Monday, January 8, 2018

When it rains it pours


Well....Transfers is coming up again and so we are really unsure of what is happening, but it is most likely that I only have a couple days left in 中壢 😥 It feels weird to say that I only have three transfers left, I feel like time is flying by and I am like WAIT I AM NOT READY YET.

This past week it has been constantly raining and it makes you wonder....Does the sun exist? cause all I see are clouds and rain. Its been raining so much that we are unsure if we will ever see a clear sky again. The pool that is outside our building that is usually empty has at least six inches in it.

What happened this week:

So last week was really hard for our whole district and we were all just in the slums but we had an awesome district meeting (as always...I feel like I always leave those feeling pumped as ever to do missionary work) and now our theme for our district and this week were "It's razzle week everyone so give me some of that dazzle!" Our district started brainstorming more and more ways to do missionary work and how to improve. One thing our zone leader said that was super cool was that in order to be a successful missionary was to first be as obedient as you possibly can, work as hard as you can, and be constantly changing/improving.

So this week we were ready...We were ready to give it our all and go to work. We have really been trying to pray before every finding opportunity and to tell Heavenly Father our goal. For example,we kept praying on Wednesday that we would get a new investigator from English class. It was hard Cause most people in our class are guys and we hadn't been getting new students lately, but then all of a sudden when we get there that night there's this new lady. We see her and we are hoping she's having a good time and then after class we try and go set up with her. It turns out that she had been to churches before and she liked the environment but just didn't like them when they bashed on other churches. I quickly explained that we respect all religions and then we had figured out that because she liked the environment so much and had wanted to learn English, she purposely looked up online for English classes in a church building!! She came to church yesterday!

Another cool one was when we tried to go visit this investigator about thirty minutes before a ward activity. We went in the rain to her store and she wasn't there. Contemplating our time, I'm sure we could have gone to a 7/11 and made some calls or gone to the activity early, but we knew we had to find new people. So we decided to go knocking (now I've found only a little success from this but it never worked in the city so I was like might as well keep trying here right?) so we stop and we are like where should we go? We start biking but then we realize that we are just turning down random streets, so we stop and we set some goals and then said a quick prayer to Heavenly Father asking Him where should we go and asking to help us get some set ups out of it. We realized we didn't have much time, but I got the impression to go down this one street, this street had a lot of nicer looking houses and my companion at first was like are we sure we want to go down here? (we had tried some fancy houses the night before and they all had said no) but I was like yeah I think we should just try here cause why not? What do we have to lose?So it as super cool cause the first door we ring we hear the lady pick up but I don't know if she couldn't hear me or not but then she hung up. I rang it again because who knows why but then we hear a "hello?" from above us and so I get off my bike and there they are standing on their balcony. Long story short we were able to do a quick contact and ask when we could come back and share a message with him. He set up for Sunday night and it was such a cool miracle!!

Then we start biking a bit farther down the street and we see this person pull into their garage with their motor scooter. We immediately stop and we all just stare at each other and awkwardly say hi. We start talking about the restoration with him and he's like that's cool and then I was like have you been to church and he was like yeah when I was younger but I don't remember a lot. Then I asked...So what plans do you have Sunday? He's like I have none whatsoever. Me; 🤓 PERFECT cause we have church. So we made sure that he was pretty set on coming to church to just try it out! He came to all three hours and the elders set up with him!

We also set a goal to get into a house within the next half an hour of our finding time and so we set down on this street and the third door we knocked on she turned out to be Christian! She said what are the odds you would knock on my door when I know for a fact that there are only two Christians on this street, this has to be God's doing.

Nonspiritual thoughts:
Okay you know the story that I wrote about earlier where the guy came on his balcony and we were able to contact him? well yeah it was super awkward at first cause this is how it went down in the English translation version:
Me: Hi! How are you two doing?
Them:(the guy and this lady next to him) pretty good
Me: Wow you guys are so young, is she your wife? she's super pretty!!
*The lady then walks back into their house*
Him: That's my mom.
Me: *my series of emotions and facial expressions as expressed through emojis* 🤓😶😰😳😧 oh....So sorry hahaha...Well you can tell your mom that she is super pretty. She looks super young.

