Sister Winters - December 24, 2012 Merry Christmas!

Dear family,

 

Merry Christmas! Well, I guess for you, Merry Christmas Eve! I'm so happy to be writing to the best family in the world.

 

How are you all doing? Happy? Healthy? I'm so happy to hear that the Christmas program went well - of course, with Sister Dean in charge, it's bound to be that way. I was terrified that the ward wasn't going to have anything remotely Christmasy on Sunday so I went up to the bishop right before the meeting and said, "Bishop, do you have a musical number today? If not, now you do. I'm playing a Christmas song on the piano." He was delighted, so I played. And then it was my turn to be delighted when the primary kids got up after me and sang some Christmas primary songs (in Chinese, of course). It was great, although I did have to keep telling myself that the kids did not remind me of Sarah and Joseph...

 

This week was actually really wonderful. Full of Christmas miracles! :) I'll have to admit that I was a little worried about our proselyting efforts this week since it felt like I was gone half of the time for Christmas performances. My poor companion had to go on so many exchanges as I went to various places around Taipei to perform - she finally asked me one day, "Are we finally going to be able to be companions again tomorrow?" It's nice to know that she likes me. :) Anyway, I was worried that we weren't finding enough new investigators and teaching enough people (new investigators is something that's been pretty rough for the past few weeks), and it wasn't helping that I was out of my area all of the time. But then during one of the performances, one of the narrators changed her script and quoted D&C 25:12 - "For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads."  As soon as she said that I felt a warm feeling inside that helped me realize that even though I wasn't knocking on doors or talking to people on the street as much as I'd like, I was still serving God. I was doing what He wanted me to do. And He really did answer with a blessing upon my head! Well, multiple blessings, and they weren't on my head literally... Let me tell you about them!

 

One of them was Sister Wu. I'd felt like we should really go and knock doors in this one place, so Sister O'Brien and I spent a really short time block going over there to proselyte. Well, turns out that all of the buildings have security guards and it's really tough to get inside. I'd love to say that we somehow miraculously got in and found a family of six who all want to be baptized, but... we didn't. Not yet, anyway. :) We left. And decided that we should probably use our time to contact to the subway that we'd be taking in a few short minutes to go to a performance. Anyway, we were riding and we'd stop occasionally to talk to people. Then I saw this girl with a yellow coat and thought, "I need to go talk to her." Then I biked past and said, "Hello!" This is a test that is normally foolproof in Taipei - if they don't say hello or at least acknowledge you in some way, then normally they aren't interested. But I still felt like I needed to go talk to her. So we did. And we taught her on the street. And she seemsawesome. Like, one of the best investigators I've seen in a long long time. I was so grateful - we have a lot of pretty good investigators but we definitely need some more GREAT ones. And then we got one. But that's not all. Last night we had scheduled Wu Jiemei for an 8:15 pm appointment. And we had a Christmas carolling activity pretty far away. And Wu Jiemei hadn't confirmed - even worse, her phone was off. I started getting worried as the activity was going longer and her phone still wouldn't ring at all - I began to wonder if she really would come, if she really was as great as I thought she was, if she had blocked our phone number, etc.. But we knew what we had to do. After one carolling visit (the first people that we carolled for invited us in and fed us delicious cream puffs, chocolate mousse-filled cakes, and fruits - I could definitely get used to that Christmas tradition), Sister O'Brien and I informed the bishop that we needed to go. At first the group asked us to stay for "at least one more number," but as we told them why we needed to get back, they agreed that our investigator was more important. So we raced back to the church (I have to admit that I was super-impressed with our speed) and made it right at 8:15. And... Wu Jiemei was nowhere in sight. And we called and still no answer. So we waited for about 10 minutes and then agreed that we should probably just go home. So we said a prayer, asked Heavenly Father to help us find prepared people and to continue to bless us, and then headed out. As I was closing the church gate, I looked to my right and saw a girl looking at me rather intently. Then I realized she looked kind of familiar... it was Wu Jiemei! She had come, 15 minutes late! And her phone was out of power, which explained the whole no-answering thing. I can't describe how happy and grateful I was. It was a total Christmas Eve miracle of miracles.

 

Speaking of Wu Jiemeis, I saw my Wu Jiemei (my trainer) randomly this past week. It was so fun to see her! It's crazy that it's been about half a year since I'd seen her last. It's even more crazy to think that I have less time left on my mission than she did when she started training me. Yikes! Okay, onto other miracles...

 

Even with awesome investigator Wu Jiemei, by the time Sunday rolled around we were still two people short for our goal of new investigators. And of course Sunday was the day that I had three performances and my companion was scheduled to go to another area. So we hopefully put "1" in our goal for new investigators in Saturday night's planning, even though we knew we wouldn't have any time. Then Sunday came and I left for my performance and Sister O'Brien left for another area. By the time I got back, though, Sister O'Brien informed me that she had found someone that wanted to hear our message. I had no idea how that had happened - there was no time. But she said that her companion said that she hadn't had much planned and maybe they could do studies or something, and Sister O'Brien boldly suggested that they could go to our own area, go to church there, and then go out and find people to teach. So that's what they did. And then in church, there was a member who said that he had a friend that he wanted the sisters to visit right after church if possible. Boom! Another miracle. And then at my last performance that night (in my own area), one of our investigators brought her son with her and they both met with us afterwards and their son agreed to keep meeting with his mom. Boom! Another miracle. AND, what's more, this mom was a former for years and she had never been inside the church before. But she came to hear me play the violin and loved the whole performance. Boom! Another miracle. AND we found out that her favorite elder who used to come and visit her family is in my same violin studio at BYU and I know him. Boom! Another Christmas miracle.

 

God loves us so much! It's incredible. Okay, I'm running out of time. If I did have time, I'd tell you a story about how someone was looking at my family picture and said that yeah, I look like my mom, but I look a little more like my dad because I have "more meat on [my] face." But she also said it was pretty - go figure. Anyway, but I don't have time to tell that story. Instead, I wanted to share a little bit from what I've been studying in the scriptures lately.

 

This week I've been studying a lot in the book of John - I started last week and I'm trying to finish before the week is out. Anyway, I love John. I read it last Easter and I'm thrilled to be reading it again. This time through I've noticed more about the women that Jesus interacts with and their testimonies of Him. I've always loved the story of the woman of Samaria and how people were converted to the Gospel through Jesus Himself and also through her words of Him - the first sister missionary! And then the testimonies of Mary and Martha when Jesus comes to raise Lazarus from the dead are so powerful. But this time I noticed something new about Jesus' testimony about Himself and the message He bears in John 12:49-50: "For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I sepak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak." Yes, I emphasized the word "commandment." Anyway, when I first read that I thought about how the commandment from the Father was probably the Atonement - that Christ needed to come here to atone for our sins. Because through that commandment of the Atonement, we are able to have life everlasting. But then I noticed that Christ was commanded in what He should say and speak. So He was commanded in His teachings, in His Gospel. So it is in the Gospel as well that we find life everlasting. And that's the same Gospel that I get to share with the people in Taiwan. How amazing is that? Thinking about that added even more insight to this "great and marvelous" message that I'm sharing every day.

 

I'm so happy to be a missionary! I love it. I love my Savior. I know that He lives and loves us. I love you all very much as well and wish you all a merriest of Christmases!

 

Love,

Sister Winters

Sister Winters - December 16, 2012 Good Tidings of Great Joy

Dear family,

 

Dajia hao! It's been a great week in Taipei, Taiwan. Let me tell you all about it!

 

Alright, so on preparation day this past week we got to play laser tag with a bunch of my MTC friends! So much fun. I heard that some of you had a good time looking at my photos from my laser tag trip in November - not sure how I feel about that..... That night I learned how to make zhuabing (a personal favorite Chinese snack) from scratch at a member's house. I think the most fun part was spreading lard on it - lard, real lard! I'd always read about it and thought it sounded so gross, so I think I was kind of secretly delighted when I saw it in real life and got to spread it all over my zhuabing before we cooked them. Oh, I guess we mashed them up before we cooked them and got to see all of the lard oozing out... yum. Anyway, best part of that whole adventure is that we ended up teaching the member's mother, who is currently not a member... But we hope she will be soon! Your prayers would be appreciated in that regard, as always.

 

Actually, there's a specific person who needs prayers, big-time. There's a girl that we're teaching named Rui Yu ("Ray" and a French-vowel "Ooo"). She's super-awesome: only eleven years old, but she loves reading The Book of Mormon and praying. We invited her a couple of visits ago to start repenting in her prayers - when I asked her last time how that was going, she said: "Well, it's good. But I don't repent in every prayer.... I normally say a couple of prayers every day, and I only repent in one of them every day. Is that okay?" So amazing. And then I shared Enos 1:26 with her last visit and asked how she would feel if Jesus Christ said those words to her. She said, "I would feel so happy and grateful if God would welcome me back and loved me like that." The Spirit was so strong as we testified to her that God does love her and does want her back. She has a baptismal goal for the end of this month, but she hasn't come to church at all. Although she's scared of water, she still has a desire to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized (she prayed at the end of one of our lessons on baptism that more people would be able to be baptized so that they could return to God's presence). So why hasn't she come to church? One word - grandma. The grandma hates Christianity and apparently gets really mad any time anything about any church is even mentioned. Now, Rui Yu doesn't need her grandma's permission to be baptized. But she does need her mom's, who is a less-active member who became less-active because her mother-in-law made such a huge fuss about the Church. Sister O'Brien (I'll talk about her in a second) and I have been praying to figure out a way to help her, but we're still kind of at a roadblock. Please pray for us, and please pray for Rui Yu!

