Missionary Email: First Day in the Field, Doing a Dan Jones

Monday, April 13, 2009 12:22 AM

Hi,

So now I'm in Taiwan. Cool huh? My first area is Zhongli, or Jhongli, or Jungli, depending on what pinyin you are looking at. It's about an hour outside of Taipei and still very "city." We had a baptism on Sunday and Saturday one of the investigators committed to be baptized a week from Friday. So that's pretty cool. Not that I was too involved in those, but I was in some ways too. The transfer officially starts today. Until today we were a companionship of three. It was sad to see Lu jiemei go. She's a native from Taiwan and she's awesome. She's really bold and the members and investigators were sad to see her go, but she told everyone it's the Lord's work and she was called to go to the city in Taipei and be a senior. Her first time to be senior. Her junior companion has actually been on a mission for more time than her. But I'm sure she's going to be an amazing senior companion and they are going to work well together.

My companion is Sister Hill, Cai Jiemei. I'm her first trainee. She's been Senior for awhile I think, but I'm the first one she's training. She had Brother Hutchings in the MTC as well. I want him and my other teacher to have my blog, so next week i'll bring their emails and if you could email them for me that would be great.

This week has been abnormal because of being a greenie, general conference and being a three-some. When we got here, we talked in the bus with the mission president and his wife, and then pretty much went to bed.

Thursday we had orientation. It went by pretty fast. Lots of meetings. We went out at night and Dan Jones'ed on exchanges with more experienced missionaries. It was totally cool. I went with sister barker, who will go home tomorrow. She was really excited and people listened to her. She was a good example. I got the opportunity to talk to some people who lived in America for awhile. It was funny, because I was with an elder at the time, we had bunched together for the dan jones so we could talk to the people paying attention, and my companion was talking to a lady, and there were 4 other people so I went over there...and they eventually asked me, oh, so you understand everything this elder says right (I had told them I had just come to taiwan the day before) and I was like, of course...he speaks English...and they cracked up because they had meant chinese. It was really fun. We laughed a lot and they said they had always wanted to know more about the temple in Taipei, so we gave them a temple tour flyer and a flyer about Christ and told them a little bit, and they said they would go to the tour.

Friday we went to the site where Taiwan was dedicated by the church and read the dedicatory prayer. Then the president invited us to rededicate ourselves to this work and to obeying with exactness. We separated a little and said individual prayers at this beautiful site...then met together and had a testimony meeting with our group of 12 new missionaries. After that we toured the Hotel at the site. It was huge and very pretty. We went back to the mission office and had food, a meeting with the president and his wife, then met our trainers, had some meetings with the mission president and his wife about unity and what was ahead. My new companion went with me to the bank to exchange my money took pictures..then we took the train to Zhongli standing for an hour. It was quite an experience with all the rocking. We had dinner at a part member (but inactive member) family. The daughter is a member but doesn't come to church and her mom is an investigator. They are really nice. We watched the lamb of god with them and talked about the importance of reading the book of mormon. the spirit was really strong.

Saturday we met up with some other Elders in Zhongli and went closer to the city to watch conference, since it was only in Zhongli on Sunday. Since we watched it in English we were in a room of about 20 missionaries, and we all went to eat together in between sessions, then back into a room together.

So on Sunday, we had a really good day. During conference, since they have conference a week later here for translation reasons, a girl walked into the church and appologized but said she needed to talk to a native English speaker for a homework assignment. She's an English major at one of the colleges here. We said we were in the middle of conference and would have time after, so she came and watched an hour of conference in English with us. She said she understood everything, and I hope that's true, but there were some words I didn't understand, and she didn't write down anything she didn't know, I gave her a paper to write on if she got confused.

After conference we were having Chen huiping's baptism, but she didn't have time to stay...She said to call her in two weeks so she could learn more about Joesph Smith and why there was two people he saw, and not just one. She has a huge test in 2 weeks and the chinese people are really diligent, when they have a test, they are busy until their test is over. The girl who committed to baptism is like that. She's amazing and says she needs the protection of the Holy Ghost, but she told us she can't get baptized until after her test, so her date is a week from Friday.

Chen jiemei's baptism was really cool. Since it was conference, there were tons of people who attended. Chen was really nervous because she doesn't like to do things alone or be watched and she was watched and was baptized alone. But it ended up being good and she wore a cute pink dress with black knee highs even though she "hasn't worn a dress or stockings in years" She still has a bit to learn so we'll keep meeting with her, but she made a huge leap by committing and going through with baptism. Next Sunday she will recieve the Holy Ghost. I'm excited for her.

