Hello everyone! Well....this week has been quite the experience. Not even kidding you. There's a new feeling to this transfer...because I just got moved to my 7th area on my mission! How's that for a kicker. Haha. I'm now in Banqiao...in Taipei county again. It's the closest to the city I've ever been, and it's a unique experience. I really loved my old area and district and I had a really hard time leaving, I won't lie. I've been a little emotionally up and down lately, but today I talked to President, and I'm really grateful because now I know that this is the right thing for me...and that it was Heavenly Father's very unique way of answering all my prayers, hopes,and dreams. I miss Sister MacIsaac, we were able to become really good friends in the time we were together...and so it was crazy to only have been together for such a short amount of time, but I will see her in 3 weeks when we both are on the way home. It's a little hard to leave an area in the middle of a transfer, but I feel like this area is a really great area as well and we can see a lot of really awesome things the last couple weeks of my mission.
Right now I am in a threesome companionship with Sister Andreason and Sister Zheng. Sister Andreason and I were together in the MTC, and there was one night we had a very special bonding experience that I still remember. I am excited to get the chance to work with her. She is such an amazing teacher! We had a lesson on Sunday right after church, and were were able to teach the entire 1st lesson clearly and simply in only 18 minutes! It was kind of a miracle to me. I've always struggled to get the whole lesson out in the 30 minutes they invited us to do...so when we were able to do it in 18...I was shocked...in the best possible way. I'm going to learn a lot about how to be a better teacher this week. There is also Sister Zheng she is my first Taiwanese companion. She turned in her mission papers when I was in Zhongli from that ward! She is a super diligent and enthusiastic missionary. I'm excited to be their companion. I think I can learn a lot. Also, I think we can try to get the members involved and help this area grow even more. There are two wards in different chapels, so having 3 will make it a lot easier to get someone to each church every week. We've decided I'll just stay at the same ward...since I have 3 more Sundays left, and that's okay with me. They all were super nice to me and I think I'll like it a lot.
This Saturday, Hong Ruiyin got baptized. It truly was a miracle. We didn't know all week if her mom would sign the permission form or not. But she did! I left Xinzhu Saturday afternoon, so I didn't get to attend the baptism...but I was grateful for the opportunity to see that miracle. I've met a lot of Young Women who investigate the church...in my experience if the parents opposed, they had to wait until 20. This was the first time I saw a parents opposition be overcome. It was amazing when we met with her mom and I felt the Spirit really strong at that time. I know that Heavenly Father's plan was for her to get baptized and I'm so very excited for her. My companion was estatic. I think she needed that miracle. I know God loves her and is watching over Xinzhu and the work.
I had a super cool contacting experience In Xinzhu when we were out contacting this week. I think Tuesday...my companion was writing a card for an investigator and we went to Xiangshan because when I was there in Xinzhu, I had a special feeling about that area...and I saw a girl locking up her bike, and I felt impressed to go talk to her. We ended up talking for 15 minutes and she agreed to come to church on Sunday. She was sincerely interested...and it was just a cool experience. I hope she came to church on Sunday. I think she probably did!
Well, I'll tell you more about this area next week, I just got here Saturday night and don't know a lot, but I'm sure next week there will be a ton to talk about.
Love you all!
Sister Flora Bruno.
Showing posts with label Zhongli. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zhongli. Show all posts
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
How Being Hit by a Car can Affect a Missionary's Performance
Hellooooooooooo again. This week has been quite a week! Full of stress and miracles all mixed together to make an excellent week. Something amusing...Thursday, was a really stressing day for me, like really full of dramatic peaks...like, for example, it was my first MM meeting as senior companion, so I spent a LONG time on the progress record, trying to make it really good and respectful for the ward...but the MM leader wasn't even there for my reporting, he was late that week, the Elders were really rude to me about some things, and I just had gotten hit by a car, just about 2 hours earlier, so I took their criticism really really bad and had a hard time even talking in MM meeting because it was my first time and I was nervous and the Elders were mean to me, and a car just hit me and my leg hurt...haha, so i just thought the whole world was crashing down around me, you know, those days where everything just, doesn't go right. But don't worry, it was all okay in the end, the MM leader got my progress record...the Elders and I talked and got back on the same terms, and the lady that hit me apologized and my bike wasn't hurt, just my leg, so I told her to not round corners so tight or fast and be careful...and everything worked out in the end.
Besides that day, this week went really well. When I came here, we talked about everything in WPS, and realized we were going to have to work really hard this week to try to find some new investigators. President has asked us to try to get the standard of 5 a week, and so even though that has been a week point for both of us in other areas in the past, we knew we needed to go out there, and make goals, set plans, and expect to see miracles. So we did! We tracted a lot this week, and even at one point circled around a stoplight making scooter contacts when we got home about 15 minutes early...and we saw miracles.
Like, on Monday night, our appointment fell through, so we made some goals before going out tracting, said a prayer about our goals, and went out there and knocked doors. And, we made our goals, Heavenly Father let us see that when we are willing to make goals, he is willing to help us see them achieved if we go out there and do our part to get them done.
...Also people we talked to on their scooters came to church,a person I talked to on the phone through referrals and old potentials lists came to church and set up to start meeting...and we got an amazing referral from a Zhongli member, who we both have met and we happened to run into on Saturday to meet with her coworker...a Li Jiashan, or Sandy, who is really great. We met with her this week, and ended up having a little bit of a long lesson because she had a lot of questions. The reason she is interested in the gospel lately, is that her 10 year old daughter and 11 year old son saw 2012, and it really scared them, and she didn't know how to help them not be so scared...so her friend gave her a Book of Mormon and told her about our church, so she was willing to meet with us and talk about church and the blessings it has for families, and about the Restoration. We set up to see her again this Saturday,and go to her house so we can meet her children as well. I'm excited to teach them!
We also met quite a few people who will start progressing next week when we will meet with them the second time, who came to church. It was a miracle, and at the end of the week, we were able to not only get our goal of 6 new investigators, but we surpassed it. We got 9. In fact, every number this week except one either met our missions "golden standard," or surpassed it. I know Heavenly Father blessed us and helped us do His work. I know that as long as we are just doing our best to talk to everyone, we will see these kinds of miracles every week...so Sister Messenger and I have just been talking to everyone...and it's going great. We met some awesome people and saw some unique experiences.
We also got the opportunity to go to Temple Tours this Saturday. I had the special opportunity of doing a tour for the Assistants and their investigator while my companion took some other sisters on a tour at the same time. Although it was a little bit nontraditional, because you usually lead around on a tour, and they lead some, and I lead some, it actually was a really great training experience. Elder Lysenko did something really cool. They lady was concerned to know where Moses, etc (prophets) authority came from. He told her an example about cops, and how anyone could wear a cop suit, and you would believe them, perhaps, but you have no real way of knowing until you go to the department and ask if your ticket is valid or not. Then, he showed her his order of ordination card, which starts, of course, with Jesus Christ, and showed his authority came from Jesus, who gave it to his disciples, and we were at a picture that showed the disciples passing authority to Joseph Smith. It was really cool, I don't have a card like that, but I just really liked his teaching methods. They also were just really powerful working off one another. In the end, the lady still didn't want to set back up, because she doesn't have much of a desire she said, but she gave me two referrals at the end of the tour, and took a Book of Mormon. There is still hope for her. One of the Assistants apologized, because he realized it could have been hard on me to have someone who rejected most of what we taught, because they said they had no desire at this time to know for themselves, but it wasn't heartbreaking for me. I took the tour as a learning experience...and mentioned to him they could have trusted me a tad more...since I already felt so small next to 2 over 6 feet tall Elders....who both had leadership positions over me...and he took my advice really well. I like Elder McClaws. He's a good Assistant, so it was a positive experience. He also helped me a little on direction advice. I like that about the Assistants. Everything they do, they let it be a learning/growing experience for us missionaries...so I know they are good at what they do. (training us)
Lets see...what else? Oh...well, one interesting thing about this area, is that when I moved in, some members of the ward asked us to meet with this lady, who is, well, literally troubled. I talked to her Father about it even. He said he doesn't understand her, and he doesn't think we can understand her, but we can see if she can progress and get baptized if we are willing to spend the time, but he said not to get too high of hopes. She has been coming to church every week for about 9 months or something and all the activities, so some people want us to see if we can get her progressing, because she really sincerely always talks about her desire to be baptized. She just also prays to have a male child...and stalks and stares at the Elders...but I guess I'm a good person if any missionary to see if she is able to progress. I taught her the Word of Wisdom and she kept saying she would see if we all could do it how to do it, and i was like "NO, You will commit to start living it or I will not meet with you..I cannot afford to waste time meeting with you if you are not willing to try" so I was just really forward with her, but I'm pretty sure she did good this week, because she said she would just smoke maybe once every couple days when she was bored in the end...and on Sunday she said she hadn't smoked since we talked to her about the Word of Wisdom. No offense though, I'm going to follow up on that really well, because it's not an easy addiction to give up cigarettes. This week I plan on telling her Elders can't get married, because that's just against our missionary rules..and she needs to not stare at them so much because that makes them uncomfortable. I hope we can make progress in that area...they Elders would appreciate it greatly. I guess she kind of stalks Elder Mauldwin...and after he told me, I noticed it on Sunday. But yeah, I'm doing what I can to help out this situation...so...yeah. I have a troubled investigator, but she totally got the 2nd lesson, and could put it back together perfect with the pictures I scrambled at the end...so she's there in some ways. That's excellent! ha. It will be a unique experience to meet with her.
And one last cool thing! My companion and I ran into this lady in the elevator who just speaks Spanish. She lives above us, and gave us her address. My companion can get out a conversation in Spanish, so we will go visit her this week. Unfortunately, I'll have to practice to even say like a line or two of testimony, because this Chinese business has made my mind unable to translate to Spanish...I still can understand a lot of it...but speak...that's a different matter.When I try to say uno,dos, tres, it usually comes out yi, er, san. ha. So that will be a cool experience. Yay for the upcoming week.