 

Alright, next big point in my week: I got a new companion! Sister O'Brien, fresh from the MTC. She's 5'10", happy, energetic, and excited about serving the Lord. She seems amazing and I'm very very excited about training her. We've had a few crazy last couple of days (I'll talk about that in a second) so I haven't been able to talk to her as much as I would have liked, but I figure that we have three months of being together 24/7 so we'll probably get to know each other pretty well. :) She likes reading (especially the classics), hiking, and photography (get ready for good pictures of me!). And she was a law student at University of Washington who was studying microbiology before, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that she's probably got a pretty good brain, too - actually, I know she does, since I saw her taking notes of the words she didn't know during all six hours of church yesterday. Incredible. We found out later that when both of us saw each other at the training meeting that we felt like/hoped that we'd be companions. So I'm confident that God's behind us (as always), especially during these next two transfers! It's going to be incredible.

 

Speaking of the training meeting, we had a transfer meeting after that where we found out who would be with which companion, etc.. At that meeting, we also honored the missionaries who were going home. I knew a lot of them, and I was so close to crying as I realized that after a short 18 weeks (only a semester!), I'd be standing in their shoes. That was a bit of a shock. I also almost cried this past weekend during a few special performances that the missionary choir had. This past weekend the English ward did their own rendition of the Nativity story - it was awesome. The costumes were great, the story was great (read it straight out of the Bible)... they even had a live horse for Mary to ride on! It was a little raw on the emotions though to see it all done in English... Actually, wait. I take that back. I almost cried yesterday when I sang "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" in Chinese, so I guess it's just Christmas (and being a girl).

 

Okay, last miracle for this week: when I was at the transfer meeting, I saw an elder whom I'd served with in Taidong. He told me that a family that I had found while I was there that the elders ended up teaching was baptized! A family! That I found! It made me so so so so so so so incredibly happy. Even though I wasn't the one teaching them when it happened, it was all points for the same team. This is God's work, no doubt about it.

 

Well everyone, that is it for this week. The next time I'll be emailing you will be on Christmas Day, Taiwan time. Next Monday we'll be having an all-day zone meeting full of Christmas activities and fun. So you'll have to wait until next Tuesday until you can hear my "good tidings of great joy." I'm so glad that I don't have to wait for Christmas to share those tidings - that I'm able to spend every day of my life "making these sayings known abroad." I love you all! Until next week.

 

Love,

Sister Winters

 

Sister Winters - December 10, 2012 "And Know Me Better, Man!"

Dear family,

 

Happy Christmas! Thank you for all of your letters from this week. I got the Christmas card and loved it! Everyone looks so great and grown-up... I'm not sure if "grown-up" is necessarily an equivalent to "grown-up," but you know what I mean. I'm doing well - loving the Christmas decorations (I think that Sister Briggs is astounded that I still freak out every time I see Christmas lights on Christmas trees... I've been out here too long), the Christmas music (they play it in McDonalds and in 7-11, so I'm trying to always make our phone calls there so that we can listen), and of course the Christmas spirit. This past week we celebrated by using our service time to make Christmas cookies for less-actives in our area - we used the normal chocolate chip cookie recipe I always use (I had it memorized - so proud of myself. God really does use us for our talents!), except we couldn't find chocolate chips so we cut up Andes mints instead. Totally delicious! I was so happy with how it turned out (see pictures for proof of that fact) - I brought my speakers so that we could blast the Mormon Tabernacle Choir while we did it and even wore the most Christmas-y outfit I could come up with. Mom, you wondered what I've been using for ornaments for our Christmas tree - well, I've been using the little stars from that advent calendar you sent - every day we take one off and then hang it on the tree. It actually looks pretty good - I should take a picture... I also did end up celebrating St. Nicholas Day, and my companion surprised me by putting candy in my shoes as well! But unfortunately I did not take a picture of that one. Maybe I'll just put the candy back in my shoes and then fake it!

 

Taipei's still going fine - I just found out that I'm training again! This'll be my fourth (and fifth, since we train for two transfers) transfer training - after I'm done training this next missionary I'll have trained for one half of my time here in Taiwan. Crazy. I'm excited, though, because training's the best - it's so rewarding to see the transformation that a new missionary undergoes in that first 12-week period. I'll know on Wednesday whether it's Sister Briggs that's moving and I'm staying here, or if I'll be opening up a new area - I heard that they're opening up two new areas in my zone! Stay tuned...

 

I think one of the highlights of this week was when I went on companion exchanges. My companion was Sister Tsai, a member who volunteered to be a "duanchuan," or a full-time missionary for a shorter amount of time (it varies, but she's one for three weeks). It was awesome, and I learned so much from her example. Whenever she would talk to people on the street, she would lovingly touch her nametag on her chest and say, "I'm a missionary. I represent Jesus Christ." It was almost like Nephi when he says, "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people that they might have everlasting life." It was apparent that Sister Tsai knew her calling and knew the meaning of what she was saying. I love being a missionary, but sometimes it's easy to clip on the nametag without thinking about it very much. I'm really grateful that I had her example and her perspective - that being a missionary is amazing, and that this time is so so so so precious. It was also inspiring to hear her conversion story - she'd gotten into a lot of really rough patches before she met the Church. She said that often when bad things would happen, she'd say, "Hey! God! Can you help me out, please? I really need your help." And things would work out. So when she went travelling in France she felt like she should go to a chapel because she was grateful to God... And she found our Church. And she completely changed her life around. Like, completely. When I heard about the changes that she had made it made me inspired to lose myself even more in this wonderful work. If people can change so completely, then I should be able to give myself to God and let Him change me as well! I've been trying to do that and have seen wonderful changes in myself and in my investigators already as I've done so.

 

Oh, one other thing about Sister Tsai - she had a friend who lived in our area, and she (that friend) became our new investigator! Woo! Love those miracles. :)

 

Another miracle: I found out that someone I taught in Taidong got baptized last week! YES! That made me so incredibly happy. There's another area in the Taidong district that hadn't gotten a baptism in like two years that got one yesterday! Woohoo!!! Life is so good. It'll just keep getting better and better when baptisms start happening here as well. :) Keep praying! Oh, and you can also pray that I won't get sick. :) I feel a cold coming in and that probably would not be too great of a start for my new trainee next week...

 

Nothing else too exciting to report, I'm afraid... Today's P-day should be fun - I'm hanging out with a few sisters (and their companions, of course) that were with me in the MTC - we haven't decided if we want to play laser tag or go bowling (I know, so American-sounding, but after over a year stuff like that sounds really fun). Oh! We went to play laser tag a few weeks ago, actually. And they took pictures! They're on a website:photos.lazertreks.com (I went on November 19, 2012). I'm not sure if you can still see them, but my friend had his family print some of the photos and he gave me some of me and they're very funny. And some, yes, are extremely awkward-looking. I've said goodbye to being normal when I get back.....

 

Family, you are wonderful. I love you and I'm so thrilled that I'm part of such an awesome family. I can't wait to talk to you in a few weeks! Enjoy the Christmas season until then...

 

Love,

Sister Winters

Sister Winters - December 3, 2012 A Mountain of a Miracle

Editor's note:

As you write your Christmas cards this year you may consider sending one to Rebecca:

Sister Rebecca Winters

106-42

Taiwan Taipei Mission

4 FL, #24, Lane 183 Chinhua St.

Taipei, Taiwan, ROC

Dear wonderful family,

 

Christmas tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime is heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere! It was delightful to hear about all of the wonderful Christmasy stuff that you all did to bring in the season this past week. I got the advent calendar and Christmas package this past week and I was so excited I was like... well, like a kid on Christmas. I had just been thinking that I wished I had more Christmas decorations - thank you for reading my mind, even thousands of miles away! I love Christmas so much. There's a mall next to where I live and they have all sorts of Christmas decorations on the outside and it just makes me happy every time I pass by. I know that's more of the "worldly" aspect of Christmas, but still. We're getting plenty of the spiritual aspect too as I blast all of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas albums every day and as we still participate in the travelling Christmas choir. Mom, you asked a question about that - sorry, I guess I didn't explain it clearly. In Taipei the assistants have hand-picked about thirty missionaries to participate in "the travelling Christmas choir," which is a choir comprised of missionaries that goes around Taipei every weekend to give performances at the various chapels in Taipei. There are a few large group numbers and then some small group ones as well. Sometimes it's a little inconvenient to go to the practices (they take up about three hours of every P-day), but, as I told Sister Briggs yesterday, I LOVE Christmas music. And I love to be able to perform again. And I love to be able to sing, to play violin, and to play violin. And I love that all of the music I'm playing is about Christmas, because that means that it's all about the Savior. So yeah, my life is great. And this week is going to be even BETTER, because we'll be celebrating St. Nicholas Day! I told my companion a little bit about it and at first she thought that I was talking about a tradition in the Netherlands that if you're good you get candy but if you're bad you get stuffed in a burlap sack, kidnapped, and then someone pretends to beat you? Not quite sure how that works.... Anyway, I told her that it was a little different. Unless there's a dark side to St. Nicholas Day that you've never told me about - you'll have to let me know.

