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| Greetings from Taiwan! We are safe and sound! |
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| A beautiful country! (pre-storm!) |
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| love these girls! |
Don't worry anyone, the typhoon is now gone! Biggest storm of the entire year headed straight for our island, it's over and we are all safe:) On Thursday night it was blowing wind like CRAZY down here on the east coast. We were told to buy food and water in case we had to stay inside and the power went out. Everyone and their dog was out buying food and some stores had hardly anything left! Friday morning, it looked pretty ok so we went out to proselyte. We went to Sister Gunn's house for lunch, and biking back home was TERRIFYING, we almost didn't make it, the wind was blowing backwards and sideways and there was debris in the air and dirt covered our faces and chests and arms when we got inside.
Once we got inside Friday at1:30pm....we didn't leave the house until Sunday morning at 8:30!!! Yes, that's about 43 hours inside our little apartment walls!!!! The storm was supposed to be headed straight for our little town, but I guess it redirected and Taipei got it the worst! However, it was rainy and SUPER windy down here in Yuli. Yuli hardly has any people anyway, and during the typhoon, EVERYONE boarded up their houses and pulled down their little metal doors and there was no one anywhere haha. No one answered their phones either, so during the two full days that we were inside, we cleaned A LOT and talked A LOT and ate A LOT:) I'm very grateful that the typhoon provided an opportunity to get to know my companion better:)
I wanted to share a quick experience from last Monday. At the very last 4 minutes of email time, I plugged in my memory card to send pictures. Sister Chan asked if she could use it and I said yah, so she pulled it out of the computer and when she put it in her computer, she pressed some button and then NONE of the pictures were on my memory card anymore. About 3 months of pictures, just GONE. I was SO angry at first, but trying not to blame her, she didn't know, probably didn't think about what she was doing. We took my memory card to a camera store, the man said nope, no way to restore the pictures. Then we took it back to the boss of the internet cafe we were using...he said that the pictures were gone because the computers rebooted every time someone stopped using them and refreshed the harddrive. At this point, I am beyong distraught. I was bawling like a baby, because pretty much every mission memory from training Sister Haupt and every thing in Yuli and the historic memory of Hualian becoming a stake...all gone. I didn't blame Sister Chan, but there was a part of me that wanted to and I wanted someone to blame and I was so angry.
I wanted to share a quick experience from last Monday. At the very last 4 minutes of email time, I plugged in my memory card to send pictures. Sister Chan asked if she could use it and I said yah, so she pulled it out of the computer and when she put it in her computer, she pressed some button and then NONE of the pictures were on my memory card anymore. About 3 months of pictures, just GONE. I was SO angry at first, but trying not to blame her, she didn't know, probably didn't think about what she was doing. We took my memory card to a camera store, the man said nope, no way to restore the pictures. Then we took it back to the boss of the internet cafe we were using...he said that the pictures were gone because the computers rebooted every time someone stopped using them and refreshed the harddrive. At this point, I am beyong distraught. I was bawling like a baby, because pretty much every mission memory from training Sister Haupt and every thing in Yuli and the historic memory of Hualian becoming a stake...all gone. I didn't blame Sister Chan, but there was a part of me that wanted to and I wanted someone to blame and I was so angry.
But I decided that I had to let this sorrow and anger go, no matter what happened, because my relationship with my companion was WAY more important. My personal personality is to let things like this bother me for a long time and I tend to hold grudges. But because of the Atonement and the power of prayer and the ability to change our natures, I was able to almost immediately let it go and act like nothing happened. The MIRACLE came when we took it to a computer store and they said they might be able to save the pictures off of the ruined memory card. Two days later we went back and I got almost ALL of them saved and put onto CDs. I know that this miracle, which 2 professionals in this sort of thing had already told me was impossible, was only possible because I decided that I was going to let it go and not influence my attitude. I know that it is the Atonement of Christ that allowed me to change and to let it go.
Sister Chan and I feel that we have grown so much together and have a special bond now after having gone through this incredible process and coming out on top of our challenges. Sister Chan and I have gotten a long SO well lately, I can't explain how it happened, but it's truly been a miracle.