Love ya all,
Sister Flora Bruno
Besides that day, this week went really well. When I came here, we talked about everything in WPS, and realized we were going to have to work really hard this week to try to find some new investigators. President has asked us to try to get the standard of 5 a week, and so even though that has been a week point for both of us in other areas in the past, we knew we needed to go out there, and make goals, set plans, and expect to see miracles. So we did! We tracted a lot this week, and even at one point circled around a stoplight making scooter contacts when we got home about 15 minutes early...and we saw miracles.
Like, on Monday night, our appointment fell through, so we made some goals before going out tracting, said a prayer about our goals, and went out there and knocked doors. And, we made our goals, Heavenly Father let us see that when we are willing to make goals, he is willing to help us see them achieved if we go out there and do our part to get them done.
...Also people we talked to on their scooters came to church,a person I talked to on the phone through referrals and old potentials lists came to church and set up to start meeting...and we got an amazing referral from a Zhongli member, who we both have met and we happened to run into on Saturday to meet with her coworker...a Li Jiashan, or Sandy, who is really great. We met with her this week, and ended up having a little bit of a long lesson because she had a lot of questions. The reason she is interested in the gospel lately, is that her 10 year old daughter and 11 year old son saw 2012, and it really scared them, and she didn't know how to help them not be so scared...so her friend gave her a Book of Mormon and told her about our church, so she was willing to meet with us and talk about church and the blessings it has for families, and about the Restoration. We set up to see her again this Saturday,and go to her house so we can meet her children as well. I'm excited to teach them!
We also met quite a few people who will start progressing next week when we will meet with them the second time, who came to church. It was a miracle, and at the end of the week, we were able to not only get our goal of 6 new investigators, but we surpassed it. We got 9. In fact, every number this week except one either met our missions "golden standard," or surpassed it. I know Heavenly Father blessed us and helped us do His work. I know that as long as we are just doing our best to talk to everyone, we will see these kinds of miracles every week...so Sister Messenger and I have just been talking to everyone...and it's going great. We met some awesome people and saw some unique experiences.
We also got the opportunity to go to Temple Tours this Saturday. I had the special opportunity of doing a tour for the Assistants and their investigator while my companion took some other sisters on a tour at the same time. Although it was a little bit nontraditional, because you usually lead around on a tour, and they lead some, and I lead some, it actually was a really great training experience. Elder Lysenko did something really cool. They lady was concerned to know where Moses, etc (prophets) authority came from. He told her an example about cops, and how anyone could wear a cop suit, and you would believe them, perhaps, but you have no real way of knowing until you go to the department and ask if your ticket is valid or not. Then, he showed her his order of ordination card, which starts, of course, with Jesus Christ, and showed his authority came from Jesus, who gave it to his disciples, and we were at a picture that showed the disciples passing authority to Joseph Smith. It was really cool, I don't have a card like that, but I just really liked his teaching methods. They also were just really powerful working off one another. In the end, the lady still didn't want to set back up, because she doesn't have much of a desire she said, but she gave me two referrals at the end of the tour, and took a Book of Mormon. There is still hope for her. One of the Assistants apologized, because he realized it could have been hard on me to have someone who rejected most of what we taught, because they said they had no desire at this time to know for themselves, but it wasn't heartbreaking for me. I took the tour as a learning experience...and mentioned to him they could have trusted me a tad more...since I already felt so small next to 2 over 6 feet tall Elders....who both had leadership positions over me...and he took my advice really well. I like Elder McClaws. He's a good Assistant, so it was a positive experience. He also helped me a little on direction advice. I like that about the Assistants. Everything they do, they let it be a learning/growing experience for us missionaries...so I know they are good at what they do. (training us)
Lets see...what else? Oh...well, one interesting thing about this area, is that when I moved in, some members of the ward asked us to meet with this lady, who is, well, literally troubled. I talked to her Father about it even. He said he doesn't understand her, and he doesn't think we can understand her, but we can see if she can progress and get baptized if we are willing to spend the time, but he said not to get too high of hopes. She has been coming to church every week for about 9 months or something and all the activities, so some people want us to see if we can get her progressing, because she really sincerely always talks about her desire to be baptized. She just also prays to have a male child...and stalks and stares at the Elders...but I guess I'm a good person if any missionary to see if she is able to progress. I taught her the Word of Wisdom and she kept saying she would see if we all could do it how to do it, and i was like "NO, You will commit to start living it or I will not meet with you..I cannot afford to waste time meeting with you if you are not willing to try" so I was just really forward with her, but I'm pretty sure she did good this week, because she said she would just smoke maybe once every couple days when she was bored in the end...and on Sunday she said she hadn't smoked since we talked to her about the Word of Wisdom. No offense though, I'm going to follow up on that really well, because it's not an easy addiction to give up cigarettes. This week I plan on telling her Elders can't get married, because that's just against our missionary rules..and she needs to not stare at them so much because that makes them uncomfortable. I hope we can make progress in that area...they Elders would appreciate it greatly. I guess she kind of stalks Elder Mauldwin...and after he told me, I noticed it on Sunday. But yeah, I'm doing what I can to help out this situation...so...yeah. I have a troubled investigator, but she totally got the 2nd lesson, and could put it back together perfect with the pictures I scrambled at the end...so she's there in some ways. That's excellent! ha. It will be a unique experience to meet with her.
And one last cool thing! My companion and I ran into this lady in the elevator who just speaks Spanish. She lives above us, and gave us her address. My companion can get out a conversation in Spanish, so we will go visit her this week. Unfortunately, I'll have to practice to even say like a line or two of testimony, because this Chinese business has made my mind unable to translate to Spanish...I still can understand a lot of it...but speak...that's a different matter.When I try to say uno,dos, tres, it usually comes out yi, er, san. ha. So that will be a cool experience. Yay for the upcoming week.
Love ya all,
Sister Flora Bruno
Monday, April 26, 2010
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
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
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
15 Investigators at Church and Bishop Who Meets Personally with Investigators in Their Homes: Missionary Email
Okay okay okay, I wasted so much time fixing my pictures on the computer this week, there are only like 20 minutes left so we'll see what I can type in that time frame, and that's that. And that's life.
This week last Preparation Day I spent in Taipei I went back to the doctor and the problem is still there, so more medicines....I'll go back next month and evaluate again. It's just annoying to me to see the doctor every other Preparation day, so I told him I'll go back next month. He said that's fine. Health issues on a mission are kind of like mosquitoes...if you can imagine what I mean.
After seeing the doctor, we spent the Preparation day...in the park next door that's really beautiful. We took pictures, but I didn't turn out very good in most of them. You can see the extra weight I gained at the New Year's Holiday...and I don't like it. I already made a goal to go on a slight diet next transfer so I can feel better about pictures. Ha. The curse of being short...not a lot for your weight to go.
After the day, at night we went and met with a new investigator, A Sister Lora Luo. She is really good. She came to general conference last week. We didn't even know until then...but that's so awesome she came. She is really searching for a church that is closer than the one she goes to in Longtan. Which, yes, is quite far from here. It was in my zone back when I was in Zhongli. However, she said she has to pick the religion that feels right to her...which is great.I thought she would really identify with Joseph Smith, but she didn't really connect their similarity as I hoped...but she is really awesome because she is completely willing to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. As missionaries, our biggest hope is only that, they will read and pray. That's what this church is about...the testimony that the Book of Mormon is true or not. So, I'm excited to teach her and continue to help her with her studies. She had a really cool experience with prayer that helped her see that God really exists, and now she's just in a learning process.
With Vera, she's had kind of a hard week. We usually keep in daily contact, but starting Thursday afternoon, we couldn't get in touch with her until Sunday. And especially me, because we did exchanges, so I didn't see her all week. It's weird, it's just we are used to talking to her or seeing her, so it felt really odd not to see or talk to Vera for a week. It's not that long, but you just get used to being in certain people's company. I'm keeping her in my prayers, and she's still coming to church, so I know she'll do okay. She's going to have to change her baptism, but that is okay. It's best she is ready when it happens then that she goes too fast and isn't ready. The ward has really been doing their part to welcome her in. The bishop called us himself this morning and asked when the next time we were meeting with her. He told us he would be coming, we didn't even need to ask him to. I think he talked to her yesterday and knows she's going through a hard time. He wants to help her out, so he's willing to sacrifice his busy busy time because he really wants to help as much as he can. It really touches me that the ward loves her as much as we do and is willing to do anything to help her out. Everyone is really rooting for her and praying for her.
This week we really saw a huge miracle. 15 people came to church. Back in a really progressing time in Zhongli, that was always our goal, but we'd be short a person or two every time. This week our goal was just 6, we thought that was optimistic. Last week we made a high goal, and didn't even come close. A lot of people who said they were coming couldn't come at the last minute, etc. The Lord sees our efforts and blesses us when we least expect it. It was amazing. 6 of them were girls who wanted to interview us about our church for their life science class, so we told them they could ask us questions and take some of our time, if we could teach them a short message and they could come to church. Even if they hadn't been willing, we would have done the interview, but they were really great and all came. One of them said after school ends at the end of May, she will think about coming back, because she really likes church. So that was cute. Then, we just had pretty much all of our good investigators we've been meeting with come. It was so amazing and such a blessing.
Ji Rushuang came and I was super super excited because I got to know her in a way I never did before. She's a 28 year old girl who works all the time. We are really similar in age, so we just had some time to have some girl talk in between the meetings and I came to love her a lot more. She's a really great person who is really dedicated to family and to work. She is doing her best to come to church, even though she works 13 hours a day, and has to come to church in the afternoon, after an 8 hour shift. It's a sacrifice, but I know its well worth it.
This week it was fun to see Melody too. We once again had to do splits with members, so I went with the bishop's wife and taught her the 3rd lesson. Her mother joined for the last 20 minutes of the lesson, so then, being a 14 year old girl, Melody got a little sulky that her mom told her that they had to read scriptures together, because the mom really likes to have time together, and sees the Book of Mormon as a way to do that, which I think is awesome. She's not really interested in meeting with us, but she's willing to do anything to help Melody progress and prepare herself for her baptism. But besides her sulky stage, she was really happy to see us, and really does love learning the gospel. She is coming to Young Woman's activities now, and is really consistent about church. Her friend, Jialin, also comes with her. We haven't met with Jialin yet, but I think after school ends she'll have more time...so they both are doing awesome.
