Missionary Email: Report from Taiwan

Tuesday, August 4, 2009 11:54 PM

Okay, so lately, I don't have much of an appetite, but since my companion is leaving everyone wants to feed us! So ahhH! I learned how to say appetite in Chinese the first time we had a meal with someone though, and so that's good, and people are understanding and say it's because of the weather, and don't force me to eat much, since they figure I can afford to lose weight. haha. It's been fun, every meal is an appointment the last like 5 days. So we've seen a lot of investigators and members and eaten a lot of different foods.

Yeah, so I found out what's happening to me when my companion leaves tomorrow finally...haha. I knew there was no way they would make me senior companion yet. My chinese has improved from what it once was, but it is not nearly good enough to be able to be senior quite yet. Maybe in 3 or 4 more transfers...and even then who knows. I'm just glad the Lord knows what I can and can't handle and didn't give me too much to handle. My new senior companion is going to be a Sister Chen. But there are 3 on the mission. I think I know what Sister Chen the assistants were talking about, E. Lin, the old office Elder, told me she was the ABC (American Born Chinese) Chen...he THINKS. But I guess I won't be POSITIVE it's who I'm thinking until tonight or tomorrow morning...probably tonight so we can coordinate her coming up to Zhongli and I can figure out if I need to try to set people up for tomorrow, depending on if she has a bike or not immediately will determine what we can and can't do. But with a new companion and me being the one familiar with the area, I will get a lot more responsibilities with my new companion. So that will be nice. I'd like to take on some new responsibilities and kind of repent for my laziness before and become a better missionary. Sister Hill was really good to me, she just let me do what I want when I wanted...but it's time for me to step out of my comfort zone and do what the Lord wants when he wants me to instead. But I have changed a lot over the months I think. One of the Elders even told me the other day he thought I'd grown up a lot since he first met me. Probably because I'm a stubborn person and my district has known me through some pretty bad moods. And my bad moods are a lot less frequent then they were back when I felt more inadequate and like I couldn't possibly speak to these people in a tonal language, or understand their food menus or weird squiggly line characters. Haha. Not that I'm all of a sudden always happy. I mean, I really respect that about some people who are always happy (I honestly believe there are some missionaries who are just always happy, and it's super respectable)...I don't know how they do it because I have ups and downs. But I have more ups lately and my mission has been a lot more fun...

So I'm excited for a new companion and for my old companion to go home, because she's excited to go. And she can get married and send me another wedding invitation, since I've gotten a few lately. It's fun to see people getting married and having babies. Haha, which reminds me...I told my companion about that Natasha Beddingfield Song, "I wanna have your babies" but she wasn't nearly as amused by it as me, so I think maybe I just have a weird sense of humor because a lot of things I crack up at...others don't so much...but what can you do. I haven't completely lost Babylon in that way, I still get random songs stuck in my head, but they aren't distracting and usually make me happy because I remember who I am and my personality and none of them have bad lyrics. It's interesting as a missionary to try to figure out what you can keep from before and what you need to give up. And then you just let your experiences and the Spirit shape you. I try to be an obedient missionary, or I made the goal to try to be obedient from the beginning and sometimes I fall short..but I think you need to learn to be obedient but remember who you are and have fun, because when the mission isn't fun, that's when it's unhappy. And work is and can be fun. So maybe I agree with the "it's not all fun and games" with the games part, but I think everything should be fun! Talking to everyone can be fun...and reading scriptures can be fun...seriously. Everything is fun when you have that attitude. So it's amazing.

Today, Rita is going to be baptized! I don't remember what I said about her last week, but her background is she was totally ready but then freaked out and didn't have her interview last last Sunday. So we've been really focusing on her, and this Saturday night, we still didn't know if I was leaving Zhongli to be with other sisters in their area, or they would send someone here, because the assistants had told me I wouldn't be with a duanchuan, for which I was grateful. But other than that, we still didn't know. So we called Rita Saturday and at first she had always been like that she would just be baptized in a few weeks and I'd be there and it would be fine. But my companion was really straight and said we weren't sure either of us would be here after today (wednesday) and that we knew she was ready and wanted to be by her side, but to just really sincerely pray that night, and God would give her her answer...and if she wanted to wait after sincerely asking, that's okay, there's still missionaries and other missionaries would love to keep working with her, because baptism is a start...and she will continue studying her whole life for the enduring to the end part. Well, church was crazy...we had 14 investigators at church, and 12 in the second ward, so it was just ahhh trying to make sure they all were talked to and sat by and happy and good. And we got to talk to Rita and she said she got her answer and showed us a scripture in Alma 38:9. She had opened up to that after her prayer and knew she needed to be baptized...so even though we were headed to Taipei that night, E. Lord's was amazing and did the interview with her...she passed and we set up the baptism for tonight (since her husband couldn't come yesterday) on our Preparation day, and we have English class at 7...but her baptism is at 6 and we will be fine and able to pull it together I'm sure, and it's worth it because she's amazing and really understands the gospel. More than any investigator I've met so far. Things just click for her. And I'm so excited.

