You Xinxin! You Banfa! (If you have faith, there is a way!)‏

This past week was Christmas!  Last P-day, I got my first street adding.  Basically, I explained my purpose and asked for her number if she wanted to know more, and she gave it to me.  Although today I know that she actually has no interest, because we called and ultimately have not yet been able to set up a time with her, but, no worries!  The Lord has his timing for everyone.  Not sure if I mentioned it last time, but last Sunday, we got our very first member referral.  It was a wonderful little Christmas gift and miracle, because it was the first one we've gotten since I've bee here.  The next best part?  We have a time set up to meet her.  I'm praying that she doesn't fang(basically not show up) us.  Speaking of being fang.  I experienced my first official fang this week.  We had two appointments in a row that didn't pull through.  The first called last minute and said something came up and the second one just didn't show, and then didn't answer our calls.  Experience!  It's golden.  Haha.  

I was given a tender mercy from the Lord on Christmas Eve.  It was an unusually hard day for me.  I on the brink of irritation for the majority of the day and the fact that the day had once again left me with very little language study time was definitely grating at my nerves and was giving me an increased amount of stress, but, we headed back to our apartment to get something Chen Jiemei forgot (which in all honestly also annoyed me a little)  But when we arrived, the guard said I had a package.  It was the one my mom had mentioned sending several weeks ago.  I assumed it was just some more winter stuff, but when I opened it I found the Christmas stocking that I had made as a child and it was filled with little candies, chocolate, etc.  But the best part was when  opened the attached envelope I found several cards written to me by my family.  It was so sweet and put a smile on my face.  I was suddenly humbled and remembered my purpose and the love of the Savior.  I know that He knows each and every one of us and that he suffered death on the cross so that we can through Him become able to change, and overcome sin and death.  I love him and will continue to do what I can to help the people in Taiwan to also know of his eternal sacrifice.  

Another little miracle is the rate that one of the less-actives that we have been visiting has been progressing.  She hasn't been to church in a very long time, but she did go to the Christmas party.  We visited her later in the week and she really opened up to us about the deeper reasons for why she can't bring herself to go to church.  After hearing her thoughts we were able to share some scriptures and experiences that could possibly give her some extra strength to overcome her trial.  Granted, she is still not quite ready to come back.  But we fully believe she will make her goal which is to attend at least once before Chinese New Year.

Something I discovered recently:

Member missionary work is KEY to moving the work forward.  I realize there is a bit of a misconception about what missionary work is.  I'll admit that prior to coming on a mission, I held the same misconception.  That is that a missionary's call is to find.  That is not really the case. Our call is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel.  The time of a missionary is best spent with investigators and teaching them about the gospel.  We can knock on doors and talk to every person we meet for hours of the day, and end up with only a handful of phone numbers of which only a few end with appointments.  Ideally, members of the ward can begin to share and see which of their friends or family are ready and willing to hear the gospel.  I encourage all of you to seek for the opportunity to share your faith in this gospel and to help prepare or discover whom among the people you know have been prepared by the Lord.

3 Nephi 2:1

"And it came to pass that thus passed away the ninety and fifth year also, and the people began to forget those signs and wonders which they had heard and began to be less and less astonished at a sign or wonder from heaven, insomuch that they began to be hard in their hearts,and blind in their minds, and began to disbelieve all which they had heard and seen-"

My goal for 2014 is to be able to recognize the miracles of the Lord.  I think to many times I write things off as coincidence or luck.  I want to be able to recognize. appreciate and thank the Lord for the miracles He puts in my life.  To track this goal, I will have a journal completely dedicated to writing down the miracles I see or experience.  I hope that by the end of the year it is a completed journal and maybe even have a second or third one done as well.

I encourage all of you to make a goal for yourself that will help bring you closer to the Lord.  

I want to thank everyone for there love and support.

Sister Hsu

P.S. 

We bought a small heater last week.  Yay!

Pictures 6

I think I'll stop counting weeks now... :]

I feel like this past week has had so much happen and yet almost nothing at all.

I had a lot of new experiences in general, like biking in a rainstorm.  It might not be freezing here like in Utah, but it can still get pretty cold when you are soaking wet and riding on a bike.  My goal today is to buy some rain boots or rain flats.  No more wet socks and shoes that take days to get dry!  I took a lovely picture of myself after I got home.  People say I look like a construction worker.  What do you think?

We had a Mission wide Christmas activity on Thursday.  It was a day of very little sleep because we had to get on a train pretty early in the morning, but it was all worth it.  We went to Ri Yue Tang (Sun Moon Lake)  We could hardly see it because of all the fog, but I got to see all my lovely MTC sisters again.  It had only been 2 weeks, but it felt like we hadn't seen each other in an eternity.  So there was a lot of female squealing when everyone from the mission arrived.  We took a great photo of the mission and then we got some time to go take a look around and buy some souvenirs.  After that we were taken to the great All-You-Can -Eat buffet ever.  They had steaks, Mongolian BBQ, sushi, sashimi, soups, noodles... it was amazing.  After that we went to the Stake center for an amazing Christmas devotional.  I loved it.