I had fun this week on exchanges with Zhongli. I love Sister Ho a lot and I learn a lot from her example. She even contacts the girls who sell betelnut (a drug to stay away from in the Word of Wisdom. This nasty thing that makes their whole mouth red...she just sees the worth in every individual and wants them to know that God loves them. I just was really touched by seeing her contact that girl...and we had a lot of fun, chatting and just discussing things. Not to mention it's fun to go back to my old area. I get to see some people I love from back in the days. Chen Yiting showed up at the church and gave us 2 referrals. It was nice to work with her.
And also, Saturday we did temple tours. Saturday temple tours are really exhausting, but rewarding too. We see a lot of miracles. Towards the end of the day, a member brought in her daughter-in-law. Lately she's had a lot of deaths in her family, but we didn't know that. We took her to the temple book and talked about the importance of preparing to enter the temple, so that we can be with our family forever, and not have to worry about death. Then, we took her to talk about Joseph Smith and the first vision. It's a spiritual happening. As I was quoting Joseph Smith's words, this lady started to cry. She was feeling the spirit really strongly. At the end of the tour, she gave her name to be visited by the missionaries in Xinzhu. It was just a really good tour and the spirit was so strong. It's nice to go to tours twice a transfer and have the opportunity to feel the spirit as you give members and investigators tours for that purpose.
Well! one minute left! I guess no time to talk about the other stuff I could have. This was an awesome week. Love you guys!
Sister Flora Bruno
This week last Preparation Day I spent in Taipei I went back to the doctor and the problem is still there, so more medicines....I'll go back next month and evaluate again. It's just annoying to me to see the doctor every other Preparation day, so I told him I'll go back next month. He said that's fine. Health issues on a mission are kind of like mosquitoes...if you can imagine what I mean.
After seeing the doctor, we spent the Preparation day...in the park next door that's really beautiful. We took pictures, but I didn't turn out very good in most of them. You can see the extra weight I gained at the New Year's Holiday...and I don't like it. I already made a goal to go on a slight diet next transfer so I can feel better about pictures. Ha. The curse of being short...not a lot for your weight to go.
After the day, at night we went and met with a new investigator, A Sister Lora Luo. She is really good. She came to general conference last week. We didn't even know until then...but that's so awesome she came. She is really searching for a church that is closer than the one she goes to in Longtan. Which, yes, is quite far from here. It was in my zone back when I was in Zhongli. However, she said she has to pick the religion that feels right to her...which is great.I thought she would really identify with Joseph Smith, but she didn't really connect their similarity as I hoped...but she is really awesome because she is completely willing to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. As missionaries, our biggest hope is only that, they will read and pray. That's what this church is about...the testimony that the Book of Mormon is true or not. So, I'm excited to teach her and continue to help her with her studies. She had a really cool experience with prayer that helped her see that God really exists, and now she's just in a learning process.
With Vera, she's had kind of a hard week. We usually keep in daily contact, but starting Thursday afternoon, we couldn't get in touch with her until Sunday. And especially me, because we did exchanges, so I didn't see her all week. It's weird, it's just we are used to talking to her or seeing her, so it felt really odd not to see or talk to Vera for a week. It's not that long, but you just get used to being in certain people's company. I'm keeping her in my prayers, and she's still coming to church, so I know she'll do okay. She's going to have to change her baptism, but that is okay. It's best she is ready when it happens then that she goes too fast and isn't ready. The ward has really been doing their part to welcome her in. The bishop called us himself this morning and asked when the next time we were meeting with her. He told us he would be coming, we didn't even need to ask him to. I think he talked to her yesterday and knows she's going through a hard time. He wants to help her out, so he's willing to sacrifice his busy busy time because he really wants to help as much as he can. It really touches me that the ward loves her as much as we do and is willing to do anything to help her out. Everyone is really rooting for her and praying for her.
This week we really saw a huge miracle. 15 people came to church. Back in a really progressing time in Zhongli, that was always our goal, but we'd be short a person or two every time. This week our goal was just 6, we thought that was optimistic. Last week we made a high goal, and didn't even come close. A lot of people who said they were coming couldn't come at the last minute, etc. The Lord sees our efforts and blesses us when we least expect it. It was amazing. 6 of them were girls who wanted to interview us about our church for their life science class, so we told them they could ask us questions and take some of our time, if we could teach them a short message and they could come to church. Even if they hadn't been willing, we would have done the interview, but they were really great and all came. One of them said after school ends at the end of May, she will think about coming back, because she really likes church. So that was cute. Then, we just had pretty much all of our good investigators we've been meeting with come. It was so amazing and such a blessing.
Ji Rushuang came and I was super super excited because I got to know her in a way I never did before. She's a 28 year old girl who works all the time. We are really similar in age, so we just had some time to have some girl talk in between the meetings and I came to love her a lot more. She's a really great person who is really dedicated to family and to work. She is doing her best to come to church, even though she works 13 hours a day, and has to come to church in the afternoon, after an 8 hour shift. It's a sacrifice, but I know its well worth it.
This week it was fun to see Melody too. We once again had to do splits with members, so I went with the bishop's wife and taught her the 3rd lesson. Her mother joined for the last 20 minutes of the lesson, so then, being a 14 year old girl, Melody got a little sulky that her mom told her that they had to read scriptures together, because the mom really likes to have time together, and sees the Book of Mormon as a way to do that, which I think is awesome. She's not really interested in meeting with us, but she's willing to do anything to help Melody progress and prepare herself for her baptism. But besides her sulky stage, she was really happy to see us, and really does love learning the gospel. She is coming to Young Woman's activities now, and is really consistent about church. Her friend, Jialin, also comes with her. We haven't met with Jialin yet, but I think after school ends she'll have more time...so they both are doing awesome.
I had fun this week on exchanges with Zhongli. I love Sister Ho a lot and I learn a lot from her example. She even contacts the girls who sell betelnut (a drug to stay away from in the Word of Wisdom. This nasty thing that makes their whole mouth red...she just sees the worth in every individual and wants them to know that God loves them. I just was really touched by seeing her contact that girl...and we had a lot of fun, chatting and just discussing things. Not to mention it's fun to go back to my old area. I get to see some people I love from back in the days. Chen Yiting showed up at the church and gave us 2 referrals. It was nice to work with her.
And also, Saturday we did temple tours. Saturday temple tours are really exhausting, but rewarding too. We see a lot of miracles. Towards the end of the day, a member brought in her daughter-in-law. Lately she's had a lot of deaths in her family, but we didn't know that. We took her to the temple book and talked about the importance of preparing to enter the temple, so that we can be with our family forever, and not have to worry about death. Then, we took her to talk about Joseph Smith and the first vision. It's a spiritual happening. As I was quoting Joseph Smith's words, this lady started to cry. She was feeling the spirit really strongly. At the end of the tour, she gave her name to be visited by the missionaries in Xinzhu. It was just a really good tour and the spirit was so strong. It's nice to go to tours twice a transfer and have the opportunity to feel the spirit as you give members and investigators tours for that purpose.
Well! one minute left! I guess no time to talk about the other stuff I could have. This was an awesome week. Love you guys!
Sister Flora Bruno
Monday, April 5, 2010
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
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
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Transfer 6 Week 6: Death and Personal Trials
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 3:43 AM
It's week 6 of the transfer! That means next Preparation day is Monday, not Wednesday so you need to email me by Monday night. And I need everyone's phone numbers. I don't know them. And how it will work when I call. Like will you guys three way? I used to be the one to figure all that out, does anyone else know how? Who should I call first? Who will be together?
So yeah, so for all we missionaries know, we'll be with different companions, districts, etc for Christmas, and we still don't even know them! They don't have a Christmas party this year, but I guess our district will get together and do service activity and then we will proselyte at night. Nobody will be sure what their area will be until Friday night, and we won't know our new district (area if we move) until move day Monday, so it will be quite a Christmas.
There is so much that happened this week, but I think I'll actually travel back to last Wednesday after I emailed, the long day that happened there. So...last Wednesday, we emailed and then all the Sisters (all 4 of us) biked back to the church, went to the bathroom really quick, and ran and bought lunch to eat on the bus to Taipei. It was our zone's temple day, so we were all excited to go to Taipei, go to the temple, etc. Well, we get on the bus and I start to eat my fried rice, just eating, talking, all good.
But lets back up to last transfer in week 4. Something I never mentioned, because I forgot because a mission goes by fast, is...well, I have one root canal right? It fell out when we went on exchanges last transfer. I was with a Taiwanese missionary, Sister Zhang. And I freaked out. Teeth are expensive, and I don't think you guys can afford for my tooth to just be falling out. I remember what a hassle Gen's teeth were on a mission. And mom's teeth too. Teeth are expensive. So I cried. I don't cry a lot or often, but I cried a little when my tooth fell out. I told Sister Zhang, "I'm going to look like a Taiwanese man with no house, with no teeth, teeth are expensive." And another reason I was scared, is partly because I'd never learned dentist words, I only learned tooth because sister Zhang kept saying my "yachi" fell out. Well, it was too late to do anything, so we planned to find a dentist in the morning. The next morning we went running, and on the way to the school track, we found a dentist right next to our apartment. We found out it opened at 10 and went and moved language study to the afternoon. Well, lucky that I am insured in Taiwan and Taiwan has a government run medical health care. It cost 150 kuai to get in and see the dentist. That's like 5 dollars. Well, he took my tooth, looked at it and talked about how my American doctor didn't put in a good support, and he hoped to save me money so he'd see what he could do. He popped it back in, said it was still at risk because it wasn't done well in the first place, but it'd cost around 200 American dollars to fix (I think cheaper than America though?), but he hoped I wouldn't have to spend that... and Sister Zhang and I were out and on our way to normal missionary work. The dentist knew a little English and we were able to use Chinglish to communicate. It ended up being fine. After that day it was fixed, I forgot it happened, minus a picture I have.
