perfect place to go contacting and I had childlike faith that they would let us in...and it was like, almost, but not quite...and we still had quite a bike ride, so we only had time for just like 3 doors, and that was the only one that opened. Then the whole way home, nobody would listen to me on the scooters, they just were like, no, we are busy, we are Buddhist...and my hope was just so big that we'd find someone. Not sure why. I guess I can just pray that the family will read the pamphlet and come to church...but I just had this STRONG feeling like I was supposed to find someone. That rarely happens, so I felt like my heart was broken when we didn't.
So basically this week, I've learned there is a lot of pain that comes sometimes when you go out and love too much...but even when it hurts, when the good times roll back around, they are so sweet it's ridiculous...so the bitter bads help us even more feel and appreciate the excellent goods...so yeah, this week has been a roller coaster, but I'm extremely happy. Well, no more time! I wrote too much! Ah, we are late. See you later! Love you.
Sister Flora Bruno. Sister Fu.
Monday, May 24, 2010
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。
Our investigator Jian Jiaying 简家盈 went to interview this week and passed, so we will be having a baptism this Saturday afternoon. So we are really excited for her. She's been meeting with missionaries for a really long time, so it's really excited to be part of the process when she has overcome her fear of enduring to the end and believes she can do it. I think now is a really good time for her as well, because she just finished testing and so now she can really focus on getting baptized and continue getting more ingrained into the ward here since she has some time. She's a shy girl, so we will take it slowly, and she's in a transition between young woman's and relief society...but I know that she will find her niche and do great. My companion and I are really excited about this upcoming week.
Also, Tuesday we went and did temple tours. I wrote to 谢惠如 Whitney over in Shipai and told her we'd be in Taipei so she came to the Jinhua chapel to see us and do a tour. It was great to see her again and hear what she had been up to and been learning lately .I was really excited to hear that by the encouragement and members, she has been reading her scriptures daily and she went to Institute with them in Taipei after we left tours that night. I think that's the most happy thing of a mission, is seeing people who are honestly enduring to the end. It makes me really happy, so I was excited to see her...that and because you make good friends and it's wonderful to see old friends. She said she will see me again when we go back to tours. So I might get to see her a handful of times before I go home, depending on a couple things...but that's cool. You don't get to see people from old areas all the time. It's a blessing when you do. This week was ward conference, so the stake presidencies were there, and it was really cool for me, because I knew everyone...because I've served in every ward in this stake. It was nice to see them, and some people from Zhongli had a cow about how much someone can change in a year. My hair is a little longer...I don't have bangs anymore...I can speak Chinese now...that kind of stuff. Haha. But to be honest, I will be seriously due for a haircut by the time I get home. I've only heard horror stories about how they cut Americans hair here...since our hair is curly, and textured different, so I haven't cut it...in 13 months. Ha. It's kind of nasty, but I just wear it up mostly anyways.
We met a new investigator this week named 陈郁燕 Chen Yuyan...she used to be a Christian and then she started reading Scientology. I don't even really get what that means, but my companion had a slight idea. We gave her a Restoration tract, which usually we teach people with a picture, but she was too distracted since we were at her store and she went from us to the customers...so my companion was inspired when she handed it to her. During the Restoration lesson, she was a little distracted...and seemed only slightly interested...but at the end, she was reading in the Restoration tract, question of the soul section...and she saw the question Does life still exist after death? And she said she'd been thinking about that a lot...and asked for a Book of Mormon and read Alma 40 with us sitting there...ha. That's never happened before.
Then, she proceeded to explain about not knowing who she was, and in Scientology it explains that you are your spirit, and it made sense to her, so now she's not sure what to believe. By that time, we were rushed for time, but we briefly explained we believed our spirit was within us, and because of the Book of Mormon we had this knowledge... and could explain to her more about where our spirits were before we were born and after we die...so we will be teaching her this week about the plan of salvation and I'm excited about it. She has a sincere desire to understand the things we can learn by the knowledge of Heavenly Fathers plan for us. I realized after teaching her, that some people really don't know who they are at all, and they search so hard to know...and because we have the Book of Mormon, we can know and we can share with others about who they are and what they can become. It's such a comforting knowledge. I'm also very thankful for prophets who lead and guide us to this and other gospel knowledge.
This week we got the opportunity to watch The Biographical Film "On The Lord's Errand" about President Thomas S. Monson.I bought it because Sister Ackerson used to own it and I just really love it. If you guys haven't watched it, no problem, I'll bring it home with me. You can watch it in two months...but it's a really great movie that tells stories about the Prophets life and how he became who he is today. Watching it really helped me feel like I know who our prophet is more and brings on a greater reverence and respect for what he does. We watched this film with two new members on Sunday, and I think it was a really great experience for Yuer.We all shed a tear or two...aww. I always do every time i watch it. I can't help it! But yeah, i thought it was a special thing to do with them...because even my companion hadn't seen it before, and we were all really touched by the film (even if Ruiyi slept for half of it, she loved the part she was awake for. HA)...Plus we haven't spent a lot of time with the new members in Taoyuan...so it was good to spend time with them. They were cute.
English class was also fun and unique this week. For the last 30 minutes of English class, we did what we called a mock sacrament meeting. We showed our English class a shortened version of what sacrament meeting was like.We even had two members come and share a talk/testimony. I thought it went really great, and I was really proud of my companions awesome Chinese as she lead the meeting, since she is the English Coordinator for this transfer. She worries about her Chinese sometimes, but I think we all have those days and that time in our mission...but she actually does really well. We have a really good unity in this companionship. I feel like our lessons are 50/50, so that's really an awesome feeling. That was something I was blessed with as a new missionary insecure I'd ever understand this language...that one day I'd notice that I could have a 50/50 relationship with my companions and work together to help our investigators. So we are doing awesome and our lessons are getting better as we do our best. We are working on getting our lessons to fit the 30 minute standard they have asked us to do. It's hard sometimes,but we are doing a lot better than I thought I'd do at it. Our average time in lessons has been getting less and less. So Zone Conference was 很有用 hen you yong. Very useful/effective.
This week we were able to go down to 大溪 Daxi and teach 李家珊 Sandy, Katie, and Ryan. It was a good lesson I thought. We taught about the 1st using the cup game, and also integrated a brief 3rd.I love that family and we were really excited to go down and see them. Unfortunately, their mom has to work some Saturdays, and the kids have school at night, so we can't meet them again for 2 weeks! But they said they'd do their best to get to church in the following weeks...and Katie was really cute...she wanted to know when she could get baptized if we couldn't see them for 2 weeks...so we set a new date in July with them. They have a children's Book of Mormon now, and are excited to read it. They kept asking us when we could get them one, so we got it when we went to Taipei this week. So cute. I love that family so much. Found out that Sandy's mother is a religion they say is "Yiguandao"一贯道？ (I don't know the characters or what it is in English)But I do know that they are the hardest people to teach in Taiwan as missionaries. I've had 2 Yiguandao investigators. It's nearly impossible to get them to progress. Not only that, but she opposes prayer and this church I guess. Sandy said that her mom said if she was praying or going to church, not to go see her. I felt really sad about that.I told her the importance of prayer and knowing for yourself. Teaching families are hard.Sandy has her mother concern, Ryan didn't have tons of fun at church the first time, and Katie is just a 10 year old girl, so you have to be super simple for her.So yeah, hard to hit everyones needs, but you just have to love them and do your best to teach a bit to everyone...and pray for the Spirit to take care of the rest. I'm really rooting for this family...we will keep in touch with notes over these next two weeks while we can't meet.