On Sunday (yesterday) we had our Branch Christmas party.  It was so fun and the food was amazing!  My goal of being no more than 10 lbs heavier than when I first arrived by the time I go home is becoming increasingly hard...  The little kids sang and of course there are those few who just scream sing every word... it was so nostalgic.  Us missionaries had a special musical number, and sang Savior Redeemer of my soul.  After the the President prepared a little surprise and all the missionaries, returned missionaries and those wanting to go on a mission were invited up and we all sang... I don't remember what the title is in English... But it's the "we are as the army of Helaman" song.  It was super powerful and left me with an amazing feeling.  Right after a sister in the ward gave me a name and a number for one of her classmates that we could contact.  It really was a miracle.

We have been having a really hard time getting referrals.  We hadn't had a single one since I got here, and Sister Ting said she hadn't gotten a single one before I got there.  We have one Investigator who has been avoiding our calls, so we were definitely becoming a bit downtrodden. But, our focus was and is to be able to get to know the members better so that they will be able to trust us enough to provide us the names of their friends.  So, last night was what seemed to be a little bit of a break through.  It was great.  

Another Christmas miracle was seeing many of the less actives that we had been visiting, there at the activity.  In many instances, members go less active because another member has offended or hurt them in some way, and they have either no desire to see them, or start to doubt a church when it's members can do such things.  It's been hard trying to help them overcome and went to go to church with the purpose of coming closer to Christ.  Seeing so many of them take the first first was really heartwarming and encouraging. 

My trial of the week:  The Chinese

I have been working on Phase 1 and made a goal to pass off one lesson a week, and this past Friday was the day of my lesson 1 evaluation.  I will not lie, I was extremely stressed out and felt like because of all the special activities and meetings, I was getting my language study time cut out of the day.  It was definitely becoming a rather large source of stress, feeling like I had not prepared well enough for the day of my eval.  My wonderful trainer kept saying it was going to be okay, but that she understood my stress because I had never had an evaluation before and that after this first one, it would get easier.  Well, I had my evaluation with my District Leader Elder Yeh.  He was really nice and it was comfortable teaching him.  In the end I did alright.  Although, I can feel the stress starting to build again as I prepare for this Friday's evaluation of lesson 2...  Why?! Hahaha.  Well... it will be alright I guess.  :]

Is there anything else?  Hmm...Oh yea.  MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! 

As a little gift I will provide many pictures.  Hahaha.  YAY!  

I finally got a picture of my bike.

I took a picture of the Christmas combined New Years card we made.  The scriptures we put are 

1 Ne 17:13 and 2 Ne 22:2 (I wrote the characters on the pink paper. :]  )

Week 2 in Douliu

So, what happened...  I'm still trying to get familiar with the city and remember our Branch's members names as well as our less-actives names...  and if you know me, this is incredibly hard.  But, other than that, I've started to talk a little bit more during lessons.  I able to keep track of their responses a little better (unless they are speaking Tai Yu, then I'm completely lost)  Like my last post said, we are pretty heavily concentrating on helping our less active members so teaching lessons to new investigators has been pretty scarce, but I feel good about trying to help strengthen the Branch.  But, one thing we realized is that a lot of people become less active because of having been offended by another member.  It's quite sad actually.  A lot of them say about the same thing, which is just that, going to church is so uncomfortable and makes them so unhappy that they know Heavenly Father wouldn't want them to feel that way, so they just stop going to church.  We are doing what we can to spiritually strengthen them so that their desire to come closer to our Heavenly Father trumps that of their feelings of not wanting to see a particular person, but it's definitely been a hard path.  Other than that, I'm just doing what I can to get to know the members so that we can all work better together in pushing the work forward.

I don't remember if I mentioned it last time, but we've recently been meeting with a new investigator.  She is quite interesting in the way that she already goes to a different Christian church, but was willing to meet because Chen JM was really friendly.  So we met up and discovered that she is willing to get baptized solely on the fact that she likes and trusts Chen JM, and even said that if Chen JM were to leave, she would stop coming to church.  I was so shocked.  It is still hard for me to understand how a person can put all their faith in another person but have no desire to build faith in our Heavenly Father.  Needless to say, we are both a little confused about how to go about teaching her.  She takes our lessons more as spiritual shares and less like things she needs to think about and decide if she believes them.  Outside of that, we are excited to meet with her daughter.  We had met her daughter very briefly last week, and from the short encounter, we both felt like she was willing and ready to hear the message of the gospel.

