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.