Well, I still need to write one more email before we head off, and I believe I've written a lot...so until next week, adios. Love you guys.
Sister Flora Bruno (傅姐妹）
Our investigator Jian Jiaying 简家盈 went to interview this week and passed, so we will be having a baptism this Saturday afternoon. So we are really excited for her. She's been meeting with missionaries for a really long time, so it's really excited to be part of the process when she has overcome her fear of enduring to the end and believes she can do it. I think now is a really good time for her as well, because she just finished testing and so now she can really focus on getting baptized and continue getting more ingrained into the ward here since she has some time. She's a shy girl, so we will take it slowly, and she's in a transition between young woman's and relief society...but I know that she will find her niche and do great. My companion and I are really excited about this upcoming week.
Also, Tuesday we went and did temple tours. I wrote to 谢惠如 Whitney over in Shipai and told her we'd be in Taipei so she came to the Jinhua chapel to see us and do a tour. It was great to see her again and hear what she had been up to and been learning lately .I was really excited to hear that by the encouragement and members, she has been reading her scriptures daily and she went to Institute with them in Taipei after we left tours that night. I think that's the most happy thing of a mission, is seeing people who are honestly enduring to the end. It makes me really happy, so I was excited to see her...that and because you make good friends and it's wonderful to see old friends. She said she will see me again when we go back to tours. So I might get to see her a handful of times before I go home, depending on a couple things...but that's cool. You don't get to see people from old areas all the time. It's a blessing when you do. This week was ward conference, so the stake presidencies were there, and it was really cool for me, because I knew everyone...because I've served in every ward in this stake. It was nice to see them, and some people from Zhongli had a cow about how much someone can change in a year. My hair is a little longer...I don't have bangs anymore...I can speak Chinese now...that kind of stuff. Haha. But to be honest, I will be seriously due for a haircut by the time I get home. I've only heard horror stories about how they cut Americans hair here...since our hair is curly, and textured different, so I haven't cut it...in 13 months. Ha. It's kind of nasty, but I just wear it up mostly anyways.
We met a new investigator this week named 陈郁燕 Chen Yuyan...she used to be a Christian and then she started reading Scientology. I don't even really get what that means, but my companion had a slight idea. We gave her a Restoration tract, which usually we teach people with a picture, but she was too distracted since we were at her store and she went from us to the customers...so my companion was inspired when she handed it to her. During the Restoration lesson, she was a little distracted...and seemed only slightly interested...but at the end, she was reading in the Restoration tract, question of the soul section...and she saw the question Does life still exist after death? And she said she'd been thinking about that a lot...and asked for a Book of Mormon and read Alma 40 with us sitting there...ha. That's never happened before.
Then, she proceeded to explain about not knowing who she was, and in Scientology it explains that you are your spirit, and it made sense to her, so now she's not sure what to believe. By that time, we were rushed for time, but we briefly explained we believed our spirit was within us, and because of the Book of Mormon we had this knowledge... and could explain to her more about where our spirits were before we were born and after we die...so we will be teaching her this week about the plan of salvation and I'm excited about it. She has a sincere desire to understand the things we can learn by the knowledge of Heavenly Fathers plan for us. I realized after teaching her, that some people really don't know who they are at all, and they search so hard to know...and because we have the Book of Mormon, we can know and we can share with others about who they are and what they can become. It's such a comforting knowledge. I'm also very thankful for prophets who lead and guide us to this and other gospel knowledge.
This week we got the opportunity to watch The Biographical Film "On The Lord's Errand" about President Thomas S. Monson.I bought it because Sister Ackerson used to own it and I just really love it. If you guys haven't watched it, no problem, I'll bring it home with me. You can watch it in two months...but it's a really great movie that tells stories about the Prophets life and how he became who he is today. Watching it really helped me feel like I know who our prophet is more and brings on a greater reverence and respect for what he does. We watched this film with two new members on Sunday, and I think it was a really great experience for Yuer.We all shed a tear or two...aww. I always do every time i watch it. I can't help it! But yeah, i thought it was a special thing to do with them...because even my companion hadn't seen it before, and we were all really touched by the film (even if Ruiyi slept for half of it, she loved the part she was awake for. HA)...Plus we haven't spent a lot of time with the new members in Taoyuan...so it was good to spend time with them. They were cute.
English class was also fun and unique this week. For the last 30 minutes of English class, we did what we called a mock sacrament meeting. We showed our English class a shortened version of what sacrament meeting was like.We even had two members come and share a talk/testimony. I thought it went really great, and I was really proud of my companions awesome Chinese as she lead the meeting, since she is the English Coordinator for this transfer. She worries about her Chinese sometimes, but I think we all have those days and that time in our mission...but she actually does really well. We have a really good unity in this companionship. I feel like our lessons are 50/50, so that's really an awesome feeling. That was something I was blessed with as a new missionary insecure I'd ever understand this language...that one day I'd notice that I could have a 50/50 relationship with my companions and work together to help our investigators. So we are doing awesome and our lessons are getting better as we do our best. We are working on getting our lessons to fit the 30 minute standard they have asked us to do. It's hard sometimes,but we are doing a lot better than I thought I'd do at it. Our average time in lessons has been getting less and less. So Zone Conference was 很有用 hen you yong. Very useful/effective.
This week we were able to go down to 大溪 Daxi and teach 李家珊 Sandy, Katie, and Ryan. It was a good lesson I thought. We taught about the 1st using the cup game, and also integrated a brief 3rd.I love that family and we were really excited to go down and see them. Unfortunately, their mom has to work some Saturdays, and the kids have school at night, so we can't meet them again for 2 weeks! But they said they'd do their best to get to church in the following weeks...and Katie was really cute...she wanted to know when she could get baptized if we couldn't see them for 2 weeks...so we set a new date in July with them. They have a children's Book of Mormon now, and are excited to read it. They kept asking us when we could get them one, so we got it when we went to Taipei this week. So cute. I love that family so much. Found out that Sandy's mother is a religion they say is "Yiguandao"一贯道？ (I don't know the characters or what it is in English)But I do know that they are the hardest people to teach in Taiwan as missionaries. I've had 2 Yiguandao investigators. It's nearly impossible to get them to progress. Not only that, but she opposes prayer and this church I guess. Sandy said that her mom said if she was praying or going to church, not to go see her. I felt really sad about that.I told her the importance of prayer and knowing for yourself. Teaching families are hard.Sandy has her mother concern, Ryan didn't have tons of fun at church the first time, and Katie is just a 10 year old girl, so you have to be super simple for her.So yeah, hard to hit everyones needs, but you just have to love them and do your best to teach a bit to everyone...and pray for the Spirit to take care of the rest. I'm really rooting for this family...we will keep in touch with notes over these next two weeks while we can't meet.
Well, I still need to write one more email before we head off, and I believe I've written a lot...so until next week, adios. Love you guys.
Sister Flora Bruno (傅姐妹）
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
What Does A Senior Companion Do?
10642
Taiwan Taipei Mission
4F, Lane 183, Chin Hua Street
Ta An District, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.
29 April 2010
Mr. and Mrs. Frank A. Bruno
2042 Thornhill Dr.
Summerville, SC 29485
United States
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Frank A. Bruno:
Sister Flora Bruno has been called to serve as a Senior Companion. Your daughter has proven to be an effective loving and sensitive missionary in carrying out the great work in this mission. Sister Bruno has a command of the Chinese language and has learned the discussions well.
Senior companions are accountable for the baptism and retention of people in their assigned proselyting area (in our mission typically 50,000-100,000 residents). Also, she and her companion must have their hearts knit together in humility, love, and unity. Together, they set goals, make plans, work diligently, and teach with the Spirit to bring souls to Christ. As a Senior Companion, your daughter will have the following responsibilities:
- Hold weekly and daily planning sessions with her junior companion.
