Sister Winters - November 19 & 26 Happy birthday, Jacob!

[Editor's note: Bonus week!  I was out of town last week so did not have access to my email lists.  Sorry!  Here are the emails from last week and today.]

Dear family,

 

Hello and happy Thanksgiving week! Sounds like you all are going to have a blast in DC. Have fun and be safe! I'll also be celebrating Thanksgiving all week by not celebrating it on Thursday, but having a Thanksgiving ward activity on Friday (complete with a play of "The First Thanksgiving" done by the missionaries), a fun stake activity on Saturday, and a Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday! I love my life!

 

We saw some great miracles this week. My personal favorite was on last Monday - I wasn't feeling too great, but I prayed desperately that Heavenly Father would help me know which people were prepared to hear the Gospel. Well, we went out finding and as I was biking past these three people waiting at a bus stop, I waved and said hello to them. They looked happy and said "hello!" back, so I biked up a little further, caught up with Sister Briggs, and said we should go back and talk to them. So we did. And they were really willing to listen to what we had to say! There was one girl who was especially interested - her bus came like 3 times but she kept saying for us to keep on teaching her the Gospel and not to worry about it. You know that people are interested when stuff like that happens. Sister Briggs also had her own favorite miracle this week. We had just finished a meeting late on Thursday night, and we only had 10 minutes to get home. Well, it normally takes 15 minutes to get home because of a million and one traffic lights we have between the church and our home (gotta love Taipei). And I'd already promised God in a prayer a few weeks later that we'd never be home late again (we were one minute late two days in a row), so we couldn't really break that promise. So we prayed in our hearts the whole way home, and... we hit every green light except one! And we made it home with two minutes to spare! I was so grateful, but Sister Briggs was practically in shock. In her eyes, this was a huge miracle. Of course, I knew it was a miracle too, but she could not believe that it had only taken us eight minutes to get home. She was so excited about it that night and said, "This is going in my JOURNAL!" So great. Love that greenie fire! That miracle was wonderful, but it also taught me about how I really have come to expect seeing miracles. I didn't really realize that before Sister Briggs was so excited about that one - I thought, "Yeah, of course God gave us a miracle - He always does!" He always does. I love that I've been able to see miracles every day, to know and to expect that yeah, when I do my best, the Lord will totally take care of the rest and do what He needs to do in order to keep His work moving.

 

I also had a great time on exchanges this week. I went to a new place - Jilong! It's a harbor town in the north of Taiwan. One of my old companions served there for six months and I'd always wanted to see it. I'm happy to report that I loved Jilong - the smell of the sea, the food (not to mention the price of the food!), and the environment of being in a harbor town. It kind of made me feel like I was in early 20th century New York City or something. So much fun.

 

Funny story in my English class. I'm teaching the beginner's class, which is basically a bunch of adults who want to learn simple English. Which means that all of the games that I perfected from teaching the younger kids are not as great in this new environment. I mostly teach them a lot of words and then we do some role plays. We also normally play some hangman (or, in my case, guillotine) to help them test their knowledge. Anyway, this past week I taught vocabulary associated with going to the doctor. We got a good list on the board, when someone asked, "Wait, what is 'la duzi' in English?" The Chinese are totally open with talking about la duzi all of the time - Americans, on the other hand, are not as free in talking about la duzi's English equivalent - diarrhea - as are the Chinese. But they didn't know that. So I wrote "diarrhea" on the board and tried not to be too amused/grossed out as I listened to them try and repeat the word over and over again. Then we played guillotine (same concept as hangman, different method) - and someone spelled out _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. Finally they guessed it! Diarrhea. I congratulated them for their spelling skills, but then asked them to try and pronounce it. After a couple minutes of listening to them try, I realized that my motives may have been more than just improving pronunciation and I changed the subject.

 

Alright, family, that is it for this week! Be sure that I'm loving life, loving my mission, and loving the people here in Taiwan. I am loving all of you, too. You all are wonderful and I'm so grateful for your love and support. Keep those prayers coming, and have a great week!

