Hello! Today was like a combination of Christmas and my birthday - I had a ton of letters built up from the last month. :) Thank you thank you thank you! I've still been loving life lately - the work moves on, and I love to help move it along! This past weekend we had a baptism - Yang Hui Ru. I actually met her when I came out here on exchanges while I was in Hualian, so I've known her for a looonnnggg time. She's so great - her life has changed so much from the gospel. That's what happens when we're truly converted (Dad, I loved your thoughts on that)!
So, I realized this week that on my mission, I've experienced a lot of "firsts." For example, my first time eating dried pig's blood, or, if you want to count an experience that happened last night, my first time that I saw an intoxicated lady who had fallen down on the side of the road and as I helped her up, she started crying uncontrollably and gave me a huge hug as she sobbed into my shoulder. This past weekend had another first: I won a basketball tournament. This also implies yet another first: I was actually good at basketball.
To explain: the branches in Taitung had an activity on Saturday morning - a basketball tournament. It was at 9 in the morning so in order for us to be able to go, we needed to wake up super-early to get our studies done. Plus we needed to have an investigator there. Now, those of you who know me and have had the misfortune of seeing me play basketball know that I am probably mediocre at best. Which is a bummer because I'm very tall, and everyone who meets me lets me know that someone as tall as me should be good at basketball. When I was younger I would play church ball to help out our team, but that was pretty much it. Until the mission - we play sports with the elders for exercise in the morning pretty much every day, and their favorite sport is (you guessed it) basketball. So I've had many many experiences for me to "make [this] weakness strong" in Taidong thus far. :) This past weekend I put it to the test at the basketball tournament. My companion is really really good, so I was excited to be on the same team as her this time. Then we just found another random member and teamed up with her. Our team name was "la la dui," or "the cheerleaders" - NOT a name I would have picked for myself. It was actually really fun though. Well, more like funny - everyone was terrified of me. Sometimes I would just go up to people and they would literally shriek and run away. Wow. That was a first for me, too. I tried squatting to make it a little more fair, but my arms were just too darn long not to catch the passes that were thrown to me. My companion was having a great time, too - she's so used to having a giant in front of her all the time guarding her that you could see it was an absolute delight to have Taiwanese women the same height as her [trying] to guard her.
One thing that was funny about the tournament is that I really couldn't understand the directions they were giving me - my vocabulary is mostly centered on church-related words, so basketball kind of goes over my head. I had the same experience when we were practicing with the branch choir a couple of days ago - couldn't understand anything. But there was still some constancy - the choir director kept on gesturing to her diaphragm and making these hand signals that meant "spin the air." :) Or even though the vowels we were singing were completely different than those we would sing in America and were not very beautiful at least to my ears, the personality of the choir director was pretty much exactly the same as some of the choir directors I've had in the States. :) It was very amusing to me - it just goes to show you that the Church really is the same everywhere - even down to the minor details such as the personality of choir directors!
I have some questions that I need to answer:
What did you do for service this week? We helped a family move in - they moved into a super-old house that hasn't been used for a while, so we helped them clean and paint a little bit. They're awesome - they have two boys who are 10 and 16. They're like Chinese versions of Joseph and Jacob, it's crazy.
How are your investigators progressing? They're coming along. We didn't have as many as we wanted who came to church last week, so please continue to keep them in your prayers in that regard.
Any more baptismal dates set? Every week!
Any awesome contacting stories? See the miracle below.
Are you eating well? Trying to. Actually, a lot of the food here is very healthy, so it's pretty good most of the time. And Sister Rosander is a vegetarian, so I'm eating a lot of vegetables. :) I've gained a little weight since being here but I'm pretty sure it's muscle... At least I think so.
Are you exercising? See the basketball story above. :)
Are you feeling led by the spirit each day? I think I'm safe in saying "yes." Whether it's in contacting and feeling like I should talk to a specific person or it's when I'm teaching and I feel prompted to say something, the Spirit is helping me (more like leading me) in my efforts every day.
Any fun zone conferences or p-day trips that I should know about? We have a special training meeting this week in Hualian - there's an area seventy (I think) who's coming down.
Are you happy and finding joy each day? What do you think? :) Of course I am! Heavenly Father's so good to me - it's impossible to feel otherwise.
Are you finding ways to manage the frustration of rejection and general discouragement of missionary work? Same answer as to the last question. :)
As far as miracles of this week go, there have been a lot. :) But I want to share one of them from yesterday. Yesterday we needed a lot of lessons to reach our goals. And I didn't start the day of with the best feelings in my heart because I was a little grumpy that we needed to be at the church at 7:30 in order to practice with the choir, whereas their church didn't start until 9:30. Count getting studies done into that time and you can see that that required getting up rather early. Well, wouldn't you have it, a little girl named Eva was there at church waiting for us when we got there. She had gone to English class before, and just randomly decided that she wanted to come to our church service that day. We said we could give her a tour of the chapel really quick (a lesson) - as we did so, I asked her why she decided to come. She hesitantly replied that she had been reading the Bible and wanted to come to learn about Christ. The Bible was her mother's, and her mother wasn't even a Christian (Eva said that she thought her mom "just bought it for fun"). We gave her the first lesson booklet to read after our lesson while we had choir practice - I watched her from time to time, and she was completely engrossed. Wow. Talk about a miracle! It really showed me that when we try and put in our best effort, Heavenly Father really does place prepared people in our path.
The Gospel is true! I love sharing it with everyone. I'll continue to keep you all in my prayers - I love you so very much.
Love,
Sister Winters
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