I'm also excited for Xiu Renrei to be baptized a week from Friday. She's our friend. Before our lesson with her we were hungry, so she went with us to dinner. After she meets with the missionaries she takes a picture and blogs about it. She was really sad to see Lu Jiemei leave the area, but she's really friendly, so I'm sure we'll be friends, to the best of our ability, since my Chinese at this point isn't really good. I can't communicate well. They give you additional language study time until your 3rd transfer here, for good reason. But I've only been here a couple days, I'm sure it will pick up really fast once the schedule starts normal tomorrow.

3 minutes before the computer shuts down, but at least now I have an hour instead of a half hour, so this email is SUPER LONG. Haha, next week I have Preparation day on Wednesday instead of today, so Tuesday night for you...and so I should have a lot to say. But I'm excited. We already have baptism commitments here in Zhongli and the work is ready, the members are nice, and the Taiwanese are really friendly...


Love you all!
Fu Jiemei

Missionary Email: Large Amount of Sister Missionaries Coming to MTC

Monday, March 2, 2009 9:32 AM

Okay, so I don't think I'll write a lot because I don't have a lot to say and I'll probably just send Desi her own letter...but in response to my parents letters...thanks for the account update mom. I think I need to withdraw 100 more dollars when I leave for emergency cash. But that's in like 4 more weeks so nothing should really happen on my bank account for awhile. I had already withdrawn enough for a bike but I didn't want to bounce so I didn't get the emergency cash yet. I bought my missionary bag last week. It's okay. I match with all the boys in the class. The girls all found cute other ones at other stores, but I'm fine matching with the boys. That way I can bring my whole life with me everywhere I go...like laundry.

Taught the first lesson in Chinese this week. It was okay. I ting bu dong'ed (heard but didn't understand) quite a few words. There is this man...Brother Kitchen. He was one of the first 4 missionaries in Taiwan. He comes to the TA every Saturday and he was one of the 3 people in the room. There were also two girls from Taiwan. Unfortunately, Taiwanese Mandarin sounds a lot different than what we learn here in the MTC. I realize that even if I learn a lot here, it will take quite some adjustment when we get to Taiwan to understand what people are saying because the Chinese sounds a lot different. They teach a very standard Chinese here. But the girls were really helpful and changed their accent a little so we could understand more. I had the hardest time understanding brother kitchen, but it was okay, he was like a "golden investigator" for us, so it wasn't too painful at all.

The real investigator we taught 2 weeks ago decided to get baptized sometime last week. That's pretty cool that so many of us missionaries at the MTC got to be involved in teaching her. I think that would be a tremendous spiritual experience to hear the gospel every week from learning missionaries. Her baptism date is the 28th of this month. I'm excited for her. She's pretty much the most comfortable i've been in a TA because she was helpful. She also lives with one of the TE teachers who happens to be powerful when she teaches, so I wasn't surprised when I heard she was getting baptised. She has amazing examples all around her.


Hmmm..My companion was called as the new coordinating sister as all the older transfer of missionaries are gone and the last one Elder Wu leaves tomorrow morning at 3am. He's been in our district this last week, it's been cramped, but he's been helpful to us with his language skills.

We are getting 10 new sisters on Wednesday. Not kidding. 10. That's amazing. The branch president didn't believe us when we told him. Qian laoshi, one of the teachers was the one that told us this news. I didn't believe it either until Han laoshi checked it himself and confirmed. But alas, it's true. We all were like...ahh poor coordinating sister with so many sisters to be in charge of...15 sisters in the mandarin zone here at the MTC is shocking. And quite a task if any of them don't feel like keeping the rules. But they will be great and my companion will probably be fine. haha. At least in my opinion. But it should be fun. We will also get 15 Elders. It's weird without the older transfer of missionaries here anymore. But at the same time, it's our turn to the be older ones. I'm glad for them to come. We need new people to talk to at meals.

I don't really feel like writing anymore. I have 12 minutes left. I'll check my email later today I guess. Bye.

Missionary Letter: Amazing Teachers

Sweet, I'm glad a couple of you wrote back, I remembered something I wanted to mention so I'm going to do that in my last 6 minutes. This week we went to the TA teaching place on Saturday morning. It was our second time teaching. We do fifteen minutes in Chinese and then the rest in English for the first 4 weeks. So this was week two. The Chinese was better than last week...WELL...our teacher Han Laoshi is a strict and harsh guy. He's not good at compliments and is VERY good at calling people to repentance. This week he watched Sun Jiemei and I teach...and he gave us a HUGE thumbs up when we finished. We thought he was like kidding. Well later, we actually found out he was BLOWN away by our teaching. We had used tons of scriptures and actually taught no new principles because we were busy explaining the old ones in the scenario. He told us that was the best teaching he had ever seen at the MTC in his entire life...and Han Laoshi is not a joking or over complimentary type of guy, if he said that, he was serious. So yeah, Sister Ackerson and I are killer in English. We now get to do the 2nd lesson twice in English before we have to start teaching Chinese lessons...Then YIKES...who knows.

