[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
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