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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 11:23 PM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bye!

Fu jiemei