EARTHQUAKE!

I've gotten a lot of emails about the earthquakes and since I'm in 中壢 (Zhongli) it hasn't been too bad! We have felt them but they aren't too serious here.

This week flew by! 過年 (New year) Is almost here (on Friday)  and our schedule is filled with eating with members. It's about a week and a half of lunch and dinner with a bunch of food and members. It's awesome!!

We met with 吳妹妹 (Sister Wu) this week and she's doing awesome!! She loved church and young women's and she is progressing so well. We met with her and figured out that she has been reading and praying every night before she sleeps. We shared the plan of salvation and she drew it out and then on Sunday in young women's she told us that they learned that lesson.

We also have seen some cool miracles this week. The ward has had our back on so many things. Ward council was super good (even though it was super super early in the morning wow so early ) the ward was listening to what help we needed and we got some great ideas on how to work with our ward.

We also had a cool miracle when we were going to randomly visit this member to stick heart post it notes on their door. When we arrived there, a couple was leaving and we randomly started talking to them and it was a dad and a mom going to walk their dog. We talked with them about families and the dad was telling us about how important he thought families were and then they set up for a couple days later to meet with us! (Which is tonight!)

We also went to eat at the 排骨飯 (Pork Spare rib rice) place again and we saw the owners again (the mom who is pregnant and the husband who helps sometimes cause he has another job ) we talked to them for a bit and it turns out they liked the family message so much they stuck the pamphlet on their fridge!! We are going to meet with them tomorrow using line which is awesome cause our phones are allowing us to meet with people beforehand that usually we wouldn't be able to.

Nonspiritual thoughts:

We are biking and I am at a light and I look back and my companion is gone and I'm like where is she? So the light turns green and I decide to go through the light and wait on the other side. I waited for about 10 minutes. Nothing. I don't see her anywhere. I take out my phone cause I don't have the sim card and I'm like ok if I can see our wifi that means she is near. I take it out and still nothing so I'm like crap. I start asking people on the streets for their phone to call her and they are like oh 沒有電 (no battery) I'm like HOW CAN U WALK AROUND WITH A DEAD PHONE. So I go into a helmet store and use their phone. I luckily have our number memorized and so I called once and nothing. I realize I can't call anyone else cause I don't have their numbers (in my head I'm like did she fall or get hit by a car? Is she already home waiting?) And then I call again and luckily she answers. It turns out her whole box fell off in the middle of the street (not just the box but the whole metal part holding it onto the bike and she had tied it back on using the string on her rain poncho.

We also did an escape room last week and it was so hard haha granted it was all I'm Chinese and when they would translate the clues (cause at the bottom it would tell us certain things we have to use) it would be like: rat, popsicle stick, map. And we would just be like

It was so cold here (plus the rain and wind), even our Elders bought fleece tights at a 7/11 and wear them to keep warm.

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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

How could a tropical island be so cold?

What is up???? This week it has been SO cold here. Who would have ever thought a tropical island could be so cold. NOT ME.

Anyways this week went by really fast. What even happened? Let's see...Monday was a lot of finding lol. Lots and lots of finding, but we did meet a cool 同學 (student) that we set up for later that week and we met with her and set a date! She was super cool and we complimented her on being brave enough to come meet with some missionaries by herself. She told her parents and all they said was "ok afterwards come home for dinner" LOL.

We met with Coral and she's doing so good. She has really been willing to meet and do stuff with us. She even came to hand out English class flyers (little trooper AHH love her) so she said that she is willing to be baptized for sure now! She wants to wait until it gets a little warmer before cause it literally is freezing here like FREEZING. When our 陪課 (accompany) asked how come now she wants to when before she had so any questions Coral said that she had asked God and He had told her that those questions are not important to focus on. (she would ask every little question) and so she feels like this church has given her so much that she needs to express her thanks and desire by getting baptized! SUCH A MIRACLE AND A DIFFERENCE FROM THE FIRST DAY I MET HER.

We also got to meet with the sweet girl from last Sunday who her uncle is a member and her aunts brought her to church. She is so so golden. When we taught her the first lesson she was so open and just gave perfect answers, she said that her first prayer was super cool cause she had never had those feelings before. She is honestly so willing to listen and she came to church yesterday with her aunt! The young women took care of her and when we gave her a Book of Mormon (cause we were dumb and forgot to give it to her on Saturday) she had tears in her eyes and a big smile! It was honestly so sweet.

It was a huge miracle, yesterday we were able to meet Angelina's husband! In a district meeting I was talking about how we should help her especially cause her husband 反對‘s (oppose) her baptism. They had suggested trying to eat dinner with them and just playing it casual. I called up Angelina and am talking to her about it and she's like he's in the car and I'm driving, here you can talk to him. HERE I AM FREAKING OUT CAUSE I AM ABOUT TO TALK IN ENGLISH TO A MAN THAT DOESN'T LIKE OUR CHURCH. so here I am seconds away from talking to him and I'm like ahhhh (while we are waiting in a McDonald's cause we had just had someone 放我們鴿子) so I'm like hey....Its cold outside isn't it (me just trying to make casual conversation lOL) 後來(afterwards) he's like yeah can you eat dinner with us tomorrow? And I'm like....Well yeah of course! So it was a miracle in itself to meet him and him to see we are just normal people!!

Nonspiritual thoughts:

The winter here is way colder than last year. I feel like I'm freezing to death when we bike outside. We have to put on these basically giant plastic ponchos when it rains HHAHAHAHHAHA it is so ugly. At night we turn on the heater but the heater isn't truly a heater lol it's like a toaster that emits heat but doesn't circulate it.

We had earthquakes yesterday and it was so weird. Yeah since we are in apartments you can feel the building move. It was cool lol but my companion was scared. We felt I think three of them.

