Serving in the Taiwan Taichung Mission: Week 4 in Taiwan!

Hello all!
I can't believe we are already over halfway done with June!! Time is just flying by! I am on week 5 of 6 weeks of my first move call, and in just 10 short days, my "younger siblings" in the MTC will be here! (They are the group that came in after me in the MTC). I am so excited to see them and to see how they have grown in 6 weeks! I am also super excited to see them do Dan Jones!!

So this past week was a rough week. We didn't have any progressing investigators all week, we didn't add new people (actually, not true, we added 2 self contacts...sort of), we had a few lessons, but more with recent converts than anything. Overall, it was probably the slowest week so far. And we felt bad too because this last week, the invitation from our mission president was to fervently find, and we didn't necessarily succeed in doing that. So, we will do better this week and take every opportunity to talk to people! We desperately need investigators, but we've discovered the only way we will really get them is by finding them (since I got to Tawain, all our new investigators have been self-contacts and we've been so busy with them we haven't needed to go finding). This week the invitation from our mission president is to break our current "add" record. When you add a person, you met them on the street (or call them if they are a referral) and set up a time to meet with them to share a message about the gospel. Seeing as I've only added one person my whole mission so far, it shouldn't be too hard to break that record =] The key is, when talking to people, get them to pull over (if we are bike contacting) or get them to write down their information so we can call them and set up a time to visit them and get to know them. So we really need to work on that this week! So that's a little how our last week went.

Story time!
*Gone to Tanzi #1
*Sister Exchanges - Tanzi #2
*Super prepared investigator, Melody
*Super awesome, hopefully soon to be baptized investigator, Tiffany
*Relief Society Activity
*How is Chinese coming along?
*English Class*

*Gone to Tanzi #1*
So last Tuesday my companion had an all day training meeting. Originally I was told I was going to go to Beitun (the area next to mine, but not in my zone) with a duan chuan (a local member who is a short term missionary) but when I got to the church, they had me be companions with my older sister in the MTC, Sis. Mitchell. Neither of us were prepared for this, and so neither of us had a schedule planned for the day. We decided to go back to her area, Tanzi, and do some work there. So we took a 30 minute bus ride there, planned, ate lunch, visited some members, got back on the bus and went back to get our companions =] That was fun. Except not. I didn't realize how spoiled I was being in Beiqu! Our area is the smallest in the mission, and we hardly have to bike and we walk a lot because everything is so close. In Tanzi, they don't even live in their area, so they have to bike 20 minutes to their area, and then their area is big and so its a ton of biking! Not to mention I wasn't riding my own bike (for anyone who has seen Avatar, our bikes are like the avatar's "things" that they fly...your bike is yours and you hate riding anyone elses!). But thats ok, it was a good experience and I will never complain about being in Beiqu again =]

*Sister Exchanges - Tanzi #2*
So tomorrow is sister exchanges! The sisters in my zone and another zone will be changing companions. The senior companions are all staying in their areas and the junior companions are all moving. And guess where I'm going...back to Tanzi =] I will be with Sis. Mitchell's companion. We leave tomorrow morning, spend the night and come back Wednesday afternoon. So, it will be interesting. I'm excited to see how another missionary chuan's the jiao (preaches). I'll report back next week =]

*Super prepared investigator, Melody*
Melody was a phone referral. She was supposed to come to church last week, but didn't come because of the rain (the Taiwanese don't leave their houses in the rain unless its a life or death situation...it wasn't even raining that bad =] ). We called her and set up with her for this past Tuesday. We came, met her, and it was so incredible! She is so amazingly prepared! She had met the missionaries a long time ago, and when she went to the church to meet them, they weren't there. She didn't have a mobile phone and she was never able to get in contact with them again, until now. She came with some great questions she wanted answered that we were able to help her answer because we have the Book of Mormon and the restored gospel. She accepted a baptismal date of July 21, but we think she will be able to get baptized much sooner than that. She came to church on Sunday and we are pretty sure she loved it (she had to leave early so we didn't get to talk to her about it). The gospel principles lesson was on The Word of Wisdom. She was asking questions, but overall seemed pretty receptive to it =] Can't wait to meet with her again this week!

*Super awesome, hopefully soon to be baptized investigator, Tiffany*
I think I mentioned Tiffany last week. She came to church last week, but only stayed one hour. She seemed super nervous or jittery or something and we were nervous, especially when we called her every day last week and her phone was always off. We were at a relief society activity on Saturday night and our zone leaders called and said, your investigator is at (some other chapel) and so we are just going to do her baptismal interview. Sweet!! (We actually had another investigator [our 7 year eternal investigator] in a baptismal interview at the same time...but she isn't ready to be baptized, and we never see her). So she passed her interview and said she'd see us at church the next day, but she didn't come and her phone is still off. So I don't think she will be getting baptized this weekend, since she hasn't been to church in our ward enough (or for 3 hours) so hopefully the week after that! We are confident she will get baptized this month though!

*Relief Society Activity*
The relief society planned an activity specifically so the sisters in the ward can get to know our recent converts and investigators. Sadly, we don't have any investigators really right now, and the ones we do have couldn't come, but we have a great number of recent converts come! It was a cook off kind of thing, so everyone brought food and it was so good! We felt like we began to build some great relationships with the ward and we really got to know some of the sisters, which was exactly what we needed to have happen!! So, super success in our book! And there were a handful of kids there that my companion and I had so much fun playing with =]

*How is Chinese coming along?*
Great! I've passed off the first thee lessons in my Phase 1 and the mid-term. I'm working on lesson 4 this week, will pass it off on Sunday, then do lesson 5 the following Saturday and the final evaluation the next Sunday. And then I'll be done with Phase 1! So happy! My speaking still isn't great, but my listening comprehension is a lot better. I need to start speaking more Chinese with my companion so my speaking will improve.

*English Class*
I've been meaning to write about English class for weeks. Every week the missionaries teach a free English class. We have a kids class, beginner, intermediate and advanced. And yes, I teach the xiao peng you (kids) class. Its fun but crazy! The kids don't listen all that well, and there isn't any kind of schedule or any kind of program to follow...so, if anyone has any ideas for what I can do to teach kids english (I don't have any resources either...) let me know!

Well, that is about it! I'm super impressed with anyone who reads all my letter =] I hope you enjoy it! If you have any questions, feel free to email my mom and she can ask me them and I'd be happy to answer them!
Thank you all for your love and support! You all are so wonderful!

Here are some pictures:
#1: My little buddy at the Relief Society Activity - We played and played, but he wouldn't come anywhere near me. He even cried when I walked away. So funny!

#2: All the food at the activity! So good!

#3: Our recent convert, Tony (orange shirt) and his mom sitting next to him. We are trying to get her interested in the Church.

#4: The little girl on the far left is our primary president's daughter. I try to get her to like me every week, she is so cute! The other little girl is Sophia. We met her that night and she attached herself to us! She has a twin sister, Sophi =]

#5: Elder Hansen and Chen (our office Elders, and Elder Chen is our district leader). When our eternal investigator showed up, we called them to come do her baptismal interview (we were surprising her and putting her in a baptismal interview =] )