Laojie Fire

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

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

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

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

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

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

Missionary Emails: Barf-a-rama

Sunday, May 24, 2009 11:52 PM

Well, it looks like last weeks letter didn't send through. Maybe it was because the computer had only one minute left, I don't know, but lucky you because now you get two letters from me this week! And in less than a week too, so it's okay that I only got one letter from dad a paragraph long telling me how disappointed he was I didn't email him today, when I tried to..haha. Because that's KIND of my fault. I didn't expect much today because I didn't mention that we were getting move calls and so this P-day is a different day. I'm kind of sad though because I was hoping someone would tell me about why my investigator thought that about the DaVinci Code. And mom was probably really confused about that letter I forwarded to her, but now it will make more sense.

This week has been quite the week. Saturday night was a not so great experience. I got a really bad migraine during our lesson at 2. And I had a hard time focusing...but we got through the lesson without it being AWFUL bad...but then it started being a pounding headache once they left. We ended around 3:15 and we had a 3:30 brunch appointment with a lady in our English class, who isn't too interested in church, but she loves us and wanted us to come to her house to eat. But she ended up having a rushed day so she couldn't come to the church until 4. So anyways, we get to her house around 4:15, and I straightaway run into her bathroom and vomit up part of the xigua (watermelon, or literally western melon) drink that our 1 o'clock appointment had us drink. And I was grateful that our lunch was late that day so I didn't have too much to barf up. I thought I was done but was weary about eating anything at her house, because my headache was pretty bad and my stomach didn't seem like it would jieshou shiwu (accept food). So I was just upfront and told her I had just barely tu'ed and didn't think I could eat. She was nice about it. She gave me this drink with herbs and had me put this killer burning stuff on my head. It's like vicks for your head. It was really weird feeling and I wished I hadn't...but too late...hahaah. But it was an awful feeling. I didn't barf again at her house, but I just couldn't focus, and my head was like radiating from the Chinese medicine she had me put on my head. I felt bad because I like her a lot and wanted to talk, but it was hard. But she understood. She tried to get me to go rest, but I just wanted to get back to the church and I thought I would be fine as long as I wasn't barfing. She was in the car with us, driving us back to the church and telling me to take a rest...and I was like, I'm fine I'm fine...we have a 7 o'clock, I'll rest tonight. But then...we were one stoplight from the church and I barf in my mouth...but I didn't want to get it in her car, so I was just praying, please let me not barf anymore until I get out of the car...please please please...because I was just holding it in my mouth with my cheeks all puffed up. And the second we stopped in front of the church I dashed out of the car and barfed in the cute little bush right outside the church. I thought I was okay and went back to get my stuff and apologize, but then more barf came...and I barely made it to the bush..so my companion got my stuff and the lady drove off, and I proceeded to barf all over the bush, all over my shoes, all over myself. In front of everyone on the street because I couldn't make it inside the church. So after I was covered in barf on my arm, shoes, etc etc, we went in the church and called our 7 o'clock and rescheduled...I tried to clean up enough to ride my bike home...then we went home. And I took off all my barfy things, including my shoes and put them in the washer...then I got in the shower and washed off my legs and arms with soap...I mean it was sick because it was everywhere, my socks, my undershirt, you name it, it was covered in barf. Nice visual huh? :) And then my companion and I talked until bedtime because I was in too much pain to fall asleep. I took some excedrin and it made it a little better, but I wasn't able to sleep after midnight. So that was fun for me! We had biked a lot that day, so it could have been heat exhaustion, it's just weird to think it was heat exhaustion though because I drink a LOT of water..? I have this huge herbal life water bottle and I drink it all day. But one other embarrassing thing too, is the lady whose house we were at was all asking me if I was on my period yet in front of her husband and 16 and 12 year old sons. They are just really open here?

Friday night we got move calls. The new transfer starts today. This transfer is only 5 weeks long. We'll get a new mission president on July 1st. So they will do the transfers with the new president. It will be sad to see the Nielsons leave, but I'm sure our new president and his wife will be really great! I'm excited to meet them. Our mission will also grow and get some of the Taizhong (Taichung? depending on your pinyin) mission. Kaosiung will officially close. So this will be a fast transfer. I'm excited because my companion is coordinating sister and coordinates splits, and both the Bade and the Taoyuan sisters are training, so I'll get to see my old MTC friends Sister Watts and Sister Olsen. Oh! And I guess it's important to mention in the move calls, I found out I'm staying here in Zhongli with the same companion. Our district leader got moved, Elder Atwood to Banciao. Sad, it's hard to move when you only have one transfer left! Our zone leader E. Huang went home. And Elder McGee got transferred to Taipei 2nd. It was weird to see so much change. E. Atwood was really unique and a fun district leader. We were sad to see him go. And E. McGee has been here in Zhongli a LONG time. The members really love him, and they will miss him a lot. They were all really sad to hear he was going, but they are great, they'll probably love the new missionaries coming in.

