The Adventures of Sister Flora Bruno in Taipei

Return with Honor: Stake President Release

2010-07-21T07:45:00.000-04:00

All in A Missionaries Day: Baptizing Four Then Hearing President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

2010-07-12T08:14:00.000-04:00

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

Staying Focused and Finishing Strong at the End of Her Mission

2010-07-05T09:32:00.000-04:00

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.

Emergency Transfer: 7th and Final Area for Taiwanese Sister Missionary

2010-06-28T07:50:00.000-04:00

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.

Taiwanese Missionary Preparation for Speaking in Church

2010-06-21T11:05:00.000-04:00

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!!!"

Missionary Report from Xinzhu, Taiwan Taipei Mission

2010-06-14T12:23:00.000-04:00

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

Invited to Dragon Boat Festival by Government Officials and Final Transfer

2010-06-07T11:03:00.002-04:00

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

Ups and Downs of Missionary Work: A Small Miracle

2010-06-01T08:17:00.000-04:00

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.

Mock Sacrament Meeting

2010-05-24T08:05:00.001-04:00

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）

What Does A Senior Companion Do?

2010-05-19T09:47:00.002-04:00

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

Happenings in Bade City

2010-05-17T08:20:00.000-04:00

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

D. Todd Christopher Visits Taipei

2010-05-12T12:56:00.001-04:00

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)

How Being Hit by a Car can Affect a Missionary's Performance

2010-05-03T10:42:00.003-04:00

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

Mission Humor on Being Transferred

2010-04-26T09:57:00.001-04:00

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

15 Investigators at Church and Bishop Who Meets Personally with Investigators in Their Homes: Missionary Email

2010-04-20T13:06:00.000-04:00

Okay okay okay, I wasted so much time fixing my pictures on the computer this week, there are only like 20 minutes left so we'll see what I can type in that time frame, and that's that. And that's life.

This week last Preparation Day I spent in Taipei I went back to the doctor and the problem is still there, so more medicines....I'll go back next month and evaluate again. It's just annoying to me to see the doctor every other Preparation day, so I told him I'll go back next month. He said that's fine. Health issues on a mission are kind of like mosquitoes...if you can imagine what I mean.

After seeing the doctor, we spent the Preparation day...in the park next door that's really beautiful. We took pictures, but I didn't turn out very good in most of them. You can see the extra weight I gained at the New Year's Holiday...and I don't like it. I already made a goal to go on a slight diet next transfer so I can feel better about pictures. Ha. The curse of being short...not a lot for your weight to go.

After the day, at night we went and met with a new investigator, A Sister Lora Luo. She is really good. She came to general conference last week. We didn't even know until then...but that's so awesome she came. She is really searching for a church that is closer than the one she goes to in Longtan. Which, yes, is quite far from here. It was in my zone back when I was in Zhongli. However, she said she has to pick the religion that feels right to her...which is great.I thought she would really identify with Joseph Smith, but she didn't really connect their similarity as I hoped...but she is really awesome because she is completely willing to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. As missionaries, our biggest hope is only that, they will read and pray. That's what this church is about...the testimony that the Book of Mormon is true or not. So, I'm excited to teach her and continue to help her with her studies. She had a really cool experience with prayer that helped her see that God really exists, and now she's just in a learning process.

With Vera, she's had kind of a hard week. We usually keep in daily contact, but starting Thursday afternoon, we couldn't get in touch with her until Sunday. And especially me, because we did exchanges, so I didn't see her all week. It's weird, it's just we are used to talking to her or seeing her, so it felt really odd not to see or talk to Vera for a week. It's not that long, but you just get used to being in certain people's company. I'm keeping her in my prayers, and she's still coming to church, so I know she'll do okay. She's going to have to change her baptism, but that is okay. It's best she is ready when it happens then that she goes too fast and isn't ready. The ward has really been doing their part to welcome her in. The bishop called us himself this morning and asked when the next time we were meeting with her. He told us he would be coming, we didn't even need to ask him to. I think he talked to her yesterday and knows she's going through a hard time. He wants to help her out, so he's willing to sacrifice his busy busy time because he really wants to help as much as he can. It really touches me that the ward loves her as much as we do and is willing to do anything to help her out. Everyone is really rooting for her and praying for her.

This week we really saw a huge miracle. 15 people came to church. Back in a really progressing time in Zhongli, that was always our goal, but we'd be short a person or two every time. This week our goal was just 6, we thought that was optimistic. Last week we made a high goal, and didn't even come close. A lot of people who said they were coming couldn't come at the last minute, etc. The Lord sees our efforts and blesses us when we least expect it. It was amazing. 6 of them were girls who wanted to interview us about our church for their life science class, so we told them they could ask us questions and take some of our time, if we could teach them a short message and they could come to church. Even if they hadn't been willing, we would have done the interview, but they were really great and all came. One of them said after school ends at the end of May, she will think about coming back, because she really likes church. So that was cute. Then, we just had pretty much all of our good investigators we've been meeting with come. It was so amazing and such a blessing.

Ji Rushuang came and I was super super excited because I got to know her in a way I never did before. She's a 28 year old girl who works all the time. We are really similar in age, so we just had some time to have some girl talk in between the meetings and I came to love her a lot more. She's a really great person who is really dedicated to family and to work. She is doing her best to come to church, even though she works 13 hours a day, and has to come to church in the afternoon, after an 8 hour shift. It's a sacrifice, but I know its well worth it.

This week it was fun to see Melody too. We once again had to do splits with members, so I went with the bishop's wife and taught her the 3rd lesson. Her mother joined for the last 20 minutes of the lesson, so then, being a 14 year old girl, Melody got a little sulky that her mom told her that they had to read scriptures together, because the mom really likes to have time together, and sees the Book of Mormon as a way to do that, which I think is awesome. She's not really interested in meeting with us, but she's willing to do anything to help Melody progress and prepare herself for her baptism. But besides her sulky stage, she was really happy to see us, and really does love learning the gospel. She is coming to Young Woman's activities now, and is really consistent about church. Her friend, Jialin, also comes with her. We haven't met with Jialin yet, but I think after school ends she'll have more time...so they both are doing awesome.

I had fun this week on exchanges with Zhongli. I love Sister Ho a lot and I learn a lot from her example. She even contacts the girls who sell betelnut (a drug to stay away from in the Word of Wisdom. This nasty thing that makes their whole mouth red...she just sees the worth in every individual and wants them to know that God loves them. I just was really touched by seeing her contact that girl...and we had a lot of fun, chatting and just discussing things. Not to mention it's fun to go back to my old area. I get to see some people I love from back in the days. Chen Yiting showed up at the church and gave us 2 referrals. It was nice to work with her.

And also, Saturday we did temple tours. Saturday temple tours are really exhausting, but rewarding too. We see a lot of miracles. Towards the end of the day, a member brought in her daughter-in-law. Lately she's had a lot of deaths in her family, but we didn't know that. We took her to the temple book and talked about the importance of preparing to enter the temple, so that we can be with our family forever, and not have to worry about death. Then, we took her to talk about Joseph Smith and the first vision. It's a spiritual happening. As I was quoting Joseph Smith's words, this lady started to cry. She was feeling the spirit really strongly. At the end of the tour, she gave her name to be visited by the missionaries in Xinzhu. It was just a really good tour and the spirit was so strong. It's nice to go to tours twice a transfer and have the opportunity to feel the spirit as you give members and investigators tours for that purpose.

Well! one minute left! I guess no time to talk about the other stuff I could have. This was an awesome week. Love you guys!

Sister Flora Bruno

Mission President Letter: Instruction to Parents on Final Months of Mission

2010-04-12T08:15:00.001-04:00

16 March 2010

10642
Taiwan Taipei Mission
4F, 24, Lane 183, Chin Hua Street,
Ta An District, Taipei, Taiwan R.O.C.
Tel : (02) 2393-3285

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Frank A. Bruno:

Greetings from Taiwan where your daughter, Sister Bruno, is serving in the Lord's vineyard. Even though Sister Bruno is not scheduled to complete her mission for many months, we desire to ensure post-mission plans are in place for her. The purpose of this letter is to help you plan in three major areas.

1. Departure date. Because of a six week transfer cycle, most missionaries will not return home on the same day they reported to the MTC. Elders are scheduled to return home approximately 2 1/2 weeks after their twenty-four month anniversary date and most Sisters will plan to return home about 1 week after their eighteen month anniversary. Currently, your daughter is scheduled to depart Taipei on Tuesday, July 20, 2010.

2. Parents visit. Per the new Missionary Handbook "Visits from family members . . . are against church policy. The impact of such visits may extend far beyond the visit itself, both before and after the visit, and among other missionaries." I'm sure you'll want to help your daughter maintain "singleness of heart and mind on the work of the Lord." The new Mission President's Handbook states "Missionaries should travel directly home from their missions . . . The Church discourages parents from picking up their missionary." We encourage all family members of every missionary to be considerate of this policy.

3. Education preparation. The prophet has encouraged missionaries to obtain some form of education to provide for their families in the future. While some of our missionaries have been to college prior to their mission, many have not. In order to keep missionaries focused on the work of the Lord, we ask that parents handle as much of the admission process as possible. You should be able to do all of the basic paperwork (application forms, financial aid, transcripts, letters of recommendation, etc.) much of which is now done online. If an essay is needed, please e-mail your daughter the topic/question. They can write an essay and e-mail or mail that to you, and you can include it in the application papers. For those who haven not been through this process, you generally need to apply 4-8 months in advance of a semester start at major universities and 1-3 months in advance of community colleges.

Thank you again for sending Sister Bruno to the people of Taiwan. Feel free to communicate with us by e-mail at 2019353@ldschurch.org or call 886-2-2393-3285. Please help your missionary remain focused on the work of the Lord until the day her foot touches ground at home. We ask that you keep "things of the world" out of your correspondence. Please do not remind her that time is ticking down; yet rather encourage her to endure to the end. I often refer missionaries to the example of Alma who, even when he could have retired, "could not rest" (Alma 43:1).

Warmest regards,

Terrence E. Grimley
Taiwan Taipei Mission President

Overcoming Addiction

2010-04-12T07:52:00.000-04:00

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

This week was a lot of fun with conference going on. Since the Taoyuan church here that we serve at is the stake center, I saw a lot of missionaries and old Zhongli members on Saturday when it was just broadcast here. It was really awesome to see everyone. It also was just a really unique experience to watch conference with a group of missionaries. We laughed really hard, like when they called names, and 2 peoples uncles got called...then Sister Hintze, was like, "Man...everyone's uncle" then...a Carter was called, and everyone high fived Elder Carter...and we were like, "Is that your uncle?" "Nahhh.". Boys will be boys :). Yet we were reverent when the time was appropriate for silence. No crying children...no people snoozing off and bored. We were all intensely listening, and it just brought a special spirit, so even when Elder Holland brought up a serious topic, we were able to laugh at the jokes he dropped in, while still seeing the pertinence in what he was talking about. Of course the Sisters got a lot of slack and the Elders kept a watch to see that we were taking notes on what they found important...haha, but we were thankful for the counsel for us...may we be good mothers when the time comes.

This week has been a pretty good week. After e-mailing, we went to Window on China in Longtan for Preparation day. It was a lot of fun, and we were able to become a lot closer as a district as we just went and took pictures and played together at the tiny theme park. My companion had never gone before, and she loved it.; I was grateful for the opportunity to become closer to my district. They wanted to hang out again this week and go to the beach together, but I had to go to the doctor in Taipei, so that wasn't an option...but I was just really glad that they wanted us to hang out with them. At the beginning of the transfer, they didn't want to go with us, but then last week they did, and we just all became closer friends. That's important in a district. When your district is close and has unity, you pray for each other, and you just see so much success and miracles as your district works together doing this wonderful work the Lord has allowed us to do.

With investigators, we've been following up with our investigator Vera every day. Her faith is so big, but it's not easy to overcome addiction. Nicotine is killer. On Tuesday the bishop attended our lesson, and he was a great help for her. He himself understands what is is like to be addicted, so he was a great benefit to the lesson. Vera has improved a whole lot. She is almost there. She is stressed though, and I was a little at a loss for words as she cried into the phone about always giving in to Satan and how her head would feel like she needed to explode. I've never been in that experience. I can't tell her I understand at all. I've never touched what we call the "big 5" in the Word of Wisdom ever. My struggles are just that I need to more diligently exercise and I eat too much sugar especially lately...just whenever I feel stressed...kind of problems. But yeah, basically I can't really understand what it's like. I'm not going to tell her I do. But yeah, Sister Tedjamulia and I have just been really emphasizing the relationship she has with Jesus Christ, and how when nobody else can understand he can. I really love Vera, and every day, even when she doesn't do as well as she might have hoped, she commits to trying again. I know she will do it. I just know that it takes time too. So we are doing what we can to be encouraging. She's changed so much lately, and there is more of a light in her eyes. She's awesome.

We also had a really amazing lesson with Joline this week. Sister Hong came out with us, and Joline really opened to us. Before we were really worried because we thought she went to the liliangtang this church a lot of Christians here go to. We've had some not too positive encounters with people from there, because, well, they didn't like us...so we just really wanted to help Joline. She really opened up to us. She asked a ton of questions and shared about how church eventually became a negative experience for her so she hasn't attended. We hope to address more of her questions, since we had no way of getting to them all, next lesson. We also hope we can help her in developing faith so she can have positive experiences at a church and be willing to come attend. I'm excited to continue teaching her. I've taught Christians before, but never one whose understanding of the Bible is as clear as hers, but she's so willing to listen and ask questions. It's a unique experience for me here in my mission, as most people I have taught are more exposed to the Buddist or Daoist religion, and so teaching is a lot more simple, and usually doesn't get too deeply into the Bible.

Crystal's mother said she might want to wait until she is older to be baptized, since she is so young and her sister who takes her to church might go to college soon. We are now leaving it up to the members to arrange rides for her and talk to the mother, and whatever else needs to be done. We will continue working with the ward on anything they want us to do, and still visit them, but we figure this is a situation best to leave to the ward for the time being. Luckily we have a pretty awesome ward, so I'm sure things will get done.

We also had a really good lesson with Ji Rushuang this week as well. She finally opened up and shared some of the pressure and stress she had been feeling with us. It was the first time she had a question for us, so we were happy to answer her concerns. We also taught her about the sabbath day, and she will come to church this next week she said.

Also, something fun this week, was that on Thursday we did splits with some members, and Sister Zhang and I went out to visit Li Yijing. She has been coming to church for quite some time, to the wrong ward. Lately though, she's finally committed to coming to this ward, and always even brings a friend. Sister Zhang and I taught her about the plan of salvation and set a baptism date with her. She said she doesn't know if she will be prepared so fast, but she trusted us and Heavenly Father would help prepare her, and made goals, and committed to coming to church and activities. On Wednesday, we saw her and her friend, Xu Jialin, at English class, and Jialin said she didn't have a BOM, so we were able to give her one. It's great to see Jialin's interest grow as Yijin progresses. She is a great friend, and already a wonderful missionary. The members like her a lot, because she's very cute and just very interested in the gospel. She told SIster Zhang she likes to go to church because she always finds the lessons very educational and learns new things. We like hearing that.

Times running fast so that's all I'll say about investigators this week.

Tuesday we had Zone conference in Zhubei (Xinzhu county). It was a good conference. It's the first time I have been over in Xinzhu. It only became part of our mission recently. As it just so happened, all the sisters going home this transfer were all there in the same zone conference. I was happy to see Sister Kunzler giving her last zone conference testimony. She's really a sweet girl and I was glad I got to see her again. I thought when we left Jilong, i wouldn't see her again since she was going so far away, and I was staying over in Danshui, but in the end, I saw her at least 4 more times, before at zone conference we said a goodbye...for now. When she's in SC and I'm in SC, we can just set up to go to the temple the same weekend. Of all my companions, I'll probably most likely see her again.

That's pretty much all that went on this week, and the computer will turn off in 1 minute, so great timing. Haha. Love you guys!

Sister Flora Bruno.

Missionary Email: Great Ward Mission Program

2010-04-05T11:44:00.002-04:00

Oh man, how time flies. It feels like just yesterday that I was in this email cafe writing in Taoyuan for the first time...now we are officially half way done with the transfer. In start, I didn't think this was going to be a very easy transfer for me, to be back in Taoyuan, probably just Satan telling me that, because I'm not even sure why I felt that way. I'm glad that was just a weakness/fear of mine. Lately I've been having a lot of fun!

Taoyuan is slightly a place with stress because the ward puts a lot of stress on the missionaries, but it's due to their mission ward program being the best mission ward program I personally have ever seen...so good stress! What both (not just one) of the wards here do, is that everyone has a "tithe" of their time, and once a month, they put aside a couple hours to do missionary work...this may mean visiting inactive members, accompanying missionaries for lessons we have scheduled if we have some at that time, inviting the missionaries to share the gospel with their friends, etc. So here, we work with a lot of members. At first I was worried about how intense the ward missionary program is, especially if my companion leaves next transfer, since Sister Tedjamulia has been here 7 transfers...but I'm realizing that things will take care of themselves, and I'm just doing my best to memorize peoples names and get to know the members since they are so great about working with us. The investigators we do have are very well taken care of in both the wards in Taoyuan. It's really awesome. I've had really good wards before, but usually if you have 2 wards, one is stronger than the other, but here in Taoyuan both ward programs are pretty similar, the differences exist, but both programs are awesome.

In mission news for this week, we had a really great week. We really saw a lot of miracles with how many people ended up attending church yesterday. We had set a really high goal at WPS and we followed up on getting people to church really well, but the 4 of the people we planned on told us they couldn't come, so we figured there was not much way of accomplishing our goal for that week, but Heavenly Father showed us that if you work hard he prepares a way. Despite the many people who couldn't come to church, we had some miracles and still had our goal exactly accomplished. It was pretty amazing. Sister 邰 Tai and I are just doing our best. And things are going well.

With investigators, 周静阑 Zhou Jinglan or Vera...came to church. We have pretty much taught her almost all the missionary lessons are are just focusing on overcoming the Word of Wisdom trials she's facing. She is really great. We feel the spirit really strong with her every time we meet. She has a lot of faith, but it's not easy overcoming an addiction of almost 20 years. We are trying to be as encouraging as we can. We know she can do it. Her goal is 4/24, so her goal is to quit this week so that she can be addiction free for a week by baptismal interview, and 2 weeks by her baptism. It's not an easy process, but she's doing what she can. She's really amazing. She has read the Book of Mormon, twice I think, and loves to read it, and reads a lot at once...she's also , finished reading the gospel principles book. This week I lent her my English copy (because her English is really good)of Our Search for Happiness and she called us this morning, and was like, "where can I buy this book?" and we told her we could buy it in Taipei next Saturday when we went for tour...and she said that was so long away! So I told her she could just mark in my book. She loves to mark stuff up. I've never even read it before all the way through...I'll have to. I'll probably just end up giving her my copy and buying a new one since she thinks next week is so far away.

Also, we have an 11 year old investigator named Zhang En1lin 张恩粼, Crystal, who came to church yesterday. She also has a goal coming up, so since today is Tomb Sweeping Day and they have school off, we are going to go visit her and her member older sister tonight and teach her some commandments. She's come to church a lot, but she just can only meet once a week on Saturday, then if family stuff comes up she can't even meet then, so we are excited we can go over tonight.

We've also been meeting with a Ji rushuang 纪如霜 she works in a dry cleaning clothes place...and lives there...so we go visit her at work. She was a little hesitant to make a goal, but she did in the end with the 陪课 (peike--member accompanying our lesson) really encouraging her. She is a little scared to keep commandments (before we've even shared any with her) but I know Heavenly Father will help her out a lot. She's already went to church once in Zhongli, and she liked it, so that's really great. She's been progressing and I'm excited we can keep meeting with her.

We have started meeting with a 14-year-old named Li yijing 李怡静, Melody,she met with the Bade Sisters for awhile, because she has friends in the Taoyuan 2nd ward, but lives in our ward boundaries...so her mother, and everyone else just tell her to come to this ward because the church is closer and we can go over to her house to teach her...so they had given her to Bade, but they passed her back over. Her mother is SUPER supportive, although not too interested herself. She even tells her to read the Book of Mormon every day. Shes a really good mother, and we even sat down with the mother, and shared. She was touched and there were a couple tears as we read the family: a proclamation to the world. It is wonderful to have an investigator with such a supportive parent. It is a rare parent who is so supportive of their children taking the missionary lessons.

On exchanges (which exchanges were TOO fun this week with Sister Messenger, we just were really good friends instantly, so it was a BLAST) we met with a lady named Sun Beibei 孙. She has been Christian> for many years. She is a member referral. She was a woman with a lot of character. We taught her about the Restoration...and she was so excited to hear there were living prophets, when we told her about General Conference, she immediately penciled it in. She is really sad about the loss of her husband in recent years, and says she doesn't understand why he had to go so early, so I'm glad we can teach her the plan of salvation and give her comfort this week.; She is already a little scared about meeting with us because she says she is too sad and reliant on certain things you'd have to give up to obey the word of wisdom, but I told her not to worry about that quite yet, but about reading the Book of Mormon, and listening her her answer. She was willing and promised to read a little in the Book of Mormon daily.

Last one I want to talk about is a Li Jinlin 李金琳，Joline. She is a mother with one son. We have taught her the 1st and 2nd. She is Christian and attends another church, but she is willing to take the missionary lessons, because when she was young she ran into some missionaries, who eventually lost touch with her, and she is really receptive to what we teach. She is really nice to us and we really enjoy our visits with her. She wants to share the plan of salvation with her mother, who recently came to believe in God because he answered her prayers. We will continue to teach her and help her understand the blessings of the Book of Mormon and a living prophet.

That's not everyone, but I haven't done a real solid investigator update in a long long time, so I thought I'd do one today...That's what we are doing lately. Today we are going to Longtan and 小人国。 I went back in transfer 2 when I lived in Zhongli. It's a lot of fun, so I'm happy to go back. Today should be a lot of fun. I'm excited, and for the night too, to see Crystal and her family. They are really great. Yep yep. Can't remember anything else for now! I love you guys. Happy Easter and Happy birthday a couple days ago Franny...how old is she now? Is this 16?? I've been gone too long, I don't know how old anyone is after Annika these days. I forget. But don't worry, I still remember all your guys birthdays! Easter is my favorite holiday, next year though, I'll be around. ba. :) Oh. p.s. in 3 days, I've been in Taiwan for 1 year. Crazy crazy.

Sister Flora Bruno
傅文馨姐妹 Fu wenxin jiemei

Having Fun Doing Missionary Work in Taoyuan City, Taiwan

2010-03-22T09:13:00.001-04:00

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

My district, being all Taiwanese, doesn't really have the same idea of fun as us, not to mention, at least one person in each companionship...is quite...older. Haha I like how I'm calling them older but when I get home I'd probably date boys older. I guess I'll just say they are older than the 19/20 year-old Americans I'm used to being with, who are always up for fun. I'm just used to doing district activities on Preparation Days..But these ones are a little bit less willing to do much but nap and bum around on Preparation day, so Sister Tedjamulia and I, a little opposed to doing that more than about once this transfer, are going out to find some fun ourselves. Today we are going to Yingge with a member who has the day off. Sister Tedj has never gone, I went back with Sister Hill as a Sister's activity when I lived in Zhongli, but I think she'll like it, and maybe I can make different pottery this time.