So yeah, I'm sitting there, last Wednesday, I'm finally not paranoid about my tooth, it's been a little while. And I'm eating, and I swallow, and there is a HOLE in my mouth. I swallowed my tooth. (Which, now I know how to say swallowed in Chinese). I got a little emotional, and maybe shed a tear or two (but not outright crying) my first reaction was, "Sister Kunzler! I've been through this trial, but last time I didn't swallow it, why did I have to swallow my tooth." I didn't think you guys could afford 200 dollars right with Christmas coming. Then I was a little freaked out as I tried to figure out if I should puke it out on the bus. We were stuck on a bus for 45 minutes. My companion and Sister Chen said THEY would puke if I forced myself to barf in front of them. I prayed and ended up not barfing, I couldn't imagine how people would react. I thought maybe we'd get on the bus and I'd puke right before going into the temple. I hoped in 45 minutes it wouldn't digest too far.
Well, we get to Taipei and we are in between the temple and the big chapel, my companion and I are on our way to the big chapel so I can see if I can puke it out...well, we run into my old companion Engela Chen, and she gives me an envelope with a hymn book I left in Zhongli and a letter. My companion stopped to talk to someone, so I take out the letter to read it. I read the first sentence. It says, "Sister Bruno, sorry this is kind of abrupt, but Chen Huiping passed away." I didn't continue the letter at that time. I just had a break down. I seriously sobbed. In a LOUD voice, in front of tons of missionaries headed to the temple. It was a combination of the new member that got baptized when I first got to Taiwan passed away and I never wrote her a letter after I left Zhongli, and I swallowed my tooth and my dad was going to be really mad at me. And I cried and cried. I couldn't get ahold of myself very well. And then, there was no time to go puke, it was time to go to the temple session, or we couldn't go to the temple at all. And so we went in, and got dressed, and I just was crying (softly now) and everyone kept looking at me, and I felt like an idiot, because I think crying looks dumb. But once the temple session started, I felt at peace and calmed down, and stopped crying. I'm glad we can find peace in the temple. It is an amazing place and I'm glad I got to go.
As for my tooth situation, I won't go into extensive details, but I will say, I have the tooth in my mouth (although it's still a risk) and it's sterilized by me 3 different ways and the dentist sterilized it and said I didnt need to worry, it was perfectly clean. So I trust in that and figure I'm a stronger person for it, and we don't have to worry about it...for now.
As for more details about Chen Huiping, she was hit by a car and needed surgery. They called the missionaries in search of family. She got surgery and it didn't go well. The family decided to pull the plug a week later. (nobody in her family was close to her, she lived alone and just had a daughter and grandson in the Taipei area 2 hours away) I know before she passed away she wished to see her grandson. That wish came true while I was in Zhongli and she was very happy that day. I still remember. She really wanted her daughter to join the church and their relationship to become better. Her daughter gave Sister Enge Chen her number at the funeral. She said her husband wasn't ready to hear our message, but at least her number is in our records now. I know one day Chen Huiping will see her daughter/grandson blessed because of her decision to be baptized. In a way it was, she'd wanted to see her grandson since he was born. She did back in August.
In other news, we've had quite the week! Lin2 Li4zhen1 and her 2 sons are doing great. We taught them the law of chastity. And oh. my. goodness. My old district leader told me we HAVE to teach no masturbation in the LOC, so, we did. Well, I know the formal word for it, but Chen2 Sen1 didn't understand that word, so the mother says, "Ni bu ke gen ni ziji xiao jiji wan." And to make it even more awkward, the older brother loves English and translates something we already understood into English, "You caunt play with your own little chicken!" And I was so red and felt so awkward, the rest I don't need to explain, but pretty much, Taiwanese people are very open and I know why Elders teach boys the law of chastity and not sisters! But in great news, the boys are obeying the law of chastity and doing SO GREAT. They set a baptism goal for my BIRTHDAY. Let me tell you, when they set that date, it was like one of the happiest days of my life. I don't even care if I stay here this transfer or not, but I will try my hardest to be here when they get baptized. They are just so great and progressing and keeping all the commandments. I love them so much!
Also, Jasmine is doing AMAZING. I love her so much. She teaches us more and more every week. She talked this week about how she never felt the protective love of a father in her life until she came to THIS church. We taught prophets and listened to the prophets voice and all felt the Spirit SO strongly in that lesson. Her interview is this Saturday. Also this Saturday we are singing 12 songs and doing a Christmas pageant, time is running out, talk more about that next week!
Love you guys so much!
Sister Flora Bruno
Fu jiemei
It's week 6 of the transfer! That means next Preparation day is Monday, not Wednesday so you need to email me by Monday night. And I need everyone's phone numbers. I don't know them. And how it will work when I call. Like will you guys three way? I used to be the one to figure all that out, does anyone else know how? Who should I call first? Who will be together?
So yeah, so for all we missionaries know, we'll be with different companions, districts, etc for Christmas, and we still don't even know them! They don't have a Christmas party this year, but I guess our district will get together and do service activity and then we will proselyte at night. Nobody will be sure what their area will be until Friday night, and we won't know our new district (area if we move) until move day Monday, so it will be quite a Christmas.
There is so much that happened this week, but I think I'll actually travel back to last Wednesday after I emailed, the long day that happened there. So...last Wednesday, we emailed and then all the Sisters (all 4 of us) biked back to the church, went to the bathroom really quick, and ran and bought lunch to eat on the bus to Taipei. It was our zone's temple day, so we were all excited to go to Taipei, go to the temple, etc. Well, we get on the bus and I start to eat my fried rice, just eating, talking, all good.
But lets back up to last transfer in week 4. Something I never mentioned, because I forgot because a mission goes by fast, is...well, I have one root canal right? It fell out when we went on exchanges last transfer. I was with a Taiwanese missionary, Sister Zhang. And I freaked out. Teeth are expensive, and I don't think you guys can afford for my tooth to just be falling out. I remember what a hassle Gen's teeth were on a mission. And mom's teeth too. Teeth are expensive. So I cried. I don't cry a lot or often, but I cried a little when my tooth fell out. I told Sister Zhang, "I'm going to look like a Taiwanese man with no house, with no teeth, teeth are expensive." And another reason I was scared, is partly because I'd never learned dentist words, I only learned tooth because sister Zhang kept saying my "yachi" fell out. Well, it was too late to do anything, so we planned to find a dentist in the morning. The next morning we went running, and on the way to the school track, we found a dentist right next to our apartment. We found out it opened at 10 and went and moved language study to the afternoon. Well, lucky that I am insured in Taiwan and Taiwan has a government run medical health care. It cost 150 kuai to get in and see the dentist. That's like 5 dollars. Well, he took my tooth, looked at it and talked about how my American doctor didn't put in a good support, and he hoped to save me money so he'd see what he could do. He popped it back in, said it was still at risk because it wasn't done well in the first place, but it'd cost around 200 American dollars to fix (I think cheaper than America though?), but he hoped I wouldn't have to spend that... and Sister Zhang and I were out and on our way to normal missionary work. The dentist knew a little English and we were able to use Chinglish to communicate. It ended up being fine. After that day it was fixed, I forgot it happened, minus a picture I have.
So yeah, I'm sitting there, last Wednesday, I'm finally not paranoid about my tooth, it's been a little while. And I'm eating, and I swallow, and there is a HOLE in my mouth. I swallowed my tooth. (Which, now I know how to say swallowed in Chinese). I got a little emotional, and maybe shed a tear or two (but not outright crying) my first reaction was, "Sister Kunzler! I've been through this trial, but last time I didn't swallow it, why did I have to swallow my tooth." I didn't think you guys could afford 200 dollars right with Christmas coming. Then I was a little freaked out as I tried to figure out if I should puke it out on the bus. We were stuck on a bus for 45 minutes. My companion and Sister Chen said THEY would puke if I forced myself to barf in front of them. I prayed and ended up not barfing, I couldn't imagine how people would react. I thought maybe we'd get on the bus and I'd puke right before going into the temple. I hoped in 45 minutes it wouldn't digest too far.
Well, we get to Taipei and we are in between the temple and the big chapel, my companion and I are on our way to the big chapel so I can see if I can puke it out...well, we run into my old companion Engela Chen, and she gives me an envelope with a hymn book I left in Zhongli and a letter. My companion stopped to talk to someone, so I take out the letter to read it. I read the first sentence. It says, "Sister Bruno, sorry this is kind of abrupt, but Chen Huiping passed away." I didn't continue the letter at that time. I just had a break down. I seriously sobbed. In a LOUD voice, in front of tons of missionaries headed to the temple. It was a combination of the new member that got baptized when I first got to Taiwan passed away and I never wrote her a letter after I left Zhongli, and I swallowed my tooth and my dad was going to be really mad at me. And I cried and cried. I couldn't get ahold of myself very well. And then, there was no time to go puke, it was time to go to the temple session, or we couldn't go to the temple at all. And so we went in, and got dressed, and I just was crying (softly now) and everyone kept looking at me, and I felt like an idiot, because I think crying looks dumb. But once the temple session started, I felt at peace and calmed down, and stopped crying. I'm glad we can find peace in the temple. It is an amazing place and I'm glad I got to go.
As for my tooth situation, I won't go into extensive details, but I will say, I have the tooth in my mouth (although it's still a risk) and it's sterilized by me 3 different ways and the dentist sterilized it and said I didnt need to worry, it was perfectly clean. So I trust in that and figure I'm a stronger person for it, and we don't have to worry about it...for now.