- Encourage prayer and scripture study.
- Be an example by being obedient to all rules in the missionary handbook.
- Study from "Preach My Gospel" with missionaries each time companionship study is held.
- Give her junior companion opportunities to teach, find and baptize as well as fellowship converts.
- Help her companion study the language every day and work toward midway and final certification of the standard discussions.
- Make sure the companionship is effective.
- Be a true friend.
Being a Senior Companion requires dedication, love and responsibility. Through Sister Bruno's efforts and hard work, she has shown that she is capable of shouldering the additional responsibility that has been given to her.
Thank you for your support of Sister Bruno. We are pleased with your daughter's progress as a missionary and are grateful to have her in the Taiwan Taipei Mission.
Sincerely yours,
Terrence E. Grimley
Taiwan Taipei Mission President
Monday, May 17, 2010
Happenings in Bade City
Hello and welcome to a week in the life of....fafafafuuuu jie mei.傅姐妹 This week there is not a ton to talk about. Probably partly because I only have had 4 days since the last time we emailed since Preparation Day was changed to Wednesday last week for us. It was a pretty typical week. We spent a couple hours tracting...with not a lot of success this week...but it's okay. It comes and goes.
On Saturday, we spent most of the day doing a dress rehearsal, then being at a Primary talent show like performance. My companion was in it, so we had to be at the church for a good 5 hours Saturday...it was a fun performance though. My companion did really good. I'll show you a movie I made when I go home or something, since movie files are too big to send on this thing. The best part though, was there is this REAL shy boy, who you have to like force to say maybe 2 or 3 words to you. He is just a boy of not many words. Well, he does this Napoleon Dynamite type dance to a popular song here, that goes "Sorry sorry sorry sorry" and that's like the whole song...but it was just, revolutionary...like I imagine in that movie when everyone freaked out and loved Napoleon...this boy puts a hat over his glassed face...and starts popping all these moves that nobody would expect out of him. It was like he became a whole new person. My companion and I were cracking up the whole time. Now every time I watch Napoleon Dynamite, I'll have a new appreciation to the reaction people have to his dance. It was super hilarious, but you all probably are not laughing. It's okay. I'll send some pictures anyways.
I guess the highlight of this four days, is Sunday Sandy 李家姗 and her 3 kids 杨 came to church! Yay! They just came for the last hour, but I was so excited they came. It was a little awkward for the kids in Primary I think, because it was their first time, and they couldn't do well on the games they were playing because they weren't familiar with the song they were playing a game, mapping out character by character the song onto the board. And there are these two twin boys who are kind of wild, and the one losing was a REAL bad sport that his brothers team was doing so much better than his...so the mom said she didn't want her child, the same age, to become like that. Ek. But Katie, her daughter was a really good sport, even though she hardly knew the song, she still helped the Ding boy a lot in finding the needed characters. I had fun in Primary! It was the first time I've gone to Primary on my mission, so my first Chinese Primary. I used to go to Young Woman's a lot in Zhongli, but back then I didn't really understand completely. Haha...but basically I decided in some ways Primary is a lot more fun than Relief Society, in some ways...not (like if your patience level is low =)) But yeah, I had fun, and I hope they can keep coming. I told them, they will get better and better at the games as they come to church every week. So I was just happy on Sunday. Also Linda 陈柔怡 came to all 3 hours. Had a lot of questions like usual. Sundays questions were about our views on same sex relationships and why Nephi killed Laban, hindering his chance at repentance. I answered the Nephi Laban one to the best of my ability, and gave her a family proclamation to the world for the other, and said we could continue to discuss that on Friday. So it was a very fun filled church on Sunday.
It was really fun Sunday afternoon as well (um, in the end anyways). Good time to go tracting right? But nobody was in a good mood or something because everyone was being mean. Only 2 people were even nice to me in like a whole 2 hours. Well, we ended up running into the Elders, I was on foot (because I like to be on foot tracting, it gives me more mobility) and my companion had her bike (she likes to put her stuff in there, it works for her) and we talked to them for a few minutes about how we were just tracting until some appointments at night. So, because the traveling assistants were in town, the Elders ended up being a 4some, and they called and asked if we wanted to take a break from tracting, and go contacting at a busy street light with them. So, they came and found us, and we contacted at the busiest street light around the area we were tracting at. It was fun. It's been a long time since I've gone contacting in a group of missionaries. We wanted to do it in my last last area, but it never worked out together, so this was my first time since Jilong and it brought back the good memories of Jilong contacting on Sunday nights..especially because one of the traveling assistants was in my old Jilong district. So yeah, I was grateful we were able to do that with the Elders, and sometimes street contacting is a little less pressured than door contacting, because you aren't bothering people at home, so it was a nice change up. After that, we just ate dinner, then went to our night appointment with a new member Yao Yuer. She's really cute. She has 8 siblings and they live in a small little apartment, so it was really nice they invited us in, and child 2 in his thirties who is atheist was willing to even listen to our lesson. He said their family accepts all religions. So I thought that was good he said he was supportive of his little sister. I was glad to get an opportunity to get to know her a little better. I hadn't really gotten the chance to talk to her much...so yeah, fun times.
That's pretty much all that's happened that I can think of. Don't forget to write me next week, all of you guys have not done a good job these last 2 weeks. Hello aren't you out of college?! Haha so write!
我爱你们。每天看你的摩尔门经和祈祷。 不要忘记好吗？。 (Aka I love you guys. Don't forget to read and pray daily!) Ha Simplified characters look so weird to me these days.
Sister Flora Bruno 傅姐妹
On Saturday, we spent most of the day doing a dress rehearsal, then being at a Primary talent show like performance. My companion was in it, so we had to be at the church for a good 5 hours Saturday...it was a fun performance though. My companion did really good. I'll show you a movie I made when I go home or something, since movie files are too big to send on this thing. The best part though, was there is this REAL shy boy, who you have to like force to say maybe 2 or 3 words to you. He is just a boy of not many words. Well, he does this Napoleon Dynamite type dance to a popular song here, that goes "Sorry sorry sorry sorry" and that's like the whole song...but it was just, revolutionary...like I imagine in that movie when everyone freaked out and loved Napoleon...this boy puts a hat over his glassed face...and starts popping all these moves that nobody would expect out of him. It was like he became a whole new person. My companion and I were cracking up the whole time. Now every time I watch Napoleon Dynamite, I'll have a new appreciation to the reaction people have to his dance. It was super hilarious, but you all probably are not laughing. It's okay. I'll send some pictures anyways.
I guess the highlight of this four days, is Sunday Sandy 李家姗 and her 3 kids 杨 came to church! Yay! They just came for the last hour, but I was so excited they came. It was a little awkward for the kids in Primary I think, because it was their first time, and they couldn't do well on the games they were playing because they weren't familiar with the song they were playing a game, mapping out character by character the song onto the board. And there are these two twin boys who are kind of wild, and the one losing was a REAL bad sport that his brothers team was doing so much better than his...so the mom said she didn't want her child, the same age, to become like that. Ek. But Katie, her daughter was a really good sport, even though she hardly knew the song, she still helped the Ding boy a lot in finding the needed characters. I had fun in Primary! It was the first time I've gone to Primary on my mission, so my first Chinese Primary. I used to go to Young Woman's a lot in Zhongli, but back then I didn't really understand completely. Haha...but basically I decided in some ways Primary is a lot more fun than Relief Society, in some ways...not (like if your patience level is low =)) But yeah, I had fun, and I hope they can keep coming. I told them, they will get better and better at the games as they come to church every week. So I was just happy on Sunday. Also Linda 陈柔怡 came to all 3 hours. Had a lot of questions like usual. Sundays questions were about our views on same sex relationships and why Nephi killed Laban, hindering his chance at repentance. I answered the Nephi Laban one to the best of my ability, and gave her a family proclamation to the world for the other, and said we could continue to discuss that on Friday. So it was a very fun filled church on Sunday.