In investigator news, yesterday we were able to set a date with an investigator here named Vera, or Sister Zhou. She attends the Advanced English class, which, I am now going to be teaching in this area. Sister Tedjamulia told her she would be able to progress more towards baptism by attending the correct ward, since she goes to the wrong one, and by meeting with us twice a week, so we have set a time twice a week now. I think she'll be great. She's already read in the book of Mormon to Alma, and they had only met with her once before I got here, so she's a really great investigator. She really believes in the Book of Mormon. She just has a couple hard life problems, with a broken family and an abusive brother who she feels like she can't forgive, so at our lesson this week, we talked about how even when she felt alone and abandoned by her entire family and wanted to run away like she was talking about...if she was willing to pray and realize she had a loving Heavenly Father by her side, her views would be able to change, and she would be a happier person. She talks about how unhappy she is a bit. I hope we can help her. She really needs the gospel. I know it will help her a ton.

We also have a young girl named Crystal with a baptismal date. She is 11, and her sister is about 19 and a member. I still haven't met her because this week we did Saturday temple tour and Sunday she had to visit her grandparents, but I'm positive I'll meet her soon. We go visit them at their house, and their mother is very nice to us I heard, so I'm excited to get to meet Crystal and her member sister. It's been awhile since I had a child investigator, since Zhongli actually.

We also spent some time Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with an investigator, Sister Lai Yu Chun. On Friday we called and went to her mother's store and they fed us. We didn't get to teach a first lesson or anything since the purpose was just to introduce us to her mother, but we did get to share a small message and pray with them. Then, on Saturday, Sister Lai took her kids to Taipei to play, but her member friend, Sister Zhang wanted to go to the temple, and said they could play together if they just waited for her while she was in the temple. So, Sister Weng and I were able to take her on a temple tour while my companion, and the other temple tour sister, Sister Beus, went on another tour. It was an interesting experience, but she had a lot of questions and loved looking at the pictures and at the temple book. Then, she said she couldn't come to church Sunday, but ended up showing up for 2 of the 3 hours. That was a nice little surprise. She really likes church. We just need to get her taught the actual lessons. With her having 2 really small kids, she's always running around after them, and it's hard to share a lesson, but we talked a little Sunday, and will call in a day or two to set up a time she can sit down and hear a full lesson. I'm excited to teach her because she is just already really curious about the church and asks a lot of good questions and has made some friends at church in additional to the member friend that referred her.

That's about all the investigators I'm super familiar with. We've had some good people and miracles lately. Once day I called a referral on the missionary referral system, and she set up for a week later, then called back and asked if we were at the church, and said she'd just come see us. I was able to share with her about Joseph Smith a little in the chapel, while my companion and Vera talked about some stuff, since we had a lesson with her that night. A Sister Chen Wei, who I met when I came to Taoyuan for a stake activity, and loved me then and said she wanted me to come back and serve in this area, had found I was back that night, and wanted to hang out with us missionaries, so she helped me talk about Joseph Smith and truth and we invited her to come back for church. That was really cool she just came right down to the church. Her little sister is a member. I hope to see more of her.

Um, something slightly fun we did, is that the Tao ward has this party called the Elder Smith party once quarterly, because someone named Elder Smith was huge on implementing this party. What it is, is a ward activity specifically geared towards bringing family and friends and introducing them to the church in a non stress atmosphere. They played Chinese Chess with human pieces. The ward members were the pieces and two older men, were the ones saying where to move. It was kind of fun. On and off I was the ambulance who came in a picked up the dead chess pieces. We had a blanket they'd sit in and carry them off in. At first people were dramatic and it was super fun, but it did wear off a little as people got tired, so yeah..I would say it was an interesting activity...but once playing was enough. I still don't get it exactly...but maybe I'll learn eventually. I already forget how to play American chess, so maybe that's a reason it's hard for me to get the Chinese version with all these characters and stuff.

Well! That's about it this week. Love you all. See you next time.

Sister Flora Bruno

Transfer 9 Week 1: Sister Bruno in Taoyuan City with Under Four Months to Go

2010-03-15T21:43:00.001-04:00

This week we did Temple Tours again. We had a really touching experience with 3 members. 2 mothers, and one of their husbands. They were from Taizhong and came up to Taipei for a tour. Well, we went up to show them the temple book we have, which maybe one day I'll take pictures of it. What it is, is pictures that kind of run through a plan of salvation in some ways, so we review plan of salvation with the temple for our members. Well, we did this for this lady, and when we get to the place with a memorial and a lady laying flowers I usually just explain we will all die one day, then we move on to talk about resurrection and returning to God...the more important parts, but in this tour I felt prompted to mention sometimes people around us die also, then my companion testified about the comfort of knowing we'd be resurrected and return to God, and the lady, since I had talked about death had been sobbing, her husband was patting her...then I testified also about God comforting us and welcoming us home. I was a little worried, but we just continued on, to show them a movie put out by our Mission called Believe, which talks about how we need to believe in the growth of taiwan, and the gospel, etc. It's good and has pictures and music. At the end, the lady shares with us, that her oldest son recently passed away after suffering for 2 years, and that she felt some comfort in doing this tour, even though sometimes she didn't know what her son was doing. By the end, there wasn't a dry eye in the room, and Sister Collyer shared her testimony on eternal families. It was really a faith building tour. I was glad to be a part of it. That woman had some strong faith. She's been through some hard trials. I was glad to see she had such a loving and supportive husband, who could go to the temple with her, and stay by her side in her trials. So yeah. They were really wonderful and even gave us these onion cakes that were absolutely delicious after the tour. It was a special experience.

In other news, I moved again, this time to Taoyuan City (Taoyuan 1 and 3 ward). Zhongli is in Taoyuan county, so I'm back to around the same area I was born in, but not too terribly close. It's still a good 12ish minutes train ride. And the bike ride to the train station of course. I've been moving a lot lately, but not too much and I don't really mind moving. I just don't care anymore. I only have a very short time left on a mission, so I could stay here the rest, or I could move again, I'm okay with whatever. My new companion is Sister Adrienne Tedjamulia. Yeah, from the MTC, the one transfer older than me Sister Ted. Sister Ackerson is down in Danshui training...the only missionary, elder or sister, that came in this transfer, a Sister Amy Collyer. I thought this transfer would be a big massacre and kind of dramatic with so many people going home, but it was kind of smooth, only one missionary came on, they closed a couple areas...basically sister transitions were very few for some reason we all thought they would be, but it wasn't. Although, now we all think next transfer will be what we thought this would be, with some 6 new sisters coming on. This mission is seeing a lot of drawbacks in missionary numbers I think, but soon I will be home, so I won't even see the dramatic changes from what I hear. Today, from not too reliable sources, they said with my group, 45 elders were leaving. Maybe a handful are coming in. I'm not sure, but I know a lot of people will leave with us to make it home in time for school, so we won't see a lot of Elder extensions to that next transfer. That's for sure.

Within my district though, there was a lot of change. The Bali Elders were whitewashed, and just Elder Smith and Sister Ackerson stayed from before...so they will get a lot of change... My old district leader, had a hard time leaving I think. He was only there 3 months like I was, I think he had settled in. And it is not easy to hear you are going co-senior...with the way the mission has been lately, there isn't spots for people who are older on a mission and qualified to be seniors, to go senior, or stay senior companion...so with Elders they've started experimenting with co-senior. Elder You is going to be one, and in Danshui, I'm pretty sure Elder Smith is in that situation too. I bet he'll have a lot of fun though. His companion is funny. I've met him. Also Taiwanese, so they'll have no language barrier or anything. They haven't done this kind of thing with sisters (yet anyways), but it will be interesting to see how that goes with the Elders. Elder You is in Taoyuan as well, just a different ward, so I'll still see him now and again.

As for my new district, not much change happened I'm now with 4 Taiwanese Elders in my district, so that will be interesting for my companion and I to be the only Americans in our entire district. That's all on the whole mission move call madness front.

Besides that, really not much to say. I guess mostly because moving is a transition. I just got here to Taoyuan only moments ago, and we needed to directly come email since it took awhile to get here. I took my luggage down to Taipei, then waited around and said goodbye to the leaving missionaries, such as my fun little Sister Chen companion, from back in my Zhongli days...for like almost 2 hours. Then, when they got there, we went to lunch with the member who was helping Sister Allen come down, and me come up...and then finally came here. Now Danshui feels like awhile in the past, even though I just left this morning, but I've known since Zone Conference on Wednesday when President told Sister Ackerson she was training, that I was going to move. I just had to wait until Friday to know where. I've been telling people all week that I'm going to move, even before I knew where to...so yeah...it's just been another moving week. And now, I will spend the next 6 weeks trying to figure out how to get to basic places, and trying to memorize important leadership names...etc. Sister Tedjamulia will be able to help me a lot with that drill though, she's been in Taoyuan about 11 months now, so that will help a lot.

Well, that's all I feel like writing for today! I'll send pictures or something in my extra time. BYE

Oh! P.S. Funny scripture moral for the week that the Elders shared with us: Ether 15:31. Even when you feel like Shiz in the morning, you still have to try to get up. That's Elders for you. Always finding fun little principles like that. I appreciated it. Hopefully I shared that sentiment correctly.

Transfer 8 Week 6: Translating Materials for Lady Met on the Bus

2010-03-08T11:23:00.000-05:00

Monday, March 8, 2010 12:07 AM

First off, question, around Christmas time I sent a big envelope to the bishop, and wrote letters back to everyone in our ward who wrote me during Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas time, like to every priest and young woman who wrote, and to a cute little Griffin family, to the ward, and the bishop, etc...but I wasn't so positive I could read his handwriting on the address...but it never came back to me, did the ward get my letters? Nobody ever told me.

Okay, so now we are in the last week of this transfer. Once again, I feel like I don't have a whole lot to say about this week, but I'll think diligently and try to send at least a couple paragraphs. Today we are emailing in the library, so I just spent the last 20 minutes scanning in a couple pictures that I only have one copy of. If I don't move next week, I have quite a few more pictures others have given me, that I only have one copy of that I will try to scan...but I'm at a university library, and even getting on the computers took some time with figuring out a password and how to boot up in an English system...so not too much time...

What I do think was really unique this week that I want to first mention, is we had an interesting experience yesterday. Sunday during church we get a call from a lady, a Ms. Liu who said one of us gave her our number on the train. She was doing some translation work for someone, as a service, but thought her grammar was bad, and was hoping we could find time to do some service for her and help her edit her translations. We happened to have some time that afternoon and agreed to meet with her over in Danshui by the MRT station.

We didn't know if either of us would remember contacting her, or remember who she was, since we talk to plenty of people and see lots of new faces daiy, but when she arrived, I remembered vividly in my mind that contacting experience, because first of all, I sat down on the MRT (Metro) and was going to talk to the lady on my left side, when a member on my right asked if I remembered her. I didn't know her well, but after her giving me her name, I remembered her family, since her brother was accompanying our lessons once or twice a week, since his best friend was our investigator Chen Zhirou. So then, she was a little sad I knew Li Wenqi and not her, so she introduced herself a little, then, after our conversation was dying out, she motioned to the lady next to me and said she'd let me get back to missionary business...well, I felt a little pressure to have a member sitting right next to me staring at me contacting, but no sweat, I just turned the the lady and started talking to her. She was already Christian so she was really accepting of me, and the Sister Li by me, we very nice and told her she was a member and this church was great, so it was a nice little side testimony..well, I told the lady I was about to have to get off the train in 2 minutes and gave her my track with our number, and took her business card...and she started to SING to me...haha, I totally got serenaded on the bus by this woman. Well, with our new referral system and having a lot of pressure to call people, I admit a weakness of mine occasionally is to take a longer time to contact my own contacts, since we have our investigators to call and the referral system people. So then, her card sat in my desk for a little while, until she called us, especially because she didn't express extreme interest in meeting with us when I asked, but did say we could call her sometime. But it was cool that she ended up calling us when she needed some help, and we really were able to go and help her. We ended up getting half way through the translation work, then having to go because we had the Fireside in Taipei that evening, but she set up to meet with us again Tuesday morning. We shared a small message about family history and how the gospel blesses families on Sunday, and are going to try to gauge if she will be willing to listen to our message Tuesday when we finish up the translation service...I just think it's a really unique blessing how the Lord really puts people in our paths. I mean, sometimes they don't accept the gospel, but you have the opportunity to help a lot of people and put some joy in their lives, and move them on their way to be more receptive for missionaries in the future. Plus I liked the Sister Liu, she was a character...we got up and said thank you for her kindness in giving us some bookmarks, and left, and we weren't far before she came running behind us calling our names, and said, she forgot to hug us, so she had left all her stuff on the 3rd floor of the McDonalds, and ran down to hug us, then went back in McDonalds to gather up her stuff. HAHA. Interesting.

That night, we had the new member, investigator fireside in Taipei, I thought the fireside was fun. It was a little unique at the beginning because they asked my companion to play the piano and said that they would have a congregational choir singing before the fireside to help the reverence level at the beginning. I was excited to see who the choir was. Once there, I am informed that our zone in the choir, so I try to gather up some Elders to start singing, and it's not easy, but finally we get a few, and E. Worthen notices the reverence is not getting any better and invites all missionaries to the front to sing. Well, tons of Elders came, but it was a little, interesting...because for about 10 minutes, I am the only Sister up there singing at all, but then S. Steck and Zheng saw that I was alone up there, and pulled themselves away from their investigators for a few minutes to help me sing. I just thought it was amusing, how as we look out at the fireside, about half the seats in the front are empty, because all the missionaries were up front singing. Quite a few didn't come up thought, or it would have been even more funny, but I understand, because what the fireside is, is lots of new members, members, investigators come to hear the message of the month and be spiritually uplifted, so sometimes it's really hard to leave your investigators who came with you. Ours were fine and happy to watch us sing. The fireside was themed around Temples and Baptism, and I just laughed so hard and appreciated how President Grimley got up and talked about the blessings of the temple, then told everyone, if they hadn't been baptized, to get baptized quickly so they could enjoy the blessings of the temple, and if they had been, to get to their bishop and start interviewing and preparing to receive the blessings of the temple. It was so straightforward and I feel like it was really effective, because Taiwanese people respond to straightforwardness, and one of the new members after had a deeper desire to go to the temple. I saw Jasmine at the fireside, and she shared that she was so touched as she saw the pictures of the temple. I'm glad that they have that fireside to help strengthen the new members every month. I could see the strengthening effects of it.

Okay, well, I have a little bit of a headache and still have to write my President's letters, so that's my email for this week. Hopefully you find some of it interesting. Love you guys, write again next week and tell you if I move or not. There is 8 sisters leaving and some areas closing this transfer, so it will be an interesting move call for some, but you never know. We get move calls Thursday instead of Friday because of Zone Conferences...so next week I can talk about Zone Conference and move calls if anything happens in our district...Interesting little statistics, Sister Ackerson and I have now been together 6 months as companions in all...A LOT...and Elder Smith and I have been in the same exact district for 9 months (he's only got one transfer left, lucky and unlucky him. haha). Crazy how I am put with the same people a couple different times on my mission. Well, talk more next week.

Sister Flora Bruno

Transfer 8 Week 5

2010-03-04T13:21:00.001-05:00

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 9:24 PM

Hello. Again I'm sorry, but this might be kind of a fast and not too interesting of an email. This week has been a little slow, and a lot of it was dealing with a couple medical problems, so I don't know how much I can come up with to write about, but I'll try my best.

The only real investigator update that I can really think about is we are meeting with someone named Susana (Huang) who is doing really great. I guess she contacted the Shilin Elders, and started meeting with them, but they passed her over to us sisters when they realized she lived in the Beitou Area. They had already set a baptism goal with her when they passed her to us, so her date goal is the 28th I believe. So far she's doing really good, and it's completely possible that she will be baptized on her first goal. She came to church on Sunday, and just really has a testimony that she knows that God is real and will answer her prayers and comfort her. She shared her testimony with us about how before she didn't think there was a God, but one day, thought really long and hard about it, and realized if there was no God, this earth is kind of a rotten place...but when she realized God really does exist, she realized she had a lot to learn and prepare for in this life. She's really great and I just am glad to be able to teach her. She's been a great friend to us, and just loves to meet and talk. She talks quite a bit, so I feel like we are good friends and know her pretty well, because she shares a lot with us. She just called..haha to make sure we were still meeting tomorrow. So yeah! She's doing really good. We were going to share a third lesson on Tuesday, but ended up changing the lesson plan a little, because not only did neither of us feel good, but Susana just really said she knew an important part of changing is following commandments, and asked us what commandments she needed to follow, so we told her we'd share one with her, and shared just the first principle, faith, of the third, and talked about the Sabbath and its importance. She said she'd do her best to follow that commandment, such as talk to her boss and see if Sunday could be gotten off, since she changes jobs soon. I'm glad we have such an amazing investigator who is willing to put faith into action.

This past week, we did companion exchanges. We also will do them this coming week and next week, as my companion is the coordinating sister for this transfer, and needs to exchange with each Sister once(which means 4 exchanges, and we have now done 2). I stayed in my area and went senior for the day. It wasn't a piece of cake day, but went pretty well despite the fact that we had a full schedule for the exchange, then every single appointment canceled. We were able to get on the bikes, which is a rare occasion in this area, and go out towards Beitou and leave some notes on some members doors that the relief society asked us to focus on. I was able to set with with one of them, and by some kind of divine set-up, we ran into her when we went to do tours Saturday, and she was really excited for us to come over again this next week when she is actually home. I think the note really helped soften her up, because she's usually been a little standoffish towards sisters, and more attached to Elders. So I'm excited to go meet her some more.

Which reminds me, we did temple tours on Saturday and it was BUSY. I kind of liked it...a lot. Even though I've always been close enough to the city to do tours every transfer since transfer one (which means I've done it a good 15ish times now) I've never been in on a Saturday. I mean, I was sick and completely exhausted by the end of the day, with being so busy and so sick, but it was just amazing to see so many tours and miracles. The typical number of tours for us in a week, in the past, was 4 or 5 on a good day. On Saturday, we did 11. More than double what I normally do. We were able to do investigator tours, member tours, everything. We saw 9 referrals that day, and the temple sisters also were doing tours, since it's busier, so the tour saw a ton of referrals that day, and it just made me more appreciative of temple tour, because the point of it is referrals, and we were able to see quite a payout on it. Also, a really cute family walked in and said they'd passed by a couple times, and had some interest in our teachings and in primary. We were able to give them a quick tour, a Book of Mormon, and they wrote down their names to learn more about our church. I was glad I was able to be a part of the beginning of that teaching process. We saw a lot of miracles that day. Also, Chen Yiting, a new member from Zhongli came down to see me and tell me about her dating experience with a recently returned missionary. She's really cute and it was good to see her again. She really wanted to see me, so I'm glad she was able to come to temple tour and get that opportunity.

Nothing else really going on that I can think of to immediately talk about...next week my preparation day will be normal Monday again. This week it changed because we will head off to the temple in a little while. They changed how temple day works, so we just go every 3 months now, and it changes preparation day to Wednesday that day. So, I'll just have one more temple day on my mission,so I will appreciate it while I can. I know in South Carolina we don't live too super close to the temple, so the weekly MTC temple experience I had might be hard pressed to ever have again, but I think once a month or two can be good if we are focused on the purpose. I'm glad I get to go today....Write again next week.

Love you guys,

Sister Flora Bruno (Fu)

Missionary Email: Chinese New Year in Danshui, Taiwan

2010-02-22T13:20:00.000-05:00

Hello, Hello. Today we created our new email accounts. It took me personally a ridiculously long time because it was having issues and didn't recognize who I was, but I finally got it. Woohoo.

This week, there hasn't been a whole lot that went on to talk about. I have bronchitus again...I got it in the MTC, and then I got again about 2 days ago. I went to the doctor right away about it, because it got pretty extreme pretty fast, but the stuff he gave me isn't working I don't think. There has been no status change...I cough so hard I start barfing and my lungs hurt really bad. People are really concerned about me, Whitney made me some kind of soup stuff and milk and brought it to me today...so yeah, that's what's up for the immediate. It's been raining for this last week, and I think that my socks always being soaking and my feet being cold all the time is probably the reason I got sick...who knows. All I know, is I hope I get better soon, because on the mission being sick is the worst...

This week we did not do a lot of investigator work, we pretty much spent the whole week going from lunch to dinner appointments. It was Chinese New Years. We ate a LOT of good food and really were able to become closer to the members. I feel like I know more members now in this area than in any other area on my entire mission, because I spent the last week with members...I just really felt the importance of member work as we sat around the table last Sunday at the Beitou ward MM's leaders table and shared our individual conversion stories. Since that was early into the New Years (it lasts 8 days) I was able to just see how going to members could be an uplifting experience from the beginning, and was able to just have a good time the rest of the New Years. I didn't fair too bad...I weighed myself before and after, and even being fed lunch and dinner for a straight week, and eating until I couldn't eat anymore, I only gained 1.4 lbs...which I probably am in the process of losing with this dreadful cough I have.. Not too shabby! One of the Elders gained 11 lbs, but he could use it, he's a skinny guy.

I know that's not a lot, but that's really all that went on this week...nothing really new to update about...Whitney got confirmed Sunday, and is actually to my left emailing with us...well playing on facebook and MSNing while we email. haha. She came to Zhuwei to give me stuff for my cold...We've been calling people to meet with us, since the new years is over...and slowly we will transition back into a regular schedule...

I'll send pictures now because not much to write. Love you guys

Sister Flora Bruno

Writing Mission President More Regularly and Whitney's Baptism

2010-02-16T08:02:00.001-05:00

Time is flying! I'm going to write really fast this week because I finally have a jump drive, but I'm in Shipai in between New Years eating appointments, so this place is doubly expensive, so I couldn't buy 2 hours like I would normally if I wanted to send pictures. The good news though, is, like most missions (as I've heard) our mission is switching to the new email system. It was a little annoying as I got the pre-email to register in my account, despite having all the correct information, it said none of us are in the system, and when we tried to sign up, it took us to a Chinese page, and kept showing an error. We are with Shipai Elders right now (Elder Weinberger and Shumway) and none of us really understand the message, so we'll check into it again next week. President is requiring an email (previously president's letters were not TOO enforced, and most people did them every 2 or 3 weeks...but now it will be enforced) because the new system will make it convenient for us to email him, and help him know how everyone is doing (numbers wise especially) with a new graph system or something. I think it will be nice to get the new email system, it takes me like 4 minutes a picture when I send them.

