I Love the Book of Mormon!

Time is flying by. I can't believe that this Friday will mark six months from the day that I entered the MTC (also six weeks from the day my companion goes home). Last week we had zone conference for this move, and the topic was the Book of Mormon. Focusing on the Book of Mormon this move has been pretty awesome, and zone conference just made it all the better. The Book of Mormon is amazing for too many reasons for me to list all of them. Probably the one I've noticed the most recently is something President Benson (former prophet) taught: "There is a power in the Book of Mormon which will begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book. You will find greater power to resist temptation. You will find the power to avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the strait and narrow path." I couldn't explain why exactly (except that God designed things that way), but that statement is so true. The Book of Mormon really has the power to change anyone's life, even if he/she has already been studying it for years. When I think about the people that I've taught as a missionary, those who embrace the Book of Mormon, read it, apply it themselves, etc. are the ones who get the happiness they're looking for, and who find out for themselves what is true. I was thinking about how God knows everything, and out of all the vast store of stuff that he knows, He's picked out the most precious and necessary to our salvation, and given it to us through the scriptures. When I think about that, I'm always asking myself why He decided to stick different parts in there. I haven't come up with answers for lots of parts, but it wouldn't be any fun to get all the answers all at once (also, it would certainly be too much for me to take in one batch anyway). The other interesting thing about the Book of Mormon is that it exists. I mean, there's definitely a book, and it came from somewhere. And it itself contains a method to figure out if it came from God or not, which is sincere prayer. I think it's fascinating to have a piece of tangible evidence of God's existence and doctrine AND not be required to take anyone else's word that it's true. For myself, I know that I've felt the book to be the word of God dozens of times as I've read it, and I also don't think a false book would have the power to change lives that is within the Book of Mormon. Focusing on all these things has inspired my companion and me to rely more heavily on the Book of Mormon as we teach and study, which is great. I try not to take for granted the time I have now to have the scriptures so naturally involved in my life all day every day...

Stress Relief and Dumplings

I think I've really been seeing the fulfillment of Ether 12:27 from the Book of Mormon as I've been in this area. I was thinking about to the things that stressed me out when I first got to Taiwan, and prominent among them are making phone calls and contacting outside (especially at intersections). Since I've gotten to Zuoying, I realized that I am no longer apprehensive about either one. In Ether 12:27, the Lord promises that he can make weaknesses into strengths, and I'm pretty positive that's what happened. I know I could still learn a lot about talking to people on the phone and on the street, but my fears about it basically evaporated while I wasn't looking. I think a lot of missionaries probably have similar experiences, but that doesn't make it less meaningful to me. I know that I (along with probably every other missionary) am inadequate to do what is expected of us on our own merits, but that's what makes it all the miraculous when things come together. It's comforting to see how the Lord makes up the difference when we fall short ourselves, as long as we put everything we have out there.

The last few days my companion has been a bit under the weather, so we've spent more time than usual inside, which means more time on updating records and making phone calls. I think we're both excited to be outside more as she feels better, but there are still blessings to be seen from the indoors. For example, during one of my many hours of phone calls, I got in touch with several church members who haven't come to church for a long time, and haven't been answering their phones, and was able to understand more about their situations. Information like that is really helpful for missionaries (us now and others later) trying to figure out how to spend their time, who to meet with, etc., so we'll chalk those conversations up under tender mercies of this week.

On one of the occasions when we were out and about, we went to give cookies to the ward mission leader in 10th ward, Brother Jin. He and his wife have a little restaurant food stand thing. It's not exactly a stand--I mean, it's in a building, but it's mostly open to the outside (until they bring down the doors at night), and you can see everything they're doing to prepare the food. They sell things like noodles and dumplings. We actually didn't know it was their restaurant, because they just moved there. By the time we got there, it was quickly apparent that we'd be eating dinner there. At first I had a faint glimmer of hope that we might be able to pay ourselves, but that was dashed as soon as Brother Jin ordered for us. They ended up serving us delicious noodles with thinly sliced pork, a plate of appetizer things (tofu, among other things), a plate of dumplings (stuffed with shrimp and seafood), and soup. It was basically amazing. Of course, we offered to pay, and of course they refused. By happy chance, two church members came together to eat dinner as well, so we all ate together. It was one of those nights when I felt really at home, for some reason. Plus, I love dumplings.