It was really fun Sunday afternoon as well (um, in the end anyways). Good time to go tracting right? But nobody was in a good mood or something because everyone was being mean. Only 2 people were even nice to me in like a whole 2 hours. Well, we ended up running into the Elders, I was on foot (because I like to be on foot tracting, it gives me more mobility) and my companion had her bike (she likes to put her stuff in there, it works for her) and we talked to them for a few minutes about how we were just tracting until some appointments at night. So, because the traveling assistants were in town, the Elders ended up being a 4some, and they called and asked if we wanted to take a break from tracting, and go contacting at a busy street light with them. So, they came and found us, and we contacted at the busiest street light around the area we were tracting at. It was fun. It's been a long time since I've gone contacting in a group of missionaries. We wanted to do it in my last last area, but it never worked out together, so this was my first time since Jilong and it brought back the good memories of Jilong contacting on Sunday nights..especially because one of the traveling assistants was in my old Jilong district. So yeah, I was grateful we were able to do that with the Elders, and sometimes street contacting is a little less pressured than door contacting, because you aren't bothering people at home, so it was a nice change up. After that, we just ate dinner, then went to our night appointment with a new member Yao Yuer. She's really cute. She has 8 siblings and they live in a small little apartment, so it was really nice they invited us in, and child 2 in his thirties who is atheist was willing to even listen to our lesson. He said their family accepts all religions. So I thought that was good he said he was supportive of his little sister. I was glad to get an opportunity to get to know her a little better. I hadn't really gotten the chance to talk to her much...so yeah, fun times.
That's pretty much all that's happened that I can think of. Don't forget to write me next week, all of you guys have not done a good job these last 2 weeks. Hello aren't you out of college?! Haha so write!
我爱你们。每天看你的摩尔门经和祈祷。 不要忘记好吗？。 (Aka I love you guys. Don't forget to read and pray daily!) Ha Simplified characters look so weird to me these days.
Sister Flora Bruno 傅姐妹
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
D. Todd Christopher Visits Taipei
Okay! Not a lot of things to say....
This week, not a lot more to say about it. I guess something cool I can think of, is that we went and taught Hilda, the Spanish lady. I mostly just sat there. I introduced myself and my family...then said dificil when my companion was struggling for difficult in Spanish and coming up with Chinese. Ha, I was glad to be a help in that way...but pretty much I was mostly useless. I just listened. She was in a flow, and I didn't want to interrupt. I let it be her thing. She said it was hard, but I was proud of her, she was totally pull it off, even though she hasn't been speaking Spanish in a long long time. She taught this lady the whole first lesson, and we gave her a Spanish Book of Mormon, and invited her to read it. We left a note on her door before she went back to her country this week with our information and told her to keep in touch. So yeah, cool foreign language experience for my mission. And by foreign language, I mean something I don't understand...Chinese is really normal to me now, I can't remember the days it sounded like Chen Qingquan to me. Haha. There was an investigator the Elders had in Jilong with that name, and we always joked that his name sounded like Chinese before it all made sense....He got baptized now...wooo. So I guess I should say new member.
Oh! We took some time Monday to call a couple old investigators, we got a couple set ups from it, and yesterday we met with someone who met with missionaries twice last year...and she's willing to meet again. She said she really wants to believe there is a God, but she's just not sure. We taught her about the importance of prayer and being like Joseph Smith...she also had questions about why people sin, so we told her next week we'd share with her. I've never really had an old investigator before, but she was only taught twice before she got busy before, so we'll see how it goes. I think the first lesson was pretty good.
Jian Jiaying set an earlier date, so she should go to interview next Saturday. I'm excited. She's starting to really progress towards baptism. She was ready before I even got here, but just said she's been scared. I think she's overcoming her fear though. When we first set a goal, it wasn't until the middle of next transfer, and she sounded unsure if she thought she'd be ready...but we had a really good lesson about Mosiah 18 and what have you against taking the Lord's name on you after you know. We told her we knew this week she had to take a huge test, but asked that she prepare to interview next week and promised her Heavenly Father would help her on this journey, and she agreed! We ate dinner at the bishop's Monday night, and told him she had a date. He was excited and was like, in June or July probably huh? And we were like, the 29th! Haha. So even the bishop was excited I think.
It was fun at his house this week. They invited us over for dinner, and his wife and he are both return missionaries. We talked about the Melchizedek Priesthood and when it was and wasn't on the earth. It was super unique. I've never even been curious about that stuff, but my companion was really confused and they were having a serious conversation, then I got involved and into it...and in the end I was just really glad for the bishop and his knowledge.
Also, we have 3 people with dates who are a family. A mother and her two children (she has 3 children, but one is 4) Super cute. Sandy, the mom, is really interested in the 2nd coming because her daughters concern about the end of the world. We were able to share with them from the Book of Mormon how it helps us prepare for the 2nd coming of Messiah like it says in the Introduction. We also shared the 2nd lesson. Her daughter loved the chapel and said she really wanted to go to church. They were out of town seeing mothers for mother day this week, but the should come this Sunday, so we are excited for this family. They are doing great, and they really have a desire to learn. We invited them to have family prayers. I'll call and follow up on them tonight. So yeah, we are excited about them.
Oh yeah...something Dad probably would have wanted to hear about that I didn't talk about, this week D. Todd Christofferson came and we had a mission conference. Also, Elder Perkins from the 70 and their wives were also here. It was a really unique experience. I wish I had thought to bring my notes to email this week, but I didn't, so sorry, I can't tell you everything he said. My memory is really bad...but I do remember the end, he was blessing us and encouraging us, and I remember at one point, he blessed us that when we were sad or discouraged and for whatever reason thought we couldn't do it, that we would remember the Spirit that we felt at that moment, and that the remembrance of that would help us pick back up. At the moment, I felt the Spirit so strongly it was super amazing. I really respect D. Todd Christofferson...he is so in tune with the Spirit that his words can help us feel the Spirit super strongly, one of the strongest feelings of the Spirit I've ever personally experienced. I'm grateful we have leaders like that in our church. I also really loved Elder Perkins talk, about talking to everyone and finding new investigators. He took a scripture and helped us apply it to our mission. I love when people help me see the scriptures through a light I'd never personally thought of before. Their wives also both spoke, and they were really good talks, so the 2 hours they spoke, was just 2 hours of an amazing experience. I'm glad I got to be there for that. I've been lucky on my mission to be in Taipei at a time so many leaders are visiting. We have another member from the 70 coming next month too. I'm excited for that Zone Conference as well. Plus, I even further appreciated The Perkins and Christofferson's because they came and did the mission conference straight from the airplane...and it was about 3 or 4 am in America and their bodies were still on that time...but despite how tired they were, they were willing to come and talk to our mission, and were very active the whole time. So yeah, that's the cool experience of the week, and now we are going to the temple today, so I'll wrap up..since I still need to send President his weekly email...so, I'll email you guys again next Monday. Love you guys. Until next time.....
xoxo,
Sister Fu.(Flora Bruno)
This week, not a lot more to say about it. I guess something cool I can think of, is that we went and taught Hilda, the Spanish lady. I mostly just sat there. I introduced myself and my family...then said dificil when my companion was struggling for difficult in Spanish and coming up with Chinese. Ha, I was glad to be a help in that way...but pretty much I was mostly useless. I just listened. She was in a flow, and I didn't want to interrupt. I let it be her thing. She said it was hard, but I was proud of her, she was totally pull it off, even though she hasn't been speaking Spanish in a long long time. She taught this lady the whole first lesson, and we gave her a Spanish Book of Mormon, and invited her to read it. We left a note on her door before she went back to her country this week with our information and told her to keep in touch. So yeah, cool foreign language experience for my mission. And by foreign language, I mean something I don't understand...Chinese is really normal to me now, I can't remember the days it sounded like Chen Qingquan to me. Haha. There was an investigator the Elders had in Jilong with that name, and we always joked that his name sounded like Chinese before it all made sense....He got baptized now...wooo. So I guess I should say new member.