As for news that happened this week...lots of stuff went on. We had Zone Conference on Wednesday. The theme this week was Using Time Wisely. We talked a lot about the importance of planning and was given examples of how to plan. The most amusing (although I think slightly apostate in some ways) part was that President's Assistants did a role play, where they were God, except they "didn't want to call themselves God" so they called themselves angelic messengers (who happened to not be able to go down personally to earth, so sent someone instead...haha so they were executive angelic messengers I guess!) Angel Worthen and Lysenko (my companion and I refer them as such these days). The content of the role play, was, they were planning on how many people they could save in the highest kingdom...in the what not to do section, they said Peter, James, and John were good...Steven perhaps could be good, but Saul potential was not high. They made some ridiculous goals and just kind of threw Steven in as Saul's peike...then ended. In their better role play, they put names to goals. They wanted to increase their numbers, so Angel Worthen showed confidence in Saul...said to help he would maybe have a rock fly out of the heavens and hit him, a messenger to talk to him...and see what they could do about converting him, since their Peike Steven couldn't peike now due to unfortunate circumstances. Something to that effect. It was just funny and had a lot of scriptural references to it. Sister Ackerson was cracking up with a small part of the crowd, but other people weren't laughing. I think it's because people didn't know how to react. Haha I personally thought it was amusing to watch the reactions of everyone around us.

Also had Presidents interviews this week, that's always fun to go talk to the Grimleys for a time. That day was a little confusing though, because we had a tour at 3 and interviews in the morning, but it ended up being fine with us doing studies at the church, it just ended up being inconvenient because our 3 o'clock didn't show up! And I'd left my stuff at the chapel! As luck would have it, Elder Carter and Elder Robertson? showed up at the MRT right then, and happened to have their bikes, and they did some service and went and got our stuff so we didn't have to walk there and back. It was tons faster. I'm thankful Elders and so willing to do service, especially since we had been waiting around and totally rescheduled stuff to be able to, only to have the girl not come because she said she was uncomfortable.

So onto something interesting, or maybe at least slightly because I am rambling, and at this rate no way I'll send pictures (especially since the Elders keep talking to us (about how fat they are getting from the new year and how they will die if they eat at our McDonalds appointment in and hour) and asking me how to spell definitely etc etc) So!

This week Yan Yuhang got confirmed! But we weren't there, because we were in Beitou/Shipai for Whitney's baptism! It was seriously a fun service!; The night before the MM leader called and asked us if we could do a musical number. He didn't want Sister Ackerson to play, because he said that would make girls too small, so Elder Mao (Beitou elder) to the rescue! He is amazing at the piano, and brought in some amazing accompaniments (which I can't spell, and neither can the others, despite the fact that Elder Shumway tried to help me out and maybe even got it right, who knows, i'm sticking with this way)...so we sung Sweet Hour of Prayer to an amazing piano part and the spirit was good. The Service went well and Whitney did a nice testimony, as did the MM leaders wife, Sister You. Haha, so onto the amusing part of the ceremony, every baptism needs a comic relief...Whitney was really cute, she brought HUGE leopard skin bag with all her stuff, even a complete change of clothes, because she didn't want to take hers off so she wore them under the baptism suit...it was cute, when she was baptized she went in and one time was enough...after we are in the bathroom, and since she completely soaked a whole outfit, it took a little while to get back to the chapel...lucky for Elder Weinberger...I hear the blowdryer going quite some time, and finally peek my head out and ask Elder Shumway if Weinberger forgot an towel. Elder Shumway laughed and said, "Worse. He forgot a little more than that!!!" HAHAHA i cracked up so hard and told my companion what happened. We both were laughing in the bathroom, and the other girls were like "What what?" And we were just like, "Nothing..." So that was the amusing part of that baptism. Everything else was really smooth. I loved that we had a baptism that went so well. The spirit was there and we were just all really excited.

As for the Chinese New Years news, I'm doing pretty good. We've been fed every lunch and dinner (and even one breakfast this morning) since Saturday, and will continue that pattern until this Saturday. I like it because I'm pretty good at just eating until I'm comfortable, but some people are not doing as well as I am, it's not the easiest thing to eat until you can't eat anymore every meal...fortunately for me I've been good and I'm handling it fine. The only drawback is I'm scared I'll be gaining some weight, but It's okay, I love doing member work and really have felt the spirit and closer to the members these last couple days as we go to their houses. It's really good to get to know them better.I love this area a lot more as I know and love these members.And plus I've been eating some good food! I'll work on getting it back off after this Saturday. For now I'm handling it fine. :)

So that's that! I have to stop writing now! Love you guys, be back on Next week!

Sister Flora Bruno (fu)

Yan Yuhang's Baptism: The Seventh Try Is the Charm

2010-02-08T08:35:00.006-05:00

Ugh. Sometimes I miss typing in a program that doesn't have a 5 minute automatic save like my nice little word documents back at home. I just typed Gen a long email, but now I'll write the family one, and if there is time switch back to the email to Gen. It seems like I lose an email at least once a transfer. There are worse things in life though. Since I'm on a mission, I realize that typing an email is lucky, since it means i don't have to write a paper letter home every week. I've been quite awful about writing paper letters ever since transfer 3 or 4. I still write people back, but I don't just write to people I think of, sporadically like before.

Okay, so this week was quite an interesting week...but the mentionable of the week first, and if there is time other things later. Yesterday night, we had Yan Yuhang's baptismal service. The talks went pretty good, and were touching. I just was smiling so hard it hurt when Yan bore her testimony about being grateful for us teaching her how to pray, and why she liked our church and such. It felt good to be part of her experience. She was definitely someone the members took great care of. Her brother-in-law is a member, so she is a referral from him, and his brother-in-laws girlfriend came all the way down from Taizhong to be with her. It was good. But, as you may remember, interesting things have happened the last few baptisms (during the ordinance part) that makes the last few people my companions and I have taught baptism quite the experience. Now, Yan Yuhang was no different. In fact, I have to say that her experience in being baptized by water takes the cake...and here's why:

You see, the church in Danshui has no built in baptismal font. Next week I'll send pictures, but this week there is no drive on this computer for that. So, the baptismal font is this...well, the best way to describe it is to say that it is a blue tank. It's kind of a weird looking thing. Nothing like a child's swimming pool in the backyard or anything. Totally unique. Well, to get you a better picture of what this was like, the entire tank itself comes to about my hips. You know, me at 4'11'' and it only comes to my hips. Well, last time there was a service, we actually traveled from Jilong to go to Chen Meishan's (who attended Yan Yuhangs baptism :) ) and the Elders had filled this thing too high, so there was a little flooding in the Primary room. Elder Smith did not want the same result this time, so they didn't fill it quite as full. In fact, I think the water was...pretty darn low. So that was problem one--low water.

Elder Scott Carlson is the one baptizing, he even calls himself Scott the baptist before he puts on his white clothes, funny joke. It's his first baptism service on his mission, so we thought it would be fun to have him be the one to perform the ordinance. He was very dedicated and practiced the prayer and the tones on her name a lot. So, he does a great job, gets through the prayer like a champ, and goes to help submerge her. Unfortunately, Yuhang's body is really tense, problem two...so her legs and arms went in, but for some reason I can't figure out, her stomach floated up. She just couldn't get low enough, it was like they she was playing limbo and not quite succeeding. Let me just tell you, it was a pretty HILARIOUS sight to see. The crowd is cracking up with laughter, I'm not much help, because I'm trying to restrain myself and not doing a good job, and Elder Carlson is a champ and does it again, no luck. Again, stomach still not going in. After three unsucessful attempts, we get enough control of ourselves to start giving advice. We tell her to relax a little more and get her as she is going down to knee on one knee, which helps him get her deeper. Unfortunately, even with this extra help, attempt 4 and 5 a knee pops up. Poor Elder Carlson, the crowd is so rambunctious, people would interrupt him and offer advice, he'd get nervous he just tried 5 times unsuccessfully and had to pull it out together...he must have started the prayer at least 15 to 20 times I think before the end. Finally, time 6, Elder Broadhead at the left calls it good, her knee went in and everything, so, she gets out of the tank, which isn't an easy task and we usher her toward the bathroom, when we hear from the right...that her elbow was not in. So, she has to get back in the tank, and this time #7 is the charm. Baptism. By complete immersion. 7 times just to make sure. We are lucky it was Elder Carlson and Yan Yuhang, because both of them are just pure examples of patience. Yuhang wasn't even bothered at all after we said it had to be complete immersion...and Elder Carlson said, oh, if she's good I'm good. So that was that, and we all got a pretty good laugh about it. We told her she was extra white and clean. It was fun because everyone there were big picture takers, so there are some good pictures of us back in the bathroom with Yuhang...and as a group at the baptism. It was very excited group, and we ate some fruit together after the service, and it just felt really fun. Yuhang was happy, and so were we. It was a baptism to remember for sure. The last 3 have been! Yuhang, Jasmine, Chen Yiting...all three of them had experiences I'll probably never forget. Too unique. :) So yeah, that was what I was up to yesterday night!

In other news, the Chinese New Year is starting Saturday. I've heard of people gaining as much as 20 pounds over the 10 days it lasts. Our schedule has already seen a hit, due to the new year, nobody wants to meet. Anyone I call to set up with, says they'd love to meet with us, after 2/21. So, I have 12 names in my planner to call on the 21st and the number grows. That's good news, but I hear our schedule will be a little nontraditional starting here soon. The nice thing is now we get to do a load of member work, as there is a feeding missionary (chikebiao) and members will feed us lunch and dinner daily, and occasionally even a breakfast or two, for the entire guonian. In America missionaries get fed pretty much nightly. Here, we eat outside from the street vendors most days, and maybe at a members once about every two weeks or so. But guonian (the chinese for chinese new year) the feed us every lunch and dinner. I hear sometimes we eat during the new years for 2 hours, then roll ourselves out the door to eat some more. I don't know how it will really be, but we have 3 wards that we regularly attend, so all three wards have put us down to feed us, sometimes we can't go, like when we have temple tour and stuff, but we are going to try to find a way to meet as many members as possible in all 3 wards. We'd love to extend sister's member work. I'm still asked in some wards sometimes "Do we even has sister missionaries in this ward?"...yes, we are them. I say it all the time :) It's because we only come every other week, so I guess it can be confusing...but no problem. Next week should be good for meeting members and an interesting time of the year. I'll tell you how the first two days went next week.

In other investigator news, Xie Huiru is doing great. We told her she was ready to get baptized and asked when she wanted to change her date to, and she wanted this Saturday, chuxi...or the first day of the Chinese New Year. She basically didn't want hardly anyone to come, she's a little scared of a huge baptism...but a bishop representative would not come for an hour baptism on chuxi. The bishop took it upon himself to interview with her and talk about it, and the end result is that since church is one hour next week, they convinced her to have her baptism after church, so next week after church Whitney will have her baptism. We are excited. She's really ready. She's been super diligent about repenting, and has changed a lot. She seems super ready, and since Sunday is guonian, she will probably get her wish, and have a relatively small baptism. Not sure though. The ward loves her. Today, the MM Leaders wife, Sister You called us and asked us to come to her house tonight to meet with Whitney. We hadn't even mentioned we were meeting with her tonight to anyone. She must have called Whitney herself. So that will be good. Sister You is a very cute return missionary with 2 children. I'm excited we can go over there and not only Whitney, but also us missionaries can get to know her better. Good things have been happening lately with Shipai. Good ward.

Chen Zhirou is also doing pretty well, still has a little bit of parent opposition. We had a little experience, her mom called the church and accused of us teaching Zhirou to swear at her and argue with her. I guess those two had gotten in a fight, and her mom was really upset. She called us to probably rant a little, and it sounded like she couldn't find her child, so she was worried. She asked a million times if she was at the church. Fortunately, that night, Zhirou said the Holy Ghost impressed her to write an apology to her mother for the means words they exchanged and gave her the note. Her mother forgave her and gave her permission to come to church on Sunday...so she came to church and the baptism. It was good for her. She got to talk to the bishop for quite some time. She's made good friends with him. The ward will really help her out I think. She played the piano for us and the ward was just amazed by her amazing piano playing skills. She's quite fast. I'm impressed too. :)

Um...let's see...not a lot more going on, Jiang Xiuwen, or Doreen didn't come to church. That made me a little sad because I really would like to see her make friends at church....that and I'd like to see her progressing in the gospel of course. I know the church will help her. She's still really willing to meet, so I think we can get her to church eventually, especially after the new year. We are going to even check and see if she can come up to Beitou for just an hour, or go to church in Yonghe and still make her goal...if not we will just move back the baptismal goal...either way I think she will progress. I've had nothing but good feelings about her since I met her. She's someone I loved very much from the first meeting, so I'll keep you updated on that. We'll go see her tonight at 6.

Hm Hm. I think that's about it for this week. Write again next week. Until then...love you guys. Jiayou!

Fu jiemei. Sister Flora Bruno

Laojie Fire

2010-02-01T09:00:00.001-05:00

Hello and welcome again to my life story from 淡水 Danshui. As for move calls, in this area it's almost like they didn't happen. Our entire district is staying the exact same, and even in the zone, one of our zone leaders is now training and opening up a new area, but same ward he was in before, so those two will live with our zone leaders...one new, one same. Also, in our 北投Beitou ward, Elder Kyle 欧杨 Olsen is moving down to 台东 Taidong..we both go home at the same time, so when Sister Ackerson 孙 and I said bye yesterday, we were like, see you when we are headed out together! haha. So yeah, not a big change feeling. With the exception of Elder Olsen, everyone else is still around. So that's exciting.

I actually felt it this week that we'd stay together. We had two investigators that would have been really upset if either of us moved. When we talked to Whitney about move calls, she teared up a little. I felt really bad and hoped neither of us moved as she said she had a hard time with change and she bonded with us...She said she'd been praying for a week already that neither us or the 石牌 Shipai Elders would move. And, none of us did. She's doing really great and she really understands and desires forgiveness for her past sins. She still is overcoming the Word of Wisdom, but she is doing a great job, and she continues to come to church weekly, whether we are there or not, so that should help her faith a lot.

Also in investigator news, Yan Yuhang 严宇航 is doing really good too. She is going to do her interview tonight and wants to get baptized on Friday so her brother in law can do it. However, since this last week, she couldn't get out of her house (she can only come meet us at the church if her husband is home to take care of her child) she hasn't done her interview, so we didn't announce the baptism on Sunday, so if she passes tonight, us missionaries will be doing a lot of calls to schedule together a baptism, especially since our MM leader in this particular ward pretty much doesn't even like his calling, we never have meetings and we aren't helped much in that aspect, so I hear baptisms are missionaries arranged here...usually it's half and half...but either way, I'm willing to go through whatever to make it so our investigators have a positive baptism experience...so yeah, if everything goes according to the wants she expressed, we should have a baptism on Friday...if it can't be thrown together, we'll just do it next week, but I don't see why we couldn't get it all together. We did spend quite some time yesterday trying to get it worked out so she could get her interview tonight, since we can't use the church on Monday nights, and the Elders and I will just have to spend a little of Preparation day doing an interview (Elder Kyle Broadhead and Elder You ?Sen 游？森 (sorry dad forgot his Chinese name...well one character) are so good to us). Yeah so we will have an interesting next week! But that can be talked about next week.

In other this weeks news, 陈芝柔Chen Zhirou is doing really great. She meets with us 2-3 times a week, and will even set up with us herself. We set up to go do a Temple Tour in Taipei on Thursday, so I thought we were set up for the week, and Zhirou asks, when are we going to have class at the church this week? We haven't scheduled yet! So we found some time on Tuesday afternoon after WPS to do it. I don't know how to help her father allow her to get baptized, 我还在想办法。 I'm still thinking of a way.HAHA. But yeah, she's doing great! I hope she can make her date.

And also we are meeting with a 江 Jiang Doreen who set a date in 5 weeks. He desire is strong. She's amazing. We taught second, and we went over her part to return to God (the gospel of Jesus Christ) just as an overview, and she got out pen and a paper to write it down! If that's not a good investigator I don't know what is. She still hasn't come to church, but she said she will next week. I'm excited about this week, we aren't teaching a million lessons, but our progressing investigators are progressing really great! So yeah, the area is still doing awesome.

And now, for the final story of the week, and maybe the most interesting thing that happened this week, Sister Ackerson and I had a day where we had a ton of lessons, and to make a long story short, we thought we had to go to Beitou next, and did, but we were supposed to be in Danshui to meet with Yan...so basically we stood her up. When she called and we realized we were wrong in our appointment order, we felt awful, but our area is too huge there was no way we could ask her to wait and come...but instead of eating dinner in Beitou when we had some time, since we felt like complete crap, we went back to Danshui and bought some flowers for Yan and left the on the doorstep and ran. She said we were too dramatic and she forgives us of course, and isn't upset, but we wanted to do something nice! Well, after we ran...we are about a block up, and Yan calls...so Sister Ackerson is on the phone telling her we just wanted to do something nice......and I notice a huge black smoke in the air...I'm thinking about how bad the Taiwan pollution is...when 3 Fire trucks whiz by with their sirens on. I can't even hear Sister Ackerson, but it clicks and I tell her to look at the big black smoke in the sky! 老街 Laojie is on fire! And we were on Laojie!! (jie 街 means a small street in Chinese ) So we walk towards the MRT back to Beitou, but walk along the coast, and find out that this HUGE coast guard type boat is completely engulfed in flames. Unfortunately we can't read the news, so I'm unsure the entire story behind it, but that's what we did for dinner that night, watch a boat go up in flames, and drop up flowers. It was crazy to watch the firefighters wait for the boat to come into shore, and there were standing in the cold weather with the hose trying to get the fire out...and some other boat starts getting close and spraying it too. I got videos and pictures, I'll send a few pictures, and the videos with a CD or something maybe next month when I have some money. It was crazy. There was a huge crowd watching. It's strange we ended up being in that place just when a huge boat was burning...that doesn't happen every day. I was really entranced. It was crazy! And that's the only thing really of note. Love you guys, have a good week. Write me and send pictures! ha.

Sister Flora Bruno. Sistah Fu4. 傅

Status of Work in Danshui, Taiwan Taipei Mission

2010-01-25T09:20:00.000-05:00

Pretty much all I have to say this week is that this area is going great. Usually there are dramatic moments in every transfer, but there has been no drama this transfer and it is wonderful.

I've really gotten to see the Lord's hand in this work this transfer since we aren't teaching a million lessons, but our investigators that our progressing are doing really great! The Lord really has prepared people and it's amazing to be a part of his work. He will help us find, teach, and as they have been emphasizing so much lately, baptize. Yan yuhang came to church on Sunday and I'm pretty positive she will make her 2/7 goal. She has really made friends in the ward and she's good about keeping her commitment. She's what Sister Ackerson and I call the real deal. She came last night to a dinner one of the members had for 2 of their birthdays, and it was really good. She stayed longer than we did. Her child is the cutest thing ever. I'm going to try to take a picture with him and send it to you so you can see. His hair just spikes up really high. I love it.

This week was just pretty normal, we had some really good lessons with Chen Zhirou and Whitney (Xie Huiru). I really felt the Holy Ghost this week. They are both doing great and progressing well. We just need to figure out the best way to go about talking to Chen Zhirou's parents. I've been scared to even talk about it, but we will talk about it this week and probably do a fast with her. Whitney is doing good, she came to church in Shipai this week. We did splits because we had to be in Shipai and Danshui. It was a little hard on the members I think, but this awesome Sister Sun (pronounced sooen) came with her old father and picked me up. It was HARD to get him up the huge hill that Beitou church is on top of, we switched off pushing his wheelchair and I was TIRED. I felt bad because she isn't a super young lady, but she's strong! She's awesome. But yeah, she had to leave after Sunday School, so I was really worried during RS who would take me back to Zhuwei...the only person I really knew was Whitney, who is amazing and would be willing to do it for me, but since missionaries rules are stricter, it pretty much needed to be a member unless there was no other choice. But the Relief Society president helped me find Chen Xiangru who was really good. She had Whitney drive her scooter to Shipai and walked with me from the Beitou church to Zhuwei. I'm grateful she was so willing and we had a really good talk. Members are so great to me. I'm really glad for their support. I really would have a hard time without such great members.

This Friday we will get move calls. No idea what will happen since my companion and I are the same transfer, anything really could. I'd like to stay together for one more transfer, but really I'm fine with anything. Whatever God's will is, I know that's the best choice. I probably won't have too many more areas on my mission, if I move, that will probably be my last area my whole mission. When the assistants shared about the way move calls worked, I realized when I went senior companion, I'd die in that area in all likelihood. It was a strange thought. I'm an old missionary now. I get my "death letter" next transfer. It feels like I'm still relatively new. The mission passes by fast! But no matter what happens, I've had a lot of fun this transfer, and I'm glad I got to be here in Danshui. I love you guys! I need to go clean out my mailbox. You can send lots of pictures next week. haha bye.

Sister Flora Bruno (or as they call me in Taiwan--Sister Fu

Subway Tracking

2010-01-18T09:24:00.000-05:00

Hi again. This week has gone pretty good. As a couple of you noticed, I passed through another birthday, becoming 22 years old. And in case you are wondering why that sentence is a little strange, I've started to directly translate Chinese at times, as I'm getting lazier. Whatever language I think in, that is what comes out, so the strange English is mostly direct translation problems...although it might partly be due to the fact that I haven't been writing a million and a half papers a week for a little over a year now, so I'm actually slightly worried about my English. I think my plan when I get back is (and mom you better be prepared for this one since you sold my old bike back in Vernal..haha) that mom and I are going to go biking every day and do a work out program so I can lose weight while I'm jobless. No time on a mission, my companion and I have a diet plan we call operation Dumbo, but it's ruined most days, so I'm thinking losing weight will have to start when I get home...ESPECIALLY since Chinese New Years is next transfer, and I'm not sure if this is a rumor or not, but it doesn't feel like it...I'm pretty sure we will get fed until we are bursting full twice, if not three times a day...the wards told us to be ready for 2nd dinners sometimes. I'm terrified. Especially because something I've never acquired a taste for on my mission is seafood...the thought of eating a shrimp or clam makes me a little sick inside...I can handle some of it, like BBQed squid, but the large majority makes me ek. Well, as part of the New Years here, everyone eats something called Hot Pots. It's a soup filled with vegetables, and other Chinese assortments such as...seafood (shrimp, clams, fish balls, weird fish stuff you'd never find in America) , pigs blood (yes they eat pigs blood here), meat, cabbage, and a white clear noodle. I love the noodles and cabbage and meat...but there is always about half of a hot pot I'm not so hot on. So, you'll have to ask me after Chinese New Years how I like seafood. I might like shrimp again. I used to like shrimp fine in america, but here they have little white ones, and then the ones like America, but the little white ones ruined shrimp for me, with their little black eyes all over my cabbage in my lunch boxes all looking at me disturbing my peaceful rice eating habits.

But yeah, that's not for another month, so I still have time...in this weeks news, our investigators are mostly doing pretty good. We had two pretty hard hits Saturday night, but all is well. First one was that Christine has said she decided to get baptized in another church. We will see her tomorrow morning and discover more about that, but she had been coming to church the last three, so it was a little confusing. Also, Chen Zhirou, turning 18 in a couple weeks, asked her father to sign the permission form, and he won't. He said she can get baptized when it is her own decision, which in most countries is 18...but for a reason I still haven't figured out, it is 20 in Taiwan. She called us sobbing and asked what she could do. I tried to comfort her, but I'm not really sure what path we can take. Her member friend was really upset and was fasting her yesterday at church. We will discuss it more in companion study as the week progresses, but right now I'm kind of at a loss. We've had tons of parents not wanting to sign problems, and I've never seen a parent who changed their minds, although others have, so there is still hope. She really wants to get baptized, and said she shared scriptures with her dad even, so I know she's ready, but even if she has to wait 2 years, I have high hopes for her. I do hope we can talk to parents and her fathers heart can be softened.