So we are riding last night and trying to find some people right? well my companion sees this lady that has the same car as her mom and so I'm like let's talk to her and you can say that! Bless my companion (And don't worry she said I could write about this cause it's funny) but she says to the lady, "我的媽媽有一樣的茄子“ instead of "我的媽媽有一樣的車子“ So in English instead of saying "My mom has the same car!" she said "My mom has the same eggplant!"

So you know the lady I wrote about earlier that was Christian? Well she answered the door and we get let into this lady's house and when we first walk in we see her kneeling down wiping this toxic green looking liquid off the floor and we are like whatever it's fine so we sit down and start sharing about the first lesson. Part way through the lesson this horrible smell hits me and I'm like what 什麼東西 is this smell and I see her daughter come out and wipe up this stuff off the floor and it was because the dog had pooped on the floor!! So she cleans it up and my companion and I are trying to secretly plug our noses and keep teaching. We continue on with the lesson when the same smell hits us again and we are like WOAH THIS DOG NEEDS TO CONTROL ITSELF cause then it steps in its own poo and starts running around and we are like DON'T TOUCH OUR STUFF. The daughter comes out again and cleans the poop up and we try and salvage the rest of the lesson. So we are almost done with the lesson when I look at the floor and there it is....ANOTHER PILE OF POOP. The smell hits us hard and I tell the lady that her dog had once again pooped and she yelled for her daughter to clean it up. Needless to say the dog got ten times less cute because it kept pooping during our lesson, stepping in it, and then running around. The struggle was real.

Words from our wise district leader cause this week is razzle and dazzle week: We are killing it yalls... it's almost like we have a bedazzle on our body top 身上。We are beating every before this week but don't forget this month we will get at least 5 baptisms and 13 new investigators and at least 2 new baptismal dates to hit the standards of razzlement.
#razzleit #givemedatdazzle







This one former we called was having a meh day 還好 (ok) day. When I asked her what the best part of her day was she said she had none so I was like can I tell you a joke? it basically was this pickup line that this youth had told me and it got her laughing and then she set up with us...So we are pretty sure the pickup line is what really hooked her hahaha hahaha.

We were talking about one of our baptismal dates in district meeting and our district leader kept getting her name wrong and calling her Angela instead of Angelina and so his companion was like it's Angelina Jolie 的 Angela (because in Chinese sometimes you can shorten words or some words will be a compound of two different words or they sound similar and you want to know which word it is and to figure out you could ask them 那一個 (which one) and then the word and then they explain, so for example if you were like oh it's 每天的每 it's meitian de mei (which means it is like every since meitian means everyday) okay I give up trying to explain this...You just got to understand Chinese to realize how it's funny. 我放棄了。(I gave up)

We told our English class that I would probably be leaving this next week and so in the English class line group this one guy kept posting that they would miss me and I felt so awkward cause I was like... it's not a big deal the English class is awesome with or without me. and then he's like it does matter and then he posted a song dedicated to me titled "with or without you" HAHAHAHAHHAHA.

So I am getting my hair dyed right? Well this ward member is hilarious and she's like you're going to have 布丁頭 or in other words I would have pudding hair cause they have this pudding here that is yellow and then has this black line at the bottom. So they told me to take a picture with pudding once I have it done. Then this one member was like don't do it cause then how am I going to recognize you!! Then the one member who called me pudding head was like you'll see her walking with pudding hair and you'll just know it's Sister Chao.
My new hair!




This week I ate cow stomach, frog, and oysters. You got to try everything, right?

The Lantern festival that we went last PDay!









 







--
趙姐妹
--
Sister Tiffany Chao
Taiwan Taipei Mission
4/F, #24, Lane 183
Jin Hua Street
Da-an, Taipei 106
Taiwan

Monday, January 1, 2018

新年快樂!