 

Speaking of my companion, things are still going great. We've started a lovely tradition for our three-hour weekly planning sessions: accents. A few weeks ago I did Scottish, then the next week was French, and then this week... Southern. I think Southern has probably been my favorite - a long and sometimes grueling planning session is just a lot funnier when you and your companion sound like a couple of rednecks from Alabama. Next week is Scottish again, I think - I'll let you know if we get to "Indian" or anything crazy like that.

 

A couple of funny stories from this week: so last week I went to Neihu on exchanges. Well, while I was there I met this man who I felt totally needed the Gospel (I feel like everyone needs it, but that's beside the point). So I talked to him and he seemed really interested. I asked him if I could ask the male missionaries there in Neihu to contact him, but then I realized that I didn't know their number. So he suggested I write down mine, which I did. Anyway, he seemed really interested in the pamphlet I gave him and said that he'd schedule an appointment, which I said sounded great. Awesome, right? Well, that's only the beginning of the story. I got a call in the middle of Weekly Planning Session from an unknown number, but I normally don't answer during planning. But then they called again, and my companion said, "maybe it's an emergency." So I answered. It turns out it was that guy from Neihu! And he was wondering if I wanted to go out with him on his motorcycle and have some fun. I said, "Excuse me?" Turns out that I had confused the Chinese word "appointment" with "date" (they're almost exactly the same), which apparently I had heartily agreed to. Talk about embarrassing! I had to apologize and assure him that unless he wanted to meet with the missionaries and learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ ("which really will change your life and bring you more happiness!"), then I had nothing to do with him. Poor guy! Definitely was not expecting to turn down dates while being a sister missionary... Great story, though.

 

Another funny story involving a Taiwanese man: I was on the MRT (subway) yesterday and saw this 50-something-year-old man walk in wearing one of those surgical masks (those are super-big here). And then right as I saw him I felt the Spirit really strongly. Totally confusing - "Um, why am I feeling the Spirit right now? I am almost completely positive that this man is not my future spouse." But then the guy took off his mask and said, "Are you Mormons?" Turns out this man was completely inactive and had been baptized years and years ago but hadn't gone back to church in a very long time. We got his information and promised we'd give him a call, and he in turn said that maybe it was time for him to come back to church. A total miracle, and just further proof that God is in charge and that He knows what He's doing when He gives us seemingly random feelings of the Spirit.

 

I guess that leads me to another miracle that we saw last night - the bishop had asked us to go and visit a sister in the ward, so we set up an appointment at her house. Well, turns out her house is on the top of a mountain (seriously, a mountain), so that was fun (my companion didn't completely agree on that one). Anyway, we had a lovely much-needed lesson with her and her family (bishops are so inspired), and then started making our way back. The only problem is that my bike is missing a brake (I tried to get it fixed a couple of weeks ago, but then they didn't have the brake, and then we didn't have time last week to go to the other place farther away), and we were going down a mountain. And plus it was raining, so the road was slick. We definitely knew we would need some prayers, so we said some at the top before we left and then all of the way down. My bike did great - I went down really slowly and carefully, using the brake as much as possible, and it held out really well. Well, then we got the bottom of the mountain and continued biking and guess what? My other brake completely stopped working. Didn't work at all. We had to walk the rest of the way home! But you know what? That brake worked the entire way down the mountain - if it hadn't, I could have been seriously injured. I was so grateful, and we said prayers of gratitude the whole way back. And then guess what else happened? As we were walking home, we met this girl (Sister Briggs was the one who initially started talking to her - so proud of her) who ended up being our new investigator! So if we hadn't been walking, we probably wouldn't have met her since we would have been hurrying home. God is so great. I love Him.

 

Last thing: Lily did have her baptism last week in Sanchong! It was wonderful - she was so happy. I think I captured my favorite "post-baptism" picture yet. :) After she got baptized, she came up to us and said, "I'm finally baptized! I'm finally baptized!" I asked her how it felt and she just shook her head - she was too happy to speak. I'm convinced that moments like that are seriously some of the best in a lifetime.

 

Well family, you're great. Thank you for all of your love, and especially for all of your prayers! As you can see, they're definitely working. I love you all, and have a great week!

 

Love,

Sister Winters

 

Sister Winters - November 19 & 26 Happy birthday, Jacob!

[Editor's note: Bonus week!  I was out of town last week so did not have access to my email lists.  Sorry!  Here are the emails from last week and today.]

Dear family,

 

Hello and happy Thanksgiving week! Sounds like you all are going to have a blast in DC. Have fun and be safe! I'll also be celebrating Thanksgiving all week by not celebrating it on Thursday, but having a Thanksgiving ward activity on Friday (complete with a play of "The First Thanksgiving" done by the missionaries), a fun stake activity on Saturday, and a Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday! I love my life!

 

We saw some great miracles this week. My personal favorite was on last Monday - I wasn't feeling too great, but I prayed desperately that Heavenly Father would help me know which people were prepared to hear the Gospel. Well, we went out finding and as I was biking past these three people waiting at a bus stop, I waved and said hello to them. They looked happy and said "hello!" back, so I biked up a little further, caught up with Sister Briggs, and said we should go back and talk to them. So we did. And they were really willing to listen to what we had to say! There was one girl who was especially interested - her bus came like 3 times but she kept saying for us to keep on teaching her the Gospel and not to worry about it. You know that people are interested when stuff like that happens. Sister Briggs also had her own favorite miracle this week. We had just finished a meeting late on Thursday night, and we only had 10 minutes to get home. Well, it normally takes 15 minutes to get home because of a million and one traffic lights we have between the church and our home (gotta love Taipei). And I'd already promised God in a prayer a few weeks later that we'd never be home late again (we were one minute late two days in a row), so we couldn't really break that promise. So we prayed in our hearts the whole way home, and... we hit every green light except one! And we made it home with two minutes to spare! I was so grateful, but Sister Briggs was practically in shock. In her eyes, this was a huge miracle. Of course, I knew it was a miracle too, but she could not believe that it had only taken us eight minutes to get home. She was so excited about it that night and said, "This is going in my JOURNAL!" So great. Love that greenie fire! That miracle was wonderful, but it also taught me about how I really have come to expect seeing miracles. I didn't really realize that before Sister Briggs was so excited about that one - I thought, "Yeah, of course God gave us a miracle - He always does!" He always does. I love that I've been able to see miracles every day, to know and to expect that yeah, when I do my best, the Lord will totally take care of the rest and do what He needs to do in order to keep His work moving.

 

I also had a great time on exchanges this week. I went to a new place - Jilong! It's a harbor town in the north of Taiwan. One of my old companions served there for six months and I'd always wanted to see it. I'm happy to report that I loved Jilong - the smell of the sea, the food (not to mention the price of the food!), and the environment of being in a harbor town. It kind of made me feel like I was in early 20th century New York City or something. So much fun.

 

Funny story in my English class. I'm teaching the beginner's class, which is basically a bunch of adults who want to learn simple English. Which means that all of the games that I perfected from teaching the younger kids are not as great in this new environment. I mostly teach them a lot of words and then we do some role plays. We also normally play some hangman (or, in my case, guillotine) to help them test their knowledge. Anyway, this past week I taught vocabulary associated with going to the doctor. We got a good list on the board, when someone asked, "Wait, what is 'la duzi' in English?" The Chinese are totally open with talking about la duzi all of the time - Americans, on the other hand, are not as free in talking about la duzi's English equivalent - diarrhea - as are the Chinese. But they didn't know that. So I wrote "diarrhea" on the board and tried not to be too amused/grossed out as I listened to them try and repeat the word over and over again. Then we played guillotine (same concept as hangman, different method) - and someone spelled out _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. Finally they guessed it! Diarrhea. I congratulated them for their spelling skills, but then asked them to try and pronounce it. After a couple minutes of listening to them try, I realized that my motives may have been more than just improving pronunciation and I changed the subject.

 

Alright, family, that is it for this week! Be sure that I'm loving life, loving my mission, and loving the people here in Taiwan. I am loving all of you, too. You all are wonderful and I'm so grateful for your love and support. Keep those prayers coming, and have a great week!

 

Love,

Sister Winters

November 26, 2012

Dear family,

 

Happy start of the Christmas season! I was so happy to hear that your Thanksgiving was fantastic (despite the Washington DC traffic) and that you're all safe and sound. I can say the same thing for me, and also that I've had probably the most interesting Thanksgiving of my life. Unfortunately, I didn't celebrate Thanksgiving on actual Thanksgiving Day. I did, however, celebrate the day after, the day after that, and the day after that. Not bad! The meals that I had to celebrate weren't quite what I was used to - "stinky tofu" (that's really what it's called... and with good reason, too), duck, and pig's feet might not be what one would call a "traditional" Thanksgiving meal. But maybe it's just me. :) The food was really good, though (I didn't touch the pig's feet - I'd learned from past experience), and I can say that I was pleasantly surprised by my first encounter with stinky tofu. And then last night we were invited to dinner by an American family in our ward... I had forgotten just how delicious Thanksgiving dinner can be. Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy... they had it all. Even with pecan pie and ice cream at the end! Yum. And, just so everyone knows just how much I was spoiled, they don't even sell turkey here. The one that they fed us last night was imported from America. If I'd felt at all that God didn't love me before last night, that feeling would have been gone from the wonderfulness of last night's dinner. Mom, you mentioned the Thanksgiving play - it was a hit! Well, I had a good time, at least. I had someone film it, so hopefully you'll get that video soonish. I think the best part was having our ward missionary leader be the turkey. Everyone loved it, got involved, laughed, and had a great time.