In other investigator news, this week Yan yuhang came to church with her little son. She's progressing so well, and there is still a really good possibility she will make her 1/30 baptism goal. We will meet with her Wednesday to prepare her for interview Saturday. We taught her the Word of Wisdom this last week, and even though she drinks tea, she was very willing to try out the repentence process and quit her addiction. I love her a lot. And her son is really precious. She's really quite a strong woman, to be in a new country at 22 with a son. So yeah, she's doing amazing!

Then, Whitney (Xie Huiru) is also doing really well. She finished testing and was able to start meeting with us. We taught her the first lesson, and she made a baptism goal for March and she's very cute and willing to work with us. She has been coming to church every week, and is just really friendly, so people like her a lot. I've already had a couple members tell me they really like her. She added me on Facebook I think, I gave her my address and told her my dad would probably add her.

My birthday was amazing. Sister Ackerson made it really great. She went all out. She made me breakfast in the morning, so I had that waiting for me with a card and everything when I woke up. Also, we met the Elders at Subway, and even though Elder You and Broadhead had to jet immediately, they gave me a cute headband that Elder You attached a ridiculously funny, but hideous huge green ball to. The best part was the Elders made me a card and Elder You2 drew me on the envelope with my proselyting bag and a pig and panda poking out...I used to always carry the pig, but I bought a tiny stuffed panda at the zoo last week, and now switch off. Mostly the panda these days because Sister Ackerson likes him and hates the pig, but with every other companion it will probably be the pig. The little stuffed animal is useful to have when little kids are around. Also E. Broadhead wrote a sweet message on it. Other things done for my birthday was that on Saturday Nikki (a beitou member) took me out to eat steak, it was really good, and she gave me a super cute blush. Nikki is fun to be with and super good to us. Also, Whitney called me on my birthday twice. Once herself, and once to have the Shipai Elders sing Happy birthday to me. Then Saturday she gave me a beautiful green scarf. I really like it and wore it that day. E. Smith and Carlson also called in the morning to sing happy birthday. And Sister Grimley called me that night to ask how my day was. It was really sweet of her.

This week, we had to go down to Taipei because Sister Ackerson needed a power of attorney for her school loans that were having some problems, so we had some extra time not filled up on my birthday and went to take care of that. During our lunch break, we had a couple extra minutes, and got some sweet jumping picture shots because we saw a really good view of Taipei 101. Then, on the way home, we ran into this black man named Roddy. He was really friendly to us and asked if we were the Mormons. We said we were, and he shared with us about how he had this thing every Saturday where they talked about the family as a important social unit, and started talking about a lot of things we found to be true as well. Such as the vital need for a restoration and what the Bible said about the need for a restoration. He wanted us to come on Saturday to his wife and his seminar, but it wasn't in our area, it's down by the missionary headquarters, so we couldn't do that...but it was just really interesting to chat with him. Towards the end, it did go a little bad as we felt like he started a bible bash. He didn't agree with Joseph Smith's vision as he is strongly of the opinion that God is a Spirit and has to be a Spirit so he can have feminine, masculine, and neutral, or he couldn't have made man and woman...and also he didn't think the sin in the garden wasn't eating a fruit, but was conjugal. So yeah, first encounter I've had like that on my mission, but I thought it was unique, and we were lucky, because the guy was friendly to us, even if he disagreed with some points we believe. I can see what led him to believe what he does, as his wife is muslim and he talked about the merging of religions to get a truth. We didn't argue at all, but told him we'd tell Elder Lakes (the Elder in his area he already is in and out of touch with) that we ran into him.

Then, to continue or weird experience with English speaking people (or as we call them in Taiwan out country people aka foreigners)..just after we parted with Roddy, riding up the station at the Taipei Main Station to switch to the Danshui MRT line, a kid going the other way on the escalader is like, "HEY SISTERS!!!!!!! I'm from UTAH!!!!!!!!" And Sister Ackerson said "Awesome, come back up", but he didn't so we just kept walking..haha.

Then, actually I can't remember what day, but I was standing on the MRT, we were going back to Zhuwei and I sat down and had this STRONG impression like there was somebody I was supposed to talk to. But someone specific. I've never had that strong of a, find someone specific feeling. Usually I just look around and see who the Spirit has me talk to, but this time, it was a...you need to find someone feeling. So there I am, searching. The person right next to me seems wrong, and won't even look at me...and I just notice the white man grading papers across from me. I get scared to talk to white people, they aren't as nice, so I thought maybe him...so a stop away from our stop, I get up after translating a temple tour card to English, since I had nothing in English, and try to hand it to this English teacher. But he has headphones in, so even though I say HEY in a LOUD voice and kind of wave my arm around in front of his face, he's so focused (or so doesn't want to talk to me) that there is absolutely no reaction. I think to plan two and wonder if I should shove the temple card on his lap as I step off the train. I wasn't getting off the MRT until I gave SOMEONE church material...When this boy standing up (the teacher was sitting down) asks me in perfect English, "Hey are you Mormon, I've always been interested in religion but every time I just get stuck because I feel like it's hard to believe that anyone is listening?" I was able to have about a 20 second conversation with him and invited him to church and shoved all the pamphlets I could at him (well only three but whatever) but yeah, I know I was supposed to talk to him. I really hope he comes to church. I should have just stayed on an extra stop and got his information for the Elders. My companion and I agree that if we ever need to, we can just stay on a stop over to talk to someone then ride back. We both pay good attention of where each other are at. But at least I got to talk to him, and he talked to me, not the other way around. So that was lucky.

And, in more contacting on the MRT experiences (we spend a LOT of time riding from place to place on the MRT which is why I am almost completely broke this month, but no problem, I can use my birthday money on every day living, so thanks for that) there was a day this week that we happened to be leaving the church the same time as the Shipai Elders, so we headed out to the MRT together, and they had to head out to Shipai, and we were heading to Zhuwei, so we went to different platforms (but you can still see each other from the platforms) and E. Weinberger is acting a little crazy across the platform, trying to charade to us to get our butts contacting. My companion was good and talked to a group of students, but I rolled my eyes and thought, I'll contact if the spirit prompts me to, not just because Elder Weinberger is over there putting positive peer pressure on us and talking to all the teenage girls surrounding him (school must have just gotten out, and for some reason their platform was covered with teenage girls and ours with teenage boys)...and a split second after I had that thought, I looked across the platform and saw a lady I felt prompted to talk to. Her name is Jiang..Doreen. Sister Ackerson was able to come back after talking to the teenagers, and we were able to set up with her in the time we were riding back to Zhuwei and answer a lot of questions she had about us. She met with us on Saturday and it was a really good first lesson. She lives alone out by the beach in Sanzhi and is a secretary down in Taipei. She is just really friendly and she seems very real. Sister Ackerson and I are really excited to start teaching her. She can meet Saturday's, so we will see her again next Saturday.

Ugh, random thought, but this week, instead of sitting next to a nice lady who speaks English, I'm sitting next to a gross old man who is looking at pornography, and I'm really quite disgusted, so I'd like to add my kick to the fact that pornography is gross and addictive. And to avoid it at all costs.

And now that I've gotten that kick out...hmm what else? The Elders want to go down to a technology street today where you can get stuff cheap. Elder Broadhead is getting a new camera, and originally I considered buying a camera for my birthday like dad suggested, but came to the conclusion that I really am too poor and would rather live out this month without starving, plus I'm not sure how much a camera runs at anyways, so just to prepare you ahead of time, you know like a year ahead of time, for Christmas next year I'd like a nice camera. haha. (I was a little jealous when Desi told me what she got) :) I've never had a really nice one and I always have to use other missionaries camera to take decent pictures and beg them to give them to me through Facebook or something after the mission. Mine is ridiculous. I'm glad all my companions have better cameras that aren't tied shut with a rubber band and wont capture the view behind us, because through them I've gotten nice pictures...and pretty sure every one of my companions should have pretty sweet cameras, most missionaries do, so they've got my back on my mission. haha. :) Okay this is long enough and i'm talking about cameras because I still have like 20 minutes left online...we bought 2 hours today...sister ackerson had some stuff she needed to write..but I need to just wrap up and stop rambling. basically not sure what we are doing today, probably going with the Elders because they want us to, but it won't take all day, so we'll figure it all out later. Whatever happens it should be fun! I love preparation days. Talk to you all again next week. Love you guys. Later.

Sister Flora Bruno

New Cellphone Referral System

2010-01-11T11:41:00.001-05:00

Sunday, January 10, 2010 8:00 PM

Hello again from Danshui (or technically I live in Zhuwei, but whatever). This week was quite the interesting week! This area is way different from my other areas, as that we do a LOT of travelling, so instead of finding ourselves booked at the church all day when we are busy, we find ourselves traveling the MRT from Shipai, to Danshui, to Beitou, etc. It's a new type of busy, and I'm getting way better at contacting. On bikes you have maybe 30 seconds to plant a little seed and make a fast invite, so people usually just drive off, it's a rare special person who will set up...but on the MRT and Buses, you just are friendly, ask where they are going, and BAM you know how long they are stuck sitting next to you for. And as such, I can contact accordingly. It's nice and I've gotten a couple numbers. This week and next week are finals before their Chinese New Year vacation begins. Everyone says to call them in 2 weeks, but I hear a lot of people will say call me after Guonian once the new years comes. I'll keep on it in both cases.

In other news, we have started a new referral system using our cell phones based off the Taizhong system. I like it a lot, as our area is big, and this is an easier way to track referrals. That way we know how many times we've called, we know who has no interest, as the uninterested are wiped off the system and just remain in the potential investigator records I diligently keep these days...and if they say call in a month, you can tell the phone they weren't interested for a month, and it will take them off until the time passes. We are still figuring it out, but it's nice.

This week I had interviews with President Grimley. He asked about my language study plan and I showed him my character study methods. Then, I asked him about post mission if he had any advice for me. He asked a lot of questions about what I was doing pre-mission. His final advice was to follow the jobs because of the economy and my major being more of a big business type. He suggested, if you guys were willing, to start looking into options for me, so I wouldn't be at a complete loss of things to do when I get home, so i know 6 months is still a little while to be getting home, but yeah, it would be nice if you guys could start looking into my field and see what someone with no job experience and this random technical writing degree could get in America, Charleston area in particular. And particularly, is there any type of job I could get in a law office with my degree for a little while to earn money while I prepare for the LSAT (again) and apply for schools? Not sure what I want to go into, sometimes I think about going into library sciences like dad and looking into that profession too, and I think about law school, but those are the only 2 "thoughts" I really have on the future. I probably can't be too picky when I get home, I just need a job.

Then, I thought our interview was over and he asked if I felt I was ready to go senior. It kind of shocked me he asked I thought that's something they just asked senior companions about juniors, but I guess it shouldn't. I know Gigi went senior fast, but right now in my mission, I'm pretty average age for coming up for consideration. Everyone who came on with me (sisters) with the exception of my companion are still juniors, but will come up soon for consideration, and there is one that has been here a considerable amount longer who will come up first, but there just weren't a TON of sisters coming in these last couple...but I realize not this transfer, but the one afterward, a ton of people will go home. It was kind of a shocking realization for me, because believe it or not, junior companion is the life. We get to throw in our input when we have it, but we don't have to be final decision makers, we don't have to put together a plan every day...there's just a lot of stress that is given to seniors I've never had to deal with. But, just in case I do go senior, I'm glad President kind of prepared me by asking that question. I'd never SERIOUSLY considered I might go senior one day. Haha. But I kind of hope to be in this area with Sister Ackerson for 2 transfers, but I can't be picky. We'll see what the Lord wants.

This week has been really good for our area. We met with a lady who has been coming to church a Sister Yan. She's from Mainland China, and she is sooo good! She had tons of questions about baptism, and after she mentioned she hadn't been baptized at the beginning of the lesson, we told her we'd set a date with her after the lesson. She then would refer back to baptism lots of times during the lessons, and would ask what she'd be wearing, and other such questions. We set her for 1/30 this month, as she's already been going to church with a relative. She also is really willing to meet, so we will be able to be in good contact with her to prepare her. She committed to reading the Book of Mormon every day before we even invited her. She said she has a lot of time, she can read it. Her thing is she just moved from mainland and doesn't have a lot of friends, so I REALLY hope she can make a solid friend base at church. She needs it with her family so far away. She has one son.

In other news, I went to the Shipai ward this week, so my companion and I split and went to 2 wards at once. As such, I was able to give a talk in both Shipai and Beitou (I skipped out on Shipai for 30 minutes because I knew I was supposed to speak in Beitou sacrament meeting). I felt like it was a really positive experience and got to know a lot of members. I also was able to be with our investigator Xie Huiru, or Whitney. Whitney is really awesome! She tests this week, but starting saturday she told me she could see us all the time, since she has a 5 week break. The Shipai Elders met her here at a Family Mart, which 7-11's, and Family Marts, and OK Marts are on every corner here in Taiwan. They call her the Quan Jia girl (Family Mart in Chinese). We get along really well. She wanted to take me out for food on Sunday, but I had to refuse. When I told her it was a commandment not to buy stuff on Sunday, she said "After I'm baptized, I'll never do it!, but I'm not baptized, so I'll buy you lunch today if you want!" Yeah, we'll have to teach her sabbath soon and commit her to it, but I thought it was amazing she already committed after baptism to keeping it, and nobody's really taught her a single lesson yet, she hasn't had time...but she did already commit to coming to church EVERY week, meeting with us all the time when she didn't have school...and has come to church and the fireside in Taipei the last few weeks. She's really cute and it's really a miracle to have such awesome people as investigators.

Also, Chen Zhirou is really cute. She went to an hour of church yesterday and said she really had a peaceful experience there.

Someone is talking to me right now (in English), she's a really friendly lady who lived in America, orginally from Taiwan, so I might not get a lot written...

So back to Chen Zhirou, she just called us and said she had a great time at church, she made a baptism goal for the 27th, but she really wants to get baptized around her birthday, the 5th, so she wants to move it up to the 7th (the first week of next transfer)...we told her we'd discuss it Tuesday...She can do it if she commits to coming to church the next two weeks, all three hours, and meets with us twice a week, but she's really going to need to show dedication to keeping the commandments, so we'll plan a really awesome lesson and see how prepared she is this Tuesday.

Today we are going to the zoo. It's a really cheap activity here, and we are EXCITED to see pandas. They sleep in the afternoon, so I had to get permission from the Assistants, I called E. Worthen, ya know, because he's my old ZOne leader, he should be my buddy...and he gave me permission to go early...but he gave me a condition (and I have to keep it for my whole districts permission!!) it was on a point of being more obedient, being my old zone leader he knows me better than the other assistant. I thanked for his invite to repentence and accepted. I will be more obedient this week...haha.

This last week we've really noticed the Assistants responsibility for inviting people to repent...as we've gotten it a little from both Assistants, and heard stories a lot this week. They did training after Presidents interviews and we talked to them for a few minutes as we waited for the Zone leaders to train with us. It's interesting, but I will just say, E. Scott and Worthen are good at their jobs. Haha.

Yep, that's pretty much what's going on in my life, I'm going to go invite this lady to church while she's here in Taiwan for the next month before she goes to Mainland, then the zoo, see you next Monday!

Questioning Whether A Mission is Worthwhile

2010-01-04T08:52:00.000-05:00

Monday, January 4, 2010 3:35 AM

This week was quite the week for me. I have done some stupid things, but I think I've learned a lot. I mean, learn from your mistakes right? At least, I hope I'm learning. Sometimes with all the talks I read such as "The Fourth Missionary" I wonder how useful it is to be on a mission. I mean, it's hard to be exactly obedient and I haven't been good at it, I try to improve all the time and I feel like every transfer I get a little better, but I still just am so far from perfectly obedient, and it's hard because it says in that talk if you aren't perfectly obedient and have charity, your mission doesn't change you at all and it was pretty worthless. Then I feel pretty crappy and wonder if I'll ever be the 4th missionary and my mission will be worth it at all. I hope so, but right now I'm still figuring it all out. I kind of wish I hadn't read that talk. It kind of upset me. I wonder why. It doesn't sound like a false doctrine concept. I guess it's just one hard to swallow, because it's not hard to come on a mission and come home in vain. In fact, I can't promise I won't. But, I'm trying to not.

This week all I can really remember is that we had a temple tour sisters training. It was really good. Last time we had one was 2 transfers ago, and although I liked it, I felt like I'd never be at a point where my Chinese was good enough to give a tour like the tour sisters did it. So, it made me really scared in some ways to watch how amazing they were. But I had a hope and I really learned to appreciate what those sisters do there in the Taipei chapel. This time, I didn't have a hopeless feeling at all. I understood the whole conference (it was completely bilingual, as one of the trainers were speaking English, and the next one would switch off and speak Chinese, they both stuck to their native language) and I'm pretty sure I can mirror them in what they taught. I was glad for the training and really think I learned how to ask some good solid questions to people who come in to take the tour.

Training was Thurday, and we actually had tours ourselves Tuesday. A really interesting girl came in and asked us to pray for her. We offered to take her on a tour. About 5 minutes in, Sister Ackerson stopped the tour. The girl would say REALLY strange things to everything we asked and the Spirit as completely not there. We actually said a prayer with her, since that was her original request. We got her information and expected her to leave, but she wouldn't. She started telling us stories that made NO sense. She was going crazy out of her mind. All I really got is she got extremely jealous at a boyfriend in America, and got deported back to Taiwan since her boyfriend didn't want to get married or something. She said she was baptized years ago, but didn't really believe our church was the only true church, but she did say a million times that it's all black and white with the Mormons. She wouldn't leaven for about an hour and a half, and just told us stories that made no sense. We felt really uncomfortable, but we were nice the whole time. It just made me feel so bad for her. This girl, who was clearly not right in her mind, and she was hurt. Not sure if she was originally crazy, or her situation drove her literally crazy but I felt so bad for her. I wished I could help her, but there was nothing I could do except get her information and pass her onto the people who serve in her area. I was glad to know that Heavenly Father gave her an opportunity to at least come to the truth to feel the good feelings in the chapel, even if it as just for a few minutes. She wrote some crazy things in her Book of Mormon about how she just wouldn't take the fruit like Eve and stay foolish forever, and then we said we had to go to dinner, and we all left. Wow. a mission is full of lots of interesting experience.

As for Danshui news, this week my companion and I have seen a lot of miracles. Members have given us referrals, people let us in doors tracking, and an investigator who was too busy to meet with before has been reading the Book of Mormon, and read in Alma that she needed to be baptized, so she wants to meet in an hour and know what she can do to prepare for baptism. Further proof that the Book of Mormon really really really is true. It really teaches us the principles and fullness of Jesus Christ's complete gospel. People can find answers on how to obtain happiness in this life, and return to Heavenly Father's presence in the next. The Book of Mormon is amazing! I love it so much and I know that it is true.

I love you guys! Write again next time.

Sister Flora Bruno.

Jasmine's Baptism

2009-12-29T09:06:00.001-05:00

Sunday, December 27, 2009 11:32 PM

This week has been fine, not a whole lot to update on. This week has not exactly been the most productive and we have the lowest numbers of my whole mission, but when I got here my companion was SUPER sick. She felt really bad about being so sick, but the thing about a missionary, is if you go out in the wet and cold when you can't even talk in the first place day after day, it never gets better. Which, is what she'd been doing for 2 weeks and kept getting worse. We went and saw a doctor who put her on a lot of drugs and stuff, and now, a week later, she's a lot better, so next week should be a lot more busy, at least I hope so...I'm not sure what it is, but a lot of times I move to areas that aren't exactly dead, but they are in transitions, so I get there and it's a rare investigator or 2 that are coming to church or progressing. We supposedly are the sisters for 5 wards. I know we technically go to two, and I'm not sure what our rights are on the other wards I know we at least have investigators passed over at times, if we find someone in those areas we teach them, and the Elders ask us to help withlessons such as the Law of Chastity for their females... so I'd like to find out, and if I'm in this area long enough, if we really have the rights to attend the wards too. At least the Shipai one. With so many different wards, I think a lot of good membership work could be done in this area. I just by no means want to step on any Elders toes. I'd just like to do more finding work through members, which means get to know more members. It's all not certain how long I'll stay though, and it's going to take a lot of thinking, since all the chapels are in 4 different places of 5, and even the two wards that meet together are at the same time...so we switch off going to Danshui or Beitou every week, so that's already hard to get to know the members, if I'm only here a transfer, they would have seen me 3 times only at church. So yeah, we'll discuss it more at WPS what we can do to pump up such a large area that doesn't have a whole lot going on right now. I see a lot of contacting next week, but if we do things right, plan and stuff, after a week of contacting, and planning we should be able to fill up our schedule with appointments, especially since there is a lot of travel involved, so eventually contacting should be on way to appointments. That's always the ideal, but its just not the case right now. I'm not sure why, but that's how it was when I got to Jilong too. It ended up being built up. I guess every area goes through it.

As for any information of anything we did this week, the news is in Jilong. Saturday I had permission to go to Jasmine's baptism. It was amazing, but quite an interesting experience as well. I felt really self concious because it wasn't my area and I didn't want to get in the other sister's way, but they were both really good. They had me introduce her and sit next to her. They sat next to her mom so they could get to know her mother better. I felt the spirit so strongly at her baptism and I know Jasmine was one of the most prepared people I have had the opportunity to meet on my mission. It was actually really not the perfect baptism for her, but she responded positively to pretty much everything. First, the boy she asked to baptize her, has a bad habit of being late. I remember last last week when she asked him to baptize her, she asked if he was going to be late. He even laughed at that. But then, he was honestly late!!! I got up and introduced her after a song and prayer...I got to talk about how helpful she was, from the first moment she met us how she wanted to know if we were lost and help us out, and how she would teach us as she learned to apply the scriptures in her life extremely fast...then I sat down and a new member Yiting gave a talk. I noticed towards the end of the talk Michael was still not there, and told the Elders to call him. They got up and stood in the back. After
Yiting, us missionaries did a little musical number from the primary hymn book. He finally showed up in his clothes during the musical number and sat in my seat. Then, it looked messy as we all had to change chairs since he was sitting in one of ours. Right after the number was the baptism, so he was barely in the nick of time...but he didn't show up early like he was supposed to! So, they never practiced. They get in the font, which was cold, and he baptizes her good, totally under, but then E. Leavitt is like...Um, you are raising the left hand to the square! So then, they had to do it again, but her knee came up, so they had to do it a third time. In the locker, she was cold and was like, OH MICHAEL, it's all his fault, I couldn't breath. But she got over it really fast and told me she was scared the first time, so God gave her the opportunity to do it so she wasn't scared and so that she was extremely clean.