Oh! We took some time Monday to call a couple old investigators, we got a couple set ups from it, and yesterday we met with someone who met with missionaries twice last year...and she's willing to meet again. She said she really wants to believe there is a God, but she's just not sure. We taught her about the importance of prayer and being like Joseph Smith...she also had questions about why people sin, so we told her next week we'd share with her. I've never really had an old investigator before, but she was only taught twice before she got busy before, so we'll see how it goes. I think the first lesson was pretty good.
Jian Jiaying set an earlier date, so she should go to interview next Saturday. I'm excited. She's starting to really progress towards baptism. She was ready before I even got here, but just said she's been scared. I think she's overcoming her fear though. When we first set a goal, it wasn't until the middle of next transfer, and she sounded unsure if she thought she'd be ready...but we had a really good lesson about Mosiah 18 and what have you against taking the Lord's name on you after you know. We told her we knew this week she had to take a huge test, but asked that she prepare to interview next week and promised her Heavenly Father would help her on this journey, and she agreed! We ate dinner at the bishop's Monday night, and told him she had a date. He was excited and was like, in June or July probably huh? And we were like, the 29th! Haha. So even the bishop was excited I think.
It was fun at his house this week. They invited us over for dinner, and his wife and he are both return missionaries. We talked about the Melchizedek Priesthood and when it was and wasn't on the earth. It was super unique. I've never even been curious about that stuff, but my companion was really confused and they were having a serious conversation, then I got involved and into it...and in the end I was just really glad for the bishop and his knowledge.
Also, we have 3 people with dates who are a family. A mother and her two children (she has 3 children, but one is 4) Super cute. Sandy, the mom, is really interested in the 2nd coming because her daughters concern about the end of the world. We were able to share with them from the Book of Mormon how it helps us prepare for the 2nd coming of Messiah like it says in the Introduction. We also shared the 2nd lesson. Her daughter loved the chapel and said she really wanted to go to church. They were out of town seeing mothers for mother day this week, but the should come this Sunday, so we are excited for this family. They are doing great, and they really have a desire to learn. We invited them to have family prayers. I'll call and follow up on them tonight. So yeah, we are excited about them.
Oh yeah...something Dad probably would have wanted to hear about that I didn't talk about, this week D. Todd Christofferson came and we had a mission conference. Also, Elder Perkins from the 70 and their wives were also here. It was a really unique experience. I wish I had thought to bring my notes to email this week, but I didn't, so sorry, I can't tell you everything he said. My memory is really bad...but I do remember the end, he was blessing us and encouraging us, and I remember at one point, he blessed us that when we were sad or discouraged and for whatever reason thought we couldn't do it, that we would remember the Spirit that we felt at that moment, and that the remembrance of that would help us pick back up. At the moment, I felt the Spirit so strongly it was super amazing. I really respect D. Todd Christofferson...he is so in tune with the Spirit that his words can help us feel the Spirit super strongly, one of the strongest feelings of the Spirit I've ever personally experienced. I'm grateful we have leaders like that in our church. I also really loved Elder Perkins talk, about talking to everyone and finding new investigators. He took a scripture and helped us apply it to our mission. I love when people help me see the scriptures through a light I'd never personally thought of before. Their wives also both spoke, and they were really good talks, so the 2 hours they spoke, was just 2 hours of an amazing experience. I'm glad I got to be there for that. I've been lucky on my mission to be in Taipei at a time so many leaders are visiting. We have another member from the 70 coming next month too. I'm excited for that Zone Conference as well. Plus, I even further appreciated The Perkins and Christofferson's because they came and did the mission conference straight from the airplane...and it was about 3 or 4 am in America and their bodies were still on that time...but despite how tired they were, they were willing to come and talk to our mission, and were very active the whole time. So yeah, that's the cool experience of the week, and now we are going to the temple today, so I'll wrap up..since I still need to send President his weekly email...so, I'll email you guys again next Monday. Love you guys. Until next time.....
xoxo,
Sister Fu.(Flora Bruno)
Monday, May 3, 2010
How Being Hit by a Car can Affect a Missionary's Performance
Hellooooooooooo again. This week has been quite a week! Full of stress and miracles all mixed together to make an excellent week. Something amusing...Thursday, was a really stressing day for me, like really full of dramatic peaks...like, for example, it was my first MM meeting as senior companion, so I spent a LONG time on the progress record, trying to make it really good and respectful for the ward...but the MM leader wasn't even there for my reporting, he was late that week, the Elders were really rude to me about some things, and I just had gotten hit by a car, just about 2 hours earlier, so I took their criticism really really bad and had a hard time even talking in MM meeting because it was my first time and I was nervous and the Elders were mean to me, and a car just hit me and my leg hurt...haha, so i just thought the whole world was crashing down around me, you know, those days where everything just, doesn't go right. But don't worry, it was all okay in the end, the MM leader got my progress record...the Elders and I talked and got back on the same terms, and the lady that hit me apologized and my bike wasn't hurt, just my leg, so I told her to not round corners so tight or fast and be careful...and everything worked out in the end.
Besides that day, this week went really well. When I came here, we talked about everything in WPS, and realized we were going to have to work really hard this week to try to find some new investigators. President has asked us to try to get the standard of 5 a week, and so even though that has been a week point for both of us in other areas in the past, we knew we needed to go out there, and make goals, set plans, and expect to see miracles. So we did! We tracted a lot this week, and even at one point circled around a stoplight making scooter contacts when we got home about 15 minutes early...and we saw miracles.
Like, on Monday night, our appointment fell through, so we made some goals before going out tracting, said a prayer about our goals, and went out there and knocked doors. And, we made our goals, Heavenly Father let us see that when we are willing to make goals, he is willing to help us see them achieved if we go out there and do our part to get them done.
...Also people we talked to on their scooters came to church,a person I talked to on the phone through referrals and old potentials lists came to church and set up to start meeting...and we got an amazing referral from a Zhongli member, who we both have met and we happened to run into on Saturday to meet with her coworker...a Li Jiashan, or Sandy, who is really great. We met with her this week, and ended up having a little bit of a long lesson because she had a lot of questions. The reason she is interested in the gospel lately, is that her 10 year old daughter and 11 year old son saw 2012, and it really scared them, and she didn't know how to help them not be so scared...so her friend gave her a Book of Mormon and told her about our church, so she was willing to meet with us and talk about church and the blessings it has for families, and about the Restoration. We set up to see her again this Saturday,and go to her house so we can meet her children as well. I'm excited to teach them!
