Dear family and friends,
Good morning to me and good evening to you! It's been a wonderful week for me; I hope it's been the same for all of you. :) Thank you for all of the fantastic emails that you sent me! They were great. And THANK YOU FOR THE PACKAGE AND LETTERS!!!!!!!!! They came last Friday, and I felt like I was the happiest person in the world at that moment. :) Please tell Sister Claunch that the chocolate covered potato chips were the BEST - I had completely forgotten that those existed, and how delicious they were. I also got the letters sent from the first week as well as Sarah's letter and pictures. I think they send the mail down here once every two weeks, so it's kind of hit and miss. But anyway, I can't open any letters until P-day, so you'd better believe that I got up at 5 Am this morning and read them. :) Thank you! Please keep sending them occasionally if you want - they're wonderful.
To all of my music friends at BYU, have fun at UMEA this week (or I hope you had fun if you already went)! And if you go to the St. George temple while you're there and see a Sister Warnock or a Sister Chase, tell them Sister Winters says hi. :) I think I'm feeling a little guilty about how little time I'm devoting to violin here - I had a dream that I made it into the concerto competition but my companion scheduled a teaching appointment at the same time as the performance so I couldn't go. Plus I was feeling super-underprepared with my practicing, hahaha.
So, today has had some more fun contacting moments. I stepped it up from the garbage truck and contacted a cement truck this time! I actually had to climb up so I could talk to him through the window - it was pretty much the most fun thing ever. :) I also saw this band in the back of a truck playing music, and I was so excited that I shouted, "Jiayou!" or "Yeah, keep going!" Well, my companion turned around and asked me if I was talking to the band when I said that. I replied in the affirmative - turns out that the people playing music were playing for a FUNERAL PROCESSION. I couldn't stop laughing! So Mom, to answer your question about music here - it's good, I like Chinese music, but sometimes I can't tell what mood it's trying to convey. :) Actually, they often play American music. Right now they're playing dirty rap music and I'm trying really hard just to concentrate on this email - woof.
Okay, so I have another service experience to share. If I ever get in a terrible car accident on the mission and have to be hospitalized, I want to go to the hospital where we do service. The reason being it seems like they have a party every single week! We went a couple of weeks ago and it was a New Year's celebration - this past week it was a birthday party. Well we sang a couple of hymns which was fun and then talked to them - it was great. They really like karaoke there - it was playing the whole two hours we were there. There was this one guy that I LOVED that would always go up and sing. The first one he did was "Silent Night," which was a little interesting. I think my favorite part about it was that he would slide into the notes of "Peee-eeeaaaacccceee" and he was really LOUD. Then he'd finish, get a half-hearted round of applause, say "Thank you!" and then sing another one. :) The movie background for the karaoke was really weird, too - they had a bunch of boats and stuff for Silent Night and then when I looked up later there were a couple of kangaroos fighting and stuff. Of course, the song might have been about fighting kangaroos, but I personally doubt it. There was also this one guy whose name was Joe who kept saying "you're beautiful - I love you." My companion laughed and said: "I think it's funny that that's all the English that he knows," but I corrected her and said that he actually knew a lot more; he was just choosing to say those words because he meant it... Not likely. :)
My looks continue to be a shock to all of Taiwan, though. A car actually stopped on the road as he was passing by to get a better look. I tried to convince myself that it was because of my stunning good looks - it almost worked until I caught sight of my sopping wet reflection in the window of another car. :) Oh, and I've decided my eyes are too big for this country - I got bug number two stuck in there last week, and I've only been here for three weeks! A church member told me it was because my eyes were a different color and the bugs think that my green eyes are actually trees - I've definitely never heard that one before! I'm actually surprised I haven't swallowed any bugs yet, considering how most of my time on my bike is divided between singing and talking to people... I guess it just goes to show you that there always room for improvement!
I don't know if I've told you all this yet, but we give free English class every Wednesday - I teach the advanced class, which is super-fun because it means I can speak English at my normal breathless speed and call it "good practice." :) This past week we played some word games, including the spelling game (shout-out to Jerusalem people who played that!), Hig Pig (a little too complex for them), and "secret" (I think that's what it's called? Again, another Jerusalem bus ride game :)). I always have a lot of interesting people who come, but I think this past week was an all-time record. We have this lady who usually comes named "Su," who asks a TON of questions and is really long-winded. :) Well this week she read the English comics and came back with a whole load o' questions about some of the words, including "Oogah Boogah!" Apparently someone was doing magic and said that phrase - she asked if she said "Oogah Boogah!" in the States if people would naturally know what she was talking about - it was hard not to laugh. Anyway, we also had a newcomer - the Elders' investigator - whose name is Chen. Well, I think he takes down big-time criminals for his job. Like, corrupt government officials and stuff. He has like 5 different names (including an Arabic one in case he's ever sent to the Middle East), probably for different identities that he has for his job. Actually his name isn't even Chen - I don't want to put his real one in this email in case some underground thug sees it and uses it to come find me. Or, even worse, if Chen finds out and then comes after me. Actually, he's really, really nice - I talked about the Spirit and feeling God's love for the spiritual thought afterwards and he had a lot of great insights.
Okay, I'm saving the best news for last in this one. There have been so many MIRACLES this week! There's this investigator we've had who's been coming to church a few times. She's had a baptism date, but we commit them to be baptized on the first visit normally, so that doesn't really mean anything sometimes. Well, she REALLY wants to be baptized on her date (the 25th) and get ready for that! I was SO SO SO happy. Even greater miracle - there's this family we've been teaching whose baptismal dates are for this Saturday. The only thing is that they're a little reluctant to get baptized, since they feel like they haven't gotten a "definite" answer (they have, just haven't learned to recognize it), they're nervous, etc. So we were planning last week for this week, and I asked my companion if we should plan on them getting baptized. She said no because of their attitude about baptism. Well, we were meeting with the mom's niece last week and the whole family (the Lu family) came too. We committed the niece to be baptized, and then asked the Lu family about their baptism date. Well, Sister Lu asked about her baptism interview and wants to have it this week!!!!!! So if everything goes well with the interview tonight, I'll be having my first baptism this Saturday. :) I'm so happy, and I really can't wait! I'll be playing violin for the service. :) The family won't be baptized together - the kids want to be baptized March 31 with their cousin - but I think that the mom will be setting an awesome example for the rest of her family.
Okay, that's it for this week. I'm really happy - I feel so blessed to be here. I was riding my bike to a less-active member's house last week and we were riding past rice fields and mountains and I could see the stars and the moon for the first time since being here and I just thought, "Wow, God must love me a LOT to send me here!" It's so true. Remember that I'm praying for you all, and have a great week.
Love,
Sister Winters
Aunt Bev - I loved your letter! Thank you for your spiritual thought. I'll try and apply that even more in my missionary service. Thank you!
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