Taiwan Taipei Mission: January 2017

Monday, January 30, 2017

It's Guonian

Okay, Guonian is like the Christmas in America here....but bigger. It goes on for a week and basically no one wants to meet with us during this week. But, on the bright side we have qingkes (invited over for meal) everyday for the next couple of days. They stuff us with so much food...I'm talking like mass amounts of food. The best is when you're full but then they look at you and they give you this look that's like "oh you're not done yet" and then you have another bowl. I haven't had too much unfamiliar food yet as I usually don't ask what it is, but I am pretty sure I am going to get real fat over the next week. Oh well

but I will still take all the food and soup that were offered to me

Miracles:

People have actually set up with us during Guonian which is a huge blessing!! A former investigator called us earlier this month and we set up with her for tonight which is amazing!!! Both Sister Austad and I haven't met her so we are excited to see how it goes tonight.

We also got some really cool new investigators a couple days ago, one is named Liao Jiemei and she has one daughter. She's super busy so it was just pure luck that we got to meet her. It was raining so there weren't a lot of people out but we were walking past her and I just decided to compliment her jacket and then she stopped and talked with us on the street. We ended up teaching her all about prayer and she invited us over for Guonian! We ended up just having to set up with her later because she was going to Keelong which is no longer a part of our area.

Another one we met was Huang Dixiong. We said a prayer with him and usually when we ask how they felt they are usually like oh I felt peace or indifferent but when we asked him he said that it felt SACRED. Both my companion and I were blown away and we set up with him for a pass off lesson to the elders! (Our mission has a new rule where we can't teach the opposite sex).

In our English class we met this really cool girl named Joanna who is 15 (we just meet a lot of people named Joanna here) and it turns out that she goes to a boarding school near Taichung. She is only back here for winter break and goes back in a couple weeks. She actually came to our English class because she remembered it from years ago! It turns out that when she was 7 she saw two Elders on the street and her mom told her to go and talk English with them. She ended up taking a couple of lessons but never got baptized. She came back after all these years because she remembered that and that she loves the feeling of our church. She's read the entire Book of Mormon and she believes this church is true but she's unsure if her mom will say yes. If her mom says yes then we have 3 weeks to teach her and have her be baptized!! The only problem is she has school all the time and we have to help her figure out how to go to church on Sundays.

We ate at Liu Jiemei's apartment a couple days ago (she's our investigator) along with the Elders, we taught her the Word of Wisdom!! In Taiwan the biggest problem is smoking, tea, and beetle nut. We thought this one would be a tough one since she had this huge coffee machine right on the table, but she is honestly so golden!! We told her the Word of Wisdom and she was just like, "I hate getting drunk (alcohol), I wasn't really into coffee and tea anyway, and I don't do drugs or smoke." Ah she's just so awesome.

Nonspiritual stuff:

We are still alive luckily!! We are moving apartments! So we are temporarily staying in Songshan with Sister Kim and Sister Reinhard. We only packed a week’s clothes. They can’t really do anything until after the New Year. We have to travel back and forth from Songshan to Xizhi, so we lose about two hours a day for traveling but I love my area so much...I never want to leave! We have to take the Train and MRT. When we are in our area we bike.

Yesterday in Songshan, the fire alarm went off EVERY SINGLE HOUR during the early morning hours. Was there a fire? No. There was no smoke at all. Sister Reinhard and Sister Kim said it's happened a few times, but last night was a rough one. We slept until like 3 when the fire alarm went off for no reason. Then it went off every hour until 7. We didn't get a really good sleep the past couple days. So we were very tired.

I also gave my first talk in Mandarin yesterday and it's okay, our ward is honestly so nice.

I slipped on a broom in our apartment. One day I will not be clumsy.

At a Qingke they offered me Pig feet. They were like oh eat this and my face is just like

oh.....okay and it's just squishy sitting in my bowl.

We also had to bike up the tallest mountain in Xizhi to a member’s house one night for qingke. It was so hard to bike up the mountain, but the food was so worth it.

My companion is also awesome and she deheads shrimp for me.... because I literally cannot dehead a shrimp. I can't take it when their little black eyes make eye contact with me. It's like they're watching me....ugh. But the shrimp here is so good.

I love you guys! Stay safe and healthy! 新年快樂!!!

趙姐妹

Sister Tiffany Chao

Taiwan Taipei Mission

4/F, #24, Lane 183

Jin Hua Street

Da-an, Taipei 106

Taiwan

So it's Chinese new year here!!

At the missionary broadcast I got to see Sister Lim and Sister Kim!!

We also got to visit the Taipei 101, they have the most expensive stores there.

Monday, January 23, 2017

A week of miracles!

