Sister Winters - December 24, 2012 Merry Christmas!

Dear family,

 

Merry Christmas! Well, I guess for you, Merry Christmas Eve! I'm so happy to be writing to the best family in the world.

 

How are you all doing? Happy? Healthy? I'm so happy to hear that the Christmas program went well - of course, with Sister Dean in charge, it's bound to be that way. I was terrified that the ward wasn't going to have anything remotely Christmasy on Sunday so I went up to the bishop right before the meeting and said, "Bishop, do you have a musical number today? If not, now you do. I'm playing a Christmas song on the piano." He was delighted, so I played. And then it was my turn to be delighted when the primary kids got up after me and sang some Christmas primary songs (in Chinese, of course). It was great, although I did have to keep telling myself that the kids did not remind me of Sarah and Joseph...

 

This week was actually really wonderful. Full of Christmas miracles! :) I'll have to admit that I was a little worried about our proselyting efforts this week since it felt like I was gone half of the time for Christmas performances. My poor companion had to go on so many exchanges as I went to various places around Taipei to perform - she finally asked me one day, "Are we finally going to be able to be companions again tomorrow?" It's nice to know that she likes me. :) Anyway, I was worried that we weren't finding enough new investigators and teaching enough people (new investigators is something that's been pretty rough for the past few weeks), and it wasn't helping that I was out of my area all of the time. But then during one of the performances, one of the narrators changed her script and quoted D&C 25:12 - "For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads."  As soon as she said that I felt a warm feeling inside that helped me realize that even though I wasn't knocking on doors or talking to people on the street as much as I'd like, I was still serving God. I was doing what He wanted me to do. And He really did answer with a blessing upon my head! Well, multiple blessings, and they weren't on my head literally... Let me tell you about them!

 

One of them was Sister Wu. I'd felt like we should really go and knock doors in this one place, so Sister O'Brien and I spent a really short time block going over there to proselyte. Well, turns out that all of the buildings have security guards and it's really tough to get inside. I'd love to say that we somehow miraculously got in and found a family of six who all want to be baptized, but... we didn't. Not yet, anyway. :) We left. And decided that we should probably use our time to contact to the subway that we'd be taking in a few short minutes to go to a performance. Anyway, we were riding and we'd stop occasionally to talk to people. Then I saw this girl with a yellow coat and thought, "I need to go talk to her." Then I biked past and said, "Hello!" This is a test that is normally foolproof in Taipei - if they don't say hello or at least acknowledge you in some way, then normally they aren't interested. But I still felt like I needed to go talk to her. So we did. And we taught her on the street. And she seemsawesome. Like, one of the best investigators I've seen in a long long time. I was so grateful - we have a lot of pretty good investigators but we definitely need some more GREAT ones. And then we got one. But that's not all. Last night we had scheduled Wu Jiemei for an 8:15 pm appointment. And we had a Christmas carolling activity pretty far away. And Wu Jiemei hadn't confirmed - even worse, her phone was off. I started getting worried as the activity was going longer and her phone still wouldn't ring at all - I began to wonder if she really would come, if she really was as great as I thought she was, if she had blocked our phone number, etc.. But we knew what we had to do. After one carolling visit (the first people that we carolled for invited us in and fed us delicious cream puffs, chocolate mousse-filled cakes, and fruits - I could definitely get used to that Christmas tradition), Sister O'Brien and I informed the bishop that we needed to go. At first the group asked us to stay for "at least one more number," but as we told them why we needed to get back, they agreed that our investigator was more important. So we raced back to the church (I have to admit that I was super-impressed with our speed) and made it right at 8:15. And... Wu Jiemei was nowhere in sight. And we called and still no answer. So we waited for about 10 minutes and then agreed that we should probably just go home. So we said a prayer, asked Heavenly Father to help us find prepared people and to continue to bless us, and then headed out. As I was closing the church gate, I looked to my right and saw a girl looking at me rather intently. Then I realized she looked kind of familiar... it was Wu Jiemei! She had come, 15 minutes late! And her phone was out of power, which explained the whole no-answering thing. I can't describe how happy and grateful I was. It was a total Christmas Eve miracle of miracles.

