Mission Humor on Being Transferred

Hello from the City of Bade Taiwan. This week, I have moved to a new area. I'm still in Taoyuan county. In fact, I have now served in every single area in Taoyuan County. There  are 3 sisters in this county...Zhongli Sisters, Taoyuan 1 and 3rd  sisters, And Bade and Taoyuan 2 sisters. I just moved from being the 1st and 3rd sisters in the City, to moving over to the side and taking  Bade City. Not a far move at all. Bishop Liao drove me this morning  here...he's such a great bishop, he's been doing so much to help the  work in the Tao 1 ward. I worry about how much he does. I hope he  doesn't overdo it. He's just been doing so much, but I really  appreciate and respect all the work he has done. Haha. It only took me 6  weeks to figure out what ward was what, then I moved.

My new companion is a Sister Messenger. I think she's really  amazing, because she is just a really strong person, and her faith is strong. It's really unique for us to be together for a couple reasons.  One is, right after I left Zhongli, she came and was Sister Chen's  companion. So she taught a lot of the same people as I did. So we  usually can talk about those days :). Also, since Sister Tedjamulia was the coordinating sister, Sister Messenger and I had the opportunity to  be companions on exchanges, which as luck would have it, we had a really  good day that day. We had a good experience. After exchanges, when we  saw her one day, 2 weeks before move calls, Sister Messenger said she  decided that Sister Tedjamulia was going to train, and I was going to  come to Bade to be her companion, since her current companion at the  time is going home to America. She was convinced. And, I kind of  started to think it was very possible. We all knew it was a large  possibility of my companion training, since she is the only Sister going  home this transfer, and thus the oldest sister in our mission, not to  mention she's really great and her trainee really goes with her well.  Although, that would mean I'd have to leave after only 6 weeks in an  area, and that made me a little sad...

But, I started to be convinced of Sister Messengers prophesy too, especially  Thursday. We got a phone called Thursday night, 10 minutes before we  were going to call and confirm plans for that day...from the  Assistants. Of course, because we are both experienced missionaries, we  knew that the "Assistants" on our phone meant. But, the Assistant is  just, interesting in how he asked...my companion, always wanting to get  to the point, said,

"Hello this is Sister Tedjamulia"

"Hello, this is Elder Lysenko, am I speaking to Sister Tedjamulia?"
"Yes this is Sister Tedjamulia"
"Hello, Sister Tedjamulia! This is Elder Lysenko. Do you know what tonight is?"
"What?"
"Today is Thursday, which means, tonight is the night we call out who will train, so Sister Tedjamulia, we would like to ask you to be a trainer..."
"Okay...sounds good"
"Alright, we need you guys to be in the Taipei Jinhua chapel at 10am tomorrow...etc.  etc."

Haha, we both laughed a lot at the way he asked her. "Tonight is  the night!" And then,we started our trip to Taipei the next morning and  became a 3some for a weekend.

She is training a girl from Canada named Sister Lai. She's really cute, she has 2 degrees and left her job as an accountant to come serve a  mission. Her parents are from Hong Kong, and she's been exposed to  Cantonese...plus she really is diligent and sharp, so even though she's  brand new, her Chinese is already amazing! It was really fun to be with  them on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

At the training meeting, they say that the new people's area will be, and I knew they were still going to be the Taoyuan Sisters,  so starting Thursday after picking up Sister Lai, I knew I was moving, but didn't know where. Then in the about 5 on Friday, we get a call.  The phone says "Assistant"...so Sister Tedjamulia hands me the phone...

"Hello, this is Sister Bruno."
"Hello, can I speak to Sister Bruno?"
"This is her, Sister Tedjamulia handed me the phone when you called."
"Great! Sister Bruno, this is Elder Lysenko...I have something to  ask you Sister Bruno, but first, are you sitting down?"
"Well, I doubt I would need to be, but as coincidence would have  it, yes, yes I am."
"Sister Bruno, I would like to call and ask you to be a Senior companion, would you be willing to accept this calling?" (something  about president and them thinking I'd be the perfect person for this, etc. etc.)
"Okay...that's fine...etc. etc."
"Okay, you will find out where you are moving to tonight through your district leader"

Sister Tedjamulia and I said we both needed to record Elder Lysenko's "Fun calls" in our journals. I'll just type it here and call it good. We might have quoted him a couple times. I think we got a kick out how the calls were delivered more than that we got them. So,starting from five, I was pretty certain Bade was where I was moving.  Sister Tedjamulia and I discussed it in detail about "my district" just  assuming Bade was my district,as we made walks to and from places, since we had no bikes at the time, since we were waiting for Sister Lai's bike to be delivered.

That night, when the district leader, Elder Lu, called and told me I was moving to Bade....I still acted shocked, but I wasn't really.  But it was fun how prophesy came true. It doesn't always. When we called Sister Messenger a few days later, she was really excited and  told us that "she called it" :). She is really cute and has been saying how excited she is for this transfer. She really feels like God  prepared her for it. So, I'm excited to be companions with someone who is so excited to be my companion! It's a lot of fun. I just got here an hour ago, and we have a random lesson at 1 on Preparation day...which  isn't the funnest thing to do on Preparation day, but it's okay.  That's what us missionaries do sometimes. We meet with people who have  no other day to meet for our preparation for the next week.

As for area news, this week was a week of a lot of miracles. We have been having low numbers with new investigators lately, and really doing our best to get the mission "golden standard" the last couple weeks. This last week, we got the goal, and one more! We were really excited, it was the first time we were able to do that in this transfer. I know it was partly due to Sister Lai and her awesome faith  and willingness to go out there right from the start. We got stood up for a couple lessons, and went tracking a couple times....Saturday night tracking, people were listening, and a cute mother even let us in and  invited us to come back...it was amazing...I always just am amazed when  people let us in their doors. I know every time it is such a miracle.  It was an awesome experience for me. I spent Sunday night packing, and  it felt hard to leave an area after only 6 weeks...because it felt like I  barely knew anyone and then I just...disappeared as fast as I  appeared...but I know that to every thing there is a reason and  purpose...and so, I am excited to get to know this area!

Although, I am not used to it...Heavenly Father is even showing us  miracles in the transition. Today, Sister Messenger handed me the phone only moments after I got here, and then, we left about 30 minutes  later...and I left the phone in the apartment...so I hope nobody  important calls while we are down here...but Sister Messenger is also  not used to carrying around the keys, so they were left in the  apartment. Before getting in the elevator, I asked her if she had the  keys. She freaked out for 2 seconds, before realizing, she had a spare  key to the apartment in her bag. She's just not used to having the full  set with the church keys. The hilarious thing, is I did that last week  when we were on exchanges with Sister Pottle (her companion who left today). Good thing there are 2 keys in both these areas and both of us carried around the spare! In some areas, we've only had 1 key. Heavenly Father loves  me! Haha. He loves you guys too. And so do I Keep doing your thing and working hard. I will do my best here, as a Bade Sister.

Until Next time,

Sister Flora Bruno

Fu Jiemei

Missionary Email: Great Ward Mission Program

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sister Flora Bruno
傅文馨姐妹 Fu wenxin jiemei