Happy Chinese New Year!

Yep, that's what this past week was.  Chinese New Year officially started on Wednesday, but the invitations to eat started on Tuesday.  Our members are really just too good to us.  So good that I've gained about 6lbs.  But it has been an amazing time.  I haven't thrown up once!  (I think I've gained experience from last year.  :) hahah.  I really just love it here!  I LOVE SHIZHONG!!!  Hahahaha!  Really a huge thanks and I love you to all those who had us over for dinner or 關心'd us this past week.

-I learned how to play MahJiang and it was amazing.  Love that game.  (Of course we don't gamble when we play)

-We left our bikes parked by the train station when we had to take the subway to a dinner appointment and when we got back all the stuff on my handle bars had been stolen. (2 lights and my bell)  Now we just have to yell a lot while we ride to have people not run into us.  Hahaha.

-Those no neck photos were inspired by Camille (the girl in the middle)  she was pro at it.  :)

-Gonna miss our ShiZhong duo .  Elder Teerlink and Elder Gordon because move-call is coming and Elder Gordon is done training, so someone is definitely gonna go.

Okay well, the work has been slow mainly in part to New Years, but we will be going full throttle this week!  Wish us luck! 

Love ya'll!

Sister Hsu

I just keep falling off my bike...

I don't know if I mentioned it last time, but the first time I ever had any sort or "bicycle incident" was after coming to ShiZhong.  I'm not blaming the area, I am just stating a fact.  The first time was when I was with Sister Olson, and miraculously I stepped off my bike before it could take me to the ground.  (May have mentioned that in a previous letter)  The second time was my own fault.  I was stepping off my bike "Ama" style to get off and start English Proselyting,  amd the ground which was way more slick than it looked, combined with my really of shoes that have no traction left on them resulted in me on the ground and my bike on top of me.  I came out with a skinned knee and scrapped foot.  (really not a big deal)  But yesterday!  I was actually in what would be considered a bicycle accident! I was riding fairly quickly on the bike lane on the way to church (we were running a little late)  and a man had apparently come up on the ramp to get onto the bike lane, but when I saw him, he had just appeared in front of me and was in the middle on the lane, I hit my brakes, and tried getting closer to the wall in the hopes that he would also move off to the other side, but he hadn't and we hit handlebars.  We both lost balance and he fell over in my direction, knocking me into the wall.  I put my hand out to keep myself from hitting the wall, and my other hand went ended up on the side of the mans arm, trying to hold him up and keep him from falling on top of me.  In the end it wasn't a serious accident, but all the while I was apologizing and asking if he was okay, and he didn't say anything, got his bike upright and rode off.  Other than a cut on my hand and knee, and fixing my bike chain, I was A-okay.  It was just a very strange experience.

My bike accident

Other than that, we also had Sister exchanges!  I went to SanMin with Sister Ko,  we came on island together.  She is great.  Had a really good time doing a lot of finding activities with her.

We also had a fun time with members and investigators writing spring couplets with calligraphy brushes.  I mainly was just practicing and trying to learn how to do it.  It was super hard.  But YOYO made me one.  It said...  羊年得意仕滿庭  basically, she wrote something that included my chinese name in it.  Looks super pretty.

yea, that's about it.  So good.

Sister Hsu

Sorry ya'll

No time for a report!  But know that I am still doing well and that today we will be going to costco for P-Day.  The end.  Hahaha.

Sister Hsu

P.S. 

Really though.  Doing great and I'm excited to gain a million pounds over Chinese New Year...

Move-Call!

Dinner with Members at LaBella

...came and went.  No one in our District moved.  More appropriate to say that the majority of our missionaries didn't move anywhere because once again, no new missionaries have come in.  It's looking pretty dismal, but all of us are still praying that they will be able to come soon.  But, good thing is, Chinese New Year is almost here!  Well, good and bad?  Good because it's a time full of love, friends, family and food.  Bad, because no one will want to be setting up with us to meet.  Hahah...hah. 