She talked as she bore her testimony about how she was scared and it was really dark so she said a prayer, and before she even said Amen, S. Kunzler and I said hi. Then she talked about how she went to church a lot, but it never felt RIGHT. But, when she met us she was really able to read the Book of Mormon and feel the love of a Father in Heaven, a love she was never able to feel from a Father growing up. It was a beautiful testimony and I was touched that we got the opportunity to teach such an amazing girl! She really strenghted my testimony. I know that God will put us in people's paths who are prepared and willing to hear the gospel if we are doing what's right. That night we met her at the bus stop, we were just on the way to another lesson. Jesus performed miracles on the way, and I've noticed that us missionaries can do a lot of good on the way as we open our mouths and use the Spirit and faith. The Spirit is so important in our lives! Always live worthy of his guidance. I've learned it is just so important to have the Spirit as our guide. And that's the promise after baptism, is the Spirit. It's so important to us as we do the endure to the end part of our lives. How blessed we are that Heavenly Father gave us such a happy path to follow his Son. The only way. I read an article this week that helped me realize that the only intelligent way to do things, is the obedient way in which we give our will to God. I'm in no way perfect, but every day I'm trying to be a little more better. I hope you all can do the same.

I'm excited that I'm still in this area, I should see Jasmine Sunday at the monthly Taibei fireside, so there were no tearful goodbyes like with Sister Kunzler when she went far to Xinzhu. Just a see you all Sunday. We left
right away after the service because I did not want to be home late. We go t home in plenty of time.
At church this week, we went to Beitou and the member support there is really amazing. I was happy to meet people who are so supportive of the missionaries.

That's my week here! I love you guys! See you next week!

Sister Flora Bruno

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

2009-12-21T12:06:00.000-05:00

Monday, December 21, 2009 2:53 AM

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

Now for the exciting news before I have to go (but worry not, I will call Friday) my new area is...DANSHUI. But even more exciting, my new companion is my own truely, MTC companion, Sister Mackenzie Ackerson! We both were shocked, in the best way possible. In this area, we don't ride bikes, so I went from the rainy, hilly Jilong, to Danshui, Betou, Shipai, Tianmu, Shilin (yeah our area is huge so we ride the Metro (MRT) a fast bus throughout the Taipei area. The rumor is Danshui is the coldest place in the mission, but I don't care...I'm cold but happy, and Jilong was pretty cold, so far not a HUGE difference. But to tell a super fast exciting experience, on move calls my district leader said I'd freak out, I was like, "I will not unless I'm going to Danshui to be with Sister Ackerson" and he was like, WHAT? How did you know you were going to Danshui to be with her? Hahaha. Too great. I did freak a little. Sad for my area but too excited. We put my bike in the dark garage down in B3 for the transfer, and now we have much to plan and do. OH! And Elder Bret Smith is back in my district! We were together 4 in Zhongli, so I thought that was too cool. So many good friends here. My district is already awesome. we have a brand new taiwanese district leader Elder You. Talk more later! Love ya!

Transfer 6 Week 6: Death and Personal Trials

2009-12-16T11:06:00.001-05:00

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 3:43 AM

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

So yeah, so for all we missionaries know, we'll be with different companions, districts, etc for Christmas, and we still don't even know them! They don't have a Christmas party this year, but I guess our district will get together and do service activity and then we will proselyte at night. Nobody will be sure what their area will be until Friday night, and we won't know our new district (area if we move) until move day Monday, so it will be quite a Christmas.

There is so much that happened this week, but I think I'll actually travel back to last Wednesday after I emailed, the long day that happened there. So...last Wednesday, we emailed and then all the Sisters (all 4 of us) biked back to the church, went to the bathroom really quick, and ran and bought lunch to eat on the bus to Taipei. It was our zone's temple day, so we were all excited to go to Taipei, go to the temple, etc. Well, we get on the bus and I start to eat my fried rice, just eating, talking, all good.

But lets back up to last transfer in week 4. Something I never mentioned, because I forgot because a mission goes by fast, is...well, I have one root canal right? It fell out when we went on exchanges last transfer. I was with a Taiwanese missionary, Sister Zhang. And I freaked out. Teeth are expensive, and I don't think you guys can afford for my tooth to just be falling out. I remember what a hassle Gen's teeth were on a mission. And mom's teeth too. Teeth are expensive. So I cried. I don't cry a lot or often, but I cried a little when my tooth fell out. I told Sister Zhang, "I'm going to look like a Taiwanese man with no house, with no teeth, teeth are expensive." And another reason I was scared, is partly because I'd never learned dentist words, I only learned tooth because sister Zhang kept saying my "yachi" fell out. Well, it was too late to do anything, so we planned to find a dentist in the morning. The next morning we went running, and on the way to the school track, we found a dentist right next to our apartment. We found out it opened at 10 and went and moved language study to the afternoon. Well, lucky that I am insured in Taiwan and Taiwan has a government run medical health care. It cost 150 kuai to get in and see the dentist. That's like 5 dollars. Well, he took my tooth, looked at it and talked about how my American doctor didn't put in a good support, and he hoped to save me money so he'd see what he could do. He popped it back in, said it was still at risk because it wasn't done well in the first place, but it'd cost around 200 American dollars to fix (I think cheaper than America though?), but he hoped I wouldn't have to spend that... and Sister Zhang and I were out and on our way to normal missionary work. The dentist knew a little English and we were able to use Chinglish to communicate. It ended up being fine. After that day it was fixed, I forgot it happened, minus a picture I have.

So yeah, I'm sitting there, last Wednesday, I'm finally not paranoid about my tooth, it's been a little while. And I'm eating, and I swallow, and there is a HOLE in my mouth. I swallowed my tooth. (Which, now I know how to say swallowed in Chinese). I got a little emotional, and maybe shed a tear or two (but not outright crying) my first reaction was, "Sister Kunzler! I've been through this trial, but last time I didn't swallow it, why did I have to swallow my tooth." I didn't think you guys could afford 200 dollars right with Christmas coming. Then I was a little freaked out as I tried to figure out if I should puke it out on the bus. We were stuck on a bus for 45 minutes. My companion and Sister Chen said THEY would puke if I forced myself to barf in front of them. I prayed and ended up not barfing, I couldn't imagine how people would react. I thought maybe we'd get on the bus and I'd puke right before going into the temple. I hoped in 45 minutes it wouldn't digest too far.

Well, we get to Taipei and we are in between the temple and the big chapel, my companion and I are on our way to the big chapel so I can see if I can puke it out...well, we run into my old companion Engela Chen, and she gives me an envelope with a hymn book I left in Zhongli and a letter. My companion stopped to talk to someone, so I take out the letter to read it. I read the first sentence. It says, "Sister Bruno, sorry this is kind of abrupt, but Chen Huiping passed away." I didn't continue the letter at that time. I just had a break down. I seriously sobbed. In a LOUD voice, in front of tons of missionaries headed to the temple. It was a combination of the new member that got baptized when I first got to Taiwan passed away and I never wrote her a letter after I left Zhongli, and I swallowed my tooth and my dad was going to be really mad at me. And I cried and cried. I couldn't get ahold of myself very well. And then, there was no time to go puke, it was time to go to the temple session, or we couldn't go to the temple at all. And so we went in, and got dressed, and I just was crying (softly now) and everyone kept looking at me, and I felt like an idiot, because I think crying looks dumb. But once the temple session started, I felt at peace and calmed down, and stopped crying. I'm glad we can find peace in the temple. It is an amazing place and I'm glad I got to go.

As for my tooth situation, I won't go into extensive details, but I will say, I have the tooth in my mouth (although it's still a risk) and it's sterilized by me 3 different ways and the dentist sterilized it and said I didnt need to worry, it was perfectly clean. So I trust in that and figure I'm a stronger person for it, and we don't have to worry about it...for now.

As for more details about Chen Huiping, she was hit by a car and needed surgery. They called the missionaries in search of family. She got surgery and it didn't go well. The family decided to pull the plug a week later. (nobody in her family was close to her, she lived alone and just had a daughter and grandson in the Taipei area 2 hours away) I know before she passed away she wished to see her grandson. That wish came true while I was in Zhongli and she was very happy that day. I still remember. She really wanted her daughter to join the church and their relationship to become better. Her daughter gave Sister Enge Chen her number at the funeral. She said her husband wasn't ready to hear our message, but at least her number is in our records now. I know one day Chen Huiping will see her daughter/grandson blessed because of her decision to be baptized. In a way it was, she'd wanted to see her grandson since he was born. She did back in August.

In other news, we've had quite the week! Lin2 Li4zhen1 and her 2 sons are doing great. We taught them the law of chastity. And oh. my. goodness. My old district leader told me we HAVE to teach no masturbation in the LOC, so, we did. Well, I know the formal word for it, but Chen2 Sen1 didn't understand that word, so the mother says, "Ni bu ke gen ni ziji xiao jiji wan." And to make it even more awkward, the older brother loves English and translates something we already understood into English, "You caunt play with your own little chicken!" And I was so red and felt so awkward, the rest I don't need to explain, but pretty much, Taiwanese people are very open and I know why Elders teach boys the law of chastity and not sisters! But in great news, the boys are obeying the law of chastity and doing SO GREAT. They set a baptism goal for my BIRTHDAY. Let me tell you, when they set that date, it was like one of the happiest days of my life. I don't even care if I stay here this transfer or not, but I will try my hardest to be here when they get baptized. They are just so great and progressing and keeping all the commandments. I love them so much!

Also, Jasmine is doing AMAZING. I love her so much. She teaches us more and more every week. She talked this week about how she never felt the protective love of a father in her life until she came to THIS church. We taught prophets and listened to the prophets voice and all felt the Spirit SO strongly in that lesson. Her interview is this Saturday. Also this Saturday we are singing 12 songs and doing a Christmas pageant, time is running out, talk more about that next week!

Love you guys so much!

Sister Flora Bruno
Fu jiemei

Speaks at Zone Conference in Chinese

2009-12-09T13:16:00.000-05:00

Hello, Hello from Keelung City, Taiwan. This week has been going really good! Yesterday we had Zone Conference and it was very touching. Not even kidding. I think it was my favorite zone conference with the new President. President changed his method of people giving talks. In the past, you were usually called on the phone and told you would give one, then there was one person who was surprised every time and asked to give one on the topic they asked us to prepare. However, Elder Watson came and did a Zone Conference a couple weeks ago, and he picked names from a hat, and he had anyone on a mission longer than 6 months give their talk in their second language. Well, this zone conference, we all had an assignment to read one of the four gospels studying how Christ taught, what kind of questions he asked, what revelations we recieved reading it, and record it in a study journal. I had the gospel of Mark. I had just finished Matthew when the call came telling us the assignment, so it was perfect. The talks were to be on what we learned in the process, or what we learned because we were studying the Savior. Well, I wasn't expecting to have to give the talk in Chinese, and in my personal opinion, the old language in the Bible is a little more complicated of vocabulary. So, I was a little scared of being called. But, well! I was! Haha, actually he said "Elder...well, this says Elder Bruno, but we don't have one! So we will hear from Sister Bruno!"

So yeah, I changed my talk to less of a focus on the actual study itself, and more of a focus just about my feelings about Christ lately. I shared how Sister Kunzler and I were watching Finding Faith in Christ with an investigator last transfer, and it just dawned on me...people ask who your hero is all the time, and I never know how to answer, but I realized, Jesus Christ is my hero! He was really awesome. In the movie, there's a part where he heals a man with leprosy (sp?) and I just thought in my mind, that man looks so gross, I wouldn't want to go near him at all, but Jesus Christ just loved him, and healed him according to his faith. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the ugliness a person has, like in a mission it's you see a companionship having a hard time, and a lot of missionaries will take one side or the other, and hope they don't get put with the "bad companion" but Jesus Christ wants to heal people. He suffered for them. He wants us to forgive them, because he promised he will forgive them. And so, I want to be more like Alma and the sons of Mosiah. They were great missionaries and it says they did impart the word without any respect of persons in Alma 16:14. When I read that, I wanted to be less discriminant in who I contact. A man came to the church yesterday night, we had just gotten back from Zone Conference and 6 missionaries had lessons at the church, so we were all there. This man was persistant in pleading us to buy him a ticket back home. We couldn't of course, and kept saying he didn't want money, just a ticket, and we kept saying we had no way to help him. He wouldn't listen to us sisters, so Elder Cai4 our zone leader, came out of his lesson and talked to him for a couple minutes. Thank goodness for Taiwanese missionaries! He was able to tell him another opinion he could TRY to use, which gave him a tiny bit of hope, that i'd never heard of. Well, usually I wouldn't think to invite him to church or anything at all, but after Zone Conference and reading that scripture just a couple days ago, I felt impressed we should invite him. So after the Elders had fully explained there was no way we could buy him a ticket, Sister Kunzler and I told asked if he'd ever been to church. He said no (there are a lot of people in Taiwan who just find a church when they are in a really hard spot because they think the church will help them, which of course we desire to help them, but usually they just want money, and we have no way of helping them in that way) and so Sister Kunzler and I testified that we had no way of helping his money and financial situation, but we could help his soul if he was willing. We invited him to go to church when he got back home. I felt good about that. I want to be more searching for the good in people, and their opportunity to change. I know my first companion was really good at that. When I first got here, I was not very good at a lot of things. She really had to just see my opportunity for growth to love me, since I was a hard person to love at times. Good thing I got a companion who already knew how to do that. I'm just barely figuring that out over the last couple days!

So yeah, I shared about the movie and the leper, then I just shared a story from that night before, there is a sweet little Taiwanese missionary, Sister Chen Shu Ting who is my roommmate, and my companion and her companion were going to do a musical number at zone conference, so they wanted to wake up earlier than usual to get to Taipei. Well, I just wanted to split and wake up at 6:30, but Sister Chen wanted everyone to go together. I told her, Uuuugh, Sister Chen, I'm so tired in the morning! You don't even understand. We can just wake up at 6:30 and get there at the normal time. And sweet little Sister Chen, she thinks about it for a few seconds, and then turns to me and whispers, "Fu jiemei, mei guanxi, Yesu Ji1du, ta liao jie." "Sister Bruno...that's okay, Jesus Christ understands!" And then she was like, "Geng kuai qidao! Wen Tianfu bang ni qi chuang" "Hurry!! pray! Ask God to help to wake up in the morning" And in the morning when my alarm clock Sister Phillips had set for 5:55 went off, I prayed really fast, and ran straight to the bathroom to wash my face. I was the quickest out of bed. I know it was through help because I usually don't just jump out of bed! I take a minute or 3. Haha. So yeah, it was really great for me.

So yeah! I'm excited I got the chance to share my talk in Zone Conference and talk about how my relationship with Jesus grew this transfer. It's been a really great transfer. Zone Conference was just really amazing focused on the Savior and what he did for us.

It was especially touching, as Elder Daniels, now the traveling assistant, and Elder Gassin bore their testimonies. They were sobbing. Elder Daniels bore a beautiful testimony about how he knows his mission will bless his family, and Elder Gassin talked about how if we remembered nothing else about him as an Assistant, to remember that he truely believed this work, the restoration, and the principles we teach daily. Elder Daniels companion, my old Zone Leader E. Worthen was also crying. It was just so touching because it's not like they were putting on a show...they just had so many emotions. So many of us were just really touched during that and the closing song "I Believe in Christ." Not many dried eyes. I myself, cried when Sister Chen (Neihu sister Chen) bore her testimony in English. She always said she would one day, and did her last one. It was amazing and sweet and I felt the spirit so strong as she bore her testimony in her 2nd language.

30 seconds! Bye!

Thanksgiving Report from Jilong

2009-12-02T12:32:00.001-05:00

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

So yeah thanks. As for this week, it was actually not as bad on Thanksgiving as I thought. I was actually really sad. I mean, I am really blessed because I'll only be gone one Thanksgiving, Christmas, Birthday, etc. A large majority of missionaries miss 2...but yeah, it was my first one away, and in a culture with people who don't celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas really, so I was thinking Thanksgiving would come and go, and hardly be recognized. However, we have the most awesome Elders in our district ever. We decided to have a Thanksgiving dinner. Something simple. Every companionship would make one of two things. Well, we had a lesson that started late, we were all supposed to meet up at 5, make our things, eat at 5:30, and the Elders had lessons at 6 and 7. We had a lesson at 7:30, and had to bus out. So yeah, we get there ridiculously late, like 30 minutes, we can't help it! And the Elders have really gone out of their way on this dinner! There was a nice blue table cloth, flowers, plates and chopsticks, with name cards on each plate, candy corn on the plates...and the Zone Leaders (E. Cai Zonghan.or actually he says his English name is E. Cael C. Carter... and E. Adam Hammer)had cooked a chicken ...and E Hammer had even stuffed the chicken with bread and celery...which I hear was a hilarious endeavor they have on camera. And E. Westin Leavitt and E. Cazier (sorry dad, I still haven't ' asked him his first name, he's newer) had made corn and mashed potatoes. They mashed the potatoes themselves, without any kind of masher, so that had to have been hard! When we got there, we started making pies, the Elders hadn't eaten at all...well, we keep waiting for the other sisters to eat, but they don't show up until 5:50, and the Elders had a lesson at 6. So yeah, they go downstairs to try to start the lesson early, but then we called them upstairs really fast so we can take pictures together, then we decide we will probably just all eat separately when we have time. Well, the funny thing, is S. Tawny Phillips thought she and S. Chen Shuting were on time, it was 5. So she was super confused why the Elders all left right after taking pictures. So we were just talking, they were making the fruit salad they were doing, and we were finishing up the pies, and Sister Phillips is like, "Hey, is it 5 yet?" And we were like..."Um...it's after 6!!!" and she was like "HOW DID I LOSE AN HOUR OF MY LIFE?" It was so funny. She felt really bad, and she really just didn't know how she didn't know how she mistaked it for being 5, not 6, but it all worked out in the end. We got to take pictures together, and eat together for like 10 minutes, and the Elders came back later and were able to eat, and it was really good food, and we loved it sooo much. And we made all our lessons on time, every one of us. I'm really glad, even though it was all staggered out to eat, that we were able to all make a dinner together, even a small and simple dinner like it was made us all extremely happy.

This week has just been amazing! Seriously. My companion and I have just been having a really great time together and our investigators are sooo good! We have a really golden investigator. Her name is Jasmine, or Li Wen. She lived in America for 12 years growing up. Not sure if I wrote about her last week or not. She's just so good and sooo cute. We taught her the law of chastity, and she was totally willing to follow it. We even mentioned that we only only wear one set of earrings in each ear, and she had absolutely no problem, she immediately took out her extra set of earrings after the lesson, and the next day at church, she had one set. She told me she'd been wearing 2 for a long time, she didn't need to wear them anymore. I am just really impressed by her faith. I learn so much from her. She really applies the scriptures to her own life...and teaches us from what she learns. I've never had an investigator who just could read a scripture and teach me from it after reading it once. She's an English teacher here, and she always has ideas how to help Sunday School be more interactive and everything. She's so cute, she even was quoting the bishops ward missionary plan to help us see why questions during the Gospel Principles class is essential and important. I love her! Her baptism goal is the 26th of this month. It's right after transfer calls, but that's okay, if we move, we are going to ask President if we can come to her baptism. It's that Saturday. I think he'll probably let us, as long as we don't move 3 hours away or something ridiculous. So yeah, Sister Kunzler will probably move, she's been here for 10 months in Jilong!!! So she's like...oh! I will go where the Lord wants me to, but I really hope I can see Jasmine get baptized! She's so excited because her mom is coming into town from America and can attend (her mom really supports her) and her birthday is the 28th...so it's right after Christmas and before her birthday. Yay. She's even joined with us missionaries and single adults in practicing for the ward Christmas performance, we are singing 8 songs, so we practice twice a week, so we get to see her a lot, and it's great!

We are also still working with Lin2 Li4zhen1 and her two boys, and they are really progressing. She has a lot of questions and her and the youngest talk late at night and have started discussing how they are really coming to believe in God and Jesus Christ as they have seen answers to their prayers and seen his hand in their lives. They are really great! They come to church every week. The oldest boy is a little slower in progressing because he's busier, but he is very willing to read the book of mormon and loves church! I know they are really being prepared by the hand of the Lord.

The last investigator I'll talk about this week is Lin Weitong. She's really cute. She has 2 little kids. She has just been doing really great! She's progressing towards baptism. She's really excited. She really sees the blessings of baptism and eternal families. I've never seen someone with such a strong desire to make it to the celestial kingdom, but she really has a strong desire and it's so cute! I love her a lot too. I just have learned so much from my investigators these last couple weeks. I'm so amazed by how much they teach me in the end. We prepare to be the teachers, but we end up being taught so much.

Our area is really going great. Our investigators have been progressing, we have a lot of fun in our district, and in our apartment with four sisters we just really have a lot of fun. I'm so happy!

I love you guys! I hope you guys are as happy as I've been!

Don't forget to send me hot cheetos and funfetti cake mix for my birthday/christmas. hahaha. And write me of course!

LOVVEEE from
Sister Flora Bruno

Buddish Baibai Allowed if Praying to God

2009-11-26T21:41:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 11:32 PM

Um, why is it that nobody writes me consistently? You guys need to be better about that, especially since I write you EVERY week, even twice sometimes when my email decides to get lost. Nobody answered my question last week about the name, and nobody has told me Nena's address even though I asked a lot of times, I can't find out myself, someone needs to find out for me.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and they don't celebrate American holidays here (duh), so with the exception of we might spend time searching for American stores to make something tomorrow like a pumpkin pie, tomorrow will not be a holiday in anyway at all for me. And even Christmas here, all the missionaries used to get together as a mission, since there isn't a lot of Christmas here in Taiwan, but they decided missions shouldn't do that anymore as it comes out of the mission president's own pocket I think and they can't afford it, and the stress, so there is no Christmas get together...instead there is a transfer 2 days before Christmas, so there will be a lot of people who are with a companion they've never even met before, maybe in an area they are unfamiliar with...and so the least you guys can do is write me in between playing with a baby and eating cranberry sauce and candy canes, chocolate chip cookies, and chocolate that is actually sweet!!!!!! There is Thanksgiving and Christmas and my birthday all coming up, so you can't forget a week until Feburary.

So yeah, basically start writing me so I don't have to waste time every week telling you guys to write and being sad because the only letter I got was from Gigi and it was all messed up so only 2 sentences sent through.

This week was really amazing and we saw a lot of miracles. Our zone leaders have started an experiment and wanted us to start counting a new key indicator separate to our other ones in addition to everything else, to compare the old way of counting lessons and seeing how we were doing on contacting. They are called seeds. Us sisters made up the name for what they are called though. Haha. Fake lessons didn't sound as good. So anyways, to get a seed you have to share 2 principles from a lesson and invite someone to do something. If it is on your bike to someone on the scooter next to you, and you only have 30 seconds to share two principles and an invite, if they don't want to pull to the side and set up, the invite is usually just if they will read the pamphlet we give them and try a prayer. People usually say yes though. So yeah, it started Monday and my companion and I got 22 so far (Monday and Tuesday). Our original goal was 20 for the week we were counting them, but we went on exchanges Monday and Tuesday, and I went senior in the area for a day, and my companion is a Native Taiwanese, only 3 weeks into her mission, so she was just really willing to go with the flow, and when I told her to talk to someone on the train, and I'd go talk to and point, she'd sit down and try to talk to who I suggested. She's so good. It was fun to exchange with her, we met with our little Lin family (Chen family, the sons are Chen, mom is Lin) they are so good and meet with us 3 times a week. It is a mother and 2 sons, but they are a little scared to set a baptism goal, but they are really accepting and I know if we give them time they will accept this gospel, this family really has seen change in their life learning the gospel. They really had no knowledge of Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father before we met with them. Sister Li shared about her conversion story, and the importance of prayer and realizing God loves YOU individually and knows you. Lin Lizhen started to cry. It was touching, and she really opened up after that. We got to practice the listening skills we had just discussed in District Meeting that day.

