First time in a new city

I had my first Sister exchange on Tuesday to Wednesday.  I went to Tainan and was companions with one of our Sister Training Leaders, Sister Liu.  I got a bit of a shock coming out of the train station.  There were so many cars, motorbikes, bicycles and people!  I'd only really ever been in Douliu, which is probably one of the smallest main cities I'd ever seen, so I was definitely a little bit shell shocked by all the hustle and bustle and huge buildings and blinking lights all over the place.  Then, I was to pretty quickly get onto a bike and ride through all of that mess to an appointment with one of their eternal investigators.  I thought Douliu at night on a weekend was scary...  Tainan is on a whole different level.  Not to mention, the bike I was on belonged to a Sister who is leaving in a few weeks, and the bike itself was passed down to her, so it was kind of falling apart, made weird noises and the chain kept popping.  It was a very interesting ride. Hahaha.  The best part of the exchange I think would be being able to see the teaching techniques of a different Sister.  That, and I think may be the fact that I knew I would most likely not ever see the investigators I was teaching again made it so that I was able to say a lot more in lessons without the fear of messing it up, and resulting in the person never wanting to meet again.  I was also able to street contact a little bit easier as well.  This may sound a little bad, but I think because of the fact that I knew it was not my home city and that I would most likely never see any one I meet ever again, I was able to more easily contact and say whatever came to mind, instead of being too nervous to say anything.  Having the experience showed me it was possible for me to do such things, I just have to transfer that confidence and fearlessness to the work I'm doing in Douliu.  JIA YOU!

Another cool thing that happened was between my companion and I.  Up to this point we really haven't had any problems that could be considered problems with each other.  Our companionship inventories are always constructive and useful.  But, something happened this past week where we were both trying to explain something to the other and we were just getting more and more confused and frustrated with how we both couldn't get on the same page but, we talked it out until we figured it out and worked it out.  Turned out we were both trying to express the same idea to each other, we were just both doing it in a way that the other person couldn't quite understand.  I just love that we both were able to continue to try and work it out and find out the source of our frustration and mis-communication as opposed to just saying "bah!  Whatever, we'll figure it out later."  when in reality the damage has been done and been left to get worse.  Moral of the story:  I Love My Companion!  :]

As for how the work is going...  I suppose it's going, although personally it doesn't really feel like it.  We still don't really have any investigators and the people we contact don't want to meet.  As for the less-actives we've been meeting, currently it feels like we are helping them take steps in the right direction, but it will still be quite awhile before they actually come back, if they ever do.  We've discovered that a certain portion of our less-actives didn't have a testimony in this gospel to begin with.  When we ask how they got to the point of baptism, it just doesn't make any sense.  Through these experiences I have made a promise to myself to never think to baptize someone as a number no matter what might be going on in the mission.  If one of my investigators gets baptized it will be because they have a testimony, and they know they have a testimony.  Meeting these Sisters and realizing that as members of the church they are still completely ignorant to the eternal truths and happiness of the gospel is just too sad.

Latest dilemma:  I've been eating waaaaay too much and pretty frequently feel like vomiting it all back out.  How am I going to survive Guo Nian (Chinese New Year)...

Most recent source of stress outside of Phase 1:  Meetings.  This past week I had 2 hours straight of meetings with members and became increasingly frustrated with the fact that I had no idea what they were talking about.  (I can't recognize names or the things they discuss about each of the names.)

Cool finds:  Found some rubber rain flats.  YAY!  And I found some pretty KuaZhang glasses to protect my eyes from the wind for our rides to Xiluo.  We went there yesterday, and they work!

Well I think that's all.  Everyone, Keep the Faith!  Read the Book of Mormon and find opportunities to bear your testimony of this gospel.  

Sister Hsu

P.S.  

So far I've written in my miracle journal every day.  How is your 2014 goal going?