[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
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