Another lesson with them I really liked was, the other week we had a really powerful lesson about Satan. That morning my companion and I decided we should teach them about Satan. I can't even remember what it was about their situation that made us decide that...but we get there and the mother and her youngest son, Chen Sen had just fought, so he didn't want to come and listen to the lesson. He had a test the next day, and his mom was not happy with how he did his homework, so he had to rewrite all his characters. They were both a little frustrated with each other. We told them we prepared a lesson about Satan and asked if they knew who that was. The mom had a vague idea and kept telling her son to come, after about 15 minutes of her and him in there arguing, he finally came out...then we read in the True to the Faith about who Satan is and his desires for us, verses God's desires for us. It was amazing because as we taught them about Satan, they realized the reason they had been arguing was Satan did not want them to get along. They both were excited about the prospect of praying to get Satan's influences out of their life, and that they could know why it was that sometimes they were unmotivated. It was amazing, people who never knew about Satan before, how much realizing God and Jesus have an enemy and adversary can lead us to understand and follow them more, because we understand more why our trials can be so hard if we let Satan control our minds. They responded SO well. The next day Chen Sen had a really big test, he was originally scared to take that hour and meet with us instead of studying since his mom had just yelled at them. After learning about Satan, he went back to the study room after we left and said a prayer and studied. The next day before his test and after he finished the test he said a prayer. He ended up getting a 93. One of the highest marks he's ever gotten on a test. His faith was really strengthened, as was his mothers. The oldest son, Chen2 Jun1 is a little harder to meet with because he buxi's every day. But Saturdays he meets with us and the other two, and although he is progressing more slowly than the other two, he's willing to read and pray. He's already read the whole children's Book of Mormon. He's really good. Buxi here in Taiwan is what most Taiwanese students spend their life doing. What that is, is cram school. They go to school after school. They all go to tutor schools to prepare for tests, so the life of a Taiwanese teenager is test after test after test, and preparing for those tests, and going to class after class, until 9 at night, then waking up at 6 in the morning to go to school again. It's really crazy. But yeah, they are super good!

Also, on exchanges we get a call from Lin Weitong. A really sweet investigator of ours. She has a date and is really diligent in wanting to make it, but last week she told us she had to go to Miaoli for 3 weeks, so she couldn't make her date, and would call us when she gets back and reset a new one. Well, she called me Tuesday at one, and said she decided to come back to time, do we have time to meet today? So I found a 30 minute block in my schedule, and had the zone leaders call my companion to tell her to make sure to be back by 5:30. She had no idea who she was coming back for, but we were both sooo excited to see her. We reset a date for December 20th, and she said she's really excited. She said she knew being baptized was a really good thing for her, and her only concern was doing the Buddist baibai, a form of worship they do here. However, the answer is not what some expect of our religion, because yes, you can baibai, as long as you know you are not worshiping family, you worship God, but you can baibai if it will cause a lot of family contention if you don't, which it would in her family. So as long as she promises only to worship God, and is doing baibai as way to avoid family conflict and knows in her heart she's not worshiping idols. After hearing that she was excited and very willing. She's excited to prepare.

Also, we recently met a girl named Jasmine. She lived in America 12 years and is really amazing! She also set a baptism goal in December and has stopped smoking since we taught her the Word of Wisdom. She hasn't smoked in over a week and carries around cookies. She is the cutest person ever, and really has seen a difference in her life since getting to know the church. I'm so excited! We have some many good investigators and great things are happening here. We also have a lot of fun with so many sisters in Jilong, but this week the other 2 have been sick, they are home sleeping right now to prepare for the rest of the week.

Well, I'm out of time, love you guys. Don't forget to write me!

Sister Fu

Unwinding As Missionaries

2009-11-18T14:06:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 11:26 PM

Hello from Rainy Jilong City. It was nice to get your guys emails finally! This week when I introduced my family (Here in Taiwan it is standard to introduce your family, and as a missionary you carry around pictures, which by the way most of you look bad in the pictures I show everyone because nobody ever wanted to give me a picture of us all at the wedding like I used to ask for back in my first transfer! So I collected random pictures you sent me and stuff already on my camera and I show people those...with Franny drinking pickle juice and other such pictures...hahaha) then I was like, yeah, my sister is pregnant, except probably not, she probably has a baby, but i don't know it's gender or anything about it...then people would laugh because you know, I just make really interesting comments all the time. That's so cool I have a niece. Why did you guys pick the name Chiara like Nikita's middle name? Nobody told me.

This week was a lot of fun. Last week we went crab hunting on Preparation day with our district. I was really determined to catch SOMETHING because I went all the way out there, but by the time I decided I wanted to do it, all the rest of the Elders were done, they had caught about 5 crabs. Well, they said I could try to catch them but the water was too high in the really easy places to catch a crab, so a native Taiwanese Elder found a crab in a deep hole and tried to get me to catch it...well there was no way, but I wanted to catch something so I kept standing there really still waiting for something to come into the part I was standing in...Well, I finally see one in a really open spot...super easy to get right? Right, so I put my foot on a spot on the rock, and the next thing I know, I'm totally sitting in the water, my waist down is soaking wet...and the crab ran away. And I was so disappointed I said, "I can't get up! It's so salty!" Now...the two thoughts had nothing to do with each other, but the Elders quote me all the time now, they think it was so hilarious. I just was stuck for a second, and the water got in my mouth and was really strong and gross, and ridiculous I fell because there was hardly any water at all, and i had to fall in and got my behind pretty wet...we stayed on the rocks catching the crabs the whole time, because missionaries cant be in the water and we didn't want to even skirt breaking rules...I'm ridiculously a clutz! but anyways, in the end, I decided to catch a fish instead and I caught a tiny fish...so I was unique and got something, but it wasn't an edible fish, and so nobody ate it...and it died in freshwater anyways when we went out and got some shaved ice before the elders went back to the church and killed and ate the crabs.

This week has been a little bit fast, I can't remember much else that happened. Our investigators are doing pretty good, we have to do a lot more contacting than I'm used to as a sister, but I think it's really good for our area to have a lot of sisters. It's fun all the time. Today we will probably go into Taibei, it's only 40 minutes away and sister Chen, a native taiwanese being trained here in Jilong with her companion Sister Phillips needs some stuff, so they want it to be together. I'm excited. It's Elder Cazier's birthday today, but the Elders are going to TGIF Friday's doing something sister Phillips and her companion don't want to do, so we probably won't go. We'll make him brownies instead :)

Jilong Area Expands and Gets New Set of Sisters

2009-11-12T09:23:00.001-05:00

Nobody wrote me this week. I'm still in Jilong with the same companion. However, there are two extra sisters this transfer and so they decided to put them in Jilong. Now our area is getting split in half. It really grew a lot since I first got here with no investigators that could progress, because the only ones willing to progress have parents opposing baptism problems and need to wait 2-4 more years to get baptized, and no people to meet with, so like 10 lessons a week..and it was quite a task to get that...to quite a few people with dates and we had 23 lessons last week. So this area can handle two more sisters. It should be a lot of fun to have Sister Phillips who goes home, and her trainee, who is a native Taiwanese, Sister Chen Shuting with us in our apartment. Sisters are so spread out, it's rare to see other sisters except at zone conference and stuff, now we are the only sisters in the same zone in the entire mission according to my understanding. How exciting. President said he knows they are supposed to be here, and I know he is an inspired man, so I'm sure this is going to be super great for our area and we will see many miracles.

This is a great and marvelous work. This work and church is true, and it is the only path whereby we can receive salvation. Satan also exists and his path is not one of happiness. He leads people to deny basic doctrine such as that there could be another truth, that families are not eternal, that God is a changing God. People become selfish and self-serving when they follow his clutches. As a great man once said, beware of pride. I have really seen how pride destroys every good thing. Don't forget, God is an unchanging God, only through sacrificing yourself and creating a home of prayer, learning, and love, only through following the one true path and putting off the natural man will you be saved in the kingdom of God. I hope you can create a home that can be a safe haven. I remember when Thomas S. Monson was called as prophet, he said that would be his focus, to have members create a home where kids could go to escape the clutches of Satan found in this world, to that safe haven. I don't remember his exact words, but that was his concept.

I have learned a lot from our favorite investigator right now. Her name is Lin Lizhen. She has 2 boys. She also has a husband...but her husband comes home very rarely. He decided he liked another woman. He went out and sought worldly things. Sister Lin loves her husband. She prays for him to come home. She said she used to freak out a lot and call him every day, but since meeting us she said she feels more peace. She doesn't call him anymore. When I heard her story, I thought...Zenme keneng? How is that possible? After all her husband did and she prays for him to return. It's like the prodigals son. There is so much hurt and suffering these people caused, and yet, there are people willing to take them back and love them no matter what. I'm not yet that loving. Maybe one day, but I don't like the hurt these people cause. My inital thoughts are usually that I hope their repentance process hurts like....I really do. Because they are cruel with the way they mess people up...but lucky them! Heavenly Father will forgive them, and others, who have figured out the gospel better than I have quite yet are ready to receive them with open arms. How blessed we are to have such a loving Heavenly Father. I can't even fathom that kind of love, but I've felt it, and it's pretty amazing of a feeling.

Hope you are all well, love you guys! Don't forget to write me by next Wednesday, everyone owes me a letter, especially since i have NONE this week. I have a hard time writing when nobody else writes me. It makes me not want to write, but I do anyways because it's a rule. I'd rather want to do it! So yeah. Until next week!

Sister Bruno

Turning Things Around in Jilong

2009-11-04T10:51:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 2:25 AM

We have a zone conference tomorrow with Elder Watson of the 70. I'm excited. We got to meet him in Taipei yesterday and talk for a couple minutes, as we were the Tour sisters of the day. He's a cute man.

We have a lot of amazing investigators, especially a mom with 2 children. They are really great and have asked to meet with us more than once a week. The son loves reading the Book of Mormon more than doing homework.

We have a lot of investigators and are very busy next week, Jilong has really completely turned around since I first got here.

This week was fun. We carved watermelons for Halloween. Our English class loved it. Have lots of good pictures. Send them later

Until next time

Sister Flora Bruno

2009-10-29T16:33:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 2:38 AM

Okay I'm writing you like a 2 paragraph email this week, I spent my time online reading emails this week, and it was very nice to get to spend some time looking at Gigi's pictures she sent me, i was very happy and laughed a lot, especially since the longer you are on a mission, they less people write you. But who can blame them, you've been gone a long time, and you take awhile to write back because you eventually go senior companion (well, i haven't yet, but i know I will in the next few transfers, 3 at the most) and as your Chinese gets enough to communicate in complete stories and sentences and ideas, you start to get to help your senior companion out a lot more..and thus, less letter writing time on P-days, because i.e. today we went to costco (with a NICE member who has a card, because i sure don't!) to buy watermelons to carve tonight in English class for Halloween, yes, this is why missionaries look forward to their parents packages so much, because the closest thing I have to Halloween here in Taiwan is Watermelons to carve, there are no pumpkins in season right now, not even Costco had them. We were lucky to get watermelons that stand up! Yeah! So blessed. I also spent 12 dollars of the money you guys gave me to buy brownie mix, sorry, it is the only brownie mix in all of Taiwan and I REALLY wanted it. Really bad. Taiwan doesn't have a lot of sweet things, and they are expensive for us missionaries, but you only get to go to Costco once (twice if you are a lucky missionary) on your mission, so I had to buy the brownies! haha. Bitter things I wouldn't have imagined eating when I first got here, I eat and like these days..like squid. Because there isn't a lot of sweet, you get used to not eating sweet, although you miss it! I'm quite accustomed to squid, soy bean milk, tofu, taro, weird gummy things with little taste in all kinds of things, sesame seeds...(although not stinky tofu, that stuff is gross and permeates the streets and I will never try it, no matter who wants me to, i'd rather drop dead). So yeah! Funny how you can change your body to adapt to your culture, but that doesn't mean you don't miss the old one.

I found really cute Chinese style shoes, next time you guys give me money I'll buy some for myself, for now I bought some for the baby coming any day now, they were like 3 dollars for a baby, more expensive for adults. They are red and really cute. Gen and Stuart can take a picture when they fit the baby in 5 months...after i get their address and send them that is. So I was really excited to get to buy something for my first neice of nephew.

This week has been going pretty good. Last week our numbers were like a miracle, we got more lessons than I've ever gotten my whole mission. Sister Kunzler is really a fun companion. I like her a lot, I just doubt we will be together for long since she's been in this area 6 transfers, it's the longest I've heard of! 6/7 transfers of her mission here in Jilong! She's crazy strong, because this area has killer mountains, but she gets up them crazy fast. I've noticed that with every companion I have, certain things have a lot of sucess depending on their focuses. I'm lucky to have such good senior companions. They were all very patient women, they have to be to be companions with me! ehheheheh.

I think my first companion is engaged, that's the rumor from a Brother Guo, but some people don't trust him, so it's up in the air, but that's fun everyone is getting engaged and married. My girl friends already started when I was 19, now all my old guy friends are...haha. Congrats to them :). I love life, always changing. Yay! This week will be fun. Halloween! English class tonight we are carving watermelons, like i mentioned before, and now time is out! byebye!

Week 5 Transfer 4--My halfway mark--Hump Day: Missionary Letter

2009-10-21T13:38:00.003-04:00

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 11:26 PM

Today is something I've heard missionaries refer to as a hump day? No idea why, and nobody here says that, but yeah, I've been on my mission exactly 9 months today. I go home July 20th with the way transfers fall here...so a day short of 9 months left. I only noticed that since President told us when we were going home in interviews..then I was like...hmm cool, my halfway point is soon...and on a preparation day...so tadum.

Today I don't feel like thinking of what to write, so I brought my mildy funny journal stories with me, and i'm going to copy what I wrote yesterday in my journal. 10/20/09. 9:41 pm Today was pretty good. Peike's (that's a member with us in the lesson to help our investigator progress) Yay! 2 of the lessons were really good. With Lin Weitong we watched Together Forever. She cried during the movie. It was really spiritual. We talked about the Holy Ghost and Eternal Families, and she really felt the power of the Holy Ghost. She was like, "I don't know why I'm crying." Our peike told her it was the Holy Ghost. After the lesson, she prayed that she could have an eternal family. She really wants it. She's good. She set a baptism date in lesson one with Sister Kunzler and Chen when I was in Neihu on exchanges.

Also met with Lin Jingxian. She's cute. Has WOW problems, but also told us she felt like crying reading a WOW story, concluded (ON HER OWN! YEAH!) it was what we called "The Holy Ghost" felt like for her individually, since we told her everyone felt it differently. She's awesome. She said she'd stop smoking, it just might take time, but she has total faith she can do it. She's awesome. Today was good. 2 investigators who self admit to feeling the Spirit...not bad at all.

Besides that, didn't eat much today. A granola bar for breakfast, Skittles, a couple cheetos, a bread with some kind of parsley on top. No dinner. Maybe I'll go eat raisin's right now. Was moody. Period heavy, but cramps not as bad as yesterday.

In one of our lessons the girls were totally unfocused, so it was 20 minutes or less. We told them to come more focused next week. I wasn't that upset. They are just 16 year old girls.

Had 2 interesting contacts. First I talked to a boy in the army (every boy in Taiwan has to do it for about a year). I offered him a Skittle. He said no. I asked where he was going. He said Raifang. I said, us too! I asked if he was in the army. He said yes. I said it looked like it, as he had a huge duffle bag at his feet. I asked how long he'd been in the army for and he didn't understand my Chinese. So I said he was xinku to be in the army, and that my country didn't have it as a requirement. He asked me a question. I didn't understand his Chinese. I asked him something, he didn't understand my Chinese. I tried to tell him where our church was at. He didn't know what I was saying. We were confused. I gave him our church pamphlet with the addresses and told him it had the address. The end.

The second I gave our pamphlet to a lady on a scooter who said the Elders just gave her one. I didn't see it, so I gave her another one just in case. Invited her to English class.

In a week from Friday's news, the other day, I got Burger King. Well, I always make fun of Elder Cai for getting it so often, so I didn't want him to see me. We'd all just taught English so I knew he'd be at the church soon, so I was downing it. They arrive and I hide behind the door, holding it (the door) back and finish my food. I see the Elders look in the room, I wait, they leave , I let the door shut, hide the wrapper in my bag, go look out the window for a couple seconds, they go back and open the door. Elder Hammer and Cai are SO confused. They are like, we just looked in here. Nobody was here! I said, I was in here the whole time, you didn't see me? They were like, no, we swear we looked good too. Strange, it's like you were a ghost. I cracked up inside , and later telling my companion who was in the bathroom at the time. I kept my cool through it though, they had no idea. The funniest thing is, nobody would have cared I was eating a Burger, I wasn't hungry earlier...I just had made fun of Elder Cai they day before though, so I didn't want him to see me. Just because. haha, then it was hilarious and worth it for the story.

Yesterday told my companion about the Time Traveler's Wife plot on a long bike ride. It was fun. I forgot how the story ends though, so she was kind of AHHH because I couldn't tell her. haha.

Skittles in Taiwan don't taste the same as in America. They aren't as good.

End journal entry.

Yeah, so there's a day in the life. Or an entry in the mind of Sister Bruno. It was a pretty good one.

Hey can someone find out Nena's address for me, I wrote her weeks ago, but don't have her address. I also kind of need mascara and eyeliner. Taiwan has mascara, but not that good, and no eyeliner like I need. So if you can send me some, I'd be really happy. The stuff you don't need to sharpen. I'm not good at using that kind. I bought extra eyeliner right before I came, but it was gone when I got here, so yeah! Now I need more...and that's all I can think of for right now. Oh and if you really love me, and light brown base, mine broke all up and fell out on exchanges. I could probably find it here, but since you are sending me those anyways! And makeup here is really not good. Not to mention like 10 dollars or more for anything, and probably imported..and old. :) you can send it in those little packages with the bubbly wrap and it shouldn't be too expensive.

That's all!

Transfer 5 Week 3: A Call to Repentance--Conforming to the Gospel Principles

2009-10-14T08:36:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 12:28 AM

Hello there, face here. Okay, maybe I'm not face, but I liked that cartoon way back in the days. It's just been another week in Jilong. And a very interesting one at that. We watched conference...had zone conference...we also need to head out to Taipei tomorrow for President's interviews, so we've gotten quite a lot of trips to Taipei.

General Conference wasn't actually supposed to be a trip to Taipei for us, but on Saturday morning, they couldn't get the English working in Jilong, just Chinese, so we missed the morning session of conference and caught the next bus to Taipei, just to see the last 10 minutes of that session. It ended up being alright though, because President's Assistant, Elder Gassin, burned us a copy of that session during the break, then for District meeting Monday we watched Saturday Mornings conference. So now, we have watched all of conference. I thought it was unique that such a great emphasis was love and service. I realized in my own life, the problems that happen especially with family and friendship relationships, are mostly due to selfishness. I think the average person forgets the importance of repenting daily. I mean, I feel like a lot of people go on a mission, invite investigators to keep commitments, such as repenting daily, and at that time come to the realization that we also need to do such...but then, I think time passes and it's easy to forget what you taught them. The habits developed become less of habits, we digress spiritually, become more like the natural man....then as conference is watched and speaker after speaker talk about putting off the natural man, it's easy to have a desire to change...while they speak, the spirit is strong, a fire is kindled within our hearts, but do we ultimately change? Do we put it into action? Do our family relationships become stronger? Do we start to feel the power of the Holy Ghost's influence in our lives daily as we do the things that invite his presense into our lives? Do we become more active in considering how others feel and what we can do for others instead of feeling like we ourselves are wronged? What do we do because of conference? How do we take what President Monson said about taking these things and changing, and actually change? Seriously. I personally cannot remember a big step I took to change after conference in my life...I remember after conference this time, feeling a big desire to change and become better. As a missionary this is what my life is about...but then I wondered, how will my family and friends do this. I, myself, have to take great effort to change, and that is what my life is focused on. And it's hard! Seriously. My whole life is becoming more converted so that my investigators can be more converted, since their level of conversion can only be as far is mine is...and yet it's a daily struggle. I focus on it constantly. So for you guys, how is conference going to change you? I heard maybe 3 of you guys write me about conference and tell me about what you liked, but I'd much rather know, how are you going to take conference and CONFORM? Change and become more like Christ? Being on a mission had made me realize our family is not very good at conforming, but conforming is a gospel principle. I hope you don't take offense at this statement, but I honestly believe it to be true. My growing up experience was unique, and I cherish that in a lot of ways...but as I testify about how the gospel blesses families, I wish to see a change in my own family that really shows how this mission is helping you guys. Heavenly Father is an unchanging God. His laws and his principles will never change. And so, in order to obtain His salvation, we need to put ourselves in line with His laws. We need to develop His love (charity) and not worry about being unique or different. Believe me, you are unique. You don't even have to try to be. So what I'm wondering, is what are you guys going to change because of conference? How are you going to be more obedient to God's will? A big reason I ask is because I personally am struggling with obedience. I want to be a conformed and obedient missionary, but sometimes some of the stuff I do or say shock people. I'm working on this through goal setting...and I hope you guys can too.

So yeah! That's what they talked about at zone conference...they talked about obedience and goal setting. It was a very fitting zone conference for me, because both are things that I'm not good at, but I'd like to be. I seriously in the past have hated setting goals, because I'm scared of not measuring up to them, but goals are a way to see progress, so I'll have to get over my fears and be more specific in my goals...it's not very feasible to think you can just change over night...i've heard stories, but never actually just POOF changed...So, little by little. You can't just go from not understanding how you listen to the Holy Ghost to feeling it constantly in your life. This isn't how I teach my investigators, and it's not what I expect for myself either. First you teach them what the Holy Ghost is. Then you encourage them to do things that will invite the Holy Ghost into their lives, such as baptism, and laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, prayer to recognize how he feels for you individually, being obedient so he can dwell with you, following his promptings so he stays...etc. As I more understand righteous principles, I think I'll keep them more. President shared Alma 32 with us about arousing your faculties..you can't just have faith in something right away. Not true and everlasting faith. There are steps to do. The start is getting the desire, arousing your faculties...hoping...so yeah. This is what my hope for you guys is....that as I do my best as a missionary to serve God and bless my family, you guys will also put faith into action...have weekly Family Home Evening, pray together, read together, strengthen your relationship, avoid things that draw you apart...change yourself for those around you...learn to love each other, more fully and more completely. That is my hope...but I can't change anybody's agency...Only you can change, no matter how much others want you to.