 

Love,

Sister Winters

November 26, 2012

Dear family,

 

Happy start of the Christmas season! I was so happy to hear that your Thanksgiving was fantastic (despite the Washington DC traffic) and that you're all safe and sound. I can say the same thing for me, and also that I've had probably the most interesting Thanksgiving of my life. Unfortunately, I didn't celebrate Thanksgiving on actual Thanksgiving Day. I did, however, celebrate the day after, the day after that, and the day after that. Not bad! The meals that I had to celebrate weren't quite what I was used to - "stinky tofu" (that's really what it's called... and with good reason, too), duck, and pig's feet might not be what one would call a "traditional" Thanksgiving meal. But maybe it's just me. :) The food was really good, though (I didn't touch the pig's feet - I'd learned from past experience), and I can say that I was pleasantly surprised by my first encounter with stinky tofu. And then last night we were invited to dinner by an American family in our ward... I had forgotten just how delicious Thanksgiving dinner can be. Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy... they had it all. Even with pecan pie and ice cream at the end! Yum. And, just so everyone knows just how much I was spoiled, they don't even sell turkey here. The one that they fed us last night was imported from America. If I'd felt at all that God didn't love me before last night, that feeling would have been gone from the wonderfulness of last night's dinner. Mom, you mentioned the Thanksgiving play - it was a hit! Well, I had a good time, at least. I had someone film it, so hopefully you'll get that video soonish. I think the best part was having our ward missionary leader be the turkey. Everyone loved it, got involved, laughed, and had a great time.

 

Last week I reported on going to Jilong - well, this week I got to go somewhere new again... Neihu! It was definitely the most beautiful place in Taipei that I've seen thus far. Rivers, mountains (that kill you when you ride up them)... almost like Taidong! But not quite. :) It was funny - I was showing my exchange companion (Sister Cai) my photo book of my family and me when she looked at a picture of me from the MTC and said, "You look really different from how you did then! Now you just look tired all of the time. Happy, but tired." Couldn't disagree with that, haha. Sister Briggs also had a great time with her companion - a "duanchuan," or member missionary, which meant that she was a little less "Americanized" than some of the other Taiwanese sister missionaries here. Apparently they had all sorts of slightly bizarre conversations about things like how if you eat basil you're more likely to get freckles on your face (the duanchuan couldn't believe it when Sister Briggs said she liked freckles), how if you lift your leg up when lying down and rub it then it'll get skinnier, and all sorts of other little-did-you-know Taiwanese facts. I love Taiwan.

 

Actually, this week I got to go on two exchanges! And one of them wasn't even in my zone! And it was termed an "emergency exchange!" Exciting, right? Let me tell you a little bit more about the background story: we have a wonderful investigator named Lily. She actually loved the English name that we gave her so much that she's permanently changing her Chinese name to the Chinese word for lily - "bai he." She's very sweet. :) Anyway, we called Lily on Monday to see how she was doing and confirm an appointment, but her husband picked up the phone... to tell us about some problems that had been going on in their home. And Lily had moved out. Still in Taipei, but to another place about thirty minutes away from here. Sister Briggs and I were in shock. As soon as we hung up the phone we got on our knees and prayed that Lily was okay and pleaded that she would still come to her temple tour appointment the next day. We didn't have a phone number for her and had virtually no way to get in touch with her... so we just prayed and prayed and prayed. Well, the next day we got over to the chapel next to the temple, and then went upstairs to go set up. When we finished, we started going downstairs and saw a figure with the two temple sisters. I realized it was Lily and started bolting down the stairs saying, "I have prayed so hard for you to come! I have prayed so hard for you to come!" And then gave her a big hug. So did Sister Briggs we were all tearing up and being girls and loving life. It was great. Anyway, total miracle that she came - I can't express how grateful I am that she made it. The Spirit was really strong in her lesson and she left with an even increased desire to get baptized on her original date, December 1st. The only thing was that now she'd moved - I wasn't sure if she'd get baptized here still since the move didn't seem extremely permanent, so I called President Day. He advised me to go on an "emergency exchange" with the Sanchong sisters on a Sunday so that I could introduce Lily to them and to the ward so that we'd have a nice hand-off. So that's what I did yesterday and it went so well - Lily had actually attended that ward before, and some people even remembered her. They're all really excited for her baptism on Saturday. President Day actually gave us permission to go as well, so we're definitely excited, too.

 

The exchange itself also had some other great aspects as well. I got to go on the exchange with Sister Daye, a sister who was with me in the MTC. She's awesome and I really hadn't talked to her very much in almost a year, so it was great to catch up with her. It was almost therapeutic to be with a friend who knew me well and just be able to share with her and then ask her questions about her life and listen - kind of like being with Sister Burton again. :) Another bonus was that yesterday President and Sister Day came to the ward to give talks! I translated the talks during the meeting into English for Sister Day, something that I'd done before. I also stood up with her for her talk and translated it into Chinese for the congregation - something I'd not done before! Well, I'd translated for missionary meetings and such but that was not very public and not nearly as scary. But I prayed and prayed that I'd have the gift of tongues as I translated before I got up and we'll just say that those prayers worked, because the words came out so easily. It was actually rather enjoyable and very satisfying to be able to help the people in that ward hear Sister Day's wonderful talk. Maybe I'll change my major when I get back.... Just kidding. Oh! One other thing - all of the people in the ward mistakenly thought that I was the Days' daughter? I don't know how they got that impression (I do look pretty different and wear a nametag and everything), but I've heard that the Taiwanese think that Americans all look the same. Can't say that I as an American haven't ever felt that way about the Taiwanese, so I guess I shouldn't be too incredulous.