Until Next Week,

Fu Jiemei.

MTC Instruction: Grooming and Appearance

Han Laoshi

MTC Provo

5 February 2009

Wear make-up and look presentable every day, remember others are children of God. The little things take care of the big things.

Floss once a day.

Teaching--Focus on doctrine.

Conversion story--some people have no family support and yet they are happy through the gospel. How much more grateful should the sisters be who have a family that loves and respects them for serving a mission? To have not only the gospel, but a support behind it as well.

MTC Instruction: Ask Direct Questions

Han Laoshi

MTC Provo
5 February 2009

Ask Direct Questions

"Will you"--require yes/no response. Specific, direct, clear

Lead people

DQ require people to make commitment and exercise active faith.

Practice and critique, simple, direct and clear.

• explain Lord's promised blessings
• do/would you avoid is it awkard? how important to you, how to improve
  

Repetition, Repetition (First Email MTC)

So, we get 30 minutes on the computer today, which is my preparation-day. I wish I had gotten on the computer first because I just spent the last hour writing you guys a letter that I plan on sending because I spent an hour on it!! But Sister Ackerson and I decided we are just going to use half of our time on the computer now and check our email again later to see if you guys wrote back or whatever. She's really anxious to hear from her family.

So, since I'm going to get back on later and read if you wrote me anything this will be short. And business first. Mom my teacher said most of my skirts are too short, the day he told me that I was wearing the one you made, so according to him even your dress was too short. So could you make sure to make that black skirt REALLY long, like ankle length and if you have time make a brown/creme/or white one. And I'll just wear one of those two skirts every day under my other ones. Also, I don't have that brown dress that was really long that I wore on Sunday, it must still be at home, so if you can send that as quick as possible, I'll stop getting in trouble for my skirt lenghts. It has to be "mid calf" so I only have 2 that work at all for his standards, and one is dry clean only. My companion and I both think my skirts are fine, because they are modest and cover my knee completely, but I need to learn chinese, so I need to go to class..so I need to have skirts that meet the STRICT requirements of my teacher brother Hutchings.

I like my other teacher Song Laoshi, or brother Sampson a lot. He is really matter of fact and he is really plain about things. I like that a lot. Brother Hutchings is more of a circling things kind of guy, but he's nice overall, he just doesn't deal with situation well.

I love my companion. She's the best. There is a solo sister here that is in the older district that is our dorm mate, her name is Sister Tedjumulia. She was in Gen and Annika's ward so she knew them. I guess she has a sister who is older who looks like her? I knew i recognized her from somewhere.

So far I haven't really learned much Chinese. But I think I'll start actually learning more next week.

They have asked us already to SYL, so I try to sit next to the Elders that have been here for 7 weeks. Particularly Sun Zhanglao. He's always willing to talk with me in Chinese and teach me new words and phrases. Its suprising because most of the older district hate to SYL during meals because they just feel like they need a break from Chinese I guess. But it's sad for me because they are the ones I need to be speaking with, my everyday Chinese vocabulary is pretty much almost to the same level as theirs. I just have a long way to go on the gospel vocabularly. But so far I've had plenty of meals that I've practiced speaking to many of the older elders and i was able to improve little by little.

The first couple days went by SOOOO slow,but sunday picked up and today is Preparation day, so it should fly by...i'm hoping the days dont start to slow down again, because BOY the last few went by slow.

Yesterday Sister Dibb, President Monson's daughter taught Relief Society. Well, spoke at. She talked about how she read an obituary and had an impression to go to the viewing because the description of the 14 year old girl was so wonderful...it talked about how she loved the gospel and stuff. Then that night she had dinner with her father and told him about it, and her father had an impression to go to the funeral and he was able to testify that that little 14 year old girl was in Heavenly Fathers arms. How awesome is that? The prophet was able to comfort her parents and say she was well taken care of.

Well I'll only have 11 minutes later to recheck this so I'll go now! Later...oh and I don't know if I'll have time to get on every p-day so the dear elder letters are good too. I get those the same day you send them. haha.

Okay, bye.

Second Letter from MTC: Using Correct Language

1-26-09

And welcome to preparation day! Yes, preparation day, not p-day. Our zone is kind of strict about the most random words. Like guys . ..the sisters really get on me about that one. Personally though, I don't care too much because I am not learning the slang in Chinese, so if I say "Hey guys lets go do this" instead of "Hey Elders" I'm not going to cry about it. But if I remember and I go ahead and use the "Elders and Sisters" term.