 

Speaking of Wu Jiemeis, I saw my Wu Jiemei (my trainer) randomly this past week. It was so fun to see her! It's crazy that it's been about half a year since I'd seen her last. It's even more crazy to think that I have less time left on my mission than she did when she started training me. Yikes! Okay, onto other miracles...

 

Even with awesome investigator Wu Jiemei, by the time Sunday rolled around we were still two people short for our goal of new investigators. And of course Sunday was the day that I had three performances and my companion was scheduled to go to another area. So we hopefully put "1" in our goal for new investigators in Saturday night's planning, even though we knew we wouldn't have any time. Then Sunday came and I left for my performance and Sister O'Brien left for another area. By the time I got back, though, Sister O'Brien informed me that she had found someone that wanted to hear our message. I had no idea how that had happened - there was no time. But she said that her companion said that she hadn't had much planned and maybe they could do studies or something, and Sister O'Brien boldly suggested that they could go to our own area, go to church there, and then go out and find people to teach. So that's what they did. And then in church, there was a member who said that he had a friend that he wanted the sisters to visit right after church if possible. Boom! Another miracle. And then at my last performance that night (in my own area), one of our investigators brought her son with her and they both met with us afterwards and their son agreed to keep meeting with his mom. Boom! Another miracle. AND, what's more, this mom was a former for years and she had never been inside the church before. But she came to hear me play the violin and loved the whole performance. Boom! Another miracle. AND we found out that her favorite elder who used to come and visit her family is in my same violin studio at BYU and I know him. Boom! Another Christmas miracle.

 

God loves us so much! It's incredible. Okay, I'm running out of time. If I did have time, I'd tell you a story about how someone was looking at my family picture and said that yeah, I look like my mom, but I look a little more like my dad because I have "more meat on [my] face." But she also said it was pretty - go figure. Anyway, but I don't have time to tell that story. Instead, I wanted to share a little bit from what I've been studying in the scriptures lately.

 

This week I've been studying a lot in the book of John - I started last week and I'm trying to finish before the week is out. Anyway, I love John. I read it last Easter and I'm thrilled to be reading it again. This time through I've noticed more about the women that Jesus interacts with and their testimonies of Him. I've always loved the story of the woman of Samaria and how people were converted to the Gospel through Jesus Himself and also through her words of Him - the first sister missionary! And then the testimonies of Mary and Martha when Jesus comes to raise Lazarus from the dead are so powerful. But this time I noticed something new about Jesus' testimony about Himself and the message He bears in John 12:49-50: "For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I sepak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak." Yes, I emphasized the word "commandment." Anyway, when I first read that I thought about how the commandment from the Father was probably the Atonement - that Christ needed to come here to atone for our sins. Because through that commandment of the Atonement, we are able to have life everlasting. But then I noticed that Christ was commanded in what He should say and speak. So He was commanded in His teachings, in His Gospel. So it is in the Gospel as well that we find life everlasting. And that's the same Gospel that I get to share with the people in Taiwan. How amazing is that? Thinking about that added even more insight to this "great and marvelous" message that I'm sharing every day.

 

I'm so happy to be a missionary! I love it. I love my Savior. I know that He lives and loves us. I love you all very much as well and wish you all a merriest of Christmases!

 

Love,

Sister Winters

Sister Winters - December 16, 2012 Good Tidings of Great Joy

Dear family,

 

Dajia hao! It's been a great week in Taipei, Taiwan. Let me tell you all about it!