I really loved our district and zone! I realize every time I have to say goodbye to people, I get a little sad, but I'll get to see E. Atwood at zone conference once more, and E. McGee has a little while left. So he'll be around. I guess it will be nice because at conference my companion was so excited to see all these people she knew, but I wasn't that excited because I only knew a select few people. I was excited to see them, but S. Ackerson is down in Hualien so I don't get to see her, so that just made me sad to see some of our MTC district and her to be missing. But each transfer I'll know more people and get more and more excited to see old district/zone members when I do! haha. Like now i get excited to see the 2 girls I went on splits with last transfer too. Woo. Now I'm old. Or at least not a trainee. Older than the brand new olds. And now my Chinese is improving lately. At first it didn't feel like it was, but this last week I feel like I'm understanding a lot more. I'm trying to participate in the lessons more. It's coming really slowly, but surely.

The last event I will talk about this week is exciting news...Li Yufeng, or Sister Lee as my companion calls her in her family emails, I just pinyin the Chinese instead of make it into English, but she actually speaks English REALLY well, so her name in English is Yvonne Lee. But like I was saying, Yu1feng1 made a baptism goal this week! WOOOO. I was really excited because she is special. Even our bishop and mission leader told us her family is special. She had a goal before and it passed, then she didn't want to make another goal for a long time. It was really nice she was willing to try her faith and make a goal. I don't know if she'll actually get baptized on that goal, which is in 2 weeks, because we want to wait for her husband who might a little longer, but we talked to the Elders and they are going to team up with us on this family since they live closer and can therefore follow up in person more often with him at nights. And they are Elders...So I have a feeling he'll start progressing a little faster and I can totally see them being baptized together this transfer. I have high hopes for them. I really love them a lot. And even if it doesn't happen this transfer, I know they will be baptized.

So yeah, those are the things I remember this week, other than that investigators are pretty much the same, coming along slowly. Not progressing in a lot of ways, church is one of the biggest problems. We are starting to feel like we need some new investigators because some of our old ones are less and less interested. We've been praying for new investigators. I'm sure we'll be blessed this transfer and see miracles. We've already met a lady married to a Canadian who is willing to meet with us, and even her husband said he'd meet with us too. She's funny because she said S. Hill's Chinese is better than her husbands, but her husbands Chinese is pretty good when we spoke to him! It's just probably hard to have the language barrier in a marriage and want to talk about your feelings and not being able to. It should be interesting because we talked about it, and he needs the lessons in English and she needs them in Chinese! So we'll just...um translate everything or something!? We'll figure it out. Maybe after a lesson or two with him he'll be willing to meet with Elders too? We'll see. He said he could see about coming to church next week when we told him there was a translation into English.

Okay I'm going to see how much time I have to send pictures now! bye!

Taiwan Taipei District 18D: Learning the Language MTC

Sister Flora Bruno at MTC

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.

Second Email: Drama and Loss

Monday, February 2, 2009 2:22 PM

Ahhh, my last email got lost, so now I have like a couple minutes, like 12, to write this one. Hopefully I can do it in six so I can check my email again today.

This week has been the biggest drama fest of my life. I already dislike DTRs and have avoided having them in my life. I would say I can probably count on my fingers previous to my mission the amount of DTRs I've had. However, this week at the MTC has been an insane amount of DTRs. Well, at least I refer to them as such, even though we aren't really defining our relationship persay, but we are doing some kind of figuring out, and I don't like it. In fact, twice this week I have stayed up past quiet time to try to smooth things out. I know dad posts these emails online so if you want more detail on that, write me and if i have time next week and the computer doesn't CLOSE my email, I'll tell you about it.