As for more details about Chen Huiping, she was hit by a car and needed surgery. They called the missionaries in search of family. She got surgery and it didn't go well. The family decided to pull the plug a week later. (nobody in her family was close to her, she lived alone and just had a daughter and grandson in the Taipei area 2 hours away) I know before she passed away she wished to see her grandson. That wish came true while I was in Zhongli and she was very happy that day. I still remember. She really wanted her daughter to join the church and their relationship to become better. Her daughter gave Sister Enge Chen her number at the funeral. She said her husband wasn't ready to hear our message, but at least her number is in our records now. I know one day Chen Huiping will see her daughter/grandson blessed because of her decision to be baptized. In a way it was, she'd wanted to see her grandson since he was born. She did back in August.
In other news, we've had quite the week! Lin2 Li4zhen1 and her 2 sons are doing great. We taught them the law of chastity. And oh. my. goodness. My old district leader told me we HAVE to teach no masturbation in the LOC, so, we did. Well, I know the formal word for it, but Chen2 Sen1 didn't understand that word, so the mother says, "Ni bu ke gen ni ziji xiao jiji wan." And to make it even more awkward, the older brother loves English and translates something we already understood into English, "You caunt play with your own little chicken!" And I was so red and felt so awkward, the rest I don't need to explain, but pretty much, Taiwanese people are very open and I know why Elders teach boys the law of chastity and not sisters! But in great news, the boys are obeying the law of chastity and doing SO GREAT. They set a baptism goal for my BIRTHDAY. Let me tell you, when they set that date, it was like one of the happiest days of my life. I don't even care if I stay here this transfer or not, but I will try my hardest to be here when they get baptized. They are just so great and progressing and keeping all the commandments. I love them so much!
Also, Jasmine is doing AMAZING. I love her so much. She teaches us more and more every week. She talked this week about how she never felt the protective love of a father in her life until she came to THIS church. We taught prophets and listened to the prophets voice and all felt the Spirit SO strongly in that lesson. Her interview is this Saturday. Also this Saturday we are singing 12 songs and doing a Christmas pageant, time is running out, talk more about that next week!
Love you guys so much!
Sister Flora Bruno
Fu jiemei
Monday, September 28, 2009
Transfer to Keelung in the Mountains of Taiwan: Missionary Email
I have come to the conclusion that this transfer, is going to be incredibly xingku and tongku. I don't even know if that's the right pinyin and i'm too lazy to try to think of what tones those really are, so I think even people who speak Chinese might not know what the heck I'm trying to say. So I'll try to explain. In Chinese, when they say this xingku word, they mean to say that what someone is doing is incredibly hard and admirable because of it's hardness, so it's xingku. Tongku is something incredibly painful. Now, in all reality if you want you can say this is an extremely bad view on it, but it just happens to be my first impression of the surroundings I am put in.
Oh, by the way, I've moved to a new area, it's called Keelung. Well, correct pinyin is Ji1long. I've had to say it so many times over the last couple days telling everyone I was leaving, I don't even have to think twice to just know tones. Most words I just say them and have to say them like 10 times to remember the tones. It's a port town, and supposedly very beautiful. I haven't seen much besides our super huge apartment with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms...yeah I get my own bathroom. I liked my little apartment though, this one is going to be killer to clean..but on the plus side, since we have to sleep in the same room, my clothes get their own room! They are very happy and get a lot of air. My suitcoats even got their own closet. They look very dark and missionary like. I have more suitcoats than any other sister in this whole mission...Not kidding. And it's too hot to wear them until December I hear. But they do get used at mission conference and when we do temple tours. They called in on Friday and told me I'd be moving to Jilong. My initial response was not exactly excitment. I believe I told my companion that God wanted me to be incredibly sore and learn something from it. You see, something I was told I'd learn from my mission is humility. In transfer one I was told to pray for it every day. I can't say I'm exactly a very humble person. I've probably changed a little...but I'm still very me...like...
So yeah, my area is known for having ridiculous hills/mountains...this is because it's...mountains. I'm living in mountains and biking up and down them. I live uphill and it's just ridiculous! I have to shift from first geer to third geer all the time, i've only been here one day, and I was switching back and forth the 2 times I've gotten on a bike. So yeah, when people heard where I was going, they told me it was the most hard area in the North. This sweet member drew me biking up a 45 degree angle with the sun scortching hot, and rain in the distance...rain here, is often. But I have to admit, it was an exaggeration, because I haven't biked up any 45 degree angles YET. Mostly just like 25 or 30. But yeah, needless to say, it is not going to be easy to bike anywhere here in this new area, but Sister Kunzler says I'll get used to it if I make sure to run every morning? That's how her last companion got used to it, but her last companion is not exactly as fat as me...haha. Her companion was Taiwanese, so she was actually quite little and skinny. So we'll see if that helps. Zhongli probably trained me a little since it was a HUGE area...and we had to bike up some pretty nasty hills...but usually only once a week, not every day, and I would walk up some of it if I got too tired!
Hmm..My new companion is a Sister Kunzler. In meeting, we had a very awkward situation...you see, she's from South Carolina...and she has this best friend...well, this best friend of hers lived at my apartment back that semester I was graduating...well, not literally, but he was engaged to my roommate, so he was always there...and, as some of you might remember, the relationship that ended up occurring between me and those roommates and the fiance was one of I deleted them as my friends on Facebook right before my mission, because he was really mean to me and would mock my statuses. And I wasn't sad about it, because to be honest, I didn't know them that well and didn't feel too close. I just felt sad we were all immature and unable to get along.
So I'm sure we'll be fine, especially since this companion is an SYLer...so I think my chinese will get better...but it was just an awkward beginning, at least in my mind. I was excited to hear though, that roommate of mine married that fiance of hers...they had a date and hadn't married, then were like, not boyfriend girlfriend, then like girlfriend boyfriend during that semester. Quite complicated, so it's good that they figured it out. Yeah! She's a lot different from me, at least I get that impression initially, but nothing like my other 2 companions, so this transfer should be a blaaaaast. totally new people and area (minus my zone leader was with me back in Zhongli transfer one and 2...Elder Carter, a native...he's fun so it's good to be back in his district). woo. That is, if I live through all the death biking.
This areas investigators and numbers aren't exactly what I was used to in Zhongli, so I believe I will be seeing more what contacting is like in this area...I didn't really do it, hardly ever in Zhongli. Maybe just talk to the person next to you on the scooter, or a couple really down days we'd go out there to try to find investigators in the ward we had like none in...but I have to be honest, I haven't seen a ton of success with the whole self contacting method of finding, but maybe I'll see more this transfer...if I remember I'll tell you next week...which, next week will be a normal so Preparation Day will be your Tuesday night.
In last weeks news, Chen Yiting got baptized and it was a HILARIOUS story...well, you see...first of all, someone giving a talk didn't know and freaked out when they called her up...then we went downstairs to baptize her, and the water was only up to the first stair...the chain on the plug got caught underneath and so the water had been draining while we were upstairs!!! So we went back upstairs while it refilled and had a testimony like meeting, then finally she was able to get baptized...but man!!! So crazy! But a lot of fun because I've never seen someone so excited about being baptized. She was like jumping around and so excited. I loved it. It made the night totally fun. She was sad I was leaving so soon after her baptism, but she has such a strong testimony, she'll be fine. She wrote a cute note in my bye bye book and I promised I'd write her a letter.
Sunday was hectic packing and saying goodbye, but I survived through it and a nice member took me all the way here to Jilong! She even took work off just to take me. Aww Zhongli members are so great! If you can't tell, I'm a little weary of the change, but excited at the same time. It was hard to leave my district. Some of us had been together 6 months. But Elder Lords and Smith also moved! So yeah, lots of change. :) :/ Maybe I'll have a better attitude next week, probably! Don't forget to write!
Time to go!
Fu Jiemei
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Baptisms in Zhongli
Hello from Zhongli, although it may be my last week here (or maybe I have a long time left here, speculations and bets have begun to be made). haha. I think people always guessing transfers is amusing, and I'm definitely not "too good" to participate in making guesses of who is going where and who is training, etc etc. It's usually all in good Preparation day fun as districts hang out. I personally hope I leave, just based on the fact that I have been in Zhongli for 6 months now, my entire mission...but if I don't leave, I won't be too upset because I really love this area and there are a lot of people here to teach. So we'll find out what happens on Friday night, and I'll be back here online emailing on Monday, so don't forget to write me before then!
In other news, this last Friday's baptism went pretty well. Jasmine and Petrea Ge were baptized, but Leilani wasn't. She had a few hang-ups that were understandable. We'd like to see her baptized this week, she will call us tonight and tell us after she talks to her classmates when she thinks a good time would be...but even if in the end it's not this week, I know she will get baptized sooner or later. So I'm not too worried about that. Petrea was really cute at the baptism. She was like "I'm Ge Boya, and I think getting baptized is really AWESOME." Then she sat down. haha. Kids. Jasmine is also doing really well, she likes to hang out with our awesome Wu Mujun, who tuesday night just showed up to our lesson, we hadn't even told her about it, because she wasn't at church Sunday, but she must have heard from Jasmine we were coming over, and she came too. That's dedication. Jasmine also just really likes the missionaries, so that's good. She came early to church Sunday because she said her house is boring, so she just sat around well Sister Chen and I ate, and she talked to us and stuff. She also has started attending the Advanced English class on Wednesday, and thinks the teachers are hilarious. I think that is due to the fact that her High School English class is too easy, since she lived in Australia growing up and is half Australian, and even though rarely uses her English these days, shes really still quite good at it.
As for Chen Yiting, she's set-up for Saturday night and she's so super excited. She's such a funny 19 year old girl, so I'm excited for her. She's been like, I'M SO EXCITED FOR SATURDAY...whenever we see her. Haha. Really cute.
Besides that though, not a lot has been happening, we teach an okay amount of lessons and just try to invite everyone to learn about the church. This last week we must have had a really good increase in key indicators, because the Assistants called us and told us that they and President were very happy with the work we were doing in Zhongli, and they encouraged us to keep working hard, and that they could see our hard work is really paying off. That through our work and efforts many people were coming to know their Savior. That's the 3rd time we've received a call like that from the Assistants on my mission. I'm not sure how often they do it, but it's nice to hear from them, albeit a little stressing in that it's just a little pressuring that twice that it has happened, our numbers were inevitably going to drop that next week in some ways. But it's not necessarily a bad drop. So yeah, our mission has very good Assistants that follow-up. I seriously have never seen people so good at following up as the Assistants. If we tell them anything, they remember and ask how that is going the next time they see us. Their memories are almost uncanny. Gotta respect crazy good memories like that.