 

Alright, so on preparation day this past week we got to play laser tag with a bunch of my MTC friends! So much fun. I heard that some of you had a good time looking at my photos from my laser tag trip in November - not sure how I feel about that..... That night I learned how to make zhuabing (a personal favorite Chinese snack) from scratch at a member's house. I think the most fun part was spreading lard on it - lard, real lard! I'd always read about it and thought it sounded so gross, so I think I was kind of secretly delighted when I saw it in real life and got to spread it all over my zhuabing before we cooked them. Oh, I guess we mashed them up before we cooked them and got to see all of the lard oozing out... yum. Anyway, best part of that whole adventure is that we ended up teaching the member's mother, who is currently not a member... But we hope she will be soon! Your prayers would be appreciated in that regard, as always.

 

Actually, there's a specific person who needs prayers, big-time. There's a girl that we're teaching named Rui Yu ("Ray" and a French-vowel "Ooo"). She's super-awesome: only eleven years old, but she loves reading The Book of Mormon and praying. We invited her a couple of visits ago to start repenting in her prayers - when I asked her last time how that was going, she said: "Well, it's good. But I don't repent in every prayer.... I normally say a couple of prayers every day, and I only repent in one of them every day. Is that okay?" So amazing. And then I shared Enos 1:26 with her last visit and asked how she would feel if Jesus Christ said those words to her. She said, "I would feel so happy and grateful if God would welcome me back and loved me like that." The Spirit was so strong as we testified to her that God does love her and does want her back. She has a baptismal goal for the end of this month, but she hasn't come to church at all. Although she's scared of water, she still has a desire to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized (she prayed at the end of one of our lessons on baptism that more people would be able to be baptized so that they could return to God's presence). So why hasn't she come to church? One word - grandma. The grandma hates Christianity and apparently gets really mad any time anything about any church is even mentioned. Now, Rui Yu doesn't need her grandma's permission to be baptized. But she does need her mom's, who is a less-active member who became less-active because her mother-in-law made such a huge fuss about the Church. Sister O'Brien (I'll talk about her in a second) and I have been praying to figure out a way to help her, but we're still kind of at a roadblock. Please pray for us, and please pray for Rui Yu!

 

Alright, next big point in my week: I got a new companion! Sister O'Brien, fresh from the MTC. She's 5'10", happy, energetic, and excited about serving the Lord. She seems amazing and I'm very very excited about training her. We've had a few crazy last couple of days (I'll talk about that in a second) so I haven't been able to talk to her as much as I would have liked, but I figure that we have three months of being together 24/7 so we'll probably get to know each other pretty well. :) She likes reading (especially the classics), hiking, and photography (get ready for good pictures of me!). And she was a law student at University of Washington who was studying microbiology before, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that she's probably got a pretty good brain, too - actually, I know she does, since I saw her taking notes of the words she didn't know during all six hours of church yesterday. Incredible. We found out later that when both of us saw each other at the training meeting that we felt like/hoped that we'd be companions. So I'm confident that God's behind us (as always), especially during these next two transfers! It's going to be incredible.

 

Speaking of the training meeting, we had a transfer meeting after that where we found out who would be with which companion, etc.. At that meeting, we also honored the missionaries who were going home. I knew a lot of them, and I was so close to crying as I realized that after a short 18 weeks (only a semester!), I'd be standing in their shoes. That was a bit of a shock. I also almost cried this past weekend during a few special performances that the missionary choir had. This past weekend the English ward did their own rendition of the Nativity story - it was awesome. The costumes were great, the story was great (read it straight out of the Bible)... they even had a live horse for Mary to ride on! It was a little raw on the emotions though to see it all done in English... Actually, wait. I take that back. I almost cried yesterday when I sang "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" in Chinese, so I guess it's just Christmas (and being a girl).

 

Okay, last miracle for this week: when I was at the transfer meeting, I saw an elder whom I'd served with in Taidong. He told me that a family that I had found while I was there that the elders ended up teaching was baptized! A family! That I found! It made me so so so so so so so incredibly happy. Even though I wasn't the one teaching them when it happened, it was all points for the same team. This is God's work, no doubt about it.