 

Last week I reported on going to Jilong - well, this week I got to go somewhere new again... Neihu! It was definitely the most beautiful place in Taipei that I've seen thus far. Rivers, mountains (that kill you when you ride up them)... almost like Taidong! But not quite. :) It was funny - I was showing my exchange companion (Sister Cai) my photo book of my family and me when she looked at a picture of me from the MTC and said, "You look really different from how you did then! Now you just look tired all of the time. Happy, but tired." Couldn't disagree with that, haha. Sister Briggs also had a great time with her companion - a "duanchuan," or member missionary, which meant that she was a little less "Americanized" than some of the other Taiwanese sister missionaries here. Apparently they had all sorts of slightly bizarre conversations about things like how if you eat basil you're more likely to get freckles on your face (the duanchuan couldn't believe it when Sister Briggs said she liked freckles), how if you lift your leg up when lying down and rub it then it'll get skinnier, and all sorts of other little-did-you-know Taiwanese facts. I love Taiwan.

 

Actually, this week I got to go on two exchanges! And one of them wasn't even in my zone! And it was termed an "emergency exchange!" Exciting, right? Let me tell you a little bit more about the background story: we have a wonderful investigator named Lily. She actually loved the English name that we gave her so much that she's permanently changing her Chinese name to the Chinese word for lily - "bai he." She's very sweet. :) Anyway, we called Lily on Monday to see how she was doing and confirm an appointment, but her husband picked up the phone... to tell us about some problems that had been going on in their home. And Lily had moved out. Still in Taipei, but to another place about thirty minutes away from here. Sister Briggs and I were in shock. As soon as we hung up the phone we got on our knees and prayed that Lily was okay and pleaded that she would still come to her temple tour appointment the next day. We didn't have a phone number for her and had virtually no way to get in touch with her... so we just prayed and prayed and prayed. Well, the next day we got over to the chapel next to the temple, and then went upstairs to go set up. When we finished, we started going downstairs and saw a figure with the two temple sisters. I realized it was Lily and started bolting down the stairs saying, "I have prayed so hard for you to come! I have prayed so hard for you to come!" And then gave her a big hug. So did Sister Briggs we were all tearing up and being girls and loving life. It was great. Anyway, total miracle that she came - I can't express how grateful I am that she made it. The Spirit was really strong in her lesson and she left with an even increased desire to get baptized on her original date, December 1st. The only thing was that now she'd moved - I wasn't sure if she'd get baptized here still since the move didn't seem extremely permanent, so I called President Day. He advised me to go on an "emergency exchange" with the Sanchong sisters on a Sunday so that I could introduce Lily to them and to the ward so that we'd have a nice hand-off. So that's what I did yesterday and it went so well - Lily had actually attended that ward before, and some people even remembered her. They're all really excited for her baptism on Saturday. President Day actually gave us permission to go as well, so we're definitely excited, too.

 

The exchange itself also had some other great aspects as well. I got to go on the exchange with Sister Daye, a sister who was with me in the MTC. She's awesome and I really hadn't talked to her very much in almost a year, so it was great to catch up with her. It was almost therapeutic to be with a friend who knew me well and just be able to share with her and then ask her questions about her life and listen - kind of like being with Sister Burton again. :) Another bonus was that yesterday President and Sister Day came to the ward to give talks! I translated the talks during the meeting into English for Sister Day, something that I'd done before. I also stood up with her for her talk and translated it into Chinese for the congregation - something I'd not done before! Well, I'd translated for missionary meetings and such but that was not very public and not nearly as scary. But I prayed and prayed that I'd have the gift of tongues as I translated before I got up and we'll just say that those prayers worked, because the words came out so easily. It was actually rather enjoyable and very satisfying to be able to help the people in that ward hear Sister Day's wonderful talk. Maybe I'll change my major when I get back.... Just kidding. Oh! One other thing - all of the people in the ward mistakenly thought that I was the Days' daughter? I don't know how they got that impression (I do look pretty different and wear a nametag and everything), but I've heard that the Taiwanese think that Americans all look the same. Can't say that I as an American haven't ever felt that way about the Taiwanese, so I guess I shouldn't be too incredulous.

 

As far as other news goes, I'm getting excited to welcome in the Christmas season! I've already put up my advent calendar and stocking (I'm buying candy for the advent calendar at Carrefour today) and we've already started our travelling Christmas choir performances. Our first one went well (besides some random raffles that the ward was having in the middle)! Staying true to Christmas tradition, I am singing, playing violin, and also accompanying a few numbers. :) I really do love it, though. I think my favorites are a violin duet that I'm playing with another sister and then a small vocal trio that I'm accompanying. It's an awesome arrangement - it's "O, Holy Night" but the piano accompaniment part has hints of "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." So great. And the harmonies are amazing, too. Their awesome number makes up for the one(s) that the elders still kind of need to work on - please pray for them! :)

 

I love you all. Thank you for being such a wonderful support to me. Sister Day asked me whether or not my family emailed me every week and then didn't even let me answer and said, "Wait! They send you mail all of the time! I don't need to worry about you!" She's right. Thank you. I love being a missionary! President Day told me that out of the latest batch that got their calls to this mission, 16 out of the 31 were sisters. I was so happy and so excited for them.

 

I'm living the dream! This is what I've wanted to do for almost my whole life and I'm doing it! And loving it. Please keep praying for me this week - I'll be doing the same.

 

Love,

Sister Winters

 

 

Sister Winters - November 12, 2012 Happy birthday, Daniel!

[Editor's note: Get out the tissues first, this is a great one!!]

Dear family,

 

Good morning, America! Thank you for all of the updates - I love you all so very much. It's been a miracle week here in Taipei! Let me tell you about it.

 

Well, first let me tell you about Taipei. I'm in charge of two wards here which meet at completely different times. So I'm at church pretty much all day on Sundays. Dad, I now know that it kind of stinks to be you sometimes... :) But they're great - it's my first time working with wards and not branches, and it's been surprising to see how many people are at church and at meetings and are willing to help. It's also been surprising to see how many people here have been members for a long time - the average here is probably 15 or so years. The average in Taidong and Hualian was much smaller - I found out the day before I got to Taipei that my first convert had already been made the Relief Society President in her branch. Pretty crazy, right? Yes, there are a TON of non-Taiwanese people here. It still is kind of freaking me out. I told my companion that one of the reasons that God sent me here was to help get me accustomed to America before I go home. She looked at me and protested that I wasn't going home for a while yet. I said, "I know, but God knows that the transition from Taiwan to America is going to take a looonnnnggg time. So that's why he sent me here with so much time still left on my mission." It's so Western here - Western people, Western signs, Western food... I haven't had any fried rice for over a week now! And I'm not happy about it! Don't worry, we'll hopefully find someplace tasty soon.

 

As I said last week, Taipei also provides a lot of opportunities to see way more missionaries than I ever did in the Hualian zone. We had a sister missionaries temple tour training meeting (there's a beautiful chapel right next to the temple and the sister missionaries rotate every transfer with giving tours of the chapel - we call them "temple tours"), where I saw pretty much every single sister missionary in the mission. I had a great reunion with Sister Christensen (my MTC companion); she's still just as fashion-savvy as ever - she told me that she went shopping a couple of weeks before that and bought over 700 items for really cheap. Although I'm not quite sure how cheap "really cheap" is when over 700 items were purchased.... I also had a lovely time going to the fireside that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago - Sister Linda Reeves and Sister Mary Cook from the General RS and YW presidencies came over to Taiwan! It was a miracle that I got to go, actually, because we were supposed to have an investigator with us if we wanted to attend. None of our investigators could, so we prayed that we'd find someone who could come with us. Lo and behold, it happened! A wonderful woman named Annie became our new investigator just a few days before she came with us to church on Sunday AND the fireside that night. I was a little worried because church was about the gathering of the 12 tribes of Israel and then the temple in sacrament meeting... And then the first speaker in the fireside talked all about the new online curriculum for youth. Don't get me wrong, it's exciting stuff, but I was just worried that it had nothing at all to do with Annie (she's not married and doesn't have any kids). Thankfully, Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers: the second speaker talked about our love for God and His love for us and acknowledged a few times that she knew there were people who hadn't yet joined the Church and testified of the truthfulness of the Gospel. It was fantastic! But the best part was when I brought Annie up at the end to meet both of these great sisters. I told both of them that it was Annie's first time at church - both of their reactions were great. Sister Cook first said: "That's so wonderful. How did you feel?" Annie replied that she felt very good inside. Then Sister Cook testified of the Gospel's power to change lives and invited her to listen to what we had to say (I especially liked that part). Next it was Sister Reeves' turn. She just cried and then gave Annie a hug then pulled back, looked her straight in the eyes, and said: "This is true. This will bring you so much joy. I am so happy that you are here." There was so much power in her words that Annie just nodded as she started to cry. The Spirit was so strong! I love those women. Afterwards I thought about what I can do so that my words bring as much power and Spirit as their words did. I think it's just bearing my testimony more. And being really personal about it - this is true, it has blessed my life and it will bless yours, etc. I'll keep you all updated.