So yeah! Time is running out, but don't forget, write by next week on Monday, your Sunday night I think. I'll tell you then what happened Saturday, and with move calls. I'm excited to be moving into transfer 5. It's almost a halfway point for sister's I think. Time passes fast. Also with almost being in Taiwan 6 months now, I'm noticing I'm understanding a LOT more than I used to and I'm able to pretty much teach every lesson 1-4 decently and clearly. Cool! :) I can't say "It all sounds Chinese to me" anymore...how sad because I used that phrase a lot before my mission, but now Chinese makes sense...everything not Chinese sounds Korea, or Indonesian, or Vietnamese around here. Now my ear hears the difference between Asain languages.
Until next Monday,
Fu jiemei
Sister Flora Bruno
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Work Progressing in Zhongli
Wednesday, September 9, 2009 1:48 AM
Okay, I just wrote an entire email in an hour, then the website got all messed up, so this won't be nearly as long or detailed...and I had to spend another 25 kuai to type this. Sigh. We went and got lunch and now have to spend another hour in the internet cafe so I can write...But what can you do?
This week was really good. I had the best lesson of my life last night. Or at least it felt really good. Sister Hill will be excited to read about it if she reads by blog. We were at Huang jiemei's house, with Jasmin, Leilani, and Petrea, the Ge girls. Well, Jasmin has been getting really comfortable with the Young Woman's and attending the Friday activity, and Wu Mujun has been our pei ke and really being their friend, in fact, we went over last night, and Leilani was like, "mu jun jie jie zai nali? " Or, where is Mujun? We felt bad because we hadn't asked her to come that time, because we have been meeting with them twice a week these days, so we just wanted her to take time out of her busy schedule once a week, not every time, but now they are accustomed to her, so they were like, where is she? So yeah! When we meet with them on Friday, we will definitely see if she can come. But yeah! All three girls were there for the lesson, and it was just an amazing lesson. I was very STRAIGHT with them. At the beginning when nobody wanted to be the one to pray, I was like "Why are you guys so unwilling to pray?" and then eventually Jasmin repeated a prayer S. Chen said, then I taught them again how to pray, but I feel like they really listened this time. Then mom brought up a concern about them believing in God, so I had us read Mosiah 4:9-10 and I was like, "I don't want an I don't know answer from you..Do you believe in God?" and we went aroudn the room. Leilani and Petrea said yes, and Jasmin said she honestly was unsure. I said that was fair, and asked Leilani why she believed. Last week she was also testing it out. But we asked about her prayers and she said she prayed and prayed and prayed, to get a feeling to her prayers once or twice. And we talked about how you have to have a desire to prayer lots of times so you can get a feeling once or twice sometimes, and then you will know by that once or twice that God is listening. Leilani really progressed since last week, in a week since she committed to read the Book of Mormon, she read to the Book of Jacob. That's amazing for an investigator at all, but ESPECIALLY for a 12 year old girl. She's incredible. She was a great help in the lesson this week, because last week she went to unsure, but willing to commit to baptism because we told her it was really good for her, to this week, praying every day, so many times, and reading her scriptures. She still has a concern about Joseph Smith seeing God, but that will be easy to follow up on this week, because we told her about how the Book of Mormon connects to Joseph Smith, and she already believes in the Book of Mormon. She thinks it's "hai bucuo" which is really a compliment for her.
But yeah, so in the lesson we shared in Mosiah, then with Jasmin's concerns, I took us to Alma 32, and passed off to S. Chen who shared about faith is believing in something you can't see and how you just have to have a desire at first. Jasmin said she had a desire and was willing to start praying multiple times a day to find out if God was really there, but then talking about Leilani's concern about Joseph Smith really seeing God, Jasmin runs and gets out the children's book of Mormon and tells us that she read it all, and she believes it. She was showing us Joseph Smith's story in it. She said she believes he saw God and Jesus. So I think she believes in God, she just doubts whether or not he will seriously answer HER individual prayers. But she sounded very willing to find out now. It was just an amazing lesson! She committed to prepare to be baptized with her sisters also. So yeah! Now we just have created some very interesting lesson plans for this next week because they all attended different lessons, only Petrea has finished the missionary lessons, so now we just have to teach Jasmin part of a 3rd and Leilani part of a 1st, and a commandment here and there...but it's totally possible and I think they will be prepared for their baptism interviews in the coming week as long as we make sure to address all concerns on Friday and they keep their commitments like they said. So yeah! That's all I have time to talk about. I'm excited so excited for the Huang girls. I was really sad about Jasmin last week, and now I'm just so happy all three girls have this desire together. I felt like they were part of the reason I was still here in Zhongli, so I'm just really happy, like I mentioned like 10 times. :) They are doing really great! I remember when I first met them, they would hid behind mom, and not even say anything to me, or my companion. Now I can just act like I've known them forever and ask ridiculously bold questions, or if I hear one of them moving around during the prayer, I can just lean over and hit their knee to remind them to be more respectful...and when us missionaries come over, if they don't come straight out, I can just go in their room and be like, "We're here! Now we prepared a lesson and you guys will come listen" haha. I love it. People who respond well to my nice silly, bold personality.
Chen yiting is doing great too. She's on track for September 26th. She also is good for my attitude. She's sassy with me sometimes, because I'll be ridiculous and happy back. She went with my district last week on our P-day activity and had a lot of fun.
Gu Junru...I don't know about her, she has her goal for the 25th and we are excited, but I don't know what will happen there because mom says no way dad will agree if she has to ask, so it's up to the bishop. If the bishop says it's okay to baptize her without dad's permission, we will, our rules just say we need a guardians signature, so we left it up to bishop. Mom says it won't change their relationship, it's just if dad knows he has an option it will be no. Or something like that. So yeah, Zhang jiemei needs to talk to the bishop, and we'll see what happens, but if no, she can just get baptized at 18. She wouldn't be the first to have to do that.
My district is also doing good. This week I was concerned about set-ups. This Elder in my district gets like 4 a day, whereas my companion and I got 4 last week. It is what we need to improve, so the Elders really helped us, we did role plays in contacting people on the street in 30 seconds and stuff. So I don't see us getting 4 set ups a day or anything, but maybe this week we can get 5 or 6 set ups, instead of 4, and go from there. We don't want too ridiculous amounts, because then we lose focus on the investigators we do have because there is no time to meet with them, but we do want around 7 a week, so we can be filtering through and find progressing people, and have options instead of nothing to do for 2 hours on this day, and 2 hours on this day. Next week is going to be crazy though, we have 2 days we will be in Taipei, presidents interviews, regular district mtg and WPS...and a baptism to prepare for, so next week is going to be insane, we are trying to do as much this week to prepare for the craziness of next week. I'm excited! I love crazy weeks :)
Okay, until next time!
Fu Jiemei.
Okay, I just wrote an entire email in an hour, then the website got all messed up, so this won't be nearly as long or detailed...and I had to spend another 25 kuai to type this. Sigh. We went and got lunch and now have to spend another hour in the internet cafe so I can write...But what can you do?
This week was really good. I had the best lesson of my life last night. Or at least it felt really good. Sister Hill will be excited to read about it if she reads by blog. We were at Huang jiemei's house, with Jasmin, Leilani, and Petrea, the Ge girls. Well, Jasmin has been getting really comfortable with the Young Woman's and attending the Friday activity, and Wu Mujun has been our pei ke and really being their friend, in fact, we went over last night, and Leilani was like, "mu jun jie jie zai nali? " Or, where is Mujun? We felt bad because we hadn't asked her to come that time, because we have been meeting with them twice a week these days, so we just wanted her to take time out of her busy schedule once a week, not every time, but now they are accustomed to her, so they were like, where is she? So yeah! When we meet with them on Friday, we will definitely see if she can come. But yeah! All three girls were there for the lesson, and it was just an amazing lesson. I was very STRAIGHT with them. At the beginning when nobody wanted to be the one to pray, I was like "Why are you guys so unwilling to pray?" and then eventually Jasmin repeated a prayer S. Chen said, then I taught them again how to pray, but I feel like they really listened this time. Then mom brought up a concern about them believing in God, so I had us read Mosiah 4:9-10 and I was like, "I don't want an I don't know answer from you..Do you believe in God?" and we went aroudn the room. Leilani and Petrea said yes, and Jasmin said she honestly was unsure. I said that was fair, and asked Leilani why she believed. Last week she was also testing it out. But we asked about her prayers and she said she prayed and prayed and prayed, to get a feeling to her prayers once or twice. And we talked about how you have to have a desire to prayer lots of times so you can get a feeling once or twice sometimes, and then you will know by that once or twice that God is listening. Leilani really progressed since last week, in a week since she committed to read the Book of Mormon, she read to the Book of Jacob. That's amazing for an investigator at all, but ESPECIALLY for a 12 year old girl. She's incredible. She was a great help in the lesson this week, because last week she went to unsure, but willing to commit to baptism because we told her it was really good for her, to this week, praying every day, so many times, and reading her scriptures. She still has a concern about Joseph Smith seeing God, but that will be easy to follow up on this week, because we told her about how the Book of Mormon connects to Joseph Smith, and she already believes in the Book of Mormon. She thinks it's "hai bucuo" which is really a compliment for her.
