Dear family,
Hello hello hello and welcome to another transfer here in... "The Promised Land," or Taidong! I feel so incredibly happy to be here again. And I'll probably be here for another transfer after this one, too - my companion (Sister Rosander) is in her last transfer right now, which means that I'll probably be here to help the next missionary know her way around Taidong. That being said, surprises could still happen, so we'll see. We had a lot of success this past week, along with this past transfer - we focused a lot on lessons and peikes (lessons with the support of a member), and we were super-blessed and hit all of our goals. This transfer we'll be focusing on members with a baptismal date! So please pray for us in that regard.
Last Monday I went to one of those "the family HAS to go here" kind of places - we drove out to this bridge (the dragon boat bridge? The 8 hump bridge? Whatever it's called, it has 8 humps on it) that led to this island, where we hiked to the top of it. It was AWESOME. Everyone was like, "it's so hot here!" but I was totally just loving it - I think summer vacations to Disney World have trained me well with being okay with heat/humidity. :) I'll include a few pictures in the email, and I should be making a CD today. Thanks for your patience!
Last English class was pretty fun, too. I've been demoted (or promoted?) to the Beginner's Class (my Chinese needs to be better in order to teach them) for English. At first it was really hard - some people get bored because it's too easy, other's think it's too hard (sound familiar, music majors?), so I needed to find something that would keep everyone interested, on the more "advanced" side of the bell curve! Last week I came up with the answer when I decided to talk about animals. A lot of people knew most of the animals I talked about, but then we kicked it up a notch and played "zoo." Family favorite in the USA, and a huge success here. Everyone loved it. Music (or zoo) saves the day again! It was really fun afterwards in my "spiritual thought time" because our talking about animals allowed me to share a couple of Bible stories that deal with animals (Daniel and the Lion's Den, Jonah in the whale). Unlike the States, where pretty much everyone has some sort of familiarity with Christian background, only one of my students here knew what happened in these stories, so it was totally new. I had a really fun time struggling with my lack of vocabulary for the stories (how in the world do you say "Nineveh" in Chinese?!), and using both really dramatic hand gestures/facial expressions (I know that's really hard for you to imagine) and drawing on the chalkboard to tell it. They were all smiling and even laughing in some parts - and I think they really understood the spiritual significance, too. Doing that has inspired our district to do a SCRIPTURE STORY MOVIE ACTIVITY with the members! We'll get everyone together in groups, give them a scripture story and a little time to practice, and then they'll act it out, record it, and we'll watch it later. :) I'm so excited.
*Author's note: I have also played "Don't Eat Pete!" with my class, and they loved it too. Maybe I'll play "yah!" or some other FHE game next. :)*
And now, the best part of the week: Liang Mama's baptism! She's so incredible - I love her so much! She's been taking care of this 90-something-year-old person who lives really far away this past week, so we hadn't seen her at all - only called. So I had reall missed her. But then we saw her on Saturday for her baptism and we were all so so so happy. I performed solo violin for the first time here in Taidong (I did one of those Jenny Oaks Baker arrangements), so it was nice for me to be able to make friends with my violin again and to work hard on a piece for Liang Mama. She seemed to like it and to be so touched by what everyone said to her. Before the baptismal service started we were just sitting in the chapel with her, listening to prelude music, and she touched her heart and said, "I just feel so good. I feel so happy. Thank you so much for bringing me to this and for helping me feel this way. I'll never forget you two - don't forget about me!" She also said that if she wins the lottery, she'll use the money to come to America and visit us... whoops. :) New Member lesson #1: gambling. Anyway, the Spirit was so strong - once again I was left pondering how no matter how old we are, no matter what our situation is, we need the Gospel (I loved what you shared about that, Aunt Bev - thank you so much!). No matter how old we are, we can feel the Spirit. And no matter how different we might be from another person, we can still form friendships with them that will last forever. I'll always love Liang Mama - she's one of those people that I know that I'll want to keep in touch with for the rest of my life.
I feel so lucky to be here and to form these kind of relationships with people! Heavenly Father is blessing me so much. I'm trying to keep working my best to express my gratitude to Him. I love you all, have a great week!
Love,
Sister Winters
(Sorry, pictures didn't work today!)
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