Dazzle Them

Another week has flown by. Oh, speaking of weeks, this move will have seven weeks instead of six. I'm not sure why. So today is actually very close to the midpoint of the transfer. It seems impossible for so much time to have passed already (but it simultaneously feels like a long time...How does that work?). I suppose everything has been carrying on as usual, although life never feels anywhere close to monotonous or routine.

Last week on Friday we had Zone Conference in Kaohsiung. It was excellent, as usual. One thing I really liked from that was a statement by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, one of the twelve apostles. It's from "The Gift of Teaching", a segment in a worldwide training broadcast that the church does regularly (though I'd never seen any of it before my mission). He was reminding us once again that the Holy Ghost is the teacher, not us. I don't remember his exact words, but he said something along the lines of: "Don't try to dazzle them with your brilliance. Dazzle them with the brilliance of the gospel." Good for me to remember that if the thing being shared is of infinite worth, nothing could be more persuasive than simply a clear view of the thing itself.

Teaching, Learning, and Translating

Elder Bednar's visit was wonderful, of course. We had three hours with him, which was mostly spent asking and answering questions. I think one of the most memorable things for me was the understanding I gained about teaching with the Spirit, being taught by the Spirit, and letting the Spirit be the teacher. I felt that Elder Bednar taught this most powerfully by his example as he invited us to be active participants in the experience. He made it very clear that he knew he was not the source of our learning. This taught me a lot about how I should approach gospel teaching, but also about how I can open myself to be taught. The process of actively identifying and asking our heart's questions allows us to be sensitive and open to the Spirit's teaching us the things that we need to learn. Sometimes we may actually voice our questions, in discussion settings, but the process works just as well in a meeting like General Conference, or in studying texts like the Book of Mormon, where we can't actually vocalize our questions to the speakers or authors. The reason it can work is that the Spirit already knows everything and everyone involved. When the speaker/author is speaking/writing by the Spirit, and the hearer/reader is trying to hear/read by the Spirit, and actively searching for needed guidance, silent questions can be asked and answered at least as well as if they were spoken aloud. In fact, sometimes questions we didn't even quite realize we had can be answered, because God knows our needs better than we know them ourselves. Anyway, it's a marvelous process, and one that I'll probably be learning to facilitate for the rest of my life.

I had another new and interesting experience this week. This past weekend was district conference for the Ping Dong district. We attended the general (open to everyone) session on Sunday morning. I was asked to translate for a woman from the Phillipines. She's been living in Taiwan for more than 10 years, but she says her Chinese isn't good enough to understand "deep" topics. I'm not sure how much it helped her, but I did my best. I've never translated and listened at the same time. (I think there's some kind of phrase for that, but I don't know what it is). Some speakers were a lot easier than others, because of their speed and the vocabulary they used. My listening comprehension has improved over the course of my time in Taiwan, but it can vary a lot based on who is talking, and what he/she is talking about. It took me back to my summer at the U.N., where I regularly attended meetings and often took advantage of the translation for comments in languages other than English or Spanish. I have a whole new appreciation for the skill set those translators have. Despite the fact that my translation was far from perfect, I felt a lot of blessings and help to be able to listen in Chinese and speak English at the same time, and I was grateful to be of use.

A New Adventure

Here I am, after my first 10 days in beautiful Ping Dong. I do like the south. I mean, our whole mission is basically the south, so I guess I'm referring to the south of the south. It's definitely warmer than Yong Kang, and the temperatures are gradually rising, but it's still quite pleasant outside. Also, the trees are beautiful, the fruit tasty, and the bugs many. (I could do without the last one, but there's probably something good coming of it.)

I think it's always sort of an adventure to move into a new place and get to know everything from scratch. Last weekend we watched General Conference, and this weekend we'll have District Conference. (A district encompasses several wards or branches, but is smaller than a stake, and is presided over by the mission president. Ping Dong City is part of the Ping Dong District, which includes my first area--Chao Zhou--among others). As a result of these out-of-the-ordinary church meetings, getting to know the two branches we cover is a little slower, but we've gotten to meet with a fair number of members. I love members everywhere. From the start of the move, Sister Chen and I were already talking about trying to increase and improve coordination of missionary work with the members. Then Elder Perry, one of the twelve apostles, gave that talk in General Conference in which he brought up "member-oriented proselyting programs", which reinforced some of the ideas we had been mulling over. General Conference is always like that--it always seems to address exactly the things you need right when you need them.

The other night while we were waiting for someone outside the church, two members from Chao Zhou showed up for a single-adult family home evening activity. Sister Stratford and I met them and started teaching them while I was in Chao Zhou, and they got baptized a couple months after I left. We've kept in touch via letters, but I haven't seen them since they were baptized. When they saw me, they both burst into tears and threw their arms around me. I was, of course, thrilled to see them as well. I think there are some very close bonds that form when you share part the testimony-gaining process with someone. These bonds apparently transcend communication barriers, because my Chinese back in those days was probably borderline unintelligible, putting it mildly.