We also met quite a few people who will start progressing next week when we will meet with them the second time, who came to church. It was a miracle, and at the end of the week, we were able to not only get our goal of 6 new investigators, but we surpassed it. We got 9. In fact, every number this week except one either met our missions "golden standard," or surpassed it. I know Heavenly Father blessed us and helped us do His work. I know that as long as we are just doing our best to talk to everyone, we will see these kinds of miracles every week...so Sister Messenger and I have just been talking to everyone...and it's going great. We met some awesome people and saw some unique experiences.
We also got the opportunity to go to Temple Tours this Saturday. I had the special opportunity of doing a tour for the Assistants and their investigator while my companion took some other sisters on a tour at the same time. Although it was a little bit nontraditional, because you usually lead around on a tour, and they lead some, and I lead some, it actually was a really great training experience. Elder Lysenko did something really cool. They lady was concerned to know where Moses, etc (prophets) authority came from. He told her an example about cops, and how anyone could wear a cop suit, and you would believe them, perhaps, but you have no real way of knowing until you go to the department and ask if your ticket is valid or not. Then, he showed her his order of ordination card, which starts, of course, with Jesus Christ, and showed his authority came from Jesus, who gave it to his disciples, and we were at a picture that showed the disciples passing authority to Joseph Smith. It was really cool, I don't have a card like that, but I just really liked his teaching methods. They also were just really powerful working off one another. In the end, the lady still didn't want to set back up, because she doesn't have much of a desire she said, but she gave me two referrals at the end of the tour, and took a Book of Mormon. There is still hope for her. One of the Assistants apologized, because he realized it could have been hard on me to have someone who rejected most of what we taught, because they said they had no desire at this time to know for themselves, but it wasn't heartbreaking for me. I took the tour as a learning experience...and mentioned to him they could have trusted me a tad more...since I already felt so small next to 2 over 6 feet tall Elders....who both had leadership positions over me...and he took my advice really well. I like Elder McClaws. He's a good Assistant, so it was a positive experience. He also helped me a little on direction advice. I like that about the Assistants. Everything they do, they let it be a learning/growing experience for us missionaries...so I know they are good at what they do. (training us)
Lets see...what else? Oh...well, one interesting thing about this area, is that when I moved in, some members of the ward asked us to meet with this lady, who is, well, literally troubled. I talked to her Father about it even. He said he doesn't understand her, and he doesn't think we can understand her, but we can see if she can progress and get baptized if we are willing to spend the time, but he said not to get too high of hopes. She has been coming to church every week for about 9 months or something and all the activities, so some people want us to see if we can get her progressing, because she really sincerely always talks about her desire to be baptized. She just also prays to have a male child...and stalks and stares at the Elders...but I guess I'm a good person if any missionary to see if she is able to progress. I taught her the Word of Wisdom and she kept saying she would see if we all could do it how to do it, and i was like "NO, You will commit to start living it or I will not meet with you..I cannot afford to waste time meeting with you if you are not willing to try" so I was just really forward with her, but I'm pretty sure she did good this week, because she said she would just smoke maybe once every couple days when she was bored in the end...and on Sunday she said she hadn't smoked since we talked to her about the Word of Wisdom. No offense though, I'm going to follow up on that really well, because it's not an easy addiction to give up cigarettes. This week I plan on telling her Elders can't get married, because that's just against our missionary rules..and she needs to not stare at them so much because that makes them uncomfortable. I hope we can make progress in that area...they Elders would appreciate it greatly. I guess she kind of stalks Elder Mauldwin...and after he told me, I noticed it on Sunday. But yeah, I'm doing what I can to help out this situation...so...yeah. I have a troubled investigator, but she totally got the 2nd lesson, and could put it back together perfect with the pictures I scrambled at the end...so she's there in some ways. That's excellent! ha. It will be a unique experience to meet with her.
And one last cool thing! My companion and I ran into this lady in the elevator who just speaks Spanish. She lives above us, and gave us her address. My companion can get out a conversation in Spanish, so we will go visit her this week. Unfortunately, I'll have to practice to even say like a line or two of testimony, because this Chinese business has made my mind unable to translate to Spanish...I still can understand a lot of it...but speak...that's a different matter.When I try to say uno,dos, tres, it usually comes out yi, er, san. ha. So that will be a cool experience. Yay for the upcoming week.
Love ya all,
Sister Flora Bruno
Besides that day, this week went really well. When I came here, we talked about everything in WPS, and realized we were going to have to work really hard this week to try to find some new investigators. President has asked us to try to get the standard of 5 a week, and so even though that has been a week point for both of us in other areas in the past, we knew we needed to go out there, and make goals, set plans, and expect to see miracles. So we did! We tracted a lot this week, and even at one point circled around a stoplight making scooter contacts when we got home about 15 minutes early...and we saw miracles.
Like, on Monday night, our appointment fell through, so we made some goals before going out tracting, said a prayer about our goals, and went out there and knocked doors. And, we made our goals, Heavenly Father let us see that when we are willing to make goals, he is willing to help us see them achieved if we go out there and do our part to get them done.
...Also people we talked to on their scooters came to church,a person I talked to on the phone through referrals and old potentials lists came to church and set up to start meeting...and we got an amazing referral from a Zhongli member, who we both have met and we happened to run into on Saturday to meet with her coworker...a Li Jiashan, or Sandy, who is really great. We met with her this week, and ended up having a little bit of a long lesson because she had a lot of questions. The reason she is interested in the gospel lately, is that her 10 year old daughter and 11 year old son saw 2012, and it really scared them, and she didn't know how to help them not be so scared...so her friend gave her a Book of Mormon and told her about our church, so she was willing to meet with us and talk about church and the blessings it has for families, and about the Restoration. We set up to see her again this Saturday,and go to her house so we can meet her children as well. I'm excited to teach them!
We also met quite a few people who will start progressing next week when we will meet with them the second time, who came to church. It was a miracle, and at the end of the week, we were able to not only get our goal of 6 new investigators, but we surpassed it. We got 9. In fact, every number this week except one either met our missions "golden standard," or surpassed it. I know Heavenly Father blessed us and helped us do His work. I know that as long as we are just doing our best to talk to everyone, we will see these kinds of miracles every week...so Sister Messenger and I have just been talking to everyone...and it's going great. We met some awesome people and saw some unique experiences.