OH! A little uplifting thing happened.  So, like I mentioned last time, I met a man, Nike, on the plane to Taiwan.  He had given me his business card and I passed the information on to those at the mission home.  The other day, we got a call from an Elder Forbes.  He asked to speak with me and he said that he and his companion met with Nike.  Nike had mentioned meeting me on the plane and had even said he read the scriptures that I had picked out, but he couldn't really understand them.  So the Elders went over there and taught him the lesson.  He was calling to thank me for "Talking to everyone" even before I got to the field.  It was awesome because I always had Nike in the back of my mind, wondering if they would find him.  It was just a really nice experience.  :]

The weather here has been pretty strange. It's warm, then cold then warm/cold, then over cast, and just the other day it rained.  So, I caught a cold.  I'm still currently trying to get over it, but the DayQuil and NyQuil are definitely helping.  I've just been especially tired for the past week and am hoping that the little bit of extra sleep will help me overcome and not get worse.  Interesting note:  Our house is colder than it is outside.  So we bundle up a bit while doing our morning studies.

Okay, well, I think that's about it.  

Sister Hsu

P.S. 

I was hoping to be able to send out some Christmas/New Years cards and realized I don't have anyone's mailing address.  So, if you would be so kind, please email that info to me.  :]  Please and Thank You!

P.P.S.  I forgot to take a picture of my bike, so I'll do it next time.  

Pictures 5

Douliu!

Wow, it feels like so much happened since last Monday.  I don't even know where to begin.  Well goodbyes weren't as hard as I thought they would be at the MTC.  I made sure to exchange emails and take pictures with the missionaries and teachers that I was leaving behind.  It felt strange to think that the routine I had been living for the past nine weeks would change, but it was definitely a welcome thought.  So the day came.  I woke up around 3:20am on Tuesday morning and started making my way to the pick up spot at the MTC.  We got our travel plans and passport and whatnot and soon after made our way to the airport.  It was a pretty easy process, except for the fact that my backpack(personal item) was full of books and weighed like million pounds and in addition to that, I had a 25-30 pound carry on duffel bag.  I don't know why I always choose a duffel bag over something with wheels...  Well ANYways we went from SLC to LAX and LAX to Narita, Japan and then Japan to Taiwan.  We all got pretty lucky on our flight to Japan because we had the last rows of the plane to ourselves and there was one empty seat, so Sister Henderson and I could spread our stuff over three seats between the two of us.  But, Japan to Taiwan we were all sitting separately.  I sat next to a nice guy named Nike.  We talked for the better part of the 5 hours.  He was really patient with my stinky Chinese, but I was able to share a few things about the church and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. 

Finally we arrive in Taiwan.  President Blickenstaff, Sister Blickenstaff, two AP's and the new missionaries from the Philippines MTC were all there waiting for us.  We all took a very classy looking Karaoke bus to the mission home.  On the ride we all introduced ourselves and filled our paper work and basically immediately got started with things about being in the field.  I was sooo tired by the time we got to the mission home.  It was about midnight in Taiwan, and we all went to bed and woke up at 5:50am to go out for morning exercise.  We ran to a nearby college and used their track.  We all timed a mile so that we can try and improve on it throughout the mission. My mile was about 10 minutes. (hahaha, yea, need to run more.)  Then we had some prep time and had some study time, then the day of orientation began.  It was all very informative but, it was definitely hard to stay completely conscious through a lot of it, especially after meals.  Oh!  Meals, our first lunch was at the Marijuana.  Yup.  The Marijuana.  It is a delicious hot pot place right across the street from our church building.  :]  We went to a family style restaurant for dinner.  It was super yummy and I had my first experience in eating duck brain.  In all honesty, it didn't taste terrible, but the texture was so strange... and being a texture eater, it was quite difficult for me not to just spit it back out.  Hahaha!  At the end of dinner, President Blickenstaff shared the wonderful story of Dan Jones.  So, of course right after, we went to the very busy night market and had our Dan Jones experience.  I hopped on a stool and yelled my testimony of the Book of Mormon in Chinese.  Afterwards, I was whisked away by Bai Jiemei and she told me we would be street contacting for the next hour.  Needless to say, I was terrified.  But, she was a great example and really helped me out.  I discovered from this wonderful experience that it is amazingly awkward.  And I don't like it.  Hahaha.  But, by the end I got just a little bit more used to being ignored or rejected (just a little bit more comfortable)  and was able to place a few Book of Mormon's and got a few contact cards filled out.  Afterwards we headed back to the church and had a bit of an experience share.  I was so tired, I may or may not have fallen asleep a little bit during the closing prayer.  But!  The glorious schedule let us sleep at 9pm YAY!  So that was the end of day one in the Mission home (Thursday).  