Zhongli is amazing and we have a lot of investigators that are so prepared, they are just scared, so we have a lot of work to do, and I'm excited. Maybe a lot of change is coming up, with transfer calls next Friday (not this one), so Sister Hill is the first to leave, but tons of people could end up moving in my district/zone very soon here. But we had an amazing transfer, the Neili Elders have someone getting baptized next Sunday, a Jenny who is great! She spoke with me on Sunday and was like, "Sister, next Sunday I want to be baptized and change my life!" Aww. And the Zhongli Elders have had a lot of success lately too. Their newest convert, James who was baptized Saturday, is very friendly and had a lot of good input at FHE Monday. And yeah everyone is just really doing good right now here in Zhongli 1st and 2nd ward. My district has really been praying for each other, and we've been seeing a lot of miracles and seeing our goals really being reached. It makes me excited for the future and glad to be in Zhongli. I mean, I could move at transfer calls, but I highly doubt it. I think I still have a little bit more to do here. And so I continue my mission in my first area, Zhongli, and things are going pretty good.

Missionary Email: 13 Investigators in One Week At Church

Wednesday, July 8, 2009 12:11 AM

Hello again from Zhongli. This week was a pretty good week. My companion and I are busy and we love it. This week was a really good week for us. We have definitely been seeing miracles. We had 13 people come to church. On Sunday our MM leader for Zhongli 1st ward, was like, Wow, you sisters have had a really amazing week. And I just realized, he's right! This was an amazing week.

Yesterday was quite the day, we biked all over our area, we started in central Zhongli, and went out to a place that almost is by Guanying 30 minutes away, back to Zhongli and up to Pingzhen, back down to the place by Guanying, then out to Neili, up to Pingzhen, and then back to central Zhongli for our MM meeting for Zhongli 2nd ward. So we spent quite a few hours on our bikes yesterday. I was so exhausted! I'm glad that today is Preparation day! But yeah actually yesterday was a lot of fun. My companion and I got fed both lunch and dinner. And dinner was super fun. One of our investigators is a 10 year old girl named Gu Junru whose mother is a member, Zhang Yutong. We went over to her house and we made pizza like things. We just bought bread that looks like the shape of garlic bread, and put cheese and sauce, and random assortments of toppings on it. It was a lot of fun. Even her sons, who are always unhappy and angry, for awhile came and made pizzas with us. Personally, I get the vibe her sons are depressed..but it's not my place to counsel her. We just told her maybe if she thought her sons had a problem to take them to the doctor or talk to the bishop, because she told us how her sons are always frowning and unhappy, and if she laughs, they yell at her, so she can't laugh or smile too much at home. Yikes. But they are slowly becoming accustomed to us, and even though they never smile, at least they aren't mean to us. And they acknowledge our existence. The first time I met her sons, they pretended I didn't exist. And sat there like a frowning stone. It's just a weird situation because their fathers parents super oppose her being a Mormon, they tell the sons that it is the devils church...and so sometimes her sons get angry and say she is possessed with devils. And even weirder, they don't believe in God. I don't get how people don't believe in God, but believe in devils. So yeah, interesting situation, but I really respect her. She has a really strong testimony, and is really trying to help her children. She has more patience than anyone I've ever seen. She never forces her kids to do anything and is very patient with them.

On July 4th had a dinner appointment with a Vietnamese girl...and we listened to people karaoke in Vietnamese, so that was interesting. We also drank a watermelon drink..so I had some watermelon. woo. They put watermelon in the blender here, and then a little sugar and flavoring and sell it for 20 kuai. It's really nice on a super hot day.

We also went to a fireside in Taipei on Sunday. It was fun, a young woman's from Zhongli came and some investigators, etc. President Grimley had all the missionaries that were going home yesterday get up and bear their testimony. I was happy to be there. I got to see Elder Atwood, my old district leader, and Elder Rice, my old Zone leader bear their testimonies as they prepared to head back home and start life in America. The spirit was really there, and it dawned on me that I understood pretty much every word they said...that their testimonies were something I learned how to understand in the MTC. They prepared us in the MTC for the most important and basic part of a missionary, bearing testimony of truths and principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ and how it came to be in this age and generation. And so, I know that my Chinese isn't anything amazing, but I'm getting to the point I need to be. I know how to bear testimony of basic principles, and I can teach things on a simple understanding. So yay. It also dawned on me that a mission is pretty fast. Pretty soon here, I'll only have a year left. It doesn't feel like 6 months have passed in a lot of ways...but I've been in Taiwan for 3 months today. It's crazy. But yeah, I've learned a lot and I still have oh so much to learn...