But yeah, so in the lesson we shared in Mosiah, then with Jasmin's concerns, I took us to Alma 32, and passed off to S. Chen who shared about faith is believing in something you can't see and how you just have to have a desire at first. Jasmin said she had a desire and was willing to start praying multiple times a day to find out if God was really there, but then talking about Leilani's concern about Joseph Smith really seeing God, Jasmin runs and gets out the children's book of Mormon and tells us that she read it all, and she believes it. She was showing us Joseph Smith's story in it. She said she believes he saw God and Jesus. So I think she believes in God, she just doubts whether or not he will seriously answer HER individual prayers. But she sounded very willing to find out now. It was just an amazing lesson! She committed to prepare to be baptized with her sisters also. So yeah! Now we just have created some very interesting lesson plans for this next week because they all attended different lessons, only Petrea has finished the missionary lessons, so now we just have to teach Jasmin part of a 3rd and Leilani part of a 1st, and a commandment here and there...but it's totally possible and I think they will be prepared for their baptism interviews in the coming week as long as we make sure to address all concerns on Friday and they keep their commitments like they said. So yeah! That's all I have time to talk about. I'm excited so excited for the Huang girls. I was really sad about Jasmin last week, and now I'm just so happy all three girls have this desire together. I felt like they were part of the reason I was still here in Zhongli, so I'm just really happy, like I mentioned like 10 times. :) They are doing really great! I remember when I first met them, they would hid behind mom, and not even say anything to me, or my companion. Now I can just act like I've known them forever and ask ridiculously bold questions, or if I hear one of them moving around during the prayer, I can just lean over and hit their knee to remind them to be more respectful...and when us missionaries come over, if they don't come straight out, I can just go in their room and be like, "We're here! Now we prepared a lesson and you guys will come listen" haha. I love it. People who respond well to my nice silly, bold personality.
Chen yiting is doing great too. She's on track for September 26th. She also is good for my attitude. She's sassy with me sometimes, because I'll be ridiculous and happy back. She went with my district last week on our P-day activity and had a lot of fun.
Gu Junru...I don't know about her, she has her goal for the 25th and we are excited, but I don't know what will happen there because mom says no way dad will agree if she has to ask, so it's up to the bishop. If the bishop says it's okay to baptize her without dad's permission, we will, our rules just say we need a guardians signature, so we left it up to bishop. Mom says it won't change their relationship, it's just if dad knows he has an option it will be no. Or something like that. So yeah, Zhang jiemei needs to talk to the bishop, and we'll see what happens, but if no, she can just get baptized at 18. She wouldn't be the first to have to do that.
My district is also doing good. This week I was concerned about set-ups. This Elder in my district gets like 4 a day, whereas my companion and I got 4 last week. It is what we need to improve, so the Elders really helped us, we did role plays in contacting people on the street in 30 seconds and stuff. So I don't see us getting 4 set ups a day or anything, but maybe this week we can get 5 or 6 set ups, instead of 4, and go from there. We don't want too ridiculous amounts, because then we lose focus on the investigators we do have because there is no time to meet with them, but we do want around 7 a week, so we can be filtering through and find progressing people, and have options instead of nothing to do for 2 hours on this day, and 2 hours on this day. Next week is going to be crazy though, we have 2 days we will be in Taipei, presidents interviews, regular district mtg and WPS...and a baptism to prepare for, so next week is going to be insane, we are trying to do as much this week to prepare for the craziness of next week. I'm excited! I love crazy weeks :)
Okay, until next time!
Fu Jiemei.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Commitments on the Street
This week really has been something else. And exciting is one of the words you could definitely use. This last week was zone conference. Monday morning our district met up at the Zhongli train station and headed off to Taipei. Zone conference was really good, but I have to admit I was a little apprehensive initially at the message, but now I'm really excited. We talked about how President Grimley had went to this conference last week in Hong Kong, and they asked them, "Have you Become it?" So President asked us all if we had become it? So that's something I've been pondering lately. They also talked a lot about the baptism commitment. With the converging of Xinzhu to our area, we got a lot of missionaries from Taizhong into the Taipei mission. Taizhong does things a little differently than we had been and I think they want us to be bolder missionaries, so they had 2 of the Xinzhu sisters do a role play, then our zone leaders E. Worthen and Lu on how to invite someone to baptism on the street. They talked about make commitments as a tool to bring souls unto Christ. They taught us how to help someone understand in 3 minutes the importance of the Restoration and being baptized with correct authority. It was really amazing, because actually people have had a lot of success with it.
I'd never even THOUGHT about ever explaining the purpose of baptism and starting to prepare someone for that ordinance in my initial contact with someone, but I started to see how that could be very effective, that they were working towards their first covenant with the Lord from the very beginning. Especially since some of our biggest problems are a lot of our investigators who we end up stop meeting with is due to the fact that they are too scared of that first covenant and as that fear gets stronger, they lose hope and stop keeping commitments at all...so we end up having to spend less time meeting with them and focusing on people who are keeping commitments, and hope they will keep coming to church and one day be willing to make that jump.
So yeah, I have to admit, when I first heard them giving us these examples I was apprehensive, but they had us do roleplays, and Sister Andreason who was with me in the MTC was my partner. She was great for me because she knew me and she's similar to me in personality. She got transferred to Xinzhu this transfer, so in the 3 weeks she's been with her companion she's gotten a lot of practice on this kind of contacting, so she gave me a really great example, then I was able to do it following her example. It made me excited to have a new way of contacting, and I told my companion yesterday (Tuesday) we should invite at least one person to baptism. So even though we barely had time for dinner at all, we grabbed a really fast meal, and invited someone to baptism on the side of the street before we went back into the church to shove the food down really fast before MM meeting. It was cool. She didn't accept, she was too busy with school, but I think maybe one day she'll remember that when she has more time and maybe come back. I invited her to English class if she ever needed help with her English, so maybe we'll see her again! She said her brother is a member who stopped coming because of the lifestyle of a student in Taiwan. But the point is, I felt good about it.
It may sound like some crazy thing us Taiwan missionaries are doing, inviting people to baptism on the street...but its an effective way to find people genuinely interested in learning about the gospel and getting to know their Savior Jesus Christ. And fulfills our purpose to invite people unto repentance. It's not like I'll use it every time I contact, especially not when I have maybe 15 seconds on my bike talking to the scooter next to me to get out an invitation, but now that I know, I can use it and slowly ease more into letting the Spirit tell me which way to use to contact each person. My goal is eventually be able to have a different contacting experience with every person I contact, but right now my Chinese isn't all that great, so a pretty similar one each time is okay, adapted to their comments and questions. And as my Chinese improves, I'll be able to be molded into a more effective tool in the Lords hands.
So in other news besides a new contacting method I thought Dad would be interested in hearing, yesterday we went over to Huang Yujun1's house and met with Petrea and her sister Leilani. Leilani has been coming to church with her little sister most of the time and has been progressing, just a little slower than her younger sister. Yesterday we talked to her and she decided she also wanted to be baptized. So we moved back Petrea's date a week to help prepare her sister to do it with her. Mom is very excited. Leilani is a very sensible girl. Yesterday when we invited her to be baptized on a Friday, because the mom said that's the most ideal day for a baptism for her work...Leilani was like...Hmm I get off school at 4:45, then I have to do some homework so I won't have too much over the weekend and I need some time to watch TV for about 30 minutes, since I'll be very tired...baptism at 7..."It won't go over an hour will it?" She also had a quick conversation about baptism with her mother I really expected. She asked if baptism would be good for her? And her mom said, yes. And she said, " Super good?" And I told her, oh yeah, you weren't here last week when we taught the 3rd lesson to your sister, let me tell you about the gift of the Holy Ghost. So yeah, that's why it's pushed back for a week. She needs to hear the 3rd and I don't want to rush it too much. But she's awesome, she was willing to keep every commandment we taught, and totally had a testimony of Joseph Smith and everything. Leilani reminds me a LOT of Francesca. So yeah! Now if only Jasmin, the oldest would listen to our lesson and just even try to see what it's like to pray...but I think she'll start coming a long a lot more when her younger sisters both are willing to keep commandments and pray together.
This week was a lot of fun with Sister Chen. We laugh a lot together and just have a lot of fun doing normal missionary things. Also it is always fun to go to Taipei and see missionaries who I was in the MTC or in my district or zone in the past. See how they are doing outside of Zhongli. I'm lucky to have spent my whole life in Taiwan in Zhongli, but a little naive in some ways because I've never experienced leaving one area. I was just put here, and have been here since. I'm sure I'll get that experience one day, but for now, I'm happy in Zhongli. We have a lot of people progressing and doing really awesome, and I know Heavenly Father left me in Zhongli to help my new members continue to endure to the end and to help people I've known since transfer one, especially Gu Junru, and the Ge sisters (Jasmin, Leilani, and Petrea) my four kid investigators with mother members prepare to make their first covenant with Heavenly Father. Maybe I won't see all of them baptized, but I know they all will be one day, and I'm glad to be working with them right now.
Also! Chen Yiting is doing great! She's going to come with us on Preparation day today and hang out with us and the Elders...she's really excited...so yeah, now we have to go catch a bus! Later!
Sister Bruno
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam/Dan Jonesing
Hello from Zhongli! This week is going pretty good. We met some amazing investigators lately, and even though in some ways for a little while it felt like I was like, not really able to do anything here in Zhongli for the area anymore...i'm starting to see why I'm still here. That's something Satan likes to tell most missionaries, that their area is dying and blah blah blah. But it's just hard to see your numbers take a drastic drop, but as they say in Mandarin, mei guan xi. No problem...that's okay.
I'm really excited because we are meeting with two people I really love with baptism dates, and I really think they will keep them. One is a little girl who is half Australian, half Taiwanese. Nine years old. Her name is Petrea and her mother is a member. Her mom is so excited. Petrea has been a little curious about baptism for awhile, since she's been really good about attending Primary every week, but Sister Hill and I just never had time right before the baptisms to go and pick her up and walk together all the way to the church...but I remembered she wanted to see one, so Sister Chen and I blocked out all the time it would take to walk from their house to the church together and back after the baptism and we did it. She got to see three people baptized, and then she was willing to make the commitment. But only in the summer, because she said fall is coming soon and she doesn't want to be in cold water! Kids are so cute So S. Chen and I will make sure to turn on the water heater in sufficient time that she doesn't have to worry about cold water. She made her date for 9/12. So two weeks from Saturday. I wish her 2 older sisters could be as good and willing to go to church and listen to the lessons, but they are moving along slowly but surely, and we will continue to work with them. I'm sure they will eventually be willing to read and pray, but it will just take a little bit longer to soften their hearts, and find a really solid friend for them. They are all so shy. But we are working on it.