In another experience, this week my companion and I had the..unique experience to have lunch with a member of a church that broke off of the LDS church, they read the Book of Mormon, but beliefs are much different than our own. I know which church it is, but would prefer not to specify, as there are quite a few break off's of the LDS church. Sufficeth it to say she had us come back with her to their church, one floor in a large building with many floors.

4 minutes this story needs to be brief...anyways, we went back there, and it's really small since not many believers live in Taiwan, but they had copies of the Book of Mormon. I picked one up and began to read the introduction. As I was reading, the Holy Ghost came very strong to my heart that the intention of this book was completely wrong. I felt sad for this lady, she has SO much truth, she has the Book of Mormon in her life, she has Moroni's promise, and yet, she doesn't have true authority. The Holy Ghost just testified to me that this wasn't true and what I had in my bag was. I'm glad for the Holy Ghost and our ability as members of this church to know truth for ourselves. Her reason for not being with our church was the LDS churches past of polygamy. It had nothing to do with her own feelings. So how great that we have personal revelation. Nobody can be forced to believe truth. We feel it. I know this church is true. I felt it. And I felt it that day, strongly. I love that lady a lot, but I'm glad I was born into a church with correct authority. To her, I would not say her church was wrong, I don't persecute others beliefs, but I stand strong to mine. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I loved Sunday Afternoon's talk. 25 seconds to send this! Bye!

Transfer 5 Week 2: Struggles in New Area

2009-10-07T12:48:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 9:11 AM

This week doesn't have a lot in the way of things to talk about. I've found that I don't exactly like moving. I miss Zhongli a lot. Mostly because I worked so hard there in Zhongli for almost 6 months and our numbers were like, almost too good to be true, then I came here and we only have one ward instead of two, it's a lot smaller of an area and only one ward, and it's really ridiculously hard to get places, and I'm exasted to death after ever 20 minute bike ride, whereas, 20 minute bike rides in my old area were nothing...and our numbers were the worst they have been on my entire mission. I'm not really sure what to do to start to like this place. Our church is the 5th and 6th floor on a 12 floor building, and it's kind of ghetto fabulous. It has green tiled floors, and looks like it was built in the 60s. But, at least I have found some more positives besides my huge apartment and my own bathroom. Haha. One is my companion. She's actually really good. She's been here a long time, so you would think that if I thought we should stop meeting with an investigator, she'd be upset at me and want to hold on, because she's been here 6 transfers (longer than I've been on a mission) and been working with them forever, but she's very open to my opinions. We've spent a lot of time contacting, which I've never spent a lot of time doing at all...and I'm getting used to it. I have to admit, I feel like contacting is not exactly super effective because you talk to people for 2 hours, and you are lucky if you find 1 that wants to meet, but I'm talking to more people, so that's good. In the past I have not talked to nearly as many people. My legs are also pretty buff. It hurts to go up hills, but my legs are getting huge with muscles, so I'm sure I'm going to like that eventually..once it stops hurting. Rather huge with muscles than with fat right?!

Our district is also really good. Our district leader, Elder Daniels, used to be the zone leader in Hualien. Elder Lords went and took his place. He's training an Elder Leavitt this transfer, so he went district leader to train ba. His companion is very dedicated. It will be fun to see his Chinese improve, I've always been the youngest in my district until now. We also have the zone leaders in my district. Elder Cai is really funny. He was in Zhongli 2nd ward with me and Sister Hill back in my first 2 transfers. So, it's nice to be in a district with someone I already knew before. And E. Hammer seems fun too.

The only thing that I can even remember about this week, besides that we contacted a lot since we don't have a whole lot of investigators right now, so we are in a transition and finding a lot...we had the Moon Festival here in Taiwan this last weekend. There are about 3 big festivals here, and the Moon Festival is one of them. We cooked meat...steaks and squid and porkchops on a grill and BBQed them. That's a big thing to do. And FYI squid isn't bad. It's just chewy! It was a lot of fun. I just played with the kids and ate a lot. My stomach was so happy. Us missionaries are kind of poor, so we don't eat a ton of meat...at least I don't...because it's a lot more expensive. Unless I just eat like a piece of Chicken for dinner, for 50 kuai..and that's all. And I haven't had steak since America! So yum yum yum. So yeah! I enjoyed Moon Festival, too bad I only get to be here for one. But not THAT too bad, because everyone going home is always like "I'm so tired!" So I probably will be tired by next year too and not want to stay another 3 months to have Moon Festival. haha. Soooo that's pretty much it. Contacting and moon festival. Those were pretty much the events of this week! Next week we have Zone Conference and we watch General Conference Saturday and Sunday, so I'll write about that next week perhaps!

Oh! And by the way, I invited someone to baptism on the street yesterday, just to practice, um I think I confused her a little, so I need more practice at explaining it, she said "next time there's an chance.." whatever that means! But at least I did it, and I got her number, so I'll call next week and see if she'll set up. she was cute. Haha.

Bye bye!

Transfer to Keelung in the Mountains of Taiwan: Missionary Email

2009-09-28T07:28:00.000-04:00

Monday, September 28, 2009 3:12 AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time to go!

Fu Jiemei

Baptisms in Zhongli

2009-09-23T13:31:00.002-04:00

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 2:27 AM

Hello from Zhongli, although it may be my last week here (or maybe I have a long time left here, speculations and bets have begun to be made). haha. I think people always guessing transfers is amusing, and I'm definitely not "too good" to participate in making guesses of who is going where and who is training, etc etc. It's usually all in good Preparation day fun as districts hang out. I personally hope I leave, just based on the fact that I have been in Zhongli for 6 months now, my entire mission...but if I don't leave, I won't be too upset because I really love this area and there are a lot of people here to teach. So we'll find out what happens on Friday night, and I'll be back here online emailing on Monday, so don't forget to write me before then!

In other news, this last Friday's baptism went pretty well. Jasmine and Petrea Ge were baptized, but Leilani wasn't. She had a few hang-ups that were understandable. We'd like to see her baptized this week, she will call us tonight and tell us after she talks to her classmates when she thinks a good time would be...but even if in the end it's not this week, I know she will get baptized sooner or later. So I'm not too worried about that. Petrea was really cute at the baptism. She was like "I'm Ge Boya, and I think getting baptized is really AWESOME." Then she sat down. haha. Kids. Jasmine is also doing really well, she likes to hang out with our awesome Wu Mujun, who tuesday night just showed up to our lesson, we hadn't even told her about it, because she wasn't at church Sunday, but she must have heard from Jasmine we were coming over, and she came too. That's dedication. Jasmine also just really likes the missionaries, so that's good. She came early to church Sunday because she said her house is boring, so she just sat around well Sister Chen and I ate, and she talked to us and stuff. She also has started attending the Advanced English class on Wednesday, and thinks the teachers are hilarious. I think that is due to the fact that her High School English class is too easy, since she lived in Australia growing up and is half Australian, and even though rarely uses her English these days, shes really still quite good at it.

As for Chen Yiting, she's set-up for Saturday night and she's so super excited. She's such a funny 19 year old girl, so I'm excited for her. She's been like, I'M SO EXCITED FOR SATURDAY...whenever we see her. Haha. Really cute.

Besides that though, not a lot has been happening, we teach an okay amount of lessons and just try to invite everyone to learn about the church. This last week we must have had a really good increase in key indicators, because the Assistants called us and told us that they and President were very happy with the work we were doing in Zhongli, and they encouraged us to keep working hard, and that they could see our hard work is really paying off. That through our work and efforts many people were coming to know their Savior. That's the 3rd time we've received a call like that from the Assistants on my mission. I'm not sure how often they do it, but it's nice to hear from them, albeit a little stressing in that it's just a little pressuring that twice that it has happened, our numbers were inevitably going to drop that next week in some ways. But it's not necessarily a bad drop. So yeah, our mission has very good Assistants that follow-up. I seriously have never seen people so good at following up as the Assistants. If we tell them anything, they remember and ask how that is going the next time they see us. Their memories are almost uncanny. Gotta respect crazy good memories like that.

So yeah! Time is running out, but don't forget, write by next week on Monday, your Sunday night I think. I'll tell you then what happened Saturday, and with move calls. I'm excited to be moving into transfer 5. It's almost a halfway point for sister's I think. Time passes fast. Also with almost being in Taiwan 6 months now, I'm noticing I'm understanding a LOT more than I used to and I'm able to pretty much teach every lesson 1-4 decently and clearly. Cool! :) I can't say "It all sounds Chinese to me" anymore...how sad because I used that phrase a lot before my mission, but now Chinese makes sense...everything not Chinese sounds Korea, or Indonesian, or Vietnamese around here. Now my ear hears the difference between Asain languages.

Until next Monday,

Fu jiemei
Sister Flora Bruno

Week 23 in Zhongli or Transfer 4 Week 5

2009-09-16T10:19:00.001-04:00

Hmm...let's see, well, this is currently week 23 in Zhongli and not a lot has really happened that week that I have to talk about. Most interesting though I guess, would be the situation with the Ge Girls, or the Huang girls, depending on your take. Their mom is Huang but they are all xin'ed Ge. It took me like 3 transfers of knowing them to figure that out though...I never knew their Chinese names until recently. They wanted me to just call them by their English names like Mom did. Well, this Sunday was their baptism interview with Elder Lords, since their baptism is this Friday. In the morning, mom couldn't take them to church because she had something going on, so we went to their apartment and picked them up, but only 2 of them came and met us downstairs for their interview. The 2nd child, Leilani, didn't come. They said she'd come to church later with mom.

I was so sad, she was the most awesome about reading and everything...she was in Jacob in no time, but because of that responsible personality, she stressed herself out about the interview and didn't want to do it...So Jasmine and Petrea did it and passed fine. I was excited but still really sad about Leilani. I sat next to her at church, and she wouldn't talk to anyone, she just cried and slept the whole meeting. I'm not sure what the situation was. Then, in Sunday school, I saw her in there sitting alone, so I had Su DX go see why. The kids here are all really shy and our awesome Young Woman's who comes with us to their lesson, Wu Mujun was sitting by her sister. I really wanted her to have a good experience at church so maybe we could talk to her and she could interview later. Well, Su DX figured everything out, and I don't know how Sunday School was, but I went in there during the last hour and her sister and Mujun and I all sat together and Young Woman's was really fun. We ate prezels and cheeto puffs and talked about how to control our thoughts, and everyone was just being really silly, and Leilani was smiling a lot. Then, mom and Leilani were together with a counselor in the bishopric after church when we were in our meeting we have every sunday after church, and towards the end of the meeting, Huang jiemei and Leilani come downstairs and Leilani says she wants to meet with Elder Lords. So yeah! Then after the meeting, he interviewed her. It took about an hour, but she passed fine and Elder Lords says her testimony is really amazing and he was so happy after that interview, because he was really able to help her, and he said that's the best kind of interviews, the ones where you really see a change with them from the beginning to the end...so I'm glad for Elder Lords...he helped her a lot, and she looked SO happy after her interview, where as the rest of the day earlier she looked so happy and stressed out. So I'm REALLY excited for Friday. I've known these girls for almost my whole mission and now they are getting baptized...

Also coming up on Friday is Chen Yiting's baptism interview. She's so awesome, she's always like, I'm so excited to be baptized! I'm so excited to come to church on Sunday! I'm so excited to get to be interviewed for my baptism! So yeah. She's excited for Friday. Her date is that following Saturday. Move calls are Friday the 25th for a heads up, so if I forget to tell you next week, Preparation day will change to Monday not next week, but the following one. People have already started talking about them, maybe I'll be more wondering about them by next Wednesday, but for now I have a super busy week until Sunday with Temple day in Taipei today, then we are going to Taipei tomorrow to do the temple tours, and biking out to Shanziding on Saturday...which is about a 55 minute bike ride straight uphill we've been doing once or twice a week these days for some investigators. But since it's such a long bike ride...it takes quite a bit of time. Like yesterday, we went all the way out to Yangmei for an appointment. It was a 3 hour affair. Shanziding is like that, but luckily we keep meeting people out there, and now have 3 lessons for our hard bike ride, instead of just 1 like it originally was. So yeah, I thought briefly about it, but not too in-depth. I feel super busy, but next week is probably not going to be nearly as busy. Week 6 doesn't have many activities that happen, so we have nothing but time to try to fill in. We'll do our best! That's pretty much it though...not too many out of the ordinary things happened this week, we are just preparing for Friday, and our main focus next week will be Saturday. We are very blessed here in Zhongli. I've seen a lot of success. Not to say we don't have trials, we have a lot, sometimes we have days where everyone cancels the night before and we have like 4 hours to fill in, in really hot weather, but it all ends up okay, and time passes by pretty fast. Time really isn't the same on a mission as it was before the mission. It's hard to explain, but yeah...time, it's warped.

Work Progressing in Zhongli

2009-09-09T15:02:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 1:48 AM

Okay, I just wrote an entire email in an hour, then the website got all messed up, so this won't be nearly as long or detailed...and I had to spend another 25 kuai to type this. Sigh. We went and got lunch and now have to spend another hour in the internet cafe so I can write...But what can you do?

This week was really good. I had the best lesson of my life last night. Or at least it felt really good. Sister Hill will be excited to read about it if she reads by blog. We were at Huang jiemei's house, with Jasmin, Leilani, and Petrea, the Ge girls. Well, Jasmin has been getting really comfortable with the Young Woman's and attending the Friday activity, and Wu Mujun has been our pei ke and really being their friend, in fact, we went over last night, and Leilani was like, "mu jun jie jie zai nali? " Or, where is Mujun? We felt bad because we hadn't asked her to come that time, because we have been meeting with them twice a week these days, so we just wanted her to take time out of her busy schedule once a week, not every time, but now they are accustomed to her, so they were like, where is she? So yeah! When we meet with them on Friday, we will definitely see if she can come. But yeah! All three girls were there for the lesson, and it was just an amazing lesson. I was very STRAIGHT with them. At the beginning when nobody wanted to be the one to pray, I was like "Why are you guys so unwilling to pray?" and then eventually Jasmin repeated a prayer S. Chen said, then I taught them again how to pray, but I feel like they really listened this time. Then mom brought up a concern about them believing in God, so I had us read Mosiah 4:9-10 and I was like, "I don't want an I don't know answer from you..Do you believe in God?" and we went aroudn the room. Leilani and Petrea said yes, and Jasmin said she honestly was unsure. I said that was fair, and asked Leilani why she believed. Last week she was also testing it out. But we asked about her prayers and she said she prayed and prayed and prayed, to get a feeling to her prayers once or twice. And we talked about how you have to have a desire to prayer lots of times so you can get a feeling once or twice sometimes, and then you will know by that once or twice that God is listening. Leilani really progressed since last week, in a week since she committed to read the Book of Mormon, she read to the Book of Jacob. That's amazing for an investigator at all, but ESPECIALLY for a 12 year old girl. She's incredible. She was a great help in the lesson this week, because last week she went to unsure, but willing to commit to baptism because we told her it was really good for her, to this week, praying every day, so many times, and reading her scriptures. She still has a concern about Joseph Smith seeing God, but that will be easy to follow up on this week, because we told her about how the Book of Mormon connects to Joseph Smith, and she already believes in the Book of Mormon. She thinks it's "hai bucuo" which is really a compliment for her.

But yeah, so in the lesson we shared in Mosiah, then with Jasmin's concerns, I took us to Alma 32, and passed off to S. Chen who shared about faith is believing in something you can't see and how you just have to have a desire at first. Jasmin said she had a desire and was willing to start praying multiple times a day to find out if God was really there, but then talking about Leilani's concern about Joseph Smith really seeing God, Jasmin runs and gets out the children's book of Mormon and tells us that she read it all, and she believes it. She was showing us Joseph Smith's story in it. She said she believes he saw God and Jesus. So I think she believes in God, she just doubts whether or not he will seriously answer HER individual prayers. But she sounded very willing to find out now. It was just an amazing lesson! She committed to prepare to be baptized with her sisters also. So yeah! Now we just have created some very interesting lesson plans for this next week because they all attended different lessons, only Petrea has finished the missionary lessons, so now we just have to teach Jasmin part of a 3rd and Leilani part of a 1st, and a commandment here and there...but it's totally possible and I think they will be prepared for their baptism interviews in the coming week as long as we make sure to address all concerns on Friday and they keep their commitments like they said. So yeah! That's all I have time to talk about. I'm excited so excited for the Huang girls. I was really sad about Jasmin last week, and now I'm just so happy all three girls have this desire together. I felt like they were part of the reason I was still here in Zhongli, so I'm just really happy, like I mentioned like 10 times. :) They are doing really great! I remember when I first met them, they would hid behind mom, and not even say anything to me, or my companion. Now I can just act like I've known them forever and ask ridiculously bold questions, or if I hear one of them moving around during the prayer, I can just lean over and hit their knee to remind them to be more respectful...and when us missionaries come over, if they don't come straight out, I can just go in their room and be like, "We're here! Now we prepared a lesson and you guys will come listen" haha. I love it. People who respond well to my nice silly, bold personality.

Chen yiting is doing great too. She's on track for September 26th. She also is good for my attitude. She's sassy with me sometimes, because I'll be ridiculous and happy back. She went with my district last week on our P-day activity and had a lot of fun.

Gu Junru...I don't know about her, she has her goal for the 25th and we are excited, but I don't know what will happen there because mom says no way dad will agree if she has to ask, so it's up to the bishop. If the bishop says it's okay to baptize her without dad's permission, we will, our rules just say we need a guardians signature, so we left it up to bishop. Mom says it won't change their relationship, it's just if dad knows he has an option it will be no. Or something like that. So yeah, Zhang jiemei needs to talk to the bishop, and we'll see what happens, but if no, she can just get baptized at 18. She wouldn't be the first to have to do that.

My district is also doing good. This week I was concerned about set-ups. This Elder in my district gets like 4 a day, whereas my companion and I got 4 last week. It is what we need to improve, so the Elders really helped us, we did role plays in contacting people on the street in 30 seconds and stuff. So I don't see us getting 4 set ups a day or anything, but maybe this week we can get 5 or 6 set ups, instead of 4, and go from there. We don't want too ridiculous amounts, because then we lose focus on the investigators we do have because there is no time to meet with them, but we do want around 7 a week, so we can be filtering through and find progressing people, and have options instead of nothing to do for 2 hours on this day, and 2 hours on this day. Next week is going to be crazy though, we have 2 days we will be in Taipei, presidents interviews, regular district mtg and WPS...and a baptism to prepare for, so next week is going to be insane, we are trying to do as much this week to prepare for the craziness of next week. I'm excited! I love crazy weeks :)

Okay, until next time!

Fu Jiemei.

Commitments on the Street

2009-09-02T08:52:00.003-04:00

Tuesday, September 1, 2009 9:20 PM

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

This week really has been something else. And exciting is one of the words you could definitely use. This last week was zone conference. Monday morning our district met up at the Zhongli train station and headed off to Taipei. Zone conference was really good, but I have to admit I was a little apprehensive initially at the message, but now I'm really excited. We talked about how President Grimley had went to this conference last week in Hong Kong, and they asked them, "Have you Become it?" So President asked us all if we had become it? So that's something I've been pondering lately. They also talked a lot about the baptism commitment. With the converging of Xinzhu to our area, we got a lot of missionaries from Taizhong into the Taipei mission. Taizhong does things a little differently than we had been and I think they want us to be bolder missionaries, so they had 2 of the Xinzhu sisters do a role play, then our zone leaders E. Worthen and Lu on how to invite someone to baptism on the street. They talked about make commitments as a tool to bring souls unto Christ. They taught us how to help someone understand in 3 minutes the importance of the Restoration and being baptized with correct authority. It was really amazing, because actually people have had a lot of success with it.

I'd never even THOUGHT about ever explaining the purpose of baptism and starting to prepare someone for that ordinance in my initial contact with someone, but I started to see how that could be very effective, that they were working towards their first covenant with the Lord from the very beginning. Especially since some of our biggest problems are a lot of our investigators who we end up stop meeting with is due to the fact that they are too scared of that first covenant and as that fear gets stronger, they lose hope and stop keeping commitments at all...so we end up having to spend less time meeting with them and focusing on people who are keeping commitments, and hope they will keep coming to church and one day be willing to make that jump.

So yeah, I have to admit, when I first heard them giving us these examples I was apprehensive, but they had us do roleplays, and Sister Andreason who was with me in the MTC was my partner. She was great for me because she knew me and she's similar to me in personality. She got transferred to Xinzhu this transfer, so in the 3 weeks she's been with her companion she's gotten a lot of practice on this kind of contacting, so she gave me a really great example, then I was able to do it following her example. It made me excited to have a new way of contacting, and I told my companion yesterday (Tuesday) we should invite at least one person to baptism. So even though we barely had time for dinner at all, we grabbed a really fast meal, and invited someone to baptism on the side of the street before we went back into the church to shove the food down really fast before MM meeting. It was cool. She didn't accept, she was too busy with school, but I think maybe one day she'll remember that when she has more time and maybe come back. I invited her to English class if she ever needed help with her English, so maybe we'll see her again! She said her brother is a member who stopped coming because of the lifestyle of a student in Taiwan. But the point is, I felt good about it.

It may sound like some crazy thing us Taiwan missionaries are doing, inviting people to baptism on the street...but its an effective way to find people genuinely interested in learning about the gospel and getting to know their Savior Jesus Christ. And fulfills our purpose to invite people unto repentance. It's not like I'll use it every time I contact, especially not when I have maybe 15 seconds on my bike talking to the scooter next to me to get out an invitation, but now that I know, I can use it and slowly ease more into letting the Spirit tell me which way to use to contact each person. My goal is eventually be able to have a different contacting experience with every person I contact, but right now my Chinese isn't all that great, so a pretty similar one each time is okay, adapted to their comments and questions. And as my Chinese improves, I'll be able to be molded into a more effective tool in the Lords hands.

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

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

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

Sister Bruno

Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam/Dan Jonesing

2009-08-27T09:35:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 12:29 AM

Hello from Zhongli! This week is going pretty good. We met some amazing investigators lately, and even though in some ways for a little while it felt like I was like, not really able to do anything here in Zhongli for the area anymore...i'm starting to see why I'm still here. That's something Satan likes to tell most missionaries, that their area is dying and blah blah blah. But it's just hard to see your numbers take a drastic drop, but as they say in Mandarin, mei guan xi. No problem...that's okay.

I'm really excited because we are meeting with two people I really love with baptism dates, and I really think they will keep them. One is a little girl who is half Australian, half Taiwanese. Nine years old. Her name is Petrea and her mother is a member. Her mom is so excited. Petrea has been a little curious about baptism for awhile, since she's been really good about attending Primary every week, but Sister Hill and I just never had time right before the baptisms to go and pick her up and walk together all the way to the church...but I remembered she wanted to see one, so Sister Chen and I blocked out all the time it would take to walk from their house to the church together and back after the baptism and we did it. She got to see three people baptized, and then she was willing to make the commitment. But only in the summer, because she said fall is coming soon and she doesn't want to be in cold water! Kids are so cute So S. Chen and I will make sure to turn on the water heater in sufficient time that she doesn't have to worry about cold water. She made her date for 9/12. So two weeks from Saturday. I wish her 2 older sisters could be as good and willing to go to church and listen to the lessons, but they are moving along slowly but surely, and we will continue to work with them. I'm sure they will eventually be willing to read and pray, but it will just take a little bit longer to soften their hearts, and find a really solid friend for them. They are all so shy. But we are working on it.

