Sister Winters - September 10, 2012

Dear wonderful, fantastic family,

 

Thank you for your emails (and pictures!) this week! I really can't describe how happy they make me. I'm just sitting here with a big smile on my face because of how awesome you all are. Just in case anyone is interested, "Forever Young," hamster-dance style, was just playing on somebody's computer as I was typing. He has interesting taste in music, I'll give him that.

 

This week was good! Still pretty crazy, but we saw results for our crazy hard work! There were a lot of people at church and we have people that are progressing. I am sure that it's coming from 1) your prayers, and 2) our trying to follow our mission president's advice on how to prioritize. He told us that we should spend about 80% of our time on six or fewer investigators that are really progressing and then 20% on the others. He's also been encouraging us to visit at least five member families each week, which before wasn't a priority at all. So that was a little weird at first, but this week we actually tried to do it, and we saw success because of it! Plus we had some great experiences because of them as well.

 

One of them was with the Lai family. Sister Lai has been a member for a while and two out of her three kids are members, but the youngest (who is eight) hasn't been baptized because her dad, who used to meet with the missionaries, keeps saying that eventually he'll join the church so he can baptize her.

 

...But he still hasn't.

 

So that's where we come in. Sister Lai came up to us and told us that her husband's birthday was coming up, and she asked if we could come with a cake and just randomly show up on the doorstep - and then do some sort of performance. I'll admit that I thought it sounded weird, but I knew that Lai Jiemei really was set on it, so I agreed. But of course with the whole missionary work thing, we forgot about the whole "performance" aspect until the day of the birthday party. So we and the elders got together to practice the afternoon before that evening's performance. Lai Jiemei told me especially that she wanted me to play violin, so I had to make sure I played that. That's great, but that left our district leader on the piano. Okay, that sounds bad - our district leader used to be a piano teacher and he's awesome at the piano, but just wait. Sister Lai suggested we maybe play/sing a few Primary song versions of Happy Birthday, and then the real thing. But the Chinese Children's Songbook only has like one birthday song... and Sister Lai's daughter had already prepared that one. And whereas our District Leader's note-reading skills are excellent, his whole playing-by-ear area needs a little bit of work. So I got into "music teacher mode" as I explained the chord progression to him, played the melody repeatedly with him, and then constantly corrected him as he played (*singing the note* "E-flat and not E-naturallllll"). You get the picture. Well, I think everyone was kind of shocked - it was like they were seeing a whole other side of me, because, well... they were. It was kind of hilarious to me, because I totally know that that side of me exists, but they had had no idea. Anyway, eventually they seemed to get a kick out of it too and had a great time calling out, "F7 chord! F7!" or "Move that D to an E flat!" and stuff like that the rest of the night.

 

But anyway, the rest of that night is what I wanted to talk about. We got to the Lai family's house, cake in hand, and they all seemed really happy to see us. It was crazy - the family and relatives were all there, the dog (whose name is "Fuyin," or "Gospel") was barking like mad, the garbage truck was going by (have I ever mentioned that the garbage trucks here are musical, like ice cream trucks? Everyone hears the little ditty and knows that the garbage truck is coming, so they go outside and bring out their garbage. SO disappointed it isn't ice cream), etc. Really loud. But Brother Lai seemed very gratified we were all there. Apparently the Taiwanese have this tradition before they blow out the candle of their cake that they announce what all of their wishes and dreams for this next year are to everyone. So we sang "Happy Birthday" - complete with violin accompaniment - and then Sister Lai asked me to keep playing as Brother Lai told us all what his wishes are. It was a little awkward for me at first because I had no idea why I was playing a solo while this man was talking, but it ended up being great. Brother Lai said that this year he wanted to quit smoking and get baptized and then baptize his daughter. Everyone was so so so happy. His oldest daughter, Jessica, even started crying because she was so happy. It was a great moment, and we were so happy we could be there for it. Now the elders are starting to teach him, and life is great!

 

One quick story from another member's house. Last night we went to go have dinner and FHE at a member family's house. They were pretty late in getting dinner to us, though, which meant a lot of time playing with their kids and a little bit of time eating and FHEing. Oh, well. Anyway, they have a daughter who's six and is absolutely adorable. She's very smart but sometimes she talks pretty fast in her little high-pitched voice and I have a little trouble understanding her. Last night she said something about "sha zhu" over and over again. I looked confusedly over at our district leader for a translation, and he said (very confidently, I might add): "She kills pigs with rocks."

 

...Wait, WHAT?!

 

Her parents heard Elder Peterson's translation and knew enough English to say, "She's talking about her piggy bank." Apparently when you put coins in your piggy bank, the Chinese phrasology for that is that you kills a pig with rocks. Who knew? Sister Marler and I got a good laugh out of that as we pictured this little innocent six-year-old girl secretly being a terrible pig-killer.

 

Things with Sister Marler are still going great. Something that's become a new bonding tradition for us is to share the dreams we had while we're exercising. Fortunately, I've had some really weird (and some really terrifying) dreams, including but not limited to: a dream where this scary guy kidnapped me and wanted to marry me, a dream about baby Voldemort, a dream about having my own baby without knowing quite how that happened, and a dream about my dad's long-lost evil sister Victorna who throws lego guys into people's drinks while they're drinking them so that their drink spills all over them. Weird, I know. At least we've had stuff to talk about, right?

 

Okay, spiritual time. We're working really, really hard to have Elain and Becky baptized on 9/29. They've been meeting with us for so long, and I think the time has come where they can really work hard to prepare for that date. Please pray for them! And that date! I know that if we have faith, we can do it. This week I've been extra-grateful for this chance to serve. I really do love serving a mission, and I really do love these people that I work with every day. I love the Lord, and I'm grateful for His patience with me. This work is God's work - we really wouldn't have any way to do it without His help. We see His hand in what we do every day. And I'm so happy that you all see His hand in what you're doing as well. I'm so proud of all of the good things you're all doing. Keep working hard and being good! I'll try and do the same, and I'll keep praying for you every day.

 

I love you all! Until next week.

 

Love,

Sister Winters