The other girl is Chen Yiting. Her English name is Joanna, so maybe for the sake of not having to type in tones every time I type her name, I'll refer to her as such. Our zone did an activity together where we all did Dan Jones ing...Well, most of us did Dan Jonesing. I didn't. I prefer to contact people who listen, but for some reason I'm a little bit wary of using screaming at the top of my lungs as a contacting method. I fully support others doing it, and will contact all kinds of people on the side lines. Anyways, while our zone leader E. Worthen was up on a bench testifying, my companion and I contacted this cute 19 year old girl. She ended up loving us and asking us if she could help, so while we were doing the Dan Jones activity, she passed out our pamphlets to people listening. We also were able to teach her prayer and reset up with her for that Saturday. Well, she ended up coming to English class that Wednesday...and she's just calls us sometimes and sees what our schedule is like...Monday she wanted to see us and for us to teach her friend who was going into the military this morning about our church before he left. We taught him the first lesson and he was really excited. He was like, of course it's true! I've already seen Joanna change so much since she got to know you guys, she's a lot more patient, and has just changed so much! We asked Joanna if she wanted to be baptized, and she said yes. So we set a goal for the end of September so she could prepare for a month and get herself ready. Then, we had planned to meet with her the next day and invited him along so we could give him the church address down in Kaoshiung where he was...so then yesterday we met with him, and it was really good. We invited Joanna to keep the Sabbath Day holy after teaching the 2nd. We knew that would be a problem since she is coming to church after work Sunday. But her friend ended up being a great help, he is actually her co-worker, and he was like, if you want to "xin momen jiao" or a good translation would probably be.."believe as the mormons do", she needed to be willing to keep God's commandments and be diligent about it. So he said their boss would understand if she needed Sunday's off, since he's Catholic. So she said she'd be more diligent and ask Sunday's off starting next Sunday. Haha, Dai Bang xiu is something else. He also said throughout the space of the time we were together, that his whole family is Buddist, but he decided he wants to be LDS, and be baptized, but he can't until his military time is over. The Elders told him he could come to church on his vacations. He said okay. And that he'd look for the church in Kaoshiung if they let him have a few hours off on Sunday. He said after he finishes military service, he's going to get baptized and then prepare to go on a mission. He has a book of mormon now though. So he said he'd read it so he could be prepared to get baptized next year. Haha. Yeah that was a fun experience to teach him for 2 days! And now we'll continue to meet with Joanna. She's really cute. We'll see her tonight and Thursday, we've been seeing her a lot lately. She's already good friends with the boys who hang out at the church for a couple hours every night, so she's becoming what E. Worthen calls a church rat. haha. I don't think that was a thing in America...but here in Zhongli, there are a group of young single adults who hang out at the church most nights of the week for a couple hours. It's like the social activity to come to the church and hang out.
And yeah! Now I have 9 minutes so I'll try to send a few pictures, if i can move fast enough, if not I'll write a short email next week and send pictures! K bye!
Fu Jiemei
S. Bruno
Monday, August 17, 2009
Missionary Email: Loss of Investigators When Missionary Goes Home
Yeah! I finally figured out how to have the computer let me write pinyin, since everyone here uses a system called bopomofo, which makes no sense to me, however, I only figured out how to write pinyin for simplified characters...but I study traditional these days, which I actually have time to study characters at all. Mostly I focus on passing off lesson principles to my wonderful district leader E. Lords!
So, my computer messed up and had to be restarted, so I only have a 9 minutes! You probably realize that it was move calls since this e-mail is coming on Monday. In both wards I cover, Zhongli 1st and 2nd, only one person was moved. Elder Mauldwin is going down to Taoyuan, only a bus stop away. He's still in our stake. Haha. As for me, I'm in Zhongli another transfer of course. I'm really old in my area. Only E. Smith has been here longer than I have. Everyone says new missionaries don't usually get put in their area longer than 2 or 3, but I'm in for 4. We'll see what happens in 6 weeks, but for now my companion and I are doing some weeding out, because we have a whole lot of people who are not progressing, so we aren't going to focus on them anymore. We are focusing our efforts on people who are willing to keep commitments, and the rest if they find time and desire to start actually keeping commitments, we will pick them back up. It's hard when a missionary dies. A lot of investigators die with them, but there is still a lot to do here in Zhongli and we've really gotten to change some things and start developing some better relationships with a lot of people. Especially Zhongli 2nd ward. The relations in that ward could use improvement ...I know way more people in the other ward, because my companion did. So we've really been working on getting investigators way out in Pingzhen and getting to know that ward.
I've had a lot of responsibilities, and so it's been a little stressful, but I'm starting to get used to having more responsibilities and it's turning out to be good. I'm speaking more Chinese...meeting more people, and learning how to skirt around things I don't understand instead of freaking out. Haha. So yeah! This transfer should be fun. And now I have 2 minutes left. Sorry this email was like, hardly no substance, but the last one I spent like 40 minutes on...and now it's gone...so yeah not much choice. Write again next Wednesday!
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Missionary Letter: Typhoon (Missionaries Safe in Taiwan)
The Typhoon here wasn't hardly bad at all. There was a little rain and debris and we stayed inside one day. But I hear down in the south it was pretty bad, but we don't watch the news so we don't know much...but I don't think there are a lot of missionaries down there, and they are probably all fine so that's probably why nothing was published. Typhoons are normal things here. They probably only mention them if they are awful. For us it was just a lot of strong wind and I probably would have felt fine outside, but they kept us inside to be safe.
Missionary Letter: What Typhoon?--The Innocence of Missionary Life
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
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Missionary Email: Earthquake!
So, this week has been a pretty fast one. I mostly say that because a lot of things have started to meld together and when I sit here to write my weekly email, I'm unsure of what happened this week and what happened last week for a lot of happenings. Other things I'm sure were this week. But time on a mission is a little bit different. I opened Paul Freeman's wedding announcement this week and I was shocked to see he was getting married in like 15 days, my initial thought was that they didn't have a long time being engaged at all...but I realized I shouldn't be shocked because it was almost 2 months ago I got the letter saying he was engaged. It's just the time has been so filled that it felt like a week and then I got the announcement. So that's just a pretty normal engagement period from what I experienced back in college. But it was funny how I felt like it was like 3 weeks. I was sooo excited though. It was a lot of fun back when Kimmy and Rocio got married to see that change happening. Now I'm getting to see it happen to my male friends who went on missions and come back experiencing the same thing. So yeah, the point of this story is to same time on a mission is not the same as it used to be.
My happening for the week though that I clearly can distinguish as this week, is that yesterday morning at 2am we experienced an earthquake!!! It wasn't too bad of an earthquake. But it was just funny hearing everyone experiences about how they woke up. And mine is one of the least funny. But for me, I was shook awake, and as my mind processed that it was an earthquake my companion screamed "EARTHQUAAAAAKE!!!" And my response was just..."yep." After that she wanted to know if we should stand in the doorway or get under the desks, but I just said, "Nah, lets stay in bed." The whole time I didn't move, I just laid there, to me it was just not too unordinary for some reason. It was bad enough to shake me awake, but it wasn't shaking things up and down, just side to side, so I figured I was fine. It got over pretty quick after that. Maybe another 30 or so seconds. Then my companion talked for a few minutes, and I didn't say much, I just tried to fall back asleep because it was 2 am and I was incredibly tired. The next morning though, it was so funny to hear the Elders stories. We has assumed some of them wouldn't wake up...but Elder Smith said he woke up thinking Elder Mauldwin was shaking his bed and he sat up, and the next thing he knew he was on his hands and knees on his bed, trying to hold balance, like a cat or something. And he woke up his companion, who probably would have slept through it. And E. Lord's also thought his companion was shaking him awake. So they had funny experiences. I feel like mine was boring, because my brain processed earthquake as my companion screamed it. I didn't think someone was shaking me awake and I didn't sit up and have to hold my balance...Sister Hill said she did too...but me...I was just rocked in bed...I guess I'm more used to natural disasters. It's probably from living in California. We used to have small earthquakes there too huh? From what I remember. And then the flood in Houston. I've been in Hurricanes, earthquakes...I just remain calm. I hear I'll experience some Typhoons here in Taiwan too. We'll see. In the morning though, I did notice our walls were slightly more cracked up than they had been the day before. But our apartment is still solid. Compared to cracks in some places I've seen, we have very few.
In other news, we've been getting fed a lot here in Taiwan lately. My companion leaves in like 3 weeks or something, and everyone wants to feed her before she goes. So we've been very blessed this week. Our schedules are pretty full and our stomachs too. Taiwan is a little different than other missions in America and stuff because a large majority of our meals are actually generally out. We eat breakfast at our apartments before studies, but then we eat at a stand/shop/restaurant for lunch and dinner...and then occasionally people will want to fed us, but mostly on Sunday. So it's been nice to get fed all the time this past week.
A lot of our investigators have been progressing towards baptism. They still have trials and obstacles, but they are slowly coming to know their Savior, and you can see the change occuring in their lives, and it's really amazing to be blessed to watch people change.
We had 14 people at church this week and most of our key indicators have went up, so Zhongli really is seeing miracles...
But I don't expect them to stay this high always because we will be in Taipei over and over, for things like Zone Conference, Sister Hill's last mission fireside, going home seminars...so yeah our schedules should continue to be pretty packed since we have less time during the week to meet with people and we have a lot to do with my companion going home. But it's been so neat to see them going up. Vacations coming up and people are leaving town. So there's a lot more change we are going to see this transfer. And the biggest change will be the companion one...but until that time comes, we are busy little bees working in earthquakes, temperatures over 90 one day, and an incoming typhoon with lots of wind and beating rain the next. The air is filled with humidity, and the streets are filled with thousands of people. There's a lot to do, and more lessons than I think my brain can fit sometimes occurring every day. Life is fun!
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