New Companion, New Area

Hello!!!!!!!! It feels like forever since I wrote, even though it's only been a couple more days than usual. Here are some categorized updates:

COMPANIONSHIP
I love my companion, Sister Frasier. We are very very different (I've probably said that about every companion...), but it's been so good for us to be together. We decided to read the entire Book of Mormon together this move, and it's really awesome. We read it during personal times, mostly on our lunch and dinner hour, or before personal study in the morning. We figured out that if we read about 18-20 pages/day, we'll get it done buy the end of the move. Also, Sister Frasier is a record-keeper extraordinaire (did I spell that right?). She is teaching me a lot about keeping good records and organizing things, which is really important when missionaries move in and out of areas so often. I'm doing my best as long as I'm the junior companion (every companionship has a senior and a junior companion--the mission president says which is which; typically, after someone becomes a senior companion, they stay that way until they go home) to adapt to my senior companion's style and figure out how she does missionary work and why she does it that way. So far it's saved me a lot of stress, not worrying about carrying over everything I've learned from move to move. As long as we're obedient and trying to be diligent, I figure it's a good opportunity to learn different ways of doing things. Then whenever I become a senior companion, I can figure out which parts will work best for me. There are a lot of things that all obedient missionaries will do the same, but also a lot of room for interpretation or "style", as Sister Frasier says, not to mention adjusting to the area and companionship needs.

ZUOYING
I'm definitely not in Kansas (read: Chaozhou) anymore. One of the coolest things about being in a more urban area is that there are almost always people to contact at traffic lights. I really like contacting at lights. I came up with this sweet thing for my bike box so I can always have fliers ready to handout when I'm on the street. Best case scenario we have 68 seconds to contact someone (if we get there right when it turns red), and we usually do it together.

Another huge plus: I can take out my trash anytime. It's amazing. In Chaozhou, we had to wait for the trash truck to come (at supposedly set times, but they varied a lot), and take our trash out to it as it passed. Here, our apartment has a dumpster AND a recycle bin. I love it. I take out trash all the time, and rejoice in empty trash cans.

Here we cover two church units (congregations), one ward and one branch. The church takes up one floor of an office building, above a bank. Because of the way the meeting times are, every week we just attend two sacrament meetings, and no other meetings. I sort of miss Sunday School and Relief Society, but it's like this for sisters in a lot of areas (because there are fewer sisters than elders, each companionship covers a larger geographical area).

Out with a Bang

What a week! Really, this is one of my more exciting reports, I think, and next week should be pretty good as well. This email is being written from Zuoyin, which is part of Kaohsiung. As I told my new companion, Sister Frasier, I feel like I just stepped into Star Wars. Everything seems so high tech in contrast to my previous surroundings (like this internet cafe, for example--air conditioned!). It's going to be a definite transition; missionary work in the city and missionary work in Chaozhou are reputed to be very different. Chaozhou is basically the most country area that sisters go to in my mission, and Zuoyin is near the heart of the biggest city (in my mission, not in Taiwan), so you can imagine. I'm really excited, though. I have a good feeling about this move, like it's going to be very difficult, but exactly the right thing. I also love my companion. Sister Frasier was going to the Air Force Academy before she came here. She's almost done with her mission--only two moves left. She's full of life--one of those people who tells you how she's kind of exhausted at this point in her mission as she strides purposefully down the street at full speed. I suppose we'll have things to figure out in terms of creating unity in our companionship, but at this point I'm really looking forward to all of it. Our area covers a branch and a ward, so every week we just go to two sacrament meetings.