Okay, the title is a lie because every week we are always able to have incredible miracles. My whole email is going to be miracles basically. Anyways, so last week we got to go to the temple! The temple is so much smaller here but the amount of joy is just as big as any temple in Utah. Anyways, after the temple we got to go and have waffles at the President's home and THEY WERE SO GOOD. Like the syrup was sooo good. Then if I hadn't already eaten enough we went to go get Mexican food. Do you know how hard that is to find in Taiwan? Let me tell you about something about food here that is not Taiwanese food, they are always trying so hard to make it tastes authentic but it's always so Asian tasting anyways. But this one was in Taipei and it's the only pretty close to anything Mexican food here!! It was of course good.

As we started our train/MRT ride home and our train was delayed (we had to teach English class at 7) so we were rushing. We decided to walk instead of biking to the church though (weird I know) but if we hadn't been walking we would've never met Metis!! She's a really cool mom and she lives right by our church! She said that she's seen missionaries before and so we invited her to take some lessons and she was so open to it!! Then on our way into English class we saw one of our old investigators that we met with once that wasn't very interested the time we met with her. We ended up giving her a short lesson and we are meeting with her again this week!!

I teach the little kids class for English and so it's a great opportunity to meet parents and families. We ended up setting up with this family in my class Xie Dixiong and his wife Ye Jiemei. They are so cool and so open. It truly was a miracle, because half the time the families here are super Buddhist and they don't like to meet with us (especially since Chinese New Year is here).

We also met with Liu Jiemei and her daughter, it was scary because she had said before that she was starting to not have interest in our lessons but we had a miracle lesson. I'm not even kidding you, this was the light switch lesson for her. We had shared Alma 5 with her and just talked about how God could really help her no matter how stressed she is. She told us that the scripture is exactly what she needed and that she really wants to be an example to her daughter and to be baptized. She liked the lesson so much she is inviting us over for Guonian (Chinese New Year) to eat with her and sit down and meet and talk to her husband more!! Her daughter even said she wants to serve a mission later. AHHH I JUST LOVE TAIWAN. AND MORE SPECIFICALLY XIZHI.

So yesterday we were worried about how many of our investigators would be coming to church since a lot of them were busy with Guonian this Saturday. We only expected one to be there (Sherry) because we had been calling our investigators the previous night to remind them of church but no one was answering. When we walked into the sacrament meeting room after our Ward Mission Meeting I saw the face of Guo Jiemei and I was just so happy. She didn't answer her phone at all the past two days and we were thinking of dropping her but here she was waiting for us in the Sacrament Meeting room. I can't tell you how much I love Guo Jiemei.

Sherry is also our other investigator. She doesn't want to meet with anyone else except us and she will only meet us if she has her boyfriend there. This is a problem because we really want to convert her to the gospel and not to join the church because her boyfriend is LDS. We didn't think we could meet with her after church because we were setting up with members and we thought she would've already left. God is a truly a God of miracles because she was still there when we came down and we were able to meet her without her boyfriend and a different girl member with her. Our lesson was so good and she is so determined to be baptized on the 18th of February.

We met with so many members yesterday (trying to get to know our ward better) and their houses were all over our area. We went biking for 25 minutes each to get to their houses. God must have helped us because we were biking so fast and able to get from house to house on time. There are a lot of wild dogs here in Taiwan and we were going to one house that's like up in the mountains so it was dark and there was a wild dog in the middle of this small road barking at us. We made it past the dog with the help of a guy but on our way out we were scared the dog would still be there. My companion and I did a prayer and when we went out the dog wasn't there and we only heard its barking!

God has been looking out for my companion and I so much. We usually wake up around 6:30 (In the Taipei mission we can wake up at 7) to go to the track to work out. On last Saturday, my companion and I were really super tired and didn't want to go but we just got this impression that we had to leave the apartment. When we got back, our entire apartment smelled like gas!!! There's a gas leak in our stove and if we had gone back to sleep until 7 or worked out inside the apartment we would've died!!!!! There was no gas smell when we first woke up but when we returned the whole apartment was filled with gas! We got our guanliyuan (building security) and he said we needed to get out immediately so we called the mission home for help. We turned off the gas line, opened the windows, and we had to wait till today to get it fixed. But hey we are still alive thanks to God!!

We had our breakfast in the chapel after the gas leak

Nonspiritual stuff:

I figured out what the random red bites on my leg were, it turns out when we were at one of our investigator's apartment their cat rubbed against my leg. The cat had been losing hair and she said she didn't know what was wrong with their cat. Their cat had fleas!!! The fleas had bitten me while I was at her apartment!!

I can't tell you how excited I am for Guonian (Chinese New Year). We have meals set up with members starting Thursday to next week and I AM SO EXCITED. SO EXCITED. I LOVE GUONIAN.

Year of the Rooster

Here are some pics of us with our investigators. The family is the Cai Jiating. They are a so close guys, they are so close to baptism. Their little boy is literally the cutest thing. He's three and his name is Lele (Kuai le de le) and he always reminds them to pray. When he says goodbye to you, he throws his whole body into the hug and it's so adorable.