We also got the opportunity to go to Temple Tours this Saturday. I had the special opportunity of doing a tour for the Assistants and their investigator while my companion took some other sisters on a tour at the same time. Although it was a little bit nontraditional, because you usually lead around on a tour, and they lead some, and I lead some, it actually was a really great training experience. Elder Lysenko did something really cool. They lady was concerned to know where Moses, etc (prophets) authority came from. He told her an example about cops, and how anyone could wear a cop suit, and you would believe them, perhaps, but you have no real way of knowing until you go to the department and ask if your ticket is valid or not. Then, he showed her his order of ordination card, which starts, of course, with Jesus Christ, and showed his authority came from Jesus, who gave it to his disciples, and we were at a picture that showed the disciples passing authority to Joseph Smith. It was really cool, I don't have a card like that, but I just really liked his teaching methods. They also were just really powerful working off one another. In the end, the lady still didn't want to set back up, because she doesn't have much of a desire she said, but she gave me two referrals at the end of the tour, and took a Book of Mormon. There is still hope for her. One of the Assistants apologized, because he realized it could have been hard on me to have someone who rejected most of what we taught, because they said they had no desire at this time to know for themselves, but it wasn't heartbreaking for me. I took the tour as a learning experience...and mentioned to him they could have trusted me a tad more...since I already felt so small next to 2 over 6 feet tall Elders....who both had leadership positions over me...and he took my advice really well. I like Elder McClaws. He's a good Assistant, so it was a positive experience. He also helped me a little on direction advice. I like that about the Assistants. Everything they do, they let it be a learning/growing experience for us missionaries...so I know they are good at what they do. (training us)
Lets see...what else? Oh...well, one interesting thing about this area, is that when I moved in, some members of the ward asked us to meet with this lady, who is, well, literally troubled. I talked to her Father about it even. He said he doesn't understand her, and he doesn't think we can understand her, but we can see if she can progress and get baptized if we are willing to spend the time, but he said not to get too high of hopes. She has been coming to church every week for about 9 months or something and all the activities, so some people want us to see if we can get her progressing, because she really sincerely always talks about her desire to be baptized. She just also prays to have a male child...and stalks and stares at the Elders...but I guess I'm a good person if any missionary to see if she is able to progress. I taught her the Word of Wisdom and she kept saying she would see if we all could do it how to do it, and i was like "NO, You will commit to start living it or I will not meet with you..I cannot afford to waste time meeting with you if you are not willing to try" so I was just really forward with her, but I'm pretty sure she did good this week, because she said she would just smoke maybe once every couple days when she was bored in the end...and on Sunday she said she hadn't smoked since we talked to her about the Word of Wisdom. No offense though, I'm going to follow up on that really well, because it's not an easy addiction to give up cigarettes. This week I plan on telling her Elders can't get married, because that's just against our missionary rules..and she needs to not stare at them so much because that makes them uncomfortable. I hope we can make progress in that area...they Elders would appreciate it greatly. I guess she kind of stalks Elder Mauldwin...and after he told me, I noticed it on Sunday. But yeah, I'm doing what I can to help out this situation...so...yeah. I have a troubled investigator, but she totally got the 2nd lesson, and could put it back together perfect with the pictures I scrambled at the end...so she's there in some ways. That's excellent! ha. It will be a unique experience to meet with her.
And one last cool thing! My companion and I ran into this lady in the elevator who just speaks Spanish. She lives above us, and gave us her address. My companion can get out a conversation in Spanish, so we will go visit her this week. Unfortunately, I'll have to practice to even say like a line or two of testimony, because this Chinese business has made my mind unable to translate to Spanish...I still can understand a lot of it...but speak...that's a different matter.When I try to say uno,dos, tres, it usually comes out yi, er, san. ha. So that will be a cool experience. Yay for the upcoming week.
Love ya all,
Sister Flora Bruno
Monday, April 26, 2010
Mission Humor on Being Transferred
Hello from the City of Bade Taiwan. This week, I have moved to a new area. I'm still in Taoyuan county. In fact, I have now served in every single area in Taoyuan County. There are 3 sisters in this county...Zhongli Sisters, Taoyuan 1 and 3rd sisters, And Bade and Taoyuan 2 sisters. I just moved from being the 1st and 3rd sisters in the City, to moving over to the side and taking Bade City. Not a far move at all. Bishop Liao drove me this morning here...he's such a great bishop, he's been doing so much to help the work in the Tao 1 ward. I worry about how much he does. I hope he doesn't overdo it. He's just been doing so much, but I really appreciate and respect all the work he has done. Haha. It only took me 6 weeks to figure out what ward was what, then I moved.
My new companion is a Sister Messenger. I think she's really amazing, because she is just a really strong person, and her faith is strong. It's really unique for us to be together for a couple reasons. One is, right after I left Zhongli, she came and was Sister Chen's companion. So she taught a lot of the same people as I did. So we usually can talk about those days :). Also, since Sister Tedjamulia was the coordinating sister, Sister Messenger and I had the opportunity to be companions on exchanges, which as luck would have it, we had a really good day that day. We had a good experience. After exchanges, when we saw her one day, 2 weeks before move calls, Sister Messenger said she decided that Sister Tedjamulia was going to train, and I was going to come to Bade to be her companion, since her current companion at the time is going home to America. She was convinced. And, I kind of started to think it was very possible. We all knew it was a large possibility of my companion training, since she is the only Sister going home this transfer, and thus the oldest sister in our mission, not to mention she's really great and her trainee really goes with her well. Although, that would mean I'd have to leave after only 6 weeks in an area, and that made me a little sad...
But, I started to be convinced of Sister Messengers prophesy too, especially Thursday. We got a phone called Thursday night, 10 minutes before we were going to call and confirm plans for that day...from the Assistants. Of course, because we are both experienced missionaries, we knew that the "Assistants" on our phone meant. But, the Assistant is just, interesting in how he asked...my companion, always wanting to get to the point, said,
"Hello this is Sister Tedjamulia"
"Hello, this is Elder Lysenko, am I speaking to Sister Tedjamulia?"
"Yes this is Sister Tedjamulia"
"Hello, Sister Tedjamulia! This is Elder Lysenko. Do you know what tonight is?"
"What?"
"Today is Thursday, which means, tonight is the night we call out who will train, so Sister Tedjamulia, we would like to ask you to be a trainer..."
"Okay...sounds good"
"Alright, we need you guys to be in the Taipei Jinhua chapel at 10am tomorrow...etc. etc."
Haha, we both laughed a lot at the way he asked her. "Tonight is the night!" And then,we started our trip to Taipei the next morning and became a 3some for a weekend.
She is training a girl from Canada named Sister Lai. She's really cute, she has 2 degrees and left her job as an accountant to come serve a mission. Her parents are from Hong Kong, and she's been exposed to Cantonese...plus she really is diligent and sharp, so even though she's brand new, her Chinese is already amazing! It was really fun to be with them on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
At the training meeting, they say that the new people's area will be, and I knew they were still going to be the Taoyuan Sisters, so starting Thursday after picking up Sister Lai, I knew I was moving, but didn't know where. Then in the about 5 on Friday, we get a call. The phone says "Assistant"...so Sister Tedjamulia hands me the phone...
"Hello, this is Sister Bruno."
"Hello, can I speak to Sister Bruno?"
"This is her, Sister Tedjamulia handed me the phone when you called."
"Great! Sister Bruno, this is Elder Lysenko...I have something to ask you Sister Bruno, but first, are you sitting down?"
"Well, I doubt I would need to be, but as coincidence would have it, yes, yes I am."
"Sister Bruno, I would like to call and ask you to be a Senior companion, would you be willing to accept this calling?" (something about president and them thinking I'd be the perfect person for this, etc. etc.)
"Okay...that's fine...etc. etc."
"Okay, you will find out where you are moving to tonight through your district leader"
Sister Tedjamulia and I said we both needed to record Elder Lysenko's "Fun calls" in our journals. I'll just type it here and call it good. We might have quoted him a couple times. I think we got a kick out how the calls were delivered more than that we got them. So,starting from five, I was pretty certain Bade was where I was moving. Sister Tedjamulia and I discussed it in detail about "my district" just assuming Bade was my district,as we made walks to and from places, since we had no bikes at the time, since we were waiting for Sister Lai's bike to be delivered.
That night, when the district leader, Elder Lu, called and told me I was moving to Bade....I still acted shocked, but I wasn't really. But it was fun how prophesy came true. It doesn't always. When we called Sister Messenger a few days later, she was really excited and told us that "she called it" :). She is really cute and has been saying how excited she is for this transfer. She really feels like God prepared her for it. So, I'm excited to be companions with someone who is so excited to be my companion! It's a lot of fun. I just got here an hour ago, and we have a random lesson at 1 on Preparation day...which isn't the funnest thing to do on Preparation day, but it's okay. That's what us missionaries do sometimes. We meet with people who have no other day to meet for our preparation for the next week.