Reunion of our group at the Christmas Zone conference
First off happy new year! 2017 is over! I've been in Taiwan for over a year now!) At least here in taiwan it is hahaha.
This week my companion and I got sick, but it isn't the worst so it's okay. Its just a minor cold, so 還活著。 (still alive) 

It was fun talking to you all on Christmas Day! Miss you and love you all!


For Christmas, my entire district went shopping! We biked out to this super far place (actually 還好 it was only a 45 minute bike ride) that had super expensive stores. (Jk they weren't that expensive they were outlets but still just expensive brands that say it's on sale but you only save maybe three pennies at the most. Also super funny cause a lot of the stores had signs that were like up to 70% off but you go in and it's maybe .05% off so you save about nothing)



This week the weather has been so bipolar, it's been going from cold to hot to freezing. But let's hear the good things that happened this week!

Angelina is doing so good! It was awesome to meet with her cause she was a former and had said before she had no time, but now she's like any time in the morning on the weekdays I can. So we meet with her and we start doing the commandments. We had went in with the mindset of only sharing some commandments, but then she just ended up asking about more of them so we just kept going. Then when we were setting up for the next week, I tried to set up for later this week but then she was like I am going to 花蓮 in two days...So I was like what about tomorrow? So then we met with her the next day and now we are almost done with the commandments.

We also had this English class miracle, it was a former that the other sisters were teaching alongside her friend but they had dropped them and it turns out one of them lives in our area! So I had forgotten about her for a while and then I realized that the other sisters had stopped teaching her a long time ago so we set up with her!

Juno had decided to take this giant law test and so she was saying that she was going to be busy studying and wouldn't really have time to meet with us. We were like nooooo you are so cool. So we were like can you come to board games and she was like I can try and make time (and at first I was like 🙃🙃🙃🙃 you make time for board games but not learning the gospel???) and then she was like I won't be able to make it there until 9pm and I told her well board games will already be over but you can still come and we can meet with you! We were unsure if she was going to come but when 9 o'clock came there she was with her Book of Mormon in hand!! We then had a good lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and putting the gospel first in our lives. It was definitely good for her and it was really cool that she came (also I've been getting really direct in my lessons with some of our investigators hahaha, but I do it cause I love them and sometimes they just need a straight up this is how it is)

Nonspiritual thoughts:

So no one told me that all of Sunday night I was wearing two name tags. I had one on the edge of my coat that was a clip tag and one magnet one on the other side. So I walk into our house and I look at myself and there I am looking like a dummy with two name tags on.

I have a fear of being bit at night cause recently I have been being eaten alive by mosquitoes while I sleep which is crazy cause I wear a ton of bug spray to sleep and use the repellent stickers. So yesterday I spray the repellent and then go to turn off the light but then a mosquito flies right next to me and I just have this giant panic arise in me so then I put on socks, gloves, a face mask, and an eye mask (I basically had no skin showing HHAHAHAHHAHA) ...Plus more bug spray. Needless to say I did not get bit two nights night so I WIN. I did it again last night and today I woke up without my face mask and with only one glove so I guess I partied it up last night.

A little boy while we were contacting yesterday said I looked like I was in my 30's or 40's. He said he was joking but I didn't know whether I should be offended or not.

We played a game called 牛頭王 which means cow head king and Beth won so she acted it out.

As a district we all exchanged gifts for Christmas. This is elder Alexander in the pink scarf we gave him.


Jack 黃章銘 shaved his beard off and so he has this joke where he says he looks like a totally new person and so he walks into the church and is like I'm Jackie and I like fried chicken.


I asked 張長老 Elder Chang to draw me as a dinosaur cause he drew that cute crying one and so then he drew me playing the piano. Just look how majestic my hair is.



MTC Buddies reunited again!







--
趙姐妹
--
Sister Tiffany Chao
Taiwan Taipei Mission
4/F, #24, Lane 183
Jin Hua Street
Da-an, Taipei 106
Taiwan
 

Hello! It's my last week!

This week we met this cool mom that came to our english class because she had met missionaries in Germany and in Yilan! She reme...