The other main miracles this week were all because of Jiang Dixiong. We met with him on Monday Thursday and Sunday of this week, after he attended all three hours of church!!! We actually met him about a month and a half ago and he never had time to meet until now...he actually met with missionaries about 3 years ago, but said it was kind of boring. Well.....we shared the law of chastity and the Word of Wisdom pretty much first thing, and he committed to keep them! Our peike for that lesson was actually a less active sister Zhang Jiemei and she bore such powerful testimony. She said she knows she needs to come back to church, but has her own time table for it...I guess we will see how we can help her speed that up!!:) Jiang Dixiong pretty much said that he didn't seriously keep meeting with missionaries before because they didn't mention commandments!! Cool!! And he is just SO golden, he willingly set a date for September 5th, and wants to keep every commitment so he can join our church! He saw the wall with pictures of people who had been baptized on it and was excited to be the next one:)
Sister Chan and I feel that we have grown so much together and have a special bond now after having gone through this incredible process and coming out on top of our challenges. Sister Chan and I have gotten a long SO well lately, I can't explain how it happened, but it's truly been a miracle.
The other main miracles this week were all because of Jiang Dixiong. We met with him on Monday Thursday and Sunday of this week, after he attended all three hours of church!!! We actually met him about a month and a half ago and he never had time to meet until now...he actually met with missionaries about 3 years ago, but said it was kind of boring. Well.....we shared the law of chastity and the Word of Wisdom pretty much first thing, and he committed to keep them! Our peike for that lesson was actually a less active sister Zhang Jiemei and she bore such powerful testimony. She said she knows she needs to come back to church, but has her own time table for it...I guess we will see how we can help her speed that up!!:) Jiang Dixiong pretty much said that he didn't seriously keep meeting with missionaries before because they didn't mention commandments!! Cool!! And he is just SO golden, he willingly set a date for September 5th, and wants to keep every commitment so he can join our church! He saw the wall with pictures of people who had been baptized on it and was excited to be the next one:)
When we shared the Restoration with him, he said he believed that Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and that he restored the church. He really understands the authority of the priesthood and why it is so essential. Actually, he also asked us about temples because that is what was shared in priesthood meeting during church. He is really excited to get the priesthood and go to the temple ALREADY and we have met with him only 4 times in total!! He prays so simply and fervently and prayed to know if the Book of Mormon was true in our closing prayer of our lesson yesterday! We are going to share the Plan of Salvation with him tonight, yes, we have shared lessons a bit out of order but it is what he is interested in and understands!! So exciting, he will be one of the Melchizedek Priesthood holders we need in order to make Yuli Branch a WARD!
Also on Sunday, we got a less active Huang Xiao Ling Jiemei to come to church for the first time in over 6 months! We went to her house and stood outside convincing her to come until she went upstairs to go change into a skirt...then a customer came to get her hair washed (Huang Jiemei is a hairdresser) and we politely told the customer that Huang Jiemei had to go to church, please come back later. Haha we totally shooed a customer away while Huang Jiemei wasn't even there, BUT we saved her soul which is WAY more important:)
Well I wanted to maybe ask someone to look up how far it is from Yuli玉里 to Songpu松浦...because this past Wednesday, after we got back to Yuli from Taidong zone meeting, Sister Chan and I rode to Songpu and back, which is a tiny little tribe village about an hour bike ride away from Yuli, up into the mountains!!! So I want to know how far we biked:) when we got back to Yuli, we ate stinky tofu with the elders and Liu Jiemei. Truly a memorable day:)Also on Sunday, we got a less active Huang Xiao Ling Jiemei to come to church for the first time in over 6 months! We went to her house and stood outside convincing her to come until she went upstairs to go change into a skirt...then a customer came to get her hair washed (Huang Jiemei is a hairdresser) and we politely told the customer that Huang Jiemei had to go to church, please come back later. Haha we totally shooed a customer away while Huang Jiemei wasn't even there, BUT we saved her soul which is WAY more important:)
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| sweat-soaked from our long-distance ride! |
Sister Wright (Taiwan Taipei Mission)
Rèn Jiěmèi 任曼欣姐妹
Rèn Jiěmèi 任曼欣姐妹
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| P-Day at the beach! |
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| Eating stinky tofu! |
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| stinky tofu |
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