 

As far as other miracles go, there were a lot. We met or got close to meeting a lot of goals, many of which were much higher than what Sister Briggs was used to. It was a witness to me that goals "reflect the desires of our heart," just like PMG says, and that Heavenly Father supports our righteous desires (D&C 11). We've been trying to work with the members more, which has been good thus far. Still no immediate results quite yet, but I'm sure we'll get there soon. Even if nothing's happened quite yet as far as numbers go, the attitude's definitely different. I didn't really realize it because I've only been here for a week and a half, but Sister Briggs did - after we had our meeting with the ward missionaries and the ward mission leader she said, "Everything's completely changed since you've gotten here." We also started meeting with an unbaptized child of a less-active member, something that President Day invited us to do more a few weeks ago. I feel like his training, as always, was so inspired. It's really helped me here when I haven't quite known what to do.

 

There have also been some miracles that have shown me that God has put me specifically here for specific reasons. For example, we met a girl who rejected us at first but then as I talked to her more I found out that she was from Hualian, a common bound that both of us shared. :) It turns out that she had been to our church before in Hualian a couple of times and thought it was great, but she hasn't had much time since then because she moved to Taipei and then started a busy internship at a hospital. Then she said, "Actually, I have time next week to meet with you. Does Monday night work out alright?" Of course it does! I know that the fact that I'd lived in Hualian before helped her warm up to us and set up a time to meet... tonight! And even though that story's great, there's an even better one that happened this week as well:

 

As most of you know, my brother, Elder Daniel Winters, is now serving in the California Anaheim mission, Chinese-speaking. We were together at the MTC, which was incredible, but since then our connections have been kind of few and far between. Every time they do happen, though, I'm thrilled - there's nothing quite like knowing that someone you love dearly is doing the same soul-saving work as you are. And with Daniel we have the added bonus of serving the same people - we both love the Chinese people and are so grateful we can serve them. Anyway, this past week I had the best connection with Daniel that I've had yet. A while back in July and August he was teaching a girl named Cindy who was Taiwanese but who went to California to live with her member aunt for summer vacation. She liked meeting with the missionaries and learning about the Gospel, but was scared to take the step to be baptized. Daniel kept on working hard but finally accepted that he might not be able to baptize her while she was in California. But then Cindy surprised him by asking him to baptize her the day before she went back to Taiwan. Great story, right? I prayed so hard for a happy ending, and it happened! But then this week the ending got even better. We were supposed to meet with a Sister Cindy Chen, a recent convert, this week. As I chatted with her, I found out that she had lived in California this past summer. When I asked where she said that she had lived in Orange County. I said that my brother lived in that area and asked her if she had ever attended the Irvine branch while she was there. She said, "Oh! I know the Irvine branch! I went there every week while I was in California." I said, "Seriously? Well if you went there this summer, then you've met my brother! Wei Zhanglao!" She said, "Wei Zhanglao? He was my teacher!" Me: "Teacher? What kind of teacher?..." Her: "He taught me the Gospel." Me: "WHAT? WAIT. You're THAT Cindy?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!!?! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!"

 

...It was probably a taste of what Heaven's going to be like, honestly. It was SO COOL teaching the girl that my brother baptized! I reviewed the Restoration of the Gospel with her and thought, "last time she heard this, it was my brother that was teaching her." So so so so cool. So yeah, Daniel taught all of the investigator lessons, and now it's my turn for all of the new member lessons. When things like that happen, it's impossible to think that God doesn't know exactly where we are and put us exactly where we need to be!

 

Speaking of Daniel, happy birthday, Daniel! One of my greatest sources of happiness is to be serving a mission at the same time as you.

 

Okay family, that's it for this week. Do good things and love life! I'll do the same.

 

Love,

Sister Winters

 

Oh wait, one more thing: I love my companion. Sister Briggs is so funny and we have a great time together, as you can see in these pictures. She is in love with all things Asian, so she's already perfected the Asian-style photo. I, on the other hand, am still working on it. Maybe if I stick around then she'll show me her ways...

 

Rebecca Winters - November 5, 2012 The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly

Dear family,

 

Lei hou (Taiwanese) from the big city! No, not NYC - Taipei! That's right, my prediction from last week was correct: I am now serving in two areas (Tianmu and Shilin) located smack dab in the middle of Taipei. I'm not gonna lie - it does feel a little bit like I've come to Taiwan all over again and I'm experiencing a little bit of culture shock. :) But no problem, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" - I just feel like I'm going to need as much strengthening as possible sometimes. :) Anyway, my move is a big enough event that I think that's all I'm going to talk about today. As you can see from the subject of this email, I think I'm going to talk about "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" of Taipei.

 

The Good

 

First of all, I left things off great in Taidong. On Wednesday we had a lot of time to go out and FIND people to teach - nobody really listened on the street, but we followed a lot of promptings and hoped for the best. Because of that, we had a really great feeling of the Spirit the whole day, which was lovely. Plus that night we had the best English class activity yet - a Halloween festival! We had a cakewalk (listened to creepy Mormon Tabernacle Choir music and won a pumpkin Trader Jo-Jo if you pronounced the word you were standing on correctly) and also did a great Trick-or-Treat roleplay. Then we finished it off with some "Shiqing shi zheyang de" ("And it came to pass"), so it was great. But then the best part that finished off the night was meeting with four girls after English class who all became our new investigators and set baptismal dates! I felt like I was leaving Taidong in a good state, and I know I'm leaving Taidong in good hands (Sister Marler's amazing), so I feel very good about that.

 

As far as Taipei goes, I've been pleasantly surprised at how many good things there are about this place. My new companion is a total example of that - Sister Briggs. She was a theatre major at BYU and is about 5'10". :) She's very energetic and sweet (and shows her love by making food for people, a definite bonus), and as long as we don't scare everyone away in this city by our height we're going to make a great pair.

 

The food here is, of course, a definite part of "The Good." Food in Taidong was great (and cheap), but food here is also very good - and there are more options! Plus, they have a Costco here and a member in one of the wards is buying me some muffins and a huge box of goldfish from there today. Life is sweet.

 

The activities. Last night we got to go to a new member fireside - something they have in central Taipei every month. It was great! The Spirit was so strong, and there were so many missionaries there! I saw almost all of my friends from the MTC, sisters whom I had served as their coordinating sister on the east coast, people from old districts and zones, and a bunch of people that I've never met before. It was so much fun. Plus President Day went up to me afterwards and informed me that they're having a Christmas program starting at the end of this month and asked for my help music-wise. So now we have practices every P-day for an hour where I get to see almost all of my friends and practice my violin! As long as that isn't the only reason President moved me here, I'm happy.

 

The last thing, of course, is people. There are so many people here! And I get to share the Gospel with them! I'm still not quite sure how to contact people in such a different environment, but I think that I'm just going to try the same ways that I know and adapt it as best as I can for Taipei. After all, I know that I was moved here to this place for a reason - me, not anyone else - so that makes me feel like my talents and my way of doing things are what this place needs. Obviously I'll need some humility with that too - I'm sure that I'll change while I'm here as well.

 

The Bad

 

I miss Taidong! And it's a little rough being lost all of the time - please keep praying for me!

 

The Ugly

 

Well, there ARE a lot more Americans here... Just kidding. I don't think that Americans are ugly, and neither do the Taiwanese. One perk about moving to a new place is that people aren't used to seeing me so I had a lot of comments from the members about how I'm beautiful and look like a famous model whose name I can't quite recall. But I think she's from Australia? Maybe. Anyway, this place is actually surprisingly beautiful. I've been really impressed with how clean Taipei is. There are millions and millions of people in this city, and yet the Taiwanese are able to make it beautiful. There's a lovely mixture of tall skyscrapers and streets, etc. along with parks and trees and flowers. I'm a big fan.

 

Alright, that is it for this week! I guess it was a little shorter than normal, sorry. But I'm sure there will be lots to tell next week about the transition from a country girl to classy city girl! We'll see how it goes. Thank you for your prayers! Please keep them coming. Pray that I can get used to this area quickly. Pray that we can find prepared people to teach. Pray that we'll keep having the gift of tongues. Pray that I won't get hit by cars. And pray that I see miracles. I know that I will!

 

Have a great week, everyone.

 

Love,

Sister Winters

Sister Winters - October 29, 2012 Farewell to Paradise (does that mean it's "Paradise Lost"?)

[Editor's note: Rebecca had her one-year mark on October 26th!  Hard to believe that she has been out an entire year.  Thank you for following her emails and keeping her in your prayers!  This email is sure to be a favorite...]