 

As far as other news goes, I'm getting excited to welcome in the Christmas season! I've already put up my advent calendar and stocking (I'm buying candy for the advent calendar at Carrefour today) and we've already started our travelling Christmas choir performances. Our first one went well (besides some random raffles that the ward was having in the middle)! Staying true to Christmas tradition, I am singing, playing violin, and also accompanying a few numbers. :) I really do love it, though. I think my favorites are a violin duet that I'm playing with another sister and then a small vocal trio that I'm accompanying. It's an awesome arrangement - it's "O, Holy Night" but the piano accompaniment part has hints of "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." So great. And the harmonies are amazing, too. Their awesome number makes up for the one(s) that the elders still kind of need to work on - please pray for them! :)

 

I love you all. Thank you for being such a wonderful support to me. Sister Day asked me whether or not my family emailed me every week and then didn't even let me answer and said, "Wait! They send you mail all of the time! I don't need to worry about you!" She's right. Thank you. I love being a missionary! President Day told me that out of the latest batch that got their calls to this mission, 16 out of the 31 were sisters. I was so happy and so excited for them.

 

I'm living the dream! This is what I've wanted to do for almost my whole life and I'm doing it! And loving it. Please keep praying for me this week - I'll be doing the same.

 

Love,

Sister Winters

 

 

Sister Winters - November 12, 2012 Happy birthday, Daniel!

[Editor's note: Get out the tissues first, this is a great one!!]

Dear family,

 

Good morning, America! Thank you for all of the updates - I love you all so very much. It's been a miracle week here in Taipei! Let me tell you about it.

 

Well, first let me tell you about Taipei. I'm in charge of two wards here which meet at completely different times. So I'm at church pretty much all day on Sundays. Dad, I now know that it kind of stinks to be you sometimes... :) But they're great - it's my first time working with wards and not branches, and it's been surprising to see how many people are at church and at meetings and are willing to help. It's also been surprising to see how many people here have been members for a long time - the average here is probably 15 or so years. The average in Taidong and Hualian was much smaller - I found out the day before I got to Taipei that my first convert had already been made the Relief Society President in her branch. Pretty crazy, right? Yes, there are a TON of non-Taiwanese people here. It still is kind of freaking me out. I told my companion that one of the reasons that God sent me here was to help get me accustomed to America before I go home. She looked at me and protested that I wasn't going home for a while yet. I said, "I know, but God knows that the transition from Taiwan to America is going to take a looonnnnggg time. So that's why he sent me here with so much time still left on my mission." It's so Western here - Western people, Western signs, Western food... I haven't had any fried rice for over a week now! And I'm not happy about it! Don't worry, we'll hopefully find someplace tasty soon.

 

As I said last week, Taipei also provides a lot of opportunities to see way more missionaries than I ever did in the Hualian zone. We had a sister missionaries temple tour training meeting (there's a beautiful chapel right next to the temple and the sister missionaries rotate every transfer with giving tours of the chapel - we call them "temple tours"), where I saw pretty much every single sister missionary in the mission. I had a great reunion with Sister Christensen (my MTC companion); she's still just as fashion-savvy as ever - she told me that she went shopping a couple of weeks before that and bought over 700 items for really cheap. Although I'm not quite sure how cheap "really cheap" is when over 700 items were purchased.... I also had a lovely time going to the fireside that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago - Sister Linda Reeves and Sister Mary Cook from the General RS and YW presidencies came over to Taiwan! It was a miracle that I got to go, actually, because we were supposed to have an investigator with us if we wanted to attend. None of our investigators could, so we prayed that we'd find someone who could come with us. Lo and behold, it happened! A wonderful woman named Annie became our new investigator just a few days before she came with us to church on Sunday AND the fireside that night. I was a little worried because church was about the gathering of the 12 tribes of Israel and then the temple in sacrament meeting... And then the first speaker in the fireside talked all about the new online curriculum for youth. Don't get me wrong, it's exciting stuff, but I was just worried that it had nothing at all to do with Annie (she's not married and doesn't have any kids). Thankfully, Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers: the second speaker talked about our love for God and His love for us and acknowledged a few times that she knew there were people who hadn't yet joined the Church and testified of the truthfulness of the Gospel. It was fantastic! But the best part was when I brought Annie up at the end to meet both of these great sisters. I told both of them that it was Annie's first time at church - both of their reactions were great. Sister Cook first said: "That's so wonderful. How did you feel?" Annie replied that she felt very good inside. Then Sister Cook testified of the Gospel's power to change lives and invited her to listen to what we had to say (I especially liked that part). Next it was Sister Reeves' turn. She just cried and then gave Annie a hug then pulled back, looked her straight in the eyes, and said: "This is true. This will bring you so much joy. I am so happy that you are here." There was so much power in her words that Annie just nodded as she started to cry. The Spirit was so strong! I love those women. Afterwards I thought about what I can do so that my words bring as much power and Spirit as their words did. I think it's just bearing my testimony more. And being really personal about it - this is true, it has blessed my life and it will bless yours, etc. I'll keep you all updated.