 

Well everyone, that is it for this week. The next time I'll be emailing you will be on Christmas Day, Taiwan time. Next Monday we'll be having an all-day zone meeting full of Christmas activities and fun. So you'll have to wait until next Tuesday until you can hear my "good tidings of great joy." I'm so glad that I don't have to wait for Christmas to share those tidings - that I'm able to spend every day of my life "making these sayings known abroad." I love you all! Until next week.

 

Love,

Sister Winters

 

Sister Winters - December 10, 2012 "And Know Me Better, Man!"

Dear family,

 

Happy Christmas! Thank you for all of your letters from this week. I got the Christmas card and loved it! Everyone looks so great and grown-up... I'm not sure if "grown-up" is necessarily an equivalent to "grown-up," but you know what I mean. I'm doing well - loving the Christmas decorations (I think that Sister Briggs is astounded that I still freak out every time I see Christmas lights on Christmas trees... I've been out here too long), the Christmas music (they play it in McDonalds and in 7-11, so I'm trying to always make our phone calls there so that we can listen), and of course the Christmas spirit. This past week we celebrated by using our service time to make Christmas cookies for less-actives in our area - we used the normal chocolate chip cookie recipe I always use (I had it memorized - so proud of myself. God really does use us for our talents!), except we couldn't find chocolate chips so we cut up Andes mints instead. Totally delicious! I was so happy with how it turned out (see pictures for proof of that fact) - I brought my speakers so that we could blast the Mormon Tabernacle Choir while we did it and even wore the most Christmas-y outfit I could come up with. Mom, you wondered what I've been using for ornaments for our Christmas tree - well, I've been using the little stars from that advent calendar you sent - every day we take one off and then hang it on the tree. It actually looks pretty good - I should take a picture... I also did end up celebrating St. Nicholas Day, and my companion surprised me by putting candy in my shoes as well! But unfortunately I did not take a picture of that one. Maybe I'll just put the candy back in my shoes and then fake it!

 

Taipei's still going fine - I just found out that I'm training again! This'll be my fourth (and fifth, since we train for two transfers) transfer training - after I'm done training this next missionary I'll have trained for one half of my time here in Taiwan. Crazy. I'm excited, though, because training's the best - it's so rewarding to see the transformation that a new missionary undergoes in that first 12-week period. I'll know on Wednesday whether it's Sister Briggs that's moving and I'm staying here, or if I'll be opening up a new area - I heard that they're opening up two new areas in my zone! Stay tuned...

 

I think one of the highlights of this week was when I went on companion exchanges. My companion was Sister Tsai, a member who volunteered to be a "duanchuan," or a full-time missionary for a shorter amount of time (it varies, but she's one for three weeks). It was awesome, and I learned so much from her example. Whenever she would talk to people on the street, she would lovingly touch her nametag on her chest and say, "I'm a missionary. I represent Jesus Christ." It was almost like Nephi when he says, "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people that they might have everlasting life." It was apparent that Sister Tsai knew her calling and knew the meaning of what she was saying. I love being a missionary, but sometimes it's easy to clip on the nametag without thinking about it very much. I'm really grateful that I had her example and her perspective - that being a missionary is amazing, and that this time is so so so so precious. It was also inspiring to hear her conversion story - she'd gotten into a lot of really rough patches before she met the Church. She said that often when bad things would happen, she'd say, "Hey! God! Can you help me out, please? I really need your help." And things would work out. So when she went travelling in France she felt like she should go to a chapel because she was grateful to God... And she found our Church. And she completely changed her life around. Like, completely. When I heard about the changes that she had made it made me inspired to lose myself even more in this wonderful work. If people can change so completely, then I should be able to give myself to God and let Him change me as well! I've been trying to do that and have seen wonderful changes in myself and in my investigators already as I've done so.