Now, the baptism. Last week, our investigator Xia Guo Ming Yue was baptized. It was amazing. I have been so grateful for the help and support of the church members. We met with her three times this week with three different members, which was really great. Also, the turnout at her baptism was really really good. She has a grateful heart, so she always notices things that people do for her, support they give her, etc. She also loves to do things for people. She's going to be a real strength to the branch in Chaozhou. It was actually a double baptism; the elders' investigator Fan Sheng Rong was also baptized. He is about 17, and his older sister is already a member. After the baptism was performed, they were each invited to stand and share their testimonies. When he got up, he testified that he knew he had joined God's church, and he said how great it was to be baptized because he felt like all of his guilt was completely gone. I just thought that was really amazing, because how often do you hear a 17-year-old boy rejoicing in feelings of purity? The gospel really changes people's desires. His parents came to the baptism. They sort of objected when their daughter got baptized, but they saw positive change in her. Also, the elders found opportunities to serve their family, and they really supported their son in going to church and being baptized. The father says he would like to baptized someday, but he feels too busy right now because every day he's out working with his crops. We were all really excited to see them at the baptism and see how the members care about them already. On Sunday, Xia Jie Mei and Fan Di Xiong received the gift of the Holy Ghost, completing their baptism and making them official members of the church. It was such a blessing to have that experience my last weekend in Chaozhou.

"Misc." Events

Here are some misc. events from this week (why am I using the abbreviation "misc."? It is the painful evidence of my gradual loss of spelling ability due to language immersion; after much agonizing I cannot for the life of me remember how to spell the complete word.):

Noble's
Noble's is a steakhouse in Chaozhou. The Wang family took my companion and me (see I still remember not to say "my companion and I"--all is not yet lost) there for dinner last week. Oh my amazing food goodness...It was excellent. We both felt bad that they spent so much money buying us such a nice meal, but we did love the food. First of all, the steak was great. Also, there was a salad bar, complete with fresh fruit, tasty bread, and other goodies, and ice cream for dessert. Probably one of the best two meals I've had since I got here.

Getting the monkey off my back
I know, you're hoping there really was a monkey on my back, forcing me to wrestle it off or something. That's not completely ridiculous, since there's apparently a place in my mission called Monkey Mountain where you can go and see lots of monkeys in the wild. But this time I'm not talking about monkeys so much as the brown book. The brown book is the first level of the mission's language study program. To pass it off, you have to memorize vocab, teaching phrases, and scriptures for each of the five missionary lessons. Then you are tested by a leader for each lesson, plus a midterm and a final. Sister Stratford's former companion compared the brown book to a monkey that you just want to pry off you back, but you have to get it all done before it stops harassing you. I'd say that's a fairly apt description; I did learn a lot from it, but I'm happy to be on to the red book. The red book is basically a list of 1000 vocabulary words that you also memorize and pass off. It's interesting what words are included in the first 1000 Chinese words one should learn after being able to teach the gospel (e.g. "Batman"). I've heard that listening comprehension goes way up with the red book, because it broadens your vocabulary a lot :)

General Conference!!!!
I love Conference! Twice a year, in October and April, we get to hear our church leaders teach us exactly what we need at that time, and they are always so right. Conference on a mission was like Christmas. I anticipated it for weeks and was a little forlorn when it was gone. I wrote down some questions to get answered, and, sure enough, I got them all answered in the content of the talks. I even had a couple questions that I hadn't bothered to write down answered. Two of our investigators, who are sisters, went to three or four (out of four) sessions, and seemed to really like it. One of them said that some of the speakers seemed to speaking directly to her; I think every earnest listener of Conference will feel that way at some point during the talks. I was really excited for her to have that experience and feel the power of their teaching. It sort of blows my mind to hear the current prophet, Thomas S. Monson, speak, and know that he is really speaking and leading for God, just as Moses, Abraham, Alma, and every other prophet has.

Contacting

I thought you might be interested to hear some of the more common responses that I hear when we are knocking doors or contacting:

-I'm Buddhist/Daoist. (Indicating that we should therefore automatically realize that they are not interested or have no use for our message. Often this is accompanied by an indication of what neighbors are Christian, so we can go talk to them.)

-I'm already Christian. (Indicating that we pretty much believe the same thing already, so we should go find some Buddhist or Daoist person to teach.)

-All religions are the same, because they all teach everyone to be good. (A variation on this is all Christian churches are the same, except for Catholics. The Catholic church is some separate category, apparently.)

-I'm too busy.

-Oh, you're so hard-working, and you've come all the way to Taiwan. Xing ku nimen. (Still not interested, usually).

-Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou. (As far as I can tell, this is a way of politely telling us to go away. It's definitely not a way of saying, "Thank you, this is exactly what I want to hear right now.")

I'm not sure what missionaries in other parts of the world hear; I would expect some common ground, but probably some large differences as well. I don't think I've ever felt my religion lumped in with all Christian religions so freely. If anything, I think I got used to the complete opposite, so this has been educational.

Also, Dad, you asked me something about why I don't complain more about the weather in some letter a long time ago. The weather is gradually getting less hot now that we're in the fall months. Most days I do get drenched in sweat at some point, but it's not so bad, really. It's like camping: I feel like I'm supposed to be gross, or I wouldn't be doing it right, so it's almost satisfying. I still haven't decided if I prefer to be wet from sweat or nasty polluted rain...

This week I found a quote about discernment that I particularly liked:

"I believe [the gift of discernment] arises largely out of an acute sensitivity to impressions--spiritual impressions, if you will--to read under the surface, as it were, to detect hidden evil, and more importantly to find the good that may be concealed. The highest type of discernment is that which perceives in others and uncovers for them their better natures, the good inherent within them." (Elder Stephen L Richards quoted by Elder Bednar in the Dec. 2006 Ensign)

I really liked the concept of seeing the good in things as being the highest form of discernment. I believe that is much more difficult than finding the bad, at least in my own personal experience. He went on to state that we can all acquire this gift, I suppose through the usual combination of prayer and our own efforts. I think this is something that I would like to focus on during my mission, because isn't it wonderful to meet those people who help you see the good in yourself that even you didn't see before? I would like to be one of those people.

Travels, Exchanges, and Tender Mercies

It's been a pretty eventful week in terms of not-the-usual-routine things. Last Wednesday, Sister Stratford and I biked to Laiyi (pronounce sort of like "lie-ee"). Laiyi is in the mountains. It took us about an hour and fifteen minutes to get there, maybe 50 minutes to get back. The mountains here are mostly populated by aboriginees living in smallish village town things, of which Laiyi is one. It was really beautiful out there; everything is absolutely coated in green, except for the river that was running down. We saw a couple little waterfalls here and there. It's so nice to get out of town and realize you can't hear a single car or machine. It was worth being even more drenched in sweat that usual to see it all. Even with all that biking, we still haven't gotten that close to the furthest boundaries of our area (which we're not allowed to leave, except for approved meetings/activities). Most areas in my mission are not this large, because most of them are more densely populated.

On Thursday we had this move's zone conference. This time the topic was the Spirit, and especially how to invite the Spirit to be with us throughout the day during our study time each morning. It was really helpful to me. I know God wouldn't bring me all the way to Taiwan and then leave me without access to His guidance, and it's really important to me to keep learning and improving my ability to understand what He wants me to do. The last thing I want to do is come all the way here for Him without doing the things that He wants me to do, or finding the people He has prepared for me to meet. But I think most of this guidance comes through very subtle ways, and a lot of my companion and me thinking through everything before taking our plans to the Lord.

On Friday night we went on exchanges. Every so often, missionaries will change companions for a day. This has several purposes, among which are getting to find out about different areas, other ways of proselyting/teaching, etc. Sister Stratford and I took the train to Pingdong (only a 20-minute ride) on Friday night. I left her there, and came back to Chaozhou with my companion for the next 24 hours, Sister McIntosh. It was really interesting to work with someone else; a little bit of uncertainty trying to figure out how to work together in unity as quickly as possible, and a lot of interesting discussion about her experiences and what she has learned from her mission experience. Actually, I was sort of pleasantly surprised at how not difficult it was to work together. I suppose there is a lot of common ground that comes from a single purpose, a strong desire to be obedient to the same rules and standards, and a love of the same Gospel.

Sunday another typhoon came through. It didn't get here until the afternoon, at which point we couldn't leave our apartments (that lasted until Monday afternoon). Fortunately, we still got to go to church on Sunday. In my limited experience, Taiwanese people stay inside during typhoons, even if the only reason to think there's a typhoon is the news, because the weather isn't especially bad. For that reason, I was really excited to see that four of our investigators attended church with us, despite the impending typhoon! Tender mercies :)