The other girl is Chen Yiting. Her English name is Joanna, so maybe for the sake of not having to type in tones every time I type her name, I'll refer to her as such. Our zone did an activity together where we all did Dan Jones ing...Well, most of us did Dan Jonesing. I didn't. I prefer to contact people who listen, but for some reason I'm a little bit wary of using screaming at the top of my lungs as a contacting method. I fully support others doing it, and will contact all kinds of people on the side lines. Anyways, while our zone leader E. Worthen was up on a bench testifying, my companion and I contacted this cute 19 year old girl. She ended up loving us and asking us if she could help, so while we were doing the Dan Jones activity, she passed out our pamphlets to people listening. We also were able to teach her prayer and reset up with her for that Saturday. Well, she ended up coming to English class that Wednesday...and she's just calls us sometimes and sees what our schedule is like...Monday she wanted to see us and for us to teach her friend who was going into the military this morning about our church before he left. We taught him the first lesson and he was really excited. He was like, of course it's true! I've already seen Joanna change so much since she got to know you guys, she's a lot more patient, and has just changed so much! We asked Joanna if she wanted to be baptized, and she said yes. So we set a goal for the end of September so she could prepare for a month and get herself ready. Then, we had planned to meet with her the next day and invited him along so we could give him the church address down in Kaoshiung where he was...so then yesterday we met with him, and it was really good. We invited Joanna to keep the Sabbath Day holy after teaching the 2nd. We knew that would be a problem since she is coming to church after work Sunday. But her friend ended up being a great help, he is actually her co-worker, and he was like, if you want to "xin momen jiao" or a good translation would probably be.."believe as the mormons do", she needed to be willing to keep God's commandments and be diligent about it. So he said their boss would understand if she needed Sunday's off, since he's Catholic. So she said she'd be more diligent and ask Sunday's off starting next Sunday. Haha, Dai Bang xiu is something else. He also said throughout the space of the time we were together, that his whole family is Buddist, but he decided he wants to be LDS, and be baptized, but he can't until his military time is over. The Elders told him he could come to church on his vacations. He said okay. And that he'd look for the church in Kaoshiung if they let him have a few hours off on Sunday. He said after he finishes military service, he's going to get baptized and then prepare to go on a mission. He has a book of mormon now though. So he said he'd read it so he could be prepared to get baptized next year. Haha. Yeah that was a fun experience to teach him for 2 days! And now we'll continue to meet with Joanna. She's really cute. We'll see her tonight and Thursday, we've been seeing her a lot lately. She's already good friends with the boys who hang out at the church for a couple hours every night, so she's becoming what E. Worthen calls a church rat. haha. I don't think that was a thing in America...but here in Zhongli, there are a group of young single adults who hang out at the church most nights of the week for a couple hours. It's like the social activity to come to the church and hang out.

And yeah! Now I have 9 minutes so I'll try to send a few pictures, if i can move fast enough, if not I'll write a short email next week and send pictures! K bye!

Fu Jiemei

S. Bruno

Missionary Email: Loss of Investigators When Missionary Goes Home

2009-08-17T08:24:00.003-04:00

Monday, August 17, 2009 12:42 AM

Yeah! I finally figured out how to have the computer let me write pinyin, since everyone here uses a system called bopomofo, which makes no sense to me, however, I only figured out how to write pinyin for simplified characters...but I study traditional these days, which I actually have time to study characters at all. Mostly I focus on passing off lesson principles to my wonderful district leader E. Lords!

So, my computer messed up and had to be restarted, so I only have a 9 minutes! You probably realize that it was move calls since this e-mail is coming on Monday. In both wards I cover, Zhongli 1st and 2nd, only one person was moved. Elder Mauldwin is going down to Taoyuan, only a bus stop away. He's still in our stake. Haha. As for me, I'm in Zhongli another transfer of course. I'm really old in my area. Only E. Smith has been here longer than I have. Everyone says new missionaries don't usually get put in their area longer than 2 or 3, but I'm in for 4. We'll see what happens in 6 weeks, but for now my companion and I are doing some weeding out, because we have a whole lot of people who are not progressing, so we aren't going to focus on them anymore. We are focusing our efforts on people who are willing to keep commitments, and the rest if they find time and desire to start actually keeping commitments, we will pick them back up. It's hard when a missionary dies. A lot of investigators die with them, but there is still a lot to do here in Zhongli and we've really gotten to change some things and start developing some better relationships with a lot of people. Especially Zhongli 2nd ward. The relations in that ward could use improvement ...I know way more people in the other ward, because my companion did. So we've really been working on getting investigators way out in Pingzhen and getting to know that ward.

I've had a lot of responsibilities, and so it's been a little stressful, but I'm starting to get used to having more responsibilities and it's turning out to be good. I'm speaking more Chinese...meeting more people, and learning how to skirt around things I don't understand instead of freaking out. Haha. So yeah! This transfer should be fun. And now I have 2 minutes left. Sorry this email was like, hardly no substance, but the last one I spent like 40 minutes on...and now it's gone...so yeah not much choice. Write again next Wednesday!

Missionary Letter: Typhoon (Missionaries Safe in Taiwan)

2009-08-12T01:14:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 10:40 PM

The Typhoon here wasn't hardly bad at all. There was a little rain and debris and we stayed inside one day. But I hear down in the south it was pretty bad, but we don't watch the news so we don't know much...but I don't think there are a lot of missionaries down there, and they are probably all fine so that's probably why nothing was published. Typhoons are normal things here. They probably only mention them if they are awful. For us it was just a lot of strong wind and I probably would have felt fine outside, but they kept us inside to be safe.

Missionary Letter: What Typhoon?--The Innocence of Missionary Life

2009-08-12T01:06:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 11:23 PM

Okay, okay...after all the emails I got this week about how you think I'm probably stuck inside and waterlogged and stuff, I better tell you that this week has actually been very good, and we were only put inside for 1 day. Sister Hill left Thursday morning, and I got my new companion, Sister Engela Chen I was only without a companion for maybe 60 seconds, after Sister Hill drove off, Sister Chen arrived...that day it started raining really hard. We started hearing back on Tuesday that a Typhoon was coming in Friday. After our morning studies, Sister Chen and and I went to go eat lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, and while there we got "the call" from our district leader saying he had an announcement...the announcement was that we needed to get enough food and water to last until Monday. So, after eating we had planned on going straight back home for WPS, but we ended up going to the store and buying cleaning supplies and other essentials, cleaning supplies because when a missionary dies, the apartment get trashed with all their goods they didn't want to take home. So we decided if we did have a typhoon day, we'd deep clean. After that we went and had WPS. I was able to tell my new companion about all our investigators and such...then we had an appointment at the church so we grabbed our raincoats, and headed out there..

When we got outside it was pouring pretty hard. My shoes and the bottom of my skirt was sopping wet after only a couple seconds. It took us a lot longer than usual to get to the church, and then once we got there, we were proceeded to get stood up by every appointment we had that night...probably because it was POURING rain, and later when we talked the the appointments they were like, WHY WERE YOU OUT IN THE RAIN? A typhoon was coming, do you think we are crazy? Haha something to that effect. So we spent that night inside the church making phone calls and waiting to see if this appointment or that appointment would show up. The Elders also all showed up at the church, they had appointments scheduled there too that all didn't come, but it's understandable. After only an hour at the church though, Elder Lords got a phone call saying they wanted us to go inside as soon as possible, but no later than 8. So we had an appointment at 7:30...so we waited for our appointment, but she didn't come, so we went back to the apartment at 7:45. We were also told we probably wouldn't leave the next day.

The next day was Typhoon day. We were told we couldn't leave the apartment, so to be honest, I'm not even sure how awful it was during the actual typhoon, the wind was really extremely loud, to the point of what I would call wailing... and the streets were deserted and it would pour really hard heavy rain on and off. We live on the 9th floor, so we just could hear the wind rushing through our patio in the back of the apartment. So yeah, we spent that day inside cleaning and talking. It wasn't too awful.

The rest of the week it's just been very rainy, but nothing so awful that we weren't allowed to go out in it. Not a lot of people showed up to church and we had to travel to other people's apartments to see investigators because everyone said we were crazy and weren't willing to go out themselves, but they let us come over.

As for the state of Zhongli, there was a little debris and I know the rain hit pretty hard for a couple days straight because the locks on our bikes are completely rusted and we probably need to go buy new ones because it's hard to lock and unlock them, and when we went out the next morning, bikes and the motor scooters everyone rides here were strewn across the ground. But there is nothing really to help anyone with. Everything was cleaned up in a couple hours because they have really good road service and stuff here. Someone, not sure who, even cleared up the fallen branches at the church. I've heard that it was really awful in the south, but that's not our mission, thus why our mission president really wouldn't have a reason to publish anything to our parents. None of us suffered through anything dangerous. Two of our investigators asked us why bad things happen to good people, like those in the south, so we knew the typhoon must have been worse in the south, but we don't watch the news or anything, so we aren't even aware of the extent to how bad it is. You'd have to ask Taizhong missionaries about how the service opportunities are down there. Up here in Zhongli, after Sunday night, people started showing back up to appointments and the rain is a lot lighter. So the only really affect was that we had really small numbers last week, but Rita got baptized!!!! It was last Wednesday night, so I probably mentioned it was happening. She got confirmed Sunday, and it was just really awesome. The Elders investigator Jenny got baptized Sunday too. Zhongli 1st ward has been seeing a lot of success. It makes me feel a little bad because we don't have much to show for our other ward, we are so busy with our investigators in the 1st and always finding more that live in Zhongli because every day we are riding our bikes here and that's who we contact, and we live in Zhongli...then we hardly ever get out to pingjhen and even further out there, so we don't meet people out there...but the Elders are doing a great job there and they should have a baptism soon here too, so I'm excited for Zhongli 2nd ward, but I hope to find some investigators out there so it doesn't seem so sad on our progress records for them every week. I'd like to get to know the 2nd ward better. I know a lot in the 1st because I always need peike's from that ward. So yeah, I think my companion and I are going to try diligently to get some time to get out to pingjhen at least once or twice a week.

In companion news, I really love my new companion a lot. She is really funny and we have a lot of good laughs so far. I'm excited to be with her, it is a little stressful at times because I have a LOT of responsibilities, being the one who has been in Zhongli 3 transfers, so I've been making a lot of phone calls, doing the progress records in Chinese characters, making plans for the day, etc, but I'm glad to have her because she can lead the lessons and teach me the words I don't know that she uses. She's been a lot of help and she's amazing at getting to know names, especially of people who I don't know their names but it would look bad to ask since i've been here so long...so I'm getting to know a lot more names since she's been here! This week has been good! I'm safe! Pray for the people in the south...

1 minute left, I have a lot more I could have written about, but I'm out of time, maybe one day you can read my diary entries. Haha...

Bye!

Fu jiemei

Missionary Email: Report from Taiwan

2009-08-05T08:18:00.002-04:00

Tuesday, August 4, 2009 11:54 PM

Okay, so lately, I don't have much of an appetite, but since my companion is leaving everyone wants to feed us! So ahhH! I learned how to say appetite in Chinese the first time we had a meal with someone though, and so that's good, and people are understanding and say it's because of the weather, and don't force me to eat much, since they figure I can afford to lose weight. haha. It's been fun, every meal is an appointment the last like 5 days. So we've seen a lot of investigators and members and eaten a lot of different foods.

Yeah, so I found out what's happening to me when my companion leaves tomorrow finally...haha. I knew there was no way they would make me senior companion yet. My chinese has improved from what it once was, but it is not nearly good enough to be able to be senior quite yet. Maybe in 3 or 4 more transfers...and even then who knows. I'm just glad the Lord knows what I can and can't handle and didn't give me too much to handle. My new senior companion is going to be a Sister Chen. But there are 3 on the mission. I think I know what Sister Chen the assistants were talking about, E. Lin, the old office Elder, told me she was the ABC (American Born Chinese) Chen...he THINKS. But I guess I won't be POSITIVE it's who I'm thinking until tonight or tomorrow morning...probably tonight so we can coordinate her coming up to Zhongli and I can figure out if I need to try to set people up for tomorrow, depending on if she has a bike or not immediately will determine what we can and can't do. But with a new companion and me being the one familiar with the area, I will get a lot more responsibilities with my new companion. So that will be nice. I'd like to take on some new responsibilities and kind of repent for my laziness before and become a better missionary. Sister Hill was really good to me, she just let me do what I want when I wanted...but it's time for me to step out of my comfort zone and do what the Lord wants when he wants me to instead. But I have changed a lot over the months I think. One of the Elders even told me the other day he thought I'd grown up a lot since he first met me. Probably because I'm a stubborn person and my district has known me through some pretty bad moods. And my bad moods are a lot less frequent then they were back when I felt more inadequate and like I couldn't possibly speak to these people in a tonal language, or understand their food menus or weird squiggly line characters. Haha. Not that I'm all of a sudden always happy. I mean, I really respect that about some people who are always happy (I honestly believe there are some missionaries who are just always happy, and it's super respectable)...I don't know how they do it because I have ups and downs. But I have more ups lately and my mission has been a lot more fun...

So I'm excited for a new companion and for my old companion to go home, because she's excited to go. And she can get married and send me another wedding invitation, since I've gotten a few lately. It's fun to see people getting married and having babies. Haha, which reminds me...I told my companion about that Natasha Beddingfield Song, "I wanna have your babies" but she wasn't nearly as amused by it as me, so I think maybe I just have a weird sense of humor because a lot of things I crack up at...others don't so much...but what can you do. I haven't completely lost Babylon in that way, I still get random songs stuck in my head, but they aren't distracting and usually make me happy because I remember who I am and my personality and none of them have bad lyrics. It's interesting as a missionary to try to figure out what you can keep from before and what you need to give up. And then you just let your experiences and the Spirit shape you. I try to be an obedient missionary, or I made the goal to try to be obedient from the beginning and sometimes I fall short..but I think you need to learn to be obedient but remember who you are and have fun, because when the mission isn't fun, that's when it's unhappy. And work is and can be fun. So maybe I agree with the "it's not all fun and games" with the games part, but I think everything should be fun! Talking to everyone can be fun...and reading scriptures can be fun...seriously. Everything is fun when you have that attitude. So it's amazing.

Today, Rita is going to be baptized! I don't remember what I said about her last week, but her background is she was totally ready but then freaked out and didn't have her interview last last Sunday. So we've been really focusing on her, and this Saturday night, we still didn't know if I was leaving Zhongli to be with other sisters in their area, or they would send someone here, because the assistants had told me I wouldn't be with a duanchuan, for which I was grateful. But other than that, we still didn't know. So we called Rita Saturday and at first she had always been like that she would just be baptized in a few weeks and I'd be there and it would be fine. But my companion was really straight and said we weren't sure either of us would be here after today (wednesday) and that we knew she was ready and wanted to be by her side, but to just really sincerely pray that night, and God would give her her answer...and if she wanted to wait after sincerely asking, that's okay, there's still missionaries and other missionaries would love to keep working with her, because baptism is a start...and she will continue studying her whole life for the enduring to the end part. Well, church was crazy...we had 14 investigators at church, and 12 in the second ward, so it was just ahhh trying to make sure they all were talked to and sat by and happy and good. And we got to talk to Rita and she said she got her answer and showed us a scripture in Alma 38:9. She had opened up to that after her prayer and knew she needed to be baptized...so even though we were headed to Taipei that night, E. Lord's was amazing and did the interview with her...she passed and we set up the baptism for tonight (since her husband couldn't come yesterday) on our Preparation day, and we have English class at 7...but her baptism is at 6 and we will be fine and able to pull it together I'm sure, and it's worth it because she's amazing and really understands the gospel. More than any investigator I've met so far. Things just click for her. And I'm so excited.

Zhongli is amazing and we have a lot of investigators that are so prepared, they are just scared, so we have a lot of work to do, and I'm excited. Maybe a lot of change is coming up, with transfer calls next Friday (not this one), so Sister Hill is the first to leave, but tons of people could end up moving in my district/zone very soon here. But we had an amazing transfer, the Neili Elders have someone getting baptized next Sunday, a Jenny who is great! She spoke with me on Sunday and was like, "Sister, next Sunday I want to be baptized and change my life!" Aww. And the Zhongli Elders have had a lot of success lately too. Their newest convert, James who was baptized Saturday, is very friendly and had a lot of good input at FHE Monday. And yeah everyone is just really doing good right now here in Zhongli 1st and 2nd ward. My district has really been praying for each other, and we've been seeing a lot of miracles and seeing our goals really being reached. It makes me excited for the future and glad to be in Zhongli. I mean, I could move at transfer calls, but I highly doubt it. I think I still have a little bit more to do here. And so I continue my mission in my first area, Zhongli, and things are going pretty good.

Missionary Email: Paradox

2009-07-29T12:41:00.001-04:00

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 11:52 PM

Okay here's a secret, I hate subject lines. I have no paradox for you at the time being, but it's the first word that came to my head when I had to fill in the blank. But actually, my English is getting really bad, i could not for the life of me remember how to spell envision. I couldn't remember if it was an e or an i. I finally decided it is probably an e. There is an Elder in my district that is an English major in college...and we discussed how to spell it three times already, with the conclusion that it is probably e, but neither of us would put money on it. Both of us agree that not reading a variety of books and learning a new language that is in almost no ways similar to your original language makes the original language skills decrease if you aren't keeping them up. I constantly find myself scratching things out in my journal and spelling them 3 or 4 times before I feel good about what I just wrote. My punctuation is completely sporadic, and i find myself often wondering what the meaning of words, such as remission are. Even though I already know...but then I just covet an English dictionary. Haha. And the Elder said that he just doesn't read his emails over twice anymore to combat feeling bad about his decreasing English skills, I'd kind of already adapted that policy way back in the MTC.

This week has been a crazy, crazy week. Yesterday we were in Taipei, and I was talking to one of the random Elders that showed up in the office with me at the same time...since my companion was in a going home job seminar, and I was just hanging out at the office. And we came to the conclusion that Heavenly Father knows us so personally, that if we are people that respond to humorous happenings, he uses a very funny sense of humor to teach us a lesson or six. So that you can sort of even understand because I couldn't even write it all out, I'll just tell you about one of the funny days out of the 2 or 3 I've had this week...since you already know the first part, or at least mom does...

So Thursday morning, we left our apartments like a normal day, and started the bike out to Neili, a pretty quick ride for us, because it is downhill. We were scheduled with a girl named Smile, who actually had saw me on the side of the street and turned around on her motorcycle and asked if she could meet with us. She is new in town and doesn't know the area, so we had planned 2 weeks ago to meet at the Carrefoer, a huge store here, kind of like a Walmart or something. Well, at that time my companion hadn't really asked which Carrefoer and just assumed the one in Zhongli, so we went over there, and found out she was at a different Carrefor...and she had to go, so she said we'd reschedule for her next day off. That was Thursday. People here work crazy hours...so she just gets a day off a week and works like 14 hour days. So yeah, we are biking to Neili, and we are going fast downhill, down tiny alley roads...and I come out into a small intersection, and there is a car down the hill a little ways, and I quickly evaluated breaking, but was scared I'd be thrown forward on my bike, so I decided to speed up instead, and should have cleared before the car got to the same point as me...unfortunately, for a reason I'm unsure of, the car also sped up...and so, hit me pretty hard in the back tire. I'm glad I sped up though, because then I was blessed to not fly off my bike and distroy my face or get hit in the middle, and have my body bruised up or anything...so yeah, my bike flew up pretty high in the air, but fortunately I was able to react fast enough to turn the bike to a more upright position with my thighs and land on my foot still holding my bike up. All that I felt, since I was probably in shock, was that my thighs hurt really bad from shoving my bike into a certain position in the air. The man got out of the car and apologized and asked if I was okay, and after I said I was fine, he looked at his car, and then was like, whatever...and told me I could go on my way. And these people that saw it all came up to me and patted me on the back and said I'd be okay, and xingku (respectable?) me. So yeah, we were not far to the Carrefor, so we finished riding out there, but my companion said my tire was pretty bent up...so it was riding really slow and took a LOT of effort, but since it was only a couple blocks we made it no problem. Then we waited and waited for Smiles...and in the end found out that she was at yet another Carrefor, on the same road, different section, 20 minute bike ride down the street! Well, she had time to wait for us this time, but my bike wouldn't ride, and I had a bad feeling it was only getting worse, so we had to cancel on her again!! Wrong Carrefor twice! So once again, we didn't get to meet with her! We called and said it's probably Satan or something, and we are lucky, she said she'd re set-up when she knew her schedule on Sunday...So then we went to the bike shop, and I had to spend all the rest of the money I had for the month to repair my bike.

Well, I thought, no problem, I have money in my bank account, I'll just find somewhere to withdraw the money...but no ATM would take my card from Wells Fargo, and I was suspecting after a couple banks, that it was blocked, which I suspected since to this point I've been unable to withdraw money from it on my mission. So then, Friday, I called President, and told him I had 200 kuai left and had to go to Taipei twice before we got paid and eat...so I needed to be able to withdraw money from my home card. Especially since bike repair, our mission account we sign says to use money for home. So yeah, i want to follow the rules too. So...a phone card to America costs 200 kuai, so I knew I couldn't eat until I got money from my home account....since I had about 5 kuai left, which is nothing...100 kuai is like 3 dollars. So, despite the late time in America, I phoned home with permission, and had to get everything straightened out with mom! Thanks...haha. But that didn't mean the bank was straightened out...I called the toll-free Taiwan number to Wells Fargo, and they were saying they couldn't confirm my identity, and just wanted me to look online and check something, or give them my account number, which I didn't have...and I kept telling her my last POS purchase, but she said it was wrong, so after like 20 minutes of kind of going in circles with this Wells Fargo person, I changed the date of when I said the POS purchase was, and she unblocked my card. I'm not sure if she gave in or I was just saying it wrong seriously. But she said she found it, and I was really grateful, but then had no time for lunch because we had meetings, but it was okay, I was able to get money out so that we could ride the bus out to Rita's...who is scared to be baptized tomorrow, but I think she'll be ready soon, she just has to overcome a little bit of a family disagreement problem, she hates doing things her sisters don't agree with, so she's praying about it right now...but yeah...so I withdrew some money and we rode the bus up there...and now I only have 4 minutes left, because I took too long reading emails...but what ended up happening, is we parked our bikes, rode up and back to Ritas, and I ended up dropping my key in a gutter and so we had to pay again to get back on the bus and ride it to our apartment, get my spare key, and ride the bus back up to the bikes...it was a crazy week with stuff like that happening all week!

I'll send pictures next week, I was going to send them this week, but no time and I don't want to spend money on another hour! We are going to play with the Elders and some members at the church today, make food, play some games...because it's sister hill's last p-day she'll have time, next week she'll be packing since she leaves Thursday morning. Still not sure what will happen to me, I'll tell you next week when they decided and tell me! bye bye!