Dear family,

 

Zao an! I'm here in Cyberdome for what will probably the last time - that's right, I'm moving! Not positive where yet, but I do know that I'm training a second-transfer missionary. And apparently there's only one sister going home who's training this transfer, so all guesses are that I'm going to her area... in a place called Tianmu, located right in the heart of Taipei. Crazy! It sounds like it'll be the complete opposite of Taidong - really upper-class area, a ton of white people, tons of cars (please pray that I won't die), really western, etc. I think I'm still in denial that I'm going, but if I were to acknowlege it, I'd say that I am so sad to leave Taidong... But I am also excited to be in a completely new place for the last six months of my mission. I was especially excited to hear that I'll probably be there for Christmas - Christmas apparently is not celebrated very much at all in Taiwan in general, but since I'll be moving to such a western place, apparently I'll be able to have a much more Christmasy Christmas. Just another witness that God knows us and knows our needs. :) I am also excited to be able to participate in a lot more mission-wide things: they have all sorts of firesides that frequently go on here that I've never been able to attend before that I can now go to (ex: Sister Mary Cook and the 2nd counselor in the general RS presidency I forgot her name are coming to Taiwan! And for the first time ever, the "Sorry Hualian zone, but you can't come" statement doesn't apply to me).

 

This week we did have Arwen's baptism. It was great - I was so grateful that I was able to see the whole process of finding, teaching, and then baptizing. Well, not the whole process, I guess - she still needs to be retained! But she will. She's so great. :) But anyway, that was such a rewarding way to finish off the week and finish off my time here in Taidong in general. I was pretty disappointed that Tian Jiemei wasn't able to be baptized this past week (she had multiple family members in the hospital and wasn't able to leave them), but you know what? I know that I've helped them to the pathway to eternal life, and that's what matters. Plus Sister Marler's going to help her get baptized next transfer (along with a ton of others) and I trained Sister Marler, so it's practically the same thing, right?

 

We had some other miracles this week, too. Sister Marler and I tried a new contacting method that I'm definitely going to use in the future - it's called "dinner contacting." A lot of people aren't too willing to talk about the Gospel with you right off the bat, so sometimes it's good to use a different topic at the beginning to ease into the Gospel. In dinner contacting, the "different topic" is what the other person's favorite restaurant is. And then after you're done contacting, you go to the restaurant that gets the most votes. :) The place that ended up getting the most votes is one of my own favorite places, Hsuan Hsuan ("shoe-in shoe-in"), a fried rice place. Mmmmm. Anyway, while we were there, one of the workers there came up to us and said that she had met with missionaries before (apparently the reason she stopped was because she couldn't understand what the missionaries were saying! SAD!), and that she would be interested in meeting again. So we set up a time. Well, she became our new investigator! Talk about success, right? A great dinner, AND a great new investigator! I love my life. We also saw a nice tender mercy last night - we have a goal to meet with five active families each week (mission invite), something that's sometimes a little hard for us to do. Anyway, we had tried to set up with a Sister Liu last night, but she told us at church that she wouldn't be at home that time and we couldn't come by. Well, last night we were riding to a potential's house, and on the train tracks we ran into none other than the same Sister Liu that said she wouldn't be home and we couldn't visit her. She was out to "sanbu," or "go on a stroll." We kept riding, and I was a little miffed as I explained to Sister Marler that that member we just saw was the same one who wouldn't set up with us... and all because she was "busy" walking! Then Sister Marler very sensibly asked, "Well, can we just try and meet with her now?" We had already met our goal for new investigators. Members, on the other hand... not yet. So we raced back to Sister Liu and her family and asked to meet with them. They were a little hesitant at first, but then agreed. It was just a great little sign from Heavenly Father that He knew we were trying our hardest to make that goal, so He helped us out.

 

Okay, back to moving, sorry - yesterday was a really interesting experience. Everyone was really sad to see me go (there was one point at church where I had two grandmas sitting on either side of me holding my hands and crying because they didn't want me to leave), and the person playing piano in one of the branches' sacrament meetings played "God Be With You Till We Meet Again" as the postlude. Then we sang it again after we had dinner with the Wang family, one of my favorite families in the area. I don't know, I kept thinking back to almost exactly one year ago when I was having the same sad feelings of leaving... with my own home ward. These people really have become like my family (I call Taidong my "second hometown"), and it does break my heart to be leaving them. Except unlike my home ward when we sang "Till We Meet," I don't know when I'm going to meet these people again - it might really be "at Jesus' feet," just like the song says. That makes me doubly grateful for the chance I've had to be here in the first place, and, in some cases, help them have a chance to receive eternal life "at Jesus' feet." It's been a little embarrassing for me to think of my attitude one year ago and compare it to now - when I left home, I thought I was some kind of noble hero, making a huge sacrifice because God wanted to try my faith and see how I would respond. Now, I'm humbled and profoundly grateful that He was willing to give me such enormous blessings. This work has given me a kind of happiness that I've never felt before, has helped me learn things that I've never learned before, and has helped me meet people that I want to keep in touch with through the eternities. I also thought about how much I've grown just in the eight months since I've been here in Taidong. As I gave my "farewell talk" yesterday, I thought about how it seems like it was only yesterday when I struggled to say my "introduction talk" in what was probably broken Chinese after I first got to Taidong, and yet as I said goodbye to the people, I was able to read (albeit slowly) the Chinese characters for the scriptures I shared. God really does bless His missionaries so much.

 

Well, that is it for this week! I'm going to Sanxiantai today (the place with the bumpy bridge that leads to the cool island), and then will make the most of my three days here in paradise until I go up to Hualian for a quick companion exchange early on Thursday morning, go to the TEMPLE in Taipei on Thursday night, and then go meet my new companion and new area the next day. It's going to be a whirlwind - pray for me! I'll do the same for you as well. I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week.

 

Love,

Sister Winters

 

Sister Winters - October 22, 2012 "Oh, you mean the guy with the moles on his face?"

Dear family,

 

Weird title, I know. I'll explain later. :) Hello! How was this week for all of you? Well, I ask that, but I actually already know the answer - thank you for all of your wonderful emails and for telling me about your lives!

 

I'm doing great. I think I may have confused some of you with when I'm transferring and when the baptismal services will be. I'll find out this week whether or not I'll be transferred (probably will - President hinted something to that effect, unless he was just trying to play some sort of joke on me), and I'll also be helping two people get baptized this week: Arwen and Sister Tian. Please pray for them! You can also keep on praying for Becky - not quite sure what's up with her right now... And Sister Wan, that she'll keep the Word of Wisdom so that she can get baptized before I go (that's what we're aiming for). Arwen and Tian Jiemei will be baptized on my one-year mark on a mission. Can't think of a better way to celebrate!

 

A lot of great things happened this week! Some awesome spiritual and funny experiences. I hope to share most, if not all, of them with you!

 

First, English class. It's been a while since I've talked about English! Probably because I've had mixed feelings about it lately - Sister Marler and I have taught the little kids' class for the past two transfers, and sometimes it is out of control crazy. Lately it's been a little bit better. Anyway, here are some updates:

 

1. There was a kid with hair just like Justin Bieber's who didn't have an English name when he first came in. Of course, I had to name him "Bieber!" Sister Marler and I loved it, but the elders who started teaching Bieber didn't exactly feel the same way... Apparently whenever Bieber meets with the missionaries, he brings in questions about lyrics from Justin Bieber songs, such as: "What's 'Never Say Never' Mean?", etc. Unfortunately for the elders, I have no sympathy for them whatsoever and just view the entire thing as hilarious.

2. Did you know that Dora the Explorer here teaches English to Chinese-speakers, and not Spanish to English-speakers? I kind of want to get permission from President to watch it...

3. Last week I had an amazing idea for the spiritual thought in English class. We put together a Bingo board of phrases from The Book of Mormon (ex: Jerusalem, 'I, Nephi,' "And it came to pass...", brass plates, behold, etc.). So they were supposed to listen as we read out loud from the Book of Mormon and then raise their hands when we said one of the Bingo phrases. It was so great. The kids got so excited and started yelling "And it came to pass! AND IT CAME TO PASS!" over and over again. Even though I was a little deaf by the end of it all, Sister Marler and I were definitely laughing. Hopefully we'll keep those types of games coming.

 

One super-random story: the other day we were outside of 7-11 and we saw this scary-looking man come out with tatoos all over his body. He was carrying a pack of cigarettes with him, which he promptly put in his scooter. The only thing that set this man apart from your ordinary, scary-looking guy was that he had this pink fleece shoulder bag with a little white dog on the inside. And whereas this man was kind of dirty-looking, the dog and his bag were spotless and in pristine condition. It was all I could do to say, "That dog is really cute. And I like your bag." and not laugh my head off.

 

Okay, last funny story. This past week I went up to Hualian for companion exchanges. My companion was a Taiwanese missionary who's in her first transfer. It was a great experience. Now, just to remind some of you, my own trainer was Taiwanese. I remember her telling me one day that I was the "most American" companion she had ever had. I was a little confused and hurt at the time, but I now see what she meant - I hadn't really had any sort of Taiwanese influence at all before that point, so I was the most "un-Taiwanese" companion she'd ever had. Well, this past week I had the "most Taiwanese" companion I've ever had. My companion hadn't really been around Americans up close that much before, and she was always amazed that I could like eating rice and other Taiwanese foods here. Finally I had to tell her that I had been here for nine months already and of course I had gotten used to the food. I think she still might be a little bit in shock that I like it, though. But by far the best and most Taiwanese part of the exchange was when I was explaining an area general authority. I told her his name, what he had spoken on in the past, where he had served a mission, etc. - all of these things to try and help her remember who this general authority was- but she still couldn't place a face to the name. She thought for a moment and said, "Oh! You mean the guy with the moles on his face?" Now it was my turn to stare. I looked at her with wide eyes and said, "Well, I don't know. I'd never noticed." And then she thought for a moment, nodded, and then said, "Yeah, it's the guy with the moles on his face." Such a Taiwanese thing to say! So funny. I loved it. And I LOVE the Taiwanese people. But yeah, I guess you can take this as a hint not to be offended if I say anything that might be construed as offensive in my first few weeks back home.