My companion like I said before is Sister Ackerson, but I call her Sun jiemei. The U in Chinese is pronounced a little like a w. sunjiemei is pretty much the most awesome person in my zone. So how lucky that I'm her companion huh? Remember the girl who contacted me before the mission? Sister MacIsaac? Well since all the Chinese sisters room with me, she and I have met. She is a nice girl with a sweet testimony. Her blood family disowned her for joining the church 3 years ago. However, she is less peppy than she seemed. Personally, I think she is struggling with something, but I can't really blame her, I have a struggle mom won't love as well.

I have this teacher Brother Hutchings or Han laoshi. He addressed me about my wardrobe yesterday. The White Handbook says skirts need to be mid calf. I guess all mine are upper calf. Even mom's dress is too short according to his standards. So I only have 9 things ... and one is pushing it acceptable for class. That long brown dress would have worked but it wasn't in my luggage. So mom make that black skirt super long. I'll wear it under everything. And if you can make a brown or white one to wear that's plain, I'll wear a skirt under my skirts. Oh, and send me my brown dress!

Han laoshi is a nice guy but me and my companion agree when he offers criticism he has a bad teaching habit of blowing things out of proportion. He makes us feel way bad about something that could have been solved in a nicer way. With the skirts thing, he had the whole district stand up and said he saw something wrong with "all of us' so instead of saying what was wrong he made us all read the dress standards. After refusing to tell us in "the circle." After we read he rolled his chair up to sun jienei and I asked if we found anything wrong. We said no. I was wearing mom's dress that day. I was wearing an undershirt to cover my cleavage. . . But he said it was upper calf and I need skirts like sun jiemie's. Hers go to the ankles. He said I'd have to go through whatever means necessary to get longer skirts because mine don't cut it. So yeah he singled me out after pretending it was a class/district issue. It definitely escaladed the situation. I'm pretty sure I teared up and couldn't stand to be in the same room as him and his way of "handling" things, so yeah, I just dealt with it I guess. I feel awful though. I don't want to break the rules. But something Sun jiemi and I said that he was wrong in . . . he was like "Yeah the skirt you are wearing now is fine when you are sitting...but not standing!" In my experience they seem longer. But I can see it is my upper calf. I just didn't know its a big deal even though they don't show my knee.

But whatever about that . . . a weird thing with clothes. My pantyhose haven't run yet but I have gotten awful knee highs. They run every time I wear a pair. They sell those here at the bookstore though so I'm not worried about that. I just hate hose! Haha.

On a thing more fun to talk about note, My companion and I have been having fun. I sit next to the 7-week Chinese Elders at meals and talk to them if they are SYLing (Speak Your Language). But actually most of them are bad at it. They just prefer to speak English at mealtime because they do Chinese all day every day and mealtime they take a break from class...which means most of them take a break from speaking Chinese too. Too bad.

So far, I haven't learned much language wise. It's hard to because the teachers teach things I already know and during MDLS (missionary directive language study) the Elders (Zhanglao) in my district are loud and always asking me questions since the teachers aren't there. Well, plus it's hard to focus when everyone is talking around you. I have a study plan for this next week though, so I think I'll get a lot more done. Song laoshi, my other teacher, told me Saturday that from now on if we learn something I know, while he is teaching I can focus on something else. So I'm grateful for that.

Also, there is one Elder, Elder Rowley (li zhanglao) that lived in Taiwan for 3 years in my district. He just doesn't know gospel words. Plus, he doesn't know pinyin, the American way to learn Chinese. He knows characters, I'm impressed by his knowledge. Yesterday was my first opportunity to talk to him and we SYLed together. It was way helpful for both of us, for now since neither of our companions have more than a 30 word vocabulary if that. And no grammar structure at all yet. All our classes essentially have been English. We've only learned to pray and testify about a select few things at all. I'll be excited for more language focus. They are focusing in teaching us the lessons in English for now. They say though that in 2 weeks the class will be at Li Zhanglao level. So I hope that's true so I can SYL more like our teacher asked us to.

Sun jiemei is smart though! She just graduated from BYU in Middle Eastern studies, so she is well versed in Arabic. She's picking up Chinese fast. Sometimes if she only hears something once she will know it. On other sister is graduated as well with Philosophy. So half of the Chinese speaking sister are graduated.

The solo sister Tai jiemie is Sister Tedjumuli a (sp?) and she was in Gen & Annika's ward at BYU So she was excited to hear Gen and Stuart got married. She said Annika was very funny and quite the character. Haha.

Yesterday we had a talk about only being 2 good reasons to go home and Brother Allen said that it's good to want to go home, it means home was a good place, but to stop thinking about yourself. He said he didn't plan on sharing all that but then felt inspired to, so that was interesting. Well, I'll try to set up email today. You get 30 minutes...But we'll see. Thanks mom for the letter! I got it on day 2 printed out on Dear Elder on the same paper as Matt's haha. You talked about each other. It's nice to get letters cuz some weeks you don't have time. Well that's all I have to say for now.

Bye!

Fu Jiemei