Windy city of change

 

Transfer day!

my new companion, Sister Liu

Hello family!! This week has been a big change and I am not sure if I'm ready for it. It's definitely way out of my comfort zone but it's okay cause a challenge is always accepted. Basically we are finishing up 過年 and wow does the ward like to feed us or what but we were fed like none other. On Wednesday we get our transfer calls (so I already knew I was going to leave the area but I just didn't know where I was going to be leaving.) and usually they come in at like 12 in the afternoon, so I get ready to take a shower when I hear a OH MY GOSH THEY ARE HERE. So I run out of the bathroom (still clothed people ok) and there are our transfer sheets in a text message with a "find your name!!" and so we go onto this huge google drive full of files and names!! So we are quickly trying to find our names and then there I am...there my name is....it says that i am going to 新竹(new bamboo hahaha xinzhu) with Sister Liu (廖姐妹）who I had met before the mission in the Asian Ward and we are Sister Training Leaders!!! I AM SO NOT READY HAHAHAHA WE GO ON OUR FIRST EXCHANGE TOMORROW AND I AM LIKE I DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM DOING OR HOW TO GET ANYWHERE. But it's okay cause we have seen some awesome miracles already.

I got here on Thursday afternoon and all I heard was that there was some work to do in this area and so we got straight to it. Sister Liu and I had an AWESOME lesson on Friday night with this investigator named Linda. So she was previously kind of scared to set a baptismal date and so we were sharing the plan of salvation. We tried relating to school and how parents let their parents go to school even though their children might protest and may want to not do their homework, but the parents know that it's necessary in order for them to learn. Heavenly Father is that way with us, we go to the earth in order to learn and He knows we will have trials and maybe not want to have them but we must in order to learn. When the afternoon comes and parents expect their children to be home so does our Heavenly Father. He wants all of His children to come home and when they don't He is super scared and worried. It was a super powerful lesson and then we set a baptismal date with her. She was scared with her husband protesting her baptism and in her prayer she actually asked Heavenly Father to soften his heart and allow her to get baptized on her baptismal goal! Her prayer was super sweet and it was just SO AWESOME. 

That was probably the biggest miracle of the week. They also had a baptism a couple days before I got here so that was cool. I didn't see the confirmation since we cover three wards I went with a different investigator to a different time ward (same building just switched orders of classes and stuff). Anyways I am excited to see how this area goes and what new things we can bring!!​

​ Nonspiritual thoughts:

So our stake president loves us so much hahaha his wife and him just loved us missionaries. They actually treated us out two times in a row. We went to an all you can eat steak place and then our stake president was doing this massage thingy basically hitting Elder Chang with a stick. Then we played a game called ugly sweater.

Also Elder Chang wanted us to take pictures of him eating fried tofu to send to Elder Alexander to make him jealous.

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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

過年!

新年快樂 (Happy New Year!)！！過年到了喔 (The New Year is here!)！！
THE INFAMOUS CHINESE NEW YEAR IS HERE. literally everyone has disappeared. There were like two days where the stores were closed and no one was on the streets. But the members are so nice and have been feeding us like CRAZY. Lunch and dinner are all provided for us for the past week and it continues until Saturday!!! Its been so touching to see families take us in and treat us missionaries as their families. I don't think I've eaten this much duck blood until this year. There's this member in our ward who was selling this 鴨血 (Duck blood) and basically every member has bought it from her so every meal has it HAHAHAH, basically she's virtually 請客 (invite) ing us. 

 












Its been super cool cause our stake president has been asking us to have members post our visits on Facebook and it's been super cool to see the effects of it. At first it was only just putting pictures on their but it's inviting other members to have us over and it's been great on helping us develop member relationships. Our members are slowly working on their friends to help give them to us missionaries!

吳妹妹 (Sister Wu) is doing super awesome! It was super cool cause we met with her and she was saying how she had been reading the scriptures one day and her friend had come over and so...Instead of putting the book away and talking to her friend, she read the book of Mormon with her friend! SHE IS ALREADY A MISSIONARY. She is so so set on being baptized, we had to move it back a little bit so her family from 台中(Taichung) could come, but she is super excited to be baptized and her parents don't really oppose at all since they have other family members that are members of our church. She's pretty set on all commandments cause her uncles family who is in our ward have been telling her about them for a long time so she's like I don't like drinking tea and I know the other stuff is bad, I already know what the Sabbath day is (we just had to teach her the name of the commandment hahaha) SHE IS LITERALLY SO COOL.

林姊妹 (Sister Lim) is doing pretty good, she had said before (I'm not sure if I already said this in earlier emails cause I forget what I have written before) but she was scared to have a lot of people go to her baptismal service so she was set on the weekday probably Thursday of next next week. She said that the small questions that she always had (cause she likes to question EVERYTHING) were answered by God, He told her it wasn't important questions that should be holding her back from baptism.

We also had a mini miracle today, 徐淑蓉 (Sister Hsu) brought her niece to church today!! She's being a mini missionary herself too! It was cute to see her telling her niece let's turn off the phone and focus on the hymns and the talks and the Savior. so so sweet.

Nonspiritual thoughts:

I HAVE BEEN GAINING SO MUCH WEIGHT. As much as I love 過年 (new year) because we are meeting members and eating food, I just eat so so much and then they look at me and they're like eat more and I'm like (I give them this pained smile face）....Ok

So we go and try to meet this LA in our ward and the building is a little sketchy and I'm like it's fine it's Taiwan they couldn't hurt a fly here. But my companion, Sister Xie, is on edge and has brought out some pepper spray and here we are at the elevator and it's slowly coming down and then it stops on the first floor where we are with a clunk and then all of a sudden opens. It’s all wood out there and there's this random chair in there and my companion jumps and screams which causes me to freak out and then we ended up running out of the building. 後來(afterwards) everything was fine and we went back in the building and met the LA AHAHAHAHA.

We've been signing our 紅包 (red lucky envelope) with our full names so they will remember us and since Elder Anderson didn't have a full Chinese name, so we gave him the name 安全帶 (Anquandai, which sounds similar to Anderson) which means safety belt HHAHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAH.

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Sister Tiffany Chao

Taiwan Taipei Mission

4/F, #24, Lane 183

Jin Hua Street

Da-an, Taipei 106

Taiwan