English Party and Friends!

Miracle!  We were tracting and tracted into a woman we had prayed for!  She not only let us in, she had great questions that only the restored Gospel has answers to.  That, and she set up to meet with us again at the church.  She didn't "fang" us!  The lesson went a bit long, and she may be a little bit too set in her own ideas, but I know that if she is willing to read and pray about the Book of Mormon with an open heart she will be able to feel the Holy Ghost testify to her that the message is true and of the importance of priesthood power.

More BOM Shots

We had lots of fun this past week.  with investigators and with members.  

P.S.  Jin Fang came to visit us!  It was so good to see her.  She's doing awesome, sharing the gospel wherever she goes.

-Sister Hsu

大家好!

Sister Porter hiding in the weird cupboard built into my study rooms bed frame...

Hey all,  It's been another interesting week of being a missionary.  Still just finding, finding and more finding.  We had an oddly successful week in terms of adding people on Facebook who were willing to learn a little more through facebook.  But so far everyone has been pretty 還好 (just okay, not super interested)  But we are gonna keep going for it.  Other than that It's just been the same old, same old and loving every minute of it.  

Me studying Chinese under my covers because our house is cold.

I know this time around I didn't share anything particularly interesting but that's mainly because I forgot to bring my planner with me, and I can't look at my notes for the week.  So I'm sure something cool happened, I just can't remember it right now.  Hahaha.

Love ya'll 

Sister Hsu

P.S.  I'm sick.  Again. WHYYYYYYYYYYY!?

I got my camera back! (It broke o I mailed it in and they sent me a new one) So I take corny pictures and send them to you. hahaha.

I'm running out of titles. Another week in the amazing Shizhong!

A crazy banana that a member gave us. Siamese Twin Banana!

This week was a lot like last week in the way that we are really spending a lot of time finding.We seem to be seeing a trend of finding, meeting and finding out they don't live in our area.  We are all on the same team I know, but it's been a bit hard not really having any investigators.  But it will be okay.  The Lord will lead us to those who are prepared to hear the Gospel and are ready to change.

Sister exchanges. Yep, that's ghosting a bike.

Yea, that's really it I guess.  Oh!  We did go on Sister exchanges.  Sister Lin came over here to Shizhong with me.  It was a good time.  Love being able to learn from more Sisters.  

We went to Monkey Mountain on Monday.

Love you all!

Sister Hsu

Always on the go!

Kat: Sorry, I seemed to have missed this one from January 4th...

We are so happy that our two good friends were baptized, but this also means to of our best investigators have become recent converts that and both of our other investigators couldn't meet this week.  So what does that mean?  Finding!  And lots of it!  But really, tons of finding activities this week.  I think this is the most concentrated finding I've done in a really long time.  But, it went way better than I expected it to.  We came up with a lot of different ways so we wouldn't get bored or too tired.  It went better than expected because it was fun, but also not as well as hoped(for the first half of the week anyway) because no one was interested in learning more about the gospel.  By the end of the week, the numbers of lessons we had were still in the single digits.  I had just about resigned myself to the idea, that we just weren't going to really have any lessons with people for the week, but we didn't give up!  We kept the fire going! And lo and behold, the miracles came.  By Saturday night, we had a full day of lessons set up for Sunday.  And the biggest miracle is all of them actually happened!  Not a single no-show and they were all great.  I don't know if all of them will become progressing investigators, but all the lessons we had were guided by the spirit and helped to to more fully understand the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I say a success.  

What have I learned from this experience?  When times get tough and you feel like there is no winning, go just a little bit further and put in just a bit more effort, and after the trial of faith and our faith is turned into action, the Lord is prepared to shower us with blessings.

Just Do It.  Haha.

Other than this amazing stuff, we were also able to do some service this week for a member who went out of town.  We went to her home and fed her cat and played with him for a little while (at her request) so he doesn't get too antsy.  It was fun.  I love animals.  :)

Sister Hsu