So we are trying to visit this less active in our ward who lives in an apartment building and turns out that they are not there so we walk down the stairs (cause the elevator has to have a card to work and we had just walked up a butt load of stairs since she lives on the seventh floor) we get to the 6th floor and decide to go knocking. We knock and this grandma and her grandson open the door and are like NOOOO I am Buddhist and we are like ok but can I use your toilet??? She graciously let's us in as we use her toilet and then calls her son out to meet us cause he apparently needs to make friends lol. So casual.

朱姊妹has these cute sticky notes on her wall that represent all missionaries and our feelings. One is don't stand us up and the other is I want the prepared people.

She also bought this workout DVD from a different Christian Church 靈糧堂 and they all have songs about Christ and there's one called 不要生氣 (don't be angry) 生氣為魔鬼留地步 Don't let yourself be angry otherwise you're letting a demon occupy your space. HAHAHAH So every morning we listen to that and do the little dance. So funny.

also 朱姊妹 wrote on some apples you are my small apple (it's a famous song here 你是我的小啊小蘋果）

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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

I live in a tent

I feel like I say every week is a roller coaster but this week really was. So much happened in the span of what...Four days? So first off we watched 17 miracles with investigators and stuff for a missionary activity. Angelina came and afterwards she sent us her testimony of what she was going to share at her baptism. It was absolutely beautiful. Here it is: 3年前回到台灣定居時，在中壢遇見傳教士。當時我們生活遇到瓶頸，傳教士們偶爾會來拜訪我們，教導我們如何禱告，還有讀摩爾門經。
我昨晚看了17個奇蹟，我發現我們身邊其實每天都有奇蹟，我怎麼會這樣說呢?因為我們每天的禱告時，或乞求神的幫助時。縱使祂不是即時給我們回應，我相信祂有聽見。最近苹安妹妹的手被哥哥拉傷，有一整個晚上她是哭個扶著手睡著。星期日的早上也是哭著來找我，說手好痛。我抱著她躺在我旁邊。聽著她的哭聲，我握著苹安的手腕，我禱告著，我親愛的天父，乞求祢請幫助我，我想要帶孩子們去教會，但我真的需要祢的幫忙，我沒有辦法帶著受傷的苹安還有兩個小孩去教會。然後苹安跟我休息幾分後，跟我說她想喝牛奶，然後就扶著自己受傷的手腕去讓爸爸餵她喝奶。然後喝完之後手就不痛了。活潑亂跳的跟哥哥在玩，那天我們順利的到教堂參加聖餐聚會。我在內心直覺神聽到了我的禱告，祂知道只要我乞求就給予。
我是很敏感的人，而且是最近才發現原來自己那麼敏感，我有次好想吃肉粽，我也好像有在心中想我好想吃肉粽，但是因為某種原因我不知道為什麼我沒去買來吃。在台灣買肉粽是那麼容易的事。然後有一天我二哥二嫂來拜訪我們，竟然帶了一大串肉粽送給我吃。我心想，親愛的天父祂沒有忘記我真的很想吃肉粽。生命中真的有很多大大小小的奇蹟，只要對神有信心，奇蹟就在。這是我的見證 奉子耶穌基督的名。 阿們.
She basically says that there are miracles everyday. Why? Because we pray everyday for Heavenly Father help. Her daughter's hand was hurting one day and she thought there was no way she could go to church, so she prayed and told Heavenly Father she wanted to go to church and to help them and then a couple minutes later the daughters hand was fine! There's also a story about how she wanted meat dumplings but she didn't buy them even though she really wanted them and then later her brother came by and gave her some. She said she knows that God hears our prayers and that as long as we have confidence in God, He will provide miracles!
It was so touching and I was really proud and happy of how far she's come. Some stuff happened with her though and her husband does not want her to be baptized right now so she's going to wait a bit longer for her husband to agree and so she can have her children attend her baptism. But I have faith that she can still be baptized sometime soon, she is so loved by the ward and everyone is praying for her!!

This past Saturday and Sunday were full of miracles, despite the heartbreaking news of wanting to cancel the baptism less than an hour before it started Heavenly Father was still so aware of us and helped us with our missionary work. We started off with no new investigators this week which was really rough and we were unsure of where we were going to get them from. This past Friday we tried the new way of doing planning and setting goals. We set out some plans and were committed to trying to reach our goals. We called up some potentials and one of them answered. Her name was 魏小姐. She was super cool cause she had checked the little I'm interested in English class and we've never been able to meet with her but then she made time to meet with us. She liked it so much that she was like I want you to meet my grandson and teach him too!!

A super cool miracle we had was at church. A members two sisters came to visit and they are all members except for one of the older sisters. (there's three older sisters and two came to church) They brought the older sisters children to church and they referred them to us and we set up with them!! It was such a cool member referral cause our stake president comes up to me and he's like do you have time right now and I am like of course and then he introduces us to them and the sister just set it all up and we are teaching them at the members house!!

I am super excited cause right now we are getting an okay amount of member referrals and it's the most I have ever received in any area!!

One of 謝姊妹's (Sister Xie) 學妹 (classmate) moved to 中壢 (Zhongli) to go to school and it was so cool cause she didn't know my companion moved to this area and now she was interested in learning about our church. she is in 台中 (Taichung) for 過年 (New year) but because we have phones we have been able to Line her and video teach her!

Nonspiritual thoughts:

You don't know my name? Do you want to receive my punch? - 謝姊妹 to an elder in our district that forgot her name.

I plucked my 同伴's (Companion) eyebrows and tamed them lol. 

I sleep inside the mosquito net so they won't bite me

Temple day at the Taipei Temple