 

Oh, one other thing about Sister Tsai - she had a friend who lived in our area, and she (that friend) became our new investigator! Woo! Love those miracles. :)

 

Another miracle: I found out that someone I taught in Taidong got baptized last week! YES! That made me so incredibly happy. There's another area in the Taidong district that hadn't gotten a baptism in like two years that got one yesterday! Woohoo!!! Life is so good. It'll just keep getting better and better when baptisms start happening here as well. :) Keep praying! Oh, and you can also pray that I won't get sick. :) I feel a cold coming in and that probably would not be too great of a start for my new trainee next week...

 

Nothing else too exciting to report, I'm afraid... Today's P-day should be fun - I'm hanging out with a few sisters (and their companions, of course) that were with me in the MTC - we haven't decided if we want to play laser tag or go bowling (I know, so American-sounding, but after over a year stuff like that sounds really fun). Oh! We went to play laser tag a few weeks ago, actually. And they took pictures! They're on a website:photos.lazertreks.com (I went on November 19, 2012). I'm not sure if you can still see them, but my friend had his family print some of the photos and he gave me some of me and they're very funny. And some, yes, are extremely awkward-looking. I've said goodbye to being normal when I get back.....

 

Family, you are wonderful. I love you and I'm so thrilled that I'm part of such an awesome family. I can't wait to talk to you in a few weeks! Enjoy the Christmas season until then...

 

Love,

Sister Winters

Sister Winters - December 3, 2012 A Mountain of a Miracle

Editor's note:

As you write your Christmas cards this year you may consider sending one to Rebecca:

Sister Rebecca Winters

106-42

Taiwan Taipei Mission

4 FL, #24, Lane 183 Chinhua St.

Taipei, Taiwan, ROC

Dear wonderful family,

 

Christmas tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime is heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere! It was delightful to hear about all of the wonderful Christmasy stuff that you all did to bring in the season this past week. I got the advent calendar and Christmas package this past week and I was so excited I was like... well, like a kid on Christmas. I had just been thinking that I wished I had more Christmas decorations - thank you for reading my mind, even thousands of miles away! I love Christmas so much. There's a mall next to where I live and they have all sorts of Christmas decorations on the outside and it just makes me happy every time I pass by. I know that's more of the "worldly" aspect of Christmas, but still. We're getting plenty of the spiritual aspect too as I blast all of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas albums every day and as we still participate in the travelling Christmas choir. Mom, you asked a question about that - sorry, I guess I didn't explain it clearly. In Taipei the assistants have hand-picked about thirty missionaries to participate in "the travelling Christmas choir," which is a choir comprised of missionaries that goes around Taipei every weekend to give performances at the various chapels in Taipei. There are a few large group numbers and then some small group ones as well. Sometimes it's a little inconvenient to go to the practices (they take up about three hours of every P-day), but, as I told Sister Briggs yesterday, I LOVE Christmas music. And I love to be able to perform again. And I love to be able to sing, to play violin, and to play violin. And I love that all of the music I'm playing is about Christmas, because that means that it's all about the Savior. So yeah, my life is great. And this week is going to be even BETTER, because we'll be celebrating St. Nicholas Day! I told my companion a little bit about it and at first she thought that I was talking about a tradition in the Netherlands that if you're good you get candy but if you're bad you get stuffed in a burlap sack, kidnapped, and then someone pretends to beat you? Not quite sure how that works.... Anyway, I told her that it was a little different. Unless there's a dark side to St. Nicholas Day that you've never told me about - you'll have to let me know.

 

Speaking of my companion, things are still going great. We've started a lovely tradition for our three-hour weekly planning sessions: accents. A few weeks ago I did Scottish, then the next week was French, and then this week... Southern. I think Southern has probably been my favorite - a long and sometimes grueling planning session is just a lot funnier when you and your companion sound like a couple of rednecks from Alabama. Next week is Scottish again, I think - I'll let you know if we get to "Indian" or anything crazy like that.

