Humidity or breathing in water?

 

 This week was really good, we really learned how to find in different ways and still be effective!

The humidity and heat this week were UNREAL. Like literally it felt like we were breathing water one night. Sometimes I feel like I am being lit on fire while sitting in a sauna . I love summer, only three more months of it.

We have really been trying to do one minute power lessons and they have been working really well. We have been really struggling getting people to talk to us, but through the one minute lessons of really teaching a powerful doctrinal point we have been able to find success. We did a lot of 7/Family Mart hopping and it was so fun! We just would contact the people around us asking them random things like what flavor of ice cream they were eating or complimenting something they were wearing and then straight into a lesson and it was so effective! We got some really good contacts out of it. I really hope to be with Sister McKim for one more transfer, I don't think we've finished what we've started here in Siyuan!! We are super pumped about the upcoming baptisms (fingers crossed that they are able to be baptized next month). The members are really starting to do even more missionary work and we are pumped for the activities set up for our ward in the upcoming month. This Saturday we are doing our own little RC Fireside (the idea was Elder Kaufusi's) and we are all performing stuff and having members/RC's bear their testimonies with a focus on a certain doctrinal point from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sister McKim has pretty bad asthma and the heat+humidity are not helping so we are thinking of different ways of traveling and contacting, we are doing more 7/Family Mart hopping, shopping area contacting, etc. We take breaks in those areas on our way home and we figured out a  bus system that would take us to our area and back if needed (fun way to start a contact hahaha). 

Our ward is really wanting to grow and is planning on doing a huge father's day sacrament meeting and are excited to see how it turns out. We've really been excited for how pumped they are to grow the ward and try to help their friends. They have been scared about sharing the gospel saying that everyone would just come at their own time, but as they've seen our efforts and the other member's efforts they have been more willing to share.

I honestly think that ward relationships with our investigators are so important. One of our investigators - Li Jia Ling - who is one of our most progressing investigators hit a rut last week and wasn't answering her phone. She has depression and didn't want us to meet or talk with her, we thought we had lost her and were praying and fasting to know how to help her. We ended up just deciding to push off the idea of trying to find a time to meet with her and just tried to show her how much we loved her so we just sent some encouraging texts. Then at our weekly board game activity we saw some huge success with investigators and at the end of the night Li Jia Ling came!! She met some people in our ward and they really cared about her and were really welcoming. She bikes all the way to our church (which is a 30 minute bike ride) and so two of the members offered to take her to church (which she came and previously she wasn't planning on it!) and that we could teach on the lower floor of her building!! 

Another one was when we had a new investigator family come to our board game activity. We thought more ward members and their children would be there, but there were no children and our investigator had brought her 11 year old son!! We were worried that they wouldn't have any fun and get to know our ward, but the ward members that were there were super welcoming and helped them have so much fun. I also helped them meet our WML who actually lives in the building across from them! We have been trying to get them to come to church, but the always buy food for their restaurant on Sunday mornings, so we have been trying to build their faith and help them buy it on a different day. This past week they had tried to buy it on Saturday, but they said there was nothing left to buy so they couldn't make it to church. We told them ahead of time the father's day activity and they said they would make time to specifically go to it!! We are so excited for their progress!!

I truly can't tell you how much a mission has changed me so far, I have learned more about Christ and our Heavenly Father than I have in my entire existence. There is nothing they truly can't change, I have learned more about who I can become and that the things I don't like can be changed. I have learned to love people more than what I am feeling or thinking and to try and serve them.  

Nonspiritual thoughts:

Sister McKim and I were fasting for our area and she had eaten some stuff at 4:30pm and then decided to start her fast. When 6 pm rolled around she was just leaning over this desk thing and was like..."Sister Chaooooo i am in so much pain. my stomach feels like it's eating itself. I have never been this hungry before!!!!" I then asked her how long she's been fasting and she is just like.... an hour and a half....it was a night of hunger. 

We also went to the beach with our district, we wanted to go near Tamsui but it was a lot of bus riding trying to figure out how to get to a certain beach. We spent a good three hours trying to figure out how to get there on multiple crowded buses. We eventually got there and it was super fun!! I had 張長老 (Elder Chang) tried and took a cute picture of my companion and I and in that exact moment when he took it.....the elder's threw a volleyball at me and it hit me. So my companion looks real cute and there I am terrified cause I got hit with a ball. 

Elder Kaufusi can fall asleep literally anywhere and so me being me...I took a pic with him.

After district meeting we walked outside to go English boarding and outside our chapel there were these HUGE wasp things and they had built a nest right outside our door. So Elder Kaufusi just went in and told the District Leader and our District Leader came out and grabbed the hose and started just spraying it like crazy. Then he started hitting it to have it fall down. Did the wasps attack him? No they didn't. How is that possible? We were not sure, but it was a lot of spraying water everywhere.  They are literally so huge. This is what happens when you ask Elders to do things.

This past Saturday was also Elder Kaufusi's  birthday so we celebrated at our board game activity. Taiwan has these awesome stores where they literally sell everything you can imagine so we went crazy and bought a lot of stuff. Elder Fuller wanted us to buy party hats and so you know me...if I see something super ugly and funny...I am going to buy it. LO AND BEHOLD I BOUGHT THE UGLIEST PARTY HATS THAT HAVE FACES ON THEM WITH A HEART STICKING OUT OF THEIR HAIR.

Also, our A/C has started being weird and it's super fancy so we don't know how to fix it. But the A/C keeps having this stupid light on throughout the whole day and we have no idea how to turn it off. It was so bright in our room that my companion stuck tracks over it at night.

Also we are going to the temple today!! We have the afternoon session, so that's basically our whole pday!!

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趙姐妹

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Sister Tiffany Chao

Taiwan Taipei Mission

4/F, #24, Lane 183

Jin Hua Street

Da-an, Taipei 106

Taiwan