 

As far as other miracles go, there were a lot. We met or got close to meeting a lot of goals, many of which were much higher than what Sister Briggs was used to. It was a witness to me that goals "reflect the desires of our heart," just like PMG says, and that Heavenly Father supports our righteous desires (D&C 11). We've been trying to work with the members more, which has been good thus far. Still no immediate results quite yet, but I'm sure we'll get there soon. Even if nothing's happened quite yet as far as numbers go, the attitude's definitely different. I didn't really realize it because I've only been here for a week and a half, but Sister Briggs did - after we had our meeting with the ward missionaries and the ward mission leader she said, "Everything's completely changed since you've gotten here." We also started meeting with an unbaptized child of a less-active member, something that President Day invited us to do more a few weeks ago. I feel like his training, as always, was so inspired. It's really helped me here when I haven't quite known what to do.

 

There have also been some miracles that have shown me that God has put me specifically here for specific reasons. For example, we met a girl who rejected us at first but then as I talked to her more I found out that she was from Hualian, a common bound that both of us shared. :) It turns out that she had been to our church before in Hualian a couple of times and thought it was great, but she hasn't had much time since then because she moved to Taipei and then started a busy internship at a hospital. Then she said, "Actually, I have time next week to meet with you. Does Monday night work out alright?" Of course it does! I know that the fact that I'd lived in Hualian before helped her warm up to us and set up a time to meet... tonight! And even though that story's great, there's an even better one that happened this week as well:

 

As most of you know, my brother, Elder Daniel Winters, is now serving in the California Anaheim mission, Chinese-speaking. We were together at the MTC, which was incredible, but since then our connections have been kind of few and far between. Every time they do happen, though, I'm thrilled - there's nothing quite like knowing that someone you love dearly is doing the same soul-saving work as you are. And with Daniel we have the added bonus of serving the same people - we both love the Chinese people and are so grateful we can serve them. Anyway, this past week I had the best connection with Daniel that I've had yet. A while back in July and August he was teaching a girl named Cindy who was Taiwanese but who went to California to live with her member aunt for summer vacation. She liked meeting with the missionaries and learning about the Gospel, but was scared to take the step to be baptized. Daniel kept on working hard but finally accepted that he might not be able to baptize her while she was in California. But then Cindy surprised him by asking him to baptize her the day before she went back to Taiwan. Great story, right? I prayed so hard for a happy ending, and it happened! But then this week the ending got even better. We were supposed to meet with a Sister Cindy Chen, a recent convert, this week. As I chatted with her, I found out that she had lived in California this past summer. When I asked where she said that she had lived in Orange County. I said that my brother lived in that area and asked her if she had ever attended the Irvine branch while she was there. She said, "Oh! I know the Irvine branch! I went there every week while I was in California." I said, "Seriously? Well if you went there this summer, then you've met my brother! Wei Zhanglao!" She said, "Wei Zhanglao? He was my teacher!" Me: "Teacher? What kind of teacher?..." Her: "He taught me the Gospel." Me: "WHAT? WAIT. You're THAT Cindy?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!!?! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!"

 

...It was probably a taste of what Heaven's going to be like, honestly. It was SO COOL teaching the girl that my brother baptized! I reviewed the Restoration of the Gospel with her and thought, "last time she heard this, it was my brother that was teaching her." So so so so cool. So yeah, Daniel taught all of the investigator lessons, and now it's my turn for all of the new member lessons. When things like that happen, it's impossible to think that God doesn't know exactly where we are and put us exactly where we need to be!

 

Speaking of Daniel, happy birthday, Daniel! One of my greatest sources of happiness is to be serving a mission at the same time as you.

 

Okay family, that's it for this week. Do good things and love life! I'll do the same.