Now I have to go though! byebye!

Loveya!

Missionary Email: David A. Bednar Instructs the Missionaries and Missions to Collapse from 3 to 2 in Taiwan

Hey, could someone ask the following people for their current addresses, since school is getting out and I just have people's schools address: Felicia, Matt, Amanda Lowder (I don't have her address at all) ...that's all I can think of for now.

This week was okay. Long because P-day was different last week, so we had to go a lot longer without a little break, but it was fun in a lot of ways too. I'm going to update you in reverse order because that is the easiest to remember. This morning we went to Taoyuan to do our ARC residence cards. It took awhile since we had lunch really quick, and now emailing at 1 is the next thing we are doing. My companion has to register for school, so by the time we get out of here, it will probably be 2:30 and only 3 hours will be left of preparation day...so much for having time to both shop and write the letters I feel like I should...seth, paul, christian, amanda, matt, felicia...I don't have most of their addresses anyways though, so next week will have to suffice for most of them. Oh yeah, I opened my first snail mail letter in Taiwan today. All that it had was one picture. From Christian. Man, some Elder's are so lazy, they send a picture and expect to get a letter in return, my friend James did the same thing back at the MTC, and some of my friends in college had the same thing happen...but I'm thinking he'll get a picture in return. It was actually pretty thoughtful though...it was Christian Burstall downing a bag of flamin' hot cheetos. Given that I still have a bag in my suitcase it was funny and I wasn't envious, but if i got a picture like that in 6 months, it might be a different story.

Yesterday we went down to Taipei...we actually spent since last Sunday in Taipei..we spent the night Sun-Mon, but Yeah Tuesday morning we went into Taipei to do temple tours. It was a lot of fun because it's a different pace, and you aren't rained on all day. We got a really awesome guy, and he came in and he was like..."I'm Buddhist but I believe in Jesus Christ (in Chinese mostly of course), history shows he exists." We walked him through the chapel and showed him pictures of Jesus and he talked to us about how one day he started to wonder his purpose on earth and all these other GREAT questions that we happen to have the answer to. We didn't get to talk about everything because he had stopped in on his way to class, but we told him about Joseph Smith being similar to him and got his number. The obstacle (zhang'ai) though is that his mother fandui's (opposes). That's a word I had to learn here my first day. A lot of mother-in-laws or mothers fandui...so people who even want to be baptized never are because they are very respectful of what their elders say. We have a lady who is pretty much a member, minus being baptized because the mother-in-law won't allow it. Hopefully one day she will soften her heart...But if not, I'm sure as long as she stays strong, the time will come that she will be baptized.

So, now to go further back in history...Elder Bednar came to Taiwan and did meetings with all the missions here, and also he did a broadcast for the members in the cities the mission offices are at, so Kaohsiung, Taichung, and Taipei with the members (which by the way, next month, Kaohsiung and Taichung missions are combining and Taipei will expand and take part of the current Taichung mission if you hadn't heard, so there will only be 2 missions in Taiwan...I'll have to write my friends in Kaohsiung and see what they think of the change and what exactly has been going down...when I have time to write hand letters at all that is)...so anyways, us Zhongli missionaries were told that we weren't exactly allowed to go to the member meeting, since we would go on Monday to mission conference, so we had no plans to go, but on Sunday after going to our 2 wards that our area covers, we went home to eat and do personal study...and we got a call from the assistant's saying that they needed sister Hill to come interpret for a deaf girl at the conference, so we packed our bags and went to Taipei. We spent the night in the mission housing, then the next day we listened to Elder Bednar and asked questions at mission conference. It was amazing. Both nights he let the audience ask questions and answer them. The time went by really fast, and I was totally intrigued. It was a really spiritually uplifting time. He said a lot of things that I need to improve on. OH! and after mission conference, a man in the front, so some kind of bishop or VIP in Taiwan who had spent the last week with Elder Bednar turned to me and was like "Sister Bruno, so nice to meet you!" Or something to that effect...so basically from the conversation with him I found out he is a nice man from Taiwan...who happens to know me through my online blog. EMBARRASSING. I mean, he was nice, he said he had wanted to answer some of my questions about Taiwan he had seen, but it was still embarrassing. And the second time some stranger told me they had seen my Taiwan blog. Gaaah.