 

Okay, now onto the spiritual part! You might remember that we were hoping for four baptisms this month. Well, this past week, like all of them had their problems and part of me felt, "Well, I guess we tried, and they used their agency to choose not to get baptized. There's nothing we can do about it." On the day where I started having those thoughts, I just didn't have the Spirit with me as much. I wasn't sure what was wrong, but when I said my prayers that night and spent a lot of time pleading with Heavenly Father to let me know what I was doing wrong so that I could have the Spirit with me more again, I realized that my attitude was wrong. So that next day I told Sister Marler in daily planning, "Sister Marler, we're changing all of our plans!" I told her that before we had felt a spiritual witness that the goals we set were what Jesus Christ wanted us to do. And, conveniently, we had decided that our "theme scripture" for this transfer was going to be Moroni 7:33 - if we have faith, we can do whatsoever thing is expedient in Christ. Well, I knew that it was expedient in Christ for us to hit those goals. So, by golly, we were going to do everything in our power to hit those goals! So we spent that morning biking to Zhiben, a place about 40 minutes away, to meet with Sister Wan. She's had some difficult family situations lately that have made it hard for her to meet with us. Well, anyway, the bike ride was long and tiring (but also gorgeous), and Wan Jiemei was late, so we only had a few minutes. BUT: the Spirit was so strong. I know that she was touched that we had followed the example of the Savior and left the 90 and 9 in Taidong to go after the one in Zhiben. I knew that Heavenly Father was so proud of us and of our decision. And I'm so happy that He was able to use His words in the scriptures and in prayer to get some sense into me, His unworthy and still unprofitable servant. One other cool thing - I was reviewing old talks from the MTC and came across one from Elder Christofferson. He talked about how we'll work really hard on our missions but then look back and realize that the Lord is the one who's done most of the work. That is so true! I'm working hard and trying to focus on the most important things, but still. The Lord is doing practically all of it. It's very humbling, but very reassuring at the same time.

 

Okay, I am way out of time. I love you all! Have an awesome week.

 

Love,

Sister Winters

 

PS: The song "Baby, baby" by Justin Bieber just came on. YES!

Sister Winters - October 15, 2012 Happy birthday, Joseph!

Dear family,

 

First of all, Happy Birthday, Joseph! I'll be celebrating it today in Taiwan and tomorrow for you in America. :) I hope you keep having an awesome time in Utah! I loved the pictures so far - especially of Puppy Skywalker.

 

This week was a good one. We had a few scares with some of our goals this week but Heavenly Father really helped us pull through on a lot of them yesterday; it really was a huge miracle. I think it's so amazing that He is so mindful of even the most seemingly inconsequential things. I'm so grateful for His help in this, His work.

 

So, general conference! Wow, it was so amazing. I totally agree with my brother Daniel, who said it best: "General conference to missionaries is like Twilight to teenage girls." For those of you wondering which language we watched it in, we were with everyone else who were watching it in Chinese, but we had a little table with headphones attached that let us listen to it in English. We totally ate it all up - especially the parts about "ask the missionaries!" and changing the mission age (we were all making peace signs in the back when they said things like that - I know, I'm turning Asian). We invited all of our investigators, recent converts, less-actives, and anyone else we met with in the week before conference to think of a question. I did the same - I wanted to know what things I could do, both now and especially after my mission, to keep spiritually progressing and to become a better disciple of Jesus Christ. Well, I definitely got my answers. It seemed like half of the talks emphasized the importance of praying to see who you can help, listening to the Spirit, and then acting right away to help those in need. I'm glad I can practice doing that now so I can get in the habit of doing that before I get back. I also want to be better about doing my own family history - thankfully I have a grandma on a mission in the Family History Research Center who will be close by when I get home who can help me out. :) I'm so happy that Heavenly Father answered my prayers of what I can do to be better, and I also take comfort from the assurance that there's "no pavilion" between us when we do what's right.

 

One cool moment I had with Becky afterwards: you might not have noticed this, but there was a speaker who said that if you're not exercising faith, repenting, and not baptized yet, do it NOW! Becky's thinking about changing her baptismal date to December, because "it just seems like a good time to make a change." I said: "Becky. If Peter, James, or John came up to you and said for you to get baptized now, would you do it?" She just stared at me and finally stammered, "I don't know, I've never thought of that before." I said, "Well, I'm asking you to think about it now! If one of Jesus Christ's apostles came up to you and told you to get baptized right then, would you do it? This is the exact same thing! These men are called as Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ! They are His spokesmen! These men are just like the apostles talked about in the Bible! It's exactly the same thing!"

 

....Well, you all know the truth now - I sometimes get a little intense as a missionary. As Sister Marler said to me last night (and this had nothing to do with anything I said to her, by the way): "When you feel strongly about something, you aren't afraid to let other people know." Another missionary in my district calls it my "righteous indignation." I'm not sure how I feel about that one.... Anyway, these words didn't necessarily produce an instant change in Becky with the exclamation, "YES! I want to get baptized NOW!!!!!!!!!!", but they did cause her to think about it a little bit. And I hope she's still thinking about it.

 

Now, Mom, you asked about baptisms. Well, our goal for this month was four. We'll see about Becky, so we're hoping now for at least three. That would be so awesome. Anyway, let me tell you about one of the people who's getting baptized this month. Her name's Arwen (so great, right?), or Hou Jiemei. Anyway, I met with Arwen yesterday to go over baptismal questions and make sure everything was good to go. She is so prepared. She gave these awesome answers, such as, "I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior, because I haven't been happier at any time of my life than when I've been trying to follow His example," or "I loved that talk that President Monson gave about helping other people. I know that he is a prophet of God," or, "Yes, I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet, because I know that the Book of Mormon is true. It answers my questions and makes me feel good inside." Wow! Was I really the one lucky enough to teach this girl? In reality, the answers to these questions were totally not taught by me. They were all dependent on her faith and her resolve to act and to go and do what God wanted her to do. I've felt blessed by going and doing what God's wanted me to do as well - both as far as my general testimony is concerned, and also with regards to Arwen specifically: Arwen told me, "I know that God loves me, because when I was at my lowest, and I didn't know what to do, you pulled up next to me on your bike and invited me to church. That is one of the greatest demonstrations of His love for me." Moments like that are ones that you'll remember a whole lifetime. Arwen will be the first person that I found from the beginning, taught, and then baptized. I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father is willing to let me see her spiritual progression to baptism before I go. We also have another sister named Tian Jiemei who's super-amazing that I'll talk more about later. And another person named Wan Jiemei.

 

Time is going by so fast - it's incredible to think that a year ago, I was so stressed and worried about the decision to serve a mission. And now I'm speaking Chinese (sort of), I'm in Taiwan (paradise), and I'm loving the people and experiences here. We're now entering week 4 of the transfer. I'll know at the end of next week whether or not I'm being transferred. Still no feelings on whether or not I'll be moving - it just probably makes sense logically that after 8 months I'll be going somewhere else... Sister Marler is predicting Zhubei (on the northwest coast), so that I'll avoid Taipei my whole mission. We'll see! I love you all so very much. Have an amazing week!

 

Love,

Sister Winters

Sister Winters - October 1, 2012 Moon cakes and pond juice

Editor's note - Rebecca's email from last week was lost in cyberspace.  Just think of this as a bonus week!

Dear everyone,

 

Thank you for all of the lovely birthday wishes! I feel very loved, and very happy, thank you. I also feel a little tired, haha! I'll include a picture that I had Sister Marler took this morning before we went to email with some of the birthday love I received - I have a confession, though: we had to take the picture about three times before I actually opened my eyes big enough that it looked normal. :) I love mission life! One of my friends wrote that today I'm "one year older, and wiser, too - especially wiser." That's so true. Obviously I'm here on a mission to help other people, but I also secretly love that this experience is helping me be better and wiser as well.

 

It was a good week! Really good. Things are going well with our investigators - we're hoping for four baptisms this month. It's going to happen! Pray for it! They probably won't happen until the last two weeks of October, though, so we'll probably have some people get baptized on the same day. Wouldn't that be fun? I'm already excited about it.

 

Dad, you asked about what kind of Chinese holiday was going on this week. Well, just in time, I was already planning on talking a little bit about the Mid-Autumn festival, or the Moon Festival, in Taiwan. It's scheduled according to the lunar calendar so its time changes every year. I wish I could tell you all a great long story of the Chinese tradition that started the Moon Festival, but honestly, I don't really know. I do, however, remember that there's a Sagua episode about it. Sagua was this PBS animation with Chinese cats in it and you can learn Chinese from it, I guess (no, I did not learn any Chinese fromSagua except maybe "Xie xie," or "thank you"). I only remember two things from Sagua: 1) Sagua's dad cat had the voice of Mr. Ratburn, and 2) there was an epsisode about the moon festival with moon cakes in it and I was really fascinated and wanted to try some. Well, imagine my delight when you fast-forward 15 years or so and I got to eat real-life (well, they're not living) moon cakes! So exciting. I want to say that there's some tradition with the moon cakes that there used to be messages in them or something like that to save someone. But apparently the elder sitting a couple computers down from me says that the moon festival celebrates nine sons who were shot down to save some girl. Hmm. My best bet would be to look it up on Wikipedia. It's a little pathetic that someone actually living in Taiwan still doesn't really know the story behind the festival. Oh, well. But, I do know what the Taiwanese do to celebrate! Three words: BBQ. Everyone's out grilling stuff and eating it and moon cakes and other things. My kind of festival, right? We had a branch activity to celebrate last Saturday but they wanted it to be something other than a BBQ. So we turned it into a cook-off. I'm not sure how I lucked out, but the missionaries got to be the judges of the food. We all had our plates piled up as we went first in line. It was pretty awesome. Yesterday we finished off the festival by watching fireworks in the sky as we biked to our next appointment - life is great. So, happy moon festival, everyone.