Friday morning we had exercise again but this time we ran up and down the track (stone) bleachers.  I was about dead by the end, but after that we did Buddha claps, push ups and planks.  It was so hard, I'm actually still a bit sore from it right now.  After that we had personal study and then went to the chapel to meet our Trainers for the next twelve weeks.  But, before we officially found out who specifically was our trainer in the group, we had more orientation and watched a special video they put together of our Dan Jones experience.  My trainer is Sister Ting.  She is from Malaysia and is awesome! P.S.  Sister Fuller (we went to China together) was there as a trainer too!  After that we had our final lunch together and then were off to our new homes for the next 12 weeks.  Mine is Douliu in Yunlin.  

Douliu.  It's warm and not as humid as I was expecting.  Well, actually Taiwan, Taichung was also pretty warm and not crazy humid...  Although I hear the summer time is way worse.  But, I got to Douliu and discovered we had an appointment with a member.  Chen Jiemei took all the missionaries out to dinner.  And surprise!  Elder Dawson from the MTC is here too!  After dinner we went to correlation with the Ward Mission Leader.  I was exhausted so I may or may not have been falling asleep as everyone discussed.  But, after that , we went home and got to sleep.

Saturday, We had more appointments with members and then met up with a recent convert Wang Jiemei so she could lead us to her home which was about 50 minutes away by bike, to help her with her personal progress.  We made cute little CPR (Church, Pray and Read) plushies.  I love Wang Jiemei, she is so sweet and talented and is proud of being a member of the church.  After that we went to Liang jiating for a visit and to share a message.  On our way back, Sister Ting suggested some unscheduled tracting.  We stopped and went to the closest set of homes.  The first door was a rejection, but at the second one, she let us in.  Turns out she had taken the lessons as a child almost 10 years ago, but is now an active practicing Buddhist.  We shared some details of each others religions and she said she had no interest in converting, but she was willing to leave her information with us so we can invite her to church activities.  Something that I'm really not looking forward to doing is intersections.  Basically, you go around an intersection and quickly try to invite, share a message, etc. with people on the road before the light changes.  My Chinese is not nearly good enough for this to be in any way effective, so I'm a bit terrified to do it, not to mention, a lot of the people here speak Tai Yu (Taiwanese essentially) which is nothing like mandarin.  Oh, did I forget to mention that, on top of discovering that my Chinese stinks, I discovered that a lot of people in my first area don't even speak Mandarin, so I'll be trying to learn some Tai Yu as well as Mandarin.  Needless to say, I'm a little bit stressed about it.

Sunday:  Such a busy day where nothing went according to plan.  Church was nice, although it was way different from any church meeting I had ever before attended.  Almost every one is using their phone through all of the meetings and more than half don't wear Sunday best, but I hear that's how it is in a lot of the churches in Taiwan.  But, I was invited to bear my testimony in sacrament meeting.  Afterwards several people came up to me to ask where I was from because my Chinese was obviously not of that of a native.  Well there was some other stuff that happened like a lesson and what not, was suddenly got a new investigator, although we are a bit worried because she has more faith in Sister Ting than our Heavenly Father.  But, other than that, Sunday passed quite well.  Okay.  That's all!

Sister Hsu

P.S.  I'll send a picture of my bike once it's all ready.

In Taiwan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdcEnvado38&feature=youtu.be

Landed!

"Your Missionary at the MTC"

On November 14, Shaun Casey, Special Advisor to United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, visited the MTC.  As part of his tour of the MTC, we took him to your missionary’s classroom so he could see how missionaries learn a second language.  Mr. Casey is in the attached photo on the first row, in the middle.  The gentleman on the far right of the first row is Lon Nally, President of the Missionary Training Center.

Thank you,

Spencer Christensen

MTC Operations

I'm still in the middle.

This past week has been amazing.  We had Thanksgiving and the whole day was so nice.  We had Russell M. Nelson come speak to us in the morning.  Thanks giving lunch was great.  But the best part was our service project.  I'm told it was the largest scale operation in Utah to far.  We made 350,205 bags of soup dinners total.  It was a great experience.  If you look it up on the internet, channel 5 news (in Utah) interviewed two mandarin speakers.  Sister Bement and Sister Henderson.  They are in my district.  I may or may not have hid underneath the camera as they were filming it... hahaha.  Other than that I can't remember anything else.  Thanksgiving was just a great day.  

Today has been really busy.  Full of packing and cleaning.  Somehow, I each of my suitcases is 49lbs, even though I've collected more things since being here.  The Lord works in amazing ways.

I'm not too sure what else to say... I just know that once we get to Taiwan we will be living in the Mission Housing for a few days for orientation.  So, I guess more interesting things will come in next weeks update.  :]

I'll just give this post a bunch of photos.

Love you all!

Sister Hsu

P.S.  

We had to wear the hairnets during our Thanksgiving service