 

A couple of funny stories from this week: so last week I went to Neihu on exchanges. Well, while I was there I met this man who I felt totally needed the Gospel (I feel like everyone needs it, but that's beside the point). So I talked to him and he seemed really interested. I asked him if I could ask the male missionaries there in Neihu to contact him, but then I realized that I didn't know their number. So he suggested I write down mine, which I did. Anyway, he seemed really interested in the pamphlet I gave him and said that he'd schedule an appointment, which I said sounded great. Awesome, right? Well, that's only the beginning of the story. I got a call in the middle of Weekly Planning Session from an unknown number, but I normally don't answer during planning. But then they called again, and my companion said, "maybe it's an emergency." So I answered. It turns out it was that guy from Neihu! And he was wondering if I wanted to go out with him on his motorcycle and have some fun. I said, "Excuse me?" Turns out that I had confused the Chinese word "appointment" with "date" (they're almost exactly the same), which apparently I had heartily agreed to. Talk about embarrassing! I had to apologize and assure him that unless he wanted to meet with the missionaries and learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ ("which really will change your life and bring you more happiness!"), then I had nothing to do with him. Poor guy! Definitely was not expecting to turn down dates while being a sister missionary... Great story, though.

 

Another funny story involving a Taiwanese man: I was on the MRT (subway) yesterday and saw this 50-something-year-old man walk in wearing one of those surgical masks (those are super-big here). And then right as I saw him I felt the Spirit really strongly. Totally confusing - "Um, why am I feeling the Spirit right now? I am almost completely positive that this man is not my future spouse." But then the guy took off his mask and said, "Are you Mormons?" Turns out this man was completely inactive and had been baptized years and years ago but hadn't gone back to church in a very long time. We got his information and promised we'd give him a call, and he in turn said that maybe it was time for him to come back to church. A total miracle, and just further proof that God is in charge and that He knows what He's doing when He gives us seemingly random feelings of the Spirit.

 

I guess that leads me to another miracle that we saw last night - the bishop had asked us to go and visit a sister in the ward, so we set up an appointment at her house. Well, turns out her house is on the top of a mountain (seriously, a mountain), so that was fun (my companion didn't completely agree on that one). Anyway, we had a lovely much-needed lesson with her and her family (bishops are so inspired), and then started making our way back. The only problem is that my bike is missing a brake (I tried to get it fixed a couple of weeks ago, but then they didn't have the brake, and then we didn't have time last week to go to the other place farther away), and we were going down a mountain. And plus it was raining, so the road was slick. We definitely knew we would need some prayers, so we said some at the top before we left and then all of the way down. My bike did great - I went down really slowly and carefully, using the brake as much as possible, and it held out really well. Well, then we got the bottom of the mountain and continued biking and guess what? My other brake completely stopped working. Didn't work at all. We had to walk the rest of the way home! But you know what? That brake worked the entire way down the mountain - if it hadn't, I could have been seriously injured. I was so grateful, and we said prayers of gratitude the whole way back. And then guess what else happened? As we were walking home, we met this girl (Sister Briggs was the one who initially started talking to her - so proud of her) who ended up being our new investigator! So if we hadn't been walking, we probably wouldn't have met her since we would have been hurrying home. God is so great. I love Him.

 

Last thing: Lily did have her baptism last week in Sanchong! It was wonderful - she was so happy. I think I captured my favorite "post-baptism" picture yet. :) After she got baptized, she came up to us and said, "I'm finally baptized! I'm finally baptized!" I asked her how it felt and she just shook her head - she was too happy to speak. I'm convinced that moments like that are seriously some of the best in a lifetime.

 

Well family, you're great. Thank you for all of your love, and especially for all of your prayers! As you can see, they're definitely working. I love you all, and have a great week!

 

Love,

Sister Winters