 

I also need to write about another meal I had this week that was not as good. There's this crazy restaurant next close to the church that all of the missionaries call "Ama's" ("Grandma's") - that is not the name of the restaurant, but there's an ama who looks like she's been about 85 for the last 10 years who owns the restaurant. Hence the name, "Ama's." Anyway, elders since the beginning of having elders in Taidong have loved going to Ama's, because it has tons of food for very cheap. Sisters, on the other hand, have mostly avoided going to Ama's, because of the sketchy atmosphere and the strange almost fake quality of the food that's served there. But there have still been a few times that I've gone. This week was one of those times. A member decided to treat us to lunch there, but then after she paid for our food she took off to go help her son with something. This is where the pond juice comes in. Most of the drinks at Ama's have tea or alcohol in them, except for this green bean juice. I've had some really good green bean juice, actually, but this stuff is very big and green and chunky. So we've affectionately named it "pond juice." Sister Zhang, the one who treated us, decided to buy us two tall glasses of pond juice to top off the weird food we were going to eat - Sister Marler and I exchanged panicked glances, but I don't think she noticed. Anyway, Ama pulled out the pond juice and we got drinking. And I got about a third of the way down when I noticed a mosquito swimming around. Gross. I tried to ask the ama for help, but then I saw what she was doing - using her bare hands to scoop up stuff and put it in drinks, using sketchy-looking dishes that looked like they hadn't been washed in forever, etc. I realized that she might not be my best choice for a sanitation ally. So later when her son came by and asked us if everything was alright, I gratefully explained that I had a mosquito in my drink, so I didn't really want to drink it. Thanks. He said, "Oh, I understand. Well if you can't finish it here, I think you should get it to go, just to make sure you finish it in the end. After all, you don't want to waste it." Wait, what? 'Like mother, like son,' I guess - the fact that there was a parasite who had sucked the blood of who knows how many other specimens floating around in my drink didn't seem to phase him at all. So I sighed and asked to get it to go (he nodded encouragingly)... and we dumped it out when we got to the church.

 

In other news, I'm finally onto learning Chinese characters. The mission has this program where we first learn how to teach all of the missionary lessons, then we learn 2,000+ regular words, then we learn the 2000+ characters that are in the Book of Mormon, then we can do whatever we want. I started the characters thing a few weeks ago and, as I do with all learning programs, am having a love-hate relationship with it. Mostly love. It's super-cool being able to finally read these things and see them on the pages of the things I read and on the signs where I go. The only downside is that in some ways, ignorance really was bliss. Now whenever I see characters (everywhere I go) I automatically try and see how many I know - a little distracting sometimes. But then I snap out of it and keep working. :) One of my investigators asked me how many characters I knew and I said (trying to sound casual and not too proud of myself): "Oh, you know, only like 300 or so." "Oh," she said, sounding disappointed and not-very-impressed. Then I was a little more honest: "It's totally not fair! I only had to learn 26 letters for English! And now there are tens of thousands of characters!" She said that she thought that English is hard, and Chinese was easy. I guess she has a point. Anyway, the point is, I'm still learning and trying to be patient with myself.

 

Miracles this week: there were a lot of great things that happened, and miraculous things too, but nothing that really fits well into story form. Let's just say that Heavenly Father helped us out a lot with meeting our goals and pulled a lot of strings to help investigators come to church, help us get new investigators (three of them were from member referrals!), etc. He loves us and knows us individually.

 

Well everyone, that is it for today. Thank you again for your birthday wishes - I'll try and make today the best 22nd birthday ever and celebrate it by eating lots of great food, going to the Taidong forest park, and eating some more great food. Have an amazing week! I love you!

 

-Sister Winters

Sister Winters - September 24, 2012 I'm a monkey's neighbor

Editor's note:  Please don't forget Rebecca's birthday!  If you email her by 3:00pm MDT next Sunday, September 30th, she will get it on her birthday!  Her email is rebecca.winters@myldsmail.net.  Thank you!!

Dear family,

 

Time is short but the stuff that I want to write is long so we'll see what happens. Thank you for all of the great emails (and birthday stuff) this week! I'm really excited for next Monday. Not quite sure where we'll go yet but I know it'll be a party.

 

This week, like all weeks in missionary work, and its ups and downs. :) But there were some pretty awesome ups, so I'll tell you about those. Number one is there's this mountain behind our apartment that we hike sometimes in the morning - we always go there the first morning after everyone's moved to Taidong and then introduce ourselves and say a dedicatory prayer. Well, I'd heard that monkeys live on that mountain but had never in my almost seven months here seen one. Until last week! We were hiking and then saw two monkeys! Right in our backyard! How cool is that? It was really funny because Sister Marler hadn't seen one since she had been here and someone explained it was all about not hoping to see a monkey... and then you'd see one. Well, he was right! We didn't expect it, and then we saw it. Too fun.

 

Yesterday I got to go to Hualian for their district conference - a church meeting with the church members from Hualian, Yuli, and Taidong. There are two each year, and I was actually in Taidong for the last district conference! Wow. Anyway, I had the opportunity to play violin for the meeting's prelude (some things never change, right?) and look out at everyone. I teared up a little bit as I saw so many people that I love and that I've been so blessed to serve, all sitting in the same room together. I love Taidong and Hualian, and I love the Lord for sending me here. And I love that I've had the opportunity to touch some lives while I've been here. One of my converts in Taidong was sitting next to my convert in Hualian in one of the meetings and she turned around and said, "Wei Jiemei, you're in both of our baptism pictures! Thank you for all that you do." I was so happy, it was hard to contain it! Wow. So great.

 

I asked Sister Marler what she's learned the most this transfer, and she said it's been faith. I feel the same way. I've felt very inadequate - more than usual - this transfer, which has meant that I've felt like I've needed the Lord's help more than ever this transfer. Now, I always need the Lord's help, so I shouldn't have that attitude, but still - I know more than ever what Alma was talking about in Alma 32 when he said that humility had prepared the people for having faith. I've had a few "being ground into the dirt" experiences this transfer, which has made me more ready to have faith and rely on the Lord. So it's really good. :) Anyway, this past week we had a really cool one with Becky. We were trying to help her get baptized next Thursday - probably not going to happen. She had a mood swing and said that she didn't want to get baptized and that she didn't want to go to church and she felt like we were forcing her to do things that she didn't want to do. This was on the day of her baptismal interview. We were already fasting for her and praying with all of our hearts that she would be able to have spiritual experiences to prepare for baptism. I know you were praying too, so I relied on those prayers as I pleaded with Heavenly Father to help Becky. It was interesting to get Becky's call and have it seem like it was all for nothing. After Becky hung up, I turned to PMG pg. 10 and read to Sister Marler: "Remember that people have agency to choose whether to accept your message. Your responsibility is to teach clearly and powerfully so they can make a correct choice. Some may not accept your message even when they have received a spiritual witness that it is true. You will be saddened because you love them and desire their salvation. You should not, however, become discouraged; discouragement will weaken your faith. If you lower your expectations, your effectiveness will decrease, your desire will weaken, and you will have greater difficulty following the Spirit... When you have done your very best, you may still experience disappointments, but you will not be disappointed in yourself. You can feel certain the Lord is pleased when you feel the Spirit working through you." I then looked up and asked, "Do you feel the Spirit?" Sister Marler half-smiled and nodded. I looked at her and gave her a small smile back and said, "I do, too." We decided to keep fasting, even though Becky had given us an obvious answer of NO. But then, that night, we had a miracle. Becky called! She said that she wasn't able to return her tickets to the train station since nobody was there. I asked if there was anything we could do to help, and she said no. I said, "Well... why did you call us, then?" She said she didn't know. I said, "Well, maybe it's a sign that you weren't able to return your tickets." We chatted about it more, and she said that she was sorry for how she had acted, and said that she would think about whether or not she wanted to go the next morning. I knelt by my bed and thanked Heavenly Father for helping Becky change her mind and pleaded with Him to let her go with us to church the next day. Well, it worked. Becky was there at 6:15 the next morning, ready to go on the train to Hualian. And there was such a strong spirit in the meeting. I'm not sure if Becky will get baptized next week, but I AM sure that when we have faith, Heavenly Father will work miracles. And I'm so grateful He's letting me see so many.

 

Okay, I really do need to go, but I know that Heavenly Father loves us so much! I've felt that love for me so much, especially this past year as I've served as a missionary. I'm so grateful I can do His work. Have a wonderful week!

 

Love,

Sister Winters