Tomorrow we'll have a special treat: Elder David A. Bednar (one of the twelve apostles) is coming to Taiwan. In the evening he'll do a fireside for members/anyone, but in the afternoon, the missionaries get our very own three hours with him. President Hsu says he'll likely just open the time to our questions, so I've been thinking and praying to see if there's anything I should ask. I've got a couple ideas, but we'll see when the time comes what feels right. Maybe other missionaries will ask the questions I really need the answers to (to which I really need the answers?). Either way, it's going to be a great experience. President Hsu has asked us to come an hour early to the meeting to prepare ourselves spiritually. I know there will be a lot to learn there, from what he says, but also mostly from what the Spirit says, so we've got to get ourselves ready and receptive and attentive. I'm excited!

Ping Dong

Hello all! I've returned back to lovely Ping Dong! I say returned, because Chao Zhou, my first area, is actually in Ping Dong county. My new area is centered in Ping Dong city, which, unsurprisingly, is also in Ping Dong county. I'm here with Sister Chen, who was born in Kaohsiung and then moved to Taipei when she was 10. This is her 5th move as a missionary (I almost wrote "on island," which works for foreign missionaries, but not so well for those who have been "on island" their whole lives). Of course, saying goodbye is always a bit sad, but I feel really good about being here. I'm so glad I got to be in Yongkang for four months of my mission; the people I met and miracles I witnessed there will always be very dear to me, and I feel like I gave my best there. But it's exciting to move, and to know that being in Ping Dong with Sister Chen is exactly what I need to be doing right now.

On Saturday, our investigator Sister Huang got baptized. It was so wonderful to be there. I think it is a special tender mercy for a missionary to get to see an investigator from her first time meeting with missionaries until her baptism. Before people ever meet with the missionaries, they are prepared to receive the gospel, and learning/growth continue long after baptism, but the missionary's primary responsibility comes in for that first step of learning the basic gospel principles and determining to live by them. So to be allowed to witness someone develop and recognize her own testimony to the point of being willing to commit to live it forever is pretty amazing. Conversion really is a change that comes from the inside out. As Sister Huang said when we met with her the day before her baptism, when you have faith in God, you want to obey. If you ever think about disobeying, you can just remember Him, and then you won't want to anymore. The obedient acts spring out of that internal conviction and belief. There are still leaps of faith to be made. For example, the first time we invite someone to pray, she may have never prayed before, and have absolutely no experience to tell her it will do anything at all for her. But if she has hope that the blessings we describe could be real, she'll go try something she's never done before, and create an opportunity for her own spiritual experience. After the trial of faith comes the blessing of an answered prayer, which would never be possible without praying in the first place. Suffice it to say, I think I've learned a lot about the conversion process. I've thought a lot about the scripture (which I may have quoted before) that says, ". . . he meaneth that it shall come by way of the Gentiles, that the Lord may show his power unto the Gentiles. . ." (Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 15:17). As the Lord works through people, a significant part of His purpose is to show those people, His instruments, His power. I know that as a missionary, I have been an instrument of the Lord, and as the instrument I can tell that the real power or driving force has very little to do with my own abilities.

Inspired Referral

Another exciting week! We had a really miraculous experience with a member referral this week. We try to ask everyone we talk to who they know who would like to meet with us. As you might imagine, most people would be more receptive to an invitation from a friend or family member that a stranger (with poor Chinese) on a bike at a stoplight. Last week, one of the members, Sister Zhao, invited us to call some of her friends to set up a time that we could meet with them. One of them she expected might not be interested--actually, what she said was, "Ta yinggai hui ma wo ba" (She'll probably scold/reprimand me). When I called her friend, after the first few minutes of conversation, I thought Sister Zhao had hit the nail on the head, but then she suddenly said she'd be happy to set up a time. When we met with her, we found out that her father recently became very ill. She's obviously very concerned about him. As we taught her how to pray, and encouraged her to pray for her father, she was geniunely grateful for a way to petition blessings now when her family especially needs them. I was really grateful to be with her to share the thing she needed right when she needed it. Through no design of our own (Sister Zhao had no idea until that lesson that her friend's father was sick), we ended up in the right place at the right time. It's a great feeling.

Move calls are this Friday, and move day is on Monday. I feel like I've really learned a lot this move, and the whole time I've been in Yongkang so far. If I stay here, I'll be excited to still be in this area. If I leave, I'll be excited to meet a whole new group of people and see what I can learn and how I can strengthen the area. When I was thinking about putting in my papers, I realized that I was hoping I could go to Latin America, because I really love Hispanics, and I would love to share the gospel with them. I tried really hard to get rid of that preference before I got my call, and by the time I opened the letter, I really didn't care. Move calls are basically same way; I already know that I love this place and these people, so I might naturally hope to stay, but I'm learning to be excited about the people and places I don't know yet, because if that's where I'm called to go, that's exactly where I need to be. Being where I need to be is much better than being where I want to be. But I think Sister Ma would like to stay here, and it's most common for one companion to move, so I sort of hope I move, so she can stay in Yongkang.