 

Love,

Sister Winters

 

Oh wait, one more thing: I love my companion. Sister Briggs is so funny and we have a great time together, as you can see in these pictures. She is in love with all things Asian, so she's already perfected the Asian-style photo. I, on the other hand, am still working on it. Maybe if I stick around then she'll show me her ways...

 

Rebecca Winters - November 5, 2012 The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly

Dear family,

 

Lei hou (Taiwanese) from the big city! No, not NYC - Taipei! That's right, my prediction from last week was correct: I am now serving in two areas (Tianmu and Shilin) located smack dab in the middle of Taipei. I'm not gonna lie - it does feel a little bit like I've come to Taiwan all over again and I'm experiencing a little bit of culture shock. :) But no problem, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" - I just feel like I'm going to need as much strengthening as possible sometimes. :) Anyway, my move is a big enough event that I think that's all I'm going to talk about today. As you can see from the subject of this email, I think I'm going to talk about "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" of Taipei.

 

The Good

 

First of all, I left things off great in Taidong. On Wednesday we had a lot of time to go out and FIND people to teach - nobody really listened on the street, but we followed a lot of promptings and hoped for the best. Because of that, we had a really great feeling of the Spirit the whole day, which was lovely. Plus that night we had the best English class activity yet - a Halloween festival! We had a cakewalk (listened to creepy Mormon Tabernacle Choir music and won a pumpkin Trader Jo-Jo if you pronounced the word you were standing on correctly) and also did a great Trick-or-Treat roleplay. Then we finished it off with some "Shiqing shi zheyang de" ("And it came to pass"), so it was great. But then the best part that finished off the night was meeting with four girls after English class who all became our new investigators and set baptismal dates! I felt like I was leaving Taidong in a good state, and I know I'm leaving Taidong in good hands (Sister Marler's amazing), so I feel very good about that.

 

As far as Taipei goes, I've been pleasantly surprised at how many good things there are about this place. My new companion is a total example of that - Sister Briggs. She was a theatre major at BYU and is about 5'10". :) She's very energetic and sweet (and shows her love by making food for people, a definite bonus), and as long as we don't scare everyone away in this city by our height we're going to make a great pair.

 

The food here is, of course, a definite part of "The Good." Food in Taidong was great (and cheap), but food here is also very good - and there are more options! Plus, they have a Costco here and a member in one of the wards is buying me some muffins and a huge box of goldfish from there today. Life is sweet.

 

The activities. Last night we got to go to a new member fireside - something they have in central Taipei every month. It was great! The Spirit was so strong, and there were so many missionaries there! I saw almost all of my friends from the MTC, sisters whom I had served as their coordinating sister on the east coast, people from old districts and zones, and a bunch of people that I've never met before. It was so much fun. Plus President Day went up to me afterwards and informed me that they're having a Christmas program starting at the end of this month and asked for my help music-wise. So now we have practices every P-day for an hour where I get to see almost all of my friends and practice my violin! As long as that isn't the only reason President moved me here, I'm happy.

 

The last thing, of course, is people. There are so many people here! And I get to share the Gospel with them! I'm still not quite sure how to contact people in such a different environment, but I think that I'm just going to try the same ways that I know and adapt it as best as I can for Taipei. After all, I know that I was moved here to this place for a reason - me, not anyone else - so that makes me feel like my talents and my way of doing things are what this place needs. Obviously I'll need some humility with that too - I'm sure that I'll change while I'm here as well.

 

The Bad

 

I miss Taidong! And it's a little rough being lost all of the time - please keep praying for me!

 

The Ugly

 

Well, there ARE a lot more Americans here... Just kidding. I don't think that Americans are ugly, and neither do the Taiwanese. One perk about moving to a new place is that people aren't used to seeing me so I had a lot of comments from the members about how I'm beautiful and look like a famous model whose name I can't quite recall. But I think she's from Australia? Maybe. Anyway, this place is actually surprisingly beautiful. I've been really impressed with how clean Taipei is. There are millions and millions of people in this city, and yet the Taiwanese are able to make it beautiful. There's a lovely mixture of tall skyscrapers and streets, etc. along with parks and trees and flowers. I'm a big fan.

 

Alright, that is it for this week! I guess it was a little shorter than normal, sorry. But I'm sure there will be lots to tell next week about the transition from a country girl to classy city girl! We'll see how it goes. Thank you for your prayers! Please keep them coming. Pray that I can get used to this area quickly. Pray that we can find prepared people to teach. Pray that we'll keep having the gift of tongues. Pray that I won't get hit by cars. And pray that I see miracles. I know that I will!

 

Have a great week, everyone.

 

Love,

Sister Winters