As for area news, this week was a week of a lot of miracles. We have been having low numbers with new investigators lately, and really doing our best to get the mission "golden standard" the last couple weeks. This last week, we got the goal, and one more! We were really excited, it was the first time we were able to do that in this transfer. I know it was partly due to Sister Lai and her awesome faith and willingness to go out there right from the start. We got stood up for a couple lessons, and went tracking a couple times....Saturday night tracking, people were listening, and a cute mother even let us in and invited us to come back...it was amazing...I always just am amazed when people let us in their doors. I know every time it is such a miracle. It was an awesome experience for me. I spent Sunday night packing, and it felt hard to leave an area after only 6 weeks...because it felt like I barely knew anyone and then I just...disappeared as fast as I appeared...but I know that to every thing there is a reason and purpose...and so, I am excited to get to know this area!
Although, I am not used to it...Heavenly Father is even showing us miracles in the transition. Today, Sister Messenger handed me the phone only moments after I got here, and then, we left about 30 minutes later...and I left the phone in the apartment...so I hope nobody important calls while we are down here...but Sister Messenger is also not used to carrying around the keys, so they were left in the apartment. Before getting in the elevator, I asked her if she had the keys. She freaked out for 2 seconds, before realizing, she had a spare key to the apartment in her bag. She's just not used to having the full set with the church keys. The hilarious thing, is I did that last week when we were on exchanges with Sister Pottle (her companion who left today). Good thing there are 2 keys in both these areas and both of us carried around the spare! In some areas, we've only had 1 key. Heavenly Father loves me! Haha. He loves you guys too. And so do I Keep doing your thing and working hard. I will do my best here, as a Bade Sister.
Until Next time,
Sister Flora Bruno
Fu Jiemei
My new companion is a Sister Messenger. I think she's really amazing, because she is just a really strong person, and her faith is strong. It's really unique for us to be together for a couple reasons. One is, right after I left Zhongli, she came and was Sister Chen's companion. So she taught a lot of the same people as I did. So we usually can talk about those days :). Also, since Sister Tedjamulia was the coordinating sister, Sister Messenger and I had the opportunity to be companions on exchanges, which as luck would have it, we had a really good day that day. We had a good experience. After exchanges, when we saw her one day, 2 weeks before move calls, Sister Messenger said she decided that Sister Tedjamulia was going to train, and I was going to come to Bade to be her companion, since her current companion at the time is going home to America. She was convinced. And, I kind of started to think it was very possible. We all knew it was a large possibility of my companion training, since she is the only Sister going home this transfer, and thus the oldest sister in our mission, not to mention she's really great and her trainee really goes with her well. Although, that would mean I'd have to leave after only 6 weeks in an area, and that made me a little sad...
But, I started to be convinced of Sister Messengers prophesy too, especially Thursday. We got a phone called Thursday night, 10 minutes before we were going to call and confirm plans for that day...from the Assistants. Of course, because we are both experienced missionaries, we knew that the "Assistants" on our phone meant. But, the Assistant is just, interesting in how he asked...my companion, always wanting to get to the point, said,
"Hello this is Sister Tedjamulia"
"Hello, this is Elder Lysenko, am I speaking to Sister Tedjamulia?"
"Yes this is Sister Tedjamulia"
"Hello, Sister Tedjamulia! This is Elder Lysenko. Do you know what tonight is?"
"What?"
"Today is Thursday, which means, tonight is the night we call out who will train, so Sister Tedjamulia, we would like to ask you to be a trainer..."
"Okay...sounds good"
"Alright, we need you guys to be in the Taipei Jinhua chapel at 10am tomorrow...etc. etc."
Haha, we both laughed a lot at the way he asked her. "Tonight is the night!" And then,we started our trip to Taipei the next morning and became a 3some for a weekend.
She is training a girl from Canada named Sister Lai. She's really cute, she has 2 degrees and left her job as an accountant to come serve a mission. Her parents are from Hong Kong, and she's been exposed to Cantonese...plus she really is diligent and sharp, so even though she's brand new, her Chinese is already amazing! It was really fun to be with them on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
At the training meeting, they say that the new people's area will be, and I knew they were still going to be the Taoyuan Sisters, so starting Thursday after picking up Sister Lai, I knew I was moving, but didn't know where. Then in the about 5 on Friday, we get a call. The phone says "Assistant"...so Sister Tedjamulia hands me the phone...
"Hello, this is Sister Bruno."
"Hello, can I speak to Sister Bruno?"
"This is her, Sister Tedjamulia handed me the phone when you called."
"Great! Sister Bruno, this is Elder Lysenko...I have something to ask you Sister Bruno, but first, are you sitting down?"
"Well, I doubt I would need to be, but as coincidence would have it, yes, yes I am."
"Sister Bruno, I would like to call and ask you to be a Senior companion, would you be willing to accept this calling?" (something about president and them thinking I'd be the perfect person for this, etc. etc.)
"Okay...that's fine...etc. etc."
"Okay, you will find out where you are moving to tonight through your district leader"
Sister Tedjamulia and I said we both needed to record Elder Lysenko's "Fun calls" in our journals. I'll just type it here and call it good. We might have quoted him a couple times. I think we got a kick out how the calls were delivered more than that we got them. So,starting from five, I was pretty certain Bade was where I was moving. Sister Tedjamulia and I discussed it in detail about "my district" just assuming Bade was my district,as we made walks to and from places, since we had no bikes at the time, since we were waiting for Sister Lai's bike to be delivered.
That night, when the district leader, Elder Lu, called and told me I was moving to Bade....I still acted shocked, but I wasn't really. But it was fun how prophesy came true. It doesn't always. When we called Sister Messenger a few days later, she was really excited and told us that "she called it" :). She is really cute and has been saying how excited she is for this transfer. She really feels like God prepared her for it. So, I'm excited to be companions with someone who is so excited to be my companion! It's a lot of fun. I just got here an hour ago, and we have a random lesson at 1 on Preparation day...which isn't the funnest thing to do on Preparation day, but it's okay. That's what us missionaries do sometimes. We meet with people who have no other day to meet for our preparation for the next week.
As for area news, this week was a week of a lot of miracles. We have been having low numbers with new investigators lately, and really doing our best to get the mission "golden standard" the last couple weeks. This last week, we got the goal, and one more! We were really excited, it was the first time we were able to do that in this transfer. I know it was partly due to Sister Lai and her awesome faith and willingness to go out there right from the start. We got stood up for a couple lessons, and went tracking a couple times....Saturday night tracking, people were listening, and a cute mother even let us in and invited us to come back...it was amazing...I always just am amazed when people let us in their doors. I know every time it is such a miracle. It was an awesome experience for me. I spent Sunday night packing, and it felt hard to leave an area after only 6 weeks...because it felt like I barely knew anyone and then I just...disappeared as fast as I appeared...but I know that to every thing there is a reason and purpose...and so, I am excited to get to know this area!
Although, I am not used to it...Heavenly Father is even showing us miracles in the transition. Today, Sister Messenger handed me the phone only moments after I got here, and then, we left about 30 minutes later...and I left the phone in the apartment...so I hope nobody important calls while we are down here...but Sister Messenger is also not used to carrying around the keys, so they were left in the apartment. Before getting in the elevator, I asked her if she had the keys. She freaked out for 2 seconds, before realizing, she had a spare key to the apartment in her bag. She's just not used to having the full set with the church keys. The hilarious thing, is I did that last week when we were on exchanges with Sister Pottle (her companion who left today). Good thing there are 2 keys in both these areas and both of us carried around the spare! In some areas, we've only had 1 key. Heavenly Father loves me! Haha. He loves you guys too. And so do I Keep doing your thing and working hard. I will do my best here, as a Bade Sister.
Until Next time,
Sister Flora Bruno
Fu Jiemei
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