But I want to send videos from the MTC and pictures so I'll do a quick quick thing on what Elder Bednar talked about...he told us that our goals as missionaries were to eventually have our members be independent in their faith. That they relied on the Lord and not the missionaries or anyone else. I think that was something really good to hear at the beginning of my mission, because he said we need to teach our investigators one by one...like Jesus did when he let people feel his wounds one by one...it was unique for everyone. So right now before I've ever been able to coherently teach a lesson in Chinese, I already want to be able to make my lessons unique to individuals, because E. Bednar is right, the gospel is a unique experience for everyone, everyone gains and individual testimony, so we need to let our investigators do that by giving them lessons unique to their needs.

And then the other biggest highlight I'll mention is he talked a lot about the natural man, both to the members Sunday night and to us missionaries Monday. He mentioned the scripture about the natural man being an enemy to God when a sweet Chinese girl asked how she could be bold yet meek, and he told her that you could be bold because you KNOW the work you are doing is of God, so you aren't scared to do it, but meek because you know it is the Lord's work and you are weak and dependant on him. And he told the missionaries that we needed to teach the lesson, bring the spirit...and then GET OUT OF THE WAY. To get our natural man out of the way of the investigators feeling the spirit. To teach them not just applications, but the principles and correct doctrine behind applications so they understand what they are doing and why...he mentioned how this is necessary to teach children as well, otherwise they won't understand and be more likely to fall away because they don't have as strong of spiritual power to withstand if they don't understand the doctrine and principle behind the things they are asked to do.

Oh and to Michael, (and my other Priesthood holding readers) a question was asked by a sister about the keys of ministering angels...and E. Bednar said that God won't send literal angels to do stuff that worthy priesthood holders can do, because the priesthood holders have the keys of ministering angels...so then he said that the Young Men's responsibility is to strenghten members, so you remember that is your responsibility, so make sure to serve the people who need help when they give you an opportunity and make sure to see if there is anything the missionaries can have you do like visiting inactive members or something so that they can spend their time on teaching lessons! Because the priesthood is really amazing and you are blessed to have it! A lot of people don't have the influence of the priesthood in their lives yet...and that's where I come in with my other fellow missionaries...telling people about it!

Also, give missionaries referrals! Like L. Tom Perry said in conference, a lot of time is spent looking. It would be really great if more referrals were given by members, try to pray about who would recieve the gospel in their lives that you know, and give the missionaries their information.

In other words, it rains a lot here, I'm always soaking wet when I come home, I'm either drenched in sweat because it was a hot day, and we cover 2 wards area (because we are sisters, and there are 2 companionships of elders in each ward, but we cover the 4 companionships areas! ...in Taiwan sisters teach girls and elders teach boys...well we both teach families, but for singles, it always works like that, we give our male contacts when we have them to elders, and vice versa so the sisters have a lot of appointments since our area is bigger and we have a lot of inactivity, and we try to go see inactives a lot because sometimes all they need is to know nobody cares)...or I am soaking wet. Weather here is def tropical! It's burning outside when it's not raining...but the rain comes a LARGE majority of the days. But i'll probably miss being drenched when summer comes and it's so hot it's ridiculous. haha.

Yeah now i'm going to try to send pictures, so I'll end with that. Taiwan is unique. The food my vegetarian companion eats is really not good to me yet, but I hear most Chinese food is an acquired taste, so maybe by the end of my mission I'll be sad to leave the food...but so far i've only been daring enough to try pigs feet (yes, not vegetarian, it was at a members, and my comp. didn't try it..haha) and dofu. They were both not so good, but bearable. Pigs foot more than dofu. Everyone wants their own businesses, so we have a lot of options and I've only been here a week, so not tried a lot...but i've also had some of the best food of my life here as well. Really good scones and these things that have bread on the outside and sausage inside, no idea the names for foods yet, maybe baozi? Not sure. Anyways yeah...it's fun. It's def. not like American food! I paid a little extra for my cereal and milk to have every morning for breakfast, but it was worth it to me to have one meal I'm used to a day :).

OH, and one last thing, as we were leaving temple tours last night, we ran into a boy who is in the top 14 of the Taiwanese version of American Idol, Super Idol. His name is Benji, Pan jie ming. I wish I knew how to type characters on a Chinese keyboard, but I can't. If you can figure out how to find the right characters, you can watch him on Youtube. He's LDS from Utah. I was going to have Desi tell me if he sang any good, but then I couldn't figure out how to use bopo mofo..

only 9 minutes to try to send pictures! bye!

Fu Jiemei

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

Monday, April 13, 2009 12:22 AM

Hi,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Love you all!
Fu Jiemei