DAD strike this paragraph to post online, but Gianina: no, I'm not companions with sister T. She is serving in the same mission, but she is a solo sister here. She is actually our coordinating sister by default since she was the only sister. hahhaha. But yeah, since she's solo, she was on a split with us and we saw Kristi, so Kristi probably thought we were companions. But alas, it is not true. And I am thankful. She's an SYL hardliner. Which can be good, but you need to be careful who you are SYLing with. In the Bible it talked about how if you talk in tongues and nobody understands then it is not a good thing. Well by my interpretation of that scripture. Most of the new missionaries are beginning Chinese speakers. They can pray, testify, and say, hi what is your name. Obviously they can't understand a long stream of Chinese and sometimes she refuses to translate. It can be frustrating for some. And I won't lie, she's a LARGE part of the drama happening and a large part of the tears.

But for something dad can post online, the MTC hasn't been the experience I was hoping for quite yet. But alas, maybe after all these discussions this week next week will lead us in a different direction. My companion and I were talking about how we can see the vision of what it is supposed to be, but because of all the hindrances, it has been impossible to quite get there yet. But we have hope that it will come.

I'm grateful for the older elders. My companion Sister Ackerson and I have kind of let some of them become our teachers. We SYL with them at meals and they teach us new words. They are patient with us and always teaching us. They also shield us from a couple of Elders that have a tendency to flirt with the sisters, for our sake as well as those Elders. Hahaha. But it doesn't bother me. I'm outgoing and I realize that people don't change at the drop of a hat. And so, they will change slowly but surely. It helps to just remember they are 19 year old boys (even the "older" elders are 19, they just have been learning Chinese for 8 weeks)

Sunday is my favorite day. We get to have talks by members of the 70 and then after amazing talks we get to watch a movie. Sister A and I were talking about how cool it is that we get a Sunday movie. This week we watched the Testaments. Or however you spell that.

I'm really upset my last email closed because now I have 4 minutes left so I'll have to wait until next week to check my email...but yeah, the MTC is an adjustment. And mission politics already. But everything comes for a reason, and I'm just blessed that I got the best companion in our entire zone. Because we have fun and we aren't hardliners...everyone in our zone is our friends because we don't judge them for their mistakes and weaknesses and disobedience at least not to a harsh extent...but we encourage them in their strengths. I'm glad that we have become friends with the other districts. I will be sad when they leave because my teachers will be gone! But then we will become the teachers. Haha. Woooo.

It's crazy, days creep by and weeks fly. Oh by the way, they drew my blood and it's getting worse. I can see internal bleeding and huge bruises. It started hurting yesterday. We will have to take me to the health clinic tomorrow. Wei zhanglao said that he had that happen and they had poked all the way through the vein. SICK. Hopefully that's not true or he said it takes over a month to heal,

DONT FORGET TO DEAR ELDER ME!

Love yall

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

First Letter from MTC: Orientation Day Thoughts

1-21-09

Dear Family,

Today was my first day at the MTC and I am exhausted! My companion Sister Ackerson is very nice. She is from Portland (Beaverton) Oregon. We will be companions for the next 12 Weeks & I am glad! We share a room with all the girls speaking Mandarin at the MTC. There is a companionship of 3 that entered the same day as us: Sister MacIsaac, Sister Allen & sister Jorgenson. There is also a solo sister who will be with us for 6 more weeks. She spoke today with me a little in Chinese. I understand everything she says, but so far I'm slow in formulating responses. My companion just recently graduated from BYU in Middle Eastern Studies. So yeah we have a lot in common thus far.

Mostly the happenings of today was orientation-related. We got lots of advice about loving our companions, becoming closer to Christ, studying the language, etc. We ate dinner and Sister A & I sat next to some Spanish-speaking Elders & some Elders in our district. It was really fun. We laughed a lot.

After dinner we meet our district, well, half of it. All the incoming Chinese Elders & Sisters met with the branch president. We got to introduce everyone find out rules

...So please send me a copy of my call letter. I am supposed to have it. If you want to send those dresses & my green Chinese textbook called Chinese Zink I'd like that too. I shouldn't have brought some of the stuff I did & should have brought the kind of stuff I left. Sad day. The dictionary they gave us is identical to mine. The Spanish Elders received a bad one I hear, but I guess us Chinese learners lucked out? I made friends with a lot of the Elders in our district. I really like everyone I've talked to so far.

In my mission president interview he said I seemed to know a lot about China & the culture. I hadn't mentioned anything before, so it's probably that I kind of bowed to him. HaHa? I'm not sure. I said I knew some things but still had a lot to learn. So yeah. Today was fun. I met a lot of people and learned a lot . . . but I'm excited about language class. My P-Day is Mondays so, I'll probably write again then!

Until next time,

Sister Flora Aimee Bruno