Dear family,
Good morning! I will first send out a disclaimer and say that I'm really tired this morning, so please don't hold me responsible for my actions if I write something really bizarre.
This week has been wonderful - a lot of improvement in different areas. But for some reason, I think there are fewer stories to share than I did last week. At least that's what it's seeming like to me now - I'll probably end up writing as long an email as I normally do.
So first things first, last P-day was great. We went to Yangmingshan (look it up), a mountain in my area here. My companion was very patient with me as I mixed up what bus we needed to take there (we ended up getting out a little late), but we still were able to take some nice pictures and just relax as we left the city. No, I am not going to pick up a tent and permanently live in the woods when I get home, but yes, I know that sometimes the city life gets a little old here. Thankfully the city here is still beautiful and so interesting. Anyway, I found this cool nature reserve park close by so we might hit that up today.... if we have time. Why wouldn't we have time, you ask? Well, this sister missionary is passing off her last mission language test - phase 3. I have to have a meeting with the mission president - he opens up a Chinese copy of the Book of Mormon and then says, "Read." And then I have to read everything. I've been reading in characters for a while now, but I've been a little terrified to do it in front of my mission president. Thankfully our mission president is about as terrifying as a small kitten, so I think I'll live. Your prayers would still be welcomed and appreciated, though. :)
Some of you might be wondering how my "rescue" plans went last week. Still no news on Cindy (her mom said that she'd probably come to church, but still nothing) - please keep her in your prayers! There is another girl, though, who we're hoping to bring back into full activity. Rosie. She's been inactive for years now - which means it's extra-hard for her to come back. But we met with her a couple of times last week and she seemed to really appreciate it. When we asked if there was anything we could do to help her, she said, "I just want to spend more time with the two of you!" She said she's very willing to peike (help teach lessons), so hopefully we'll see some progress soon.
There has also been a lot of "no progress" with some of our investigators. I think the best example we had was when I asked one of them if she could come to church on Sunday. She said, "Well, you know, if I have time."
Me: "Well, do you have anything going on on Sunday?"
Her: "...No, not yet. But, you know, something could happen."
Me: "So what you're basically saying is that we're your lowest priority."
Her: "Yeah, you could say that."
Kind of sad. But also pretty funny as far as stories go. Don't worry - I'll do my best to help her examine her priorities. Wish me luck!
I also had a very funny/very terrifying experience yesterday at church. A senior missionary and his wife were in our sacrament meeting - the senior missionary spoke Chinese, but his wife didn't. This means that I got to do double duty with translating - translating into Chinese for her talk, and translating into English for when everyone else was speaking. Anyway, when her husband was speaking and talking about his experience as a young missionary in Taiwan, I thought that he made a joke and said: "Since we were such naughty/misbehaved young men, we didn't get any senior companions to help us when we got to Taiwan." I actually didn't understand the word he said to describe what kind of missionaries they were - I only understood half of it: "pi," which means "naughty," or "misbehaved" or "loves play and not to work." Chinese normally has two Chinese syllables with pretty much the same meaning to form a word, so I thought I could rightly assume that the unknown word he said meant "misbehaved." So I said it in my translation to his wife. Let's just say that his wife (and rightly so) was not very happy that I had said that her husband was a misbehaved missionary when he was young - she was quite the contrary, in fact. She told me very forcefully that I must have heard wrong and that I should not say anything like that in the future. I learned my lesson well: next time someone asks me to translate for them, politely refuse.
Just kidding.
Last but not least - I really do love the members here. We had the privilege to meet with a lot of members this past week, and they're awesome. Willing to help (and feed us!), and they're very sweet. Yesterday I was touched as a member shared his experience with another girl in the ward, "Candy." Candy is six years old and has been struggling with cancer since before I got here. This man shared some experiences of Candy as she was getting near the end. He told us that she had never complained, that she was just grateful that she had loved ones near her. There was a side effect of one of the medecines that she took that took away her eyesight, but she wasn't upset. She was grateful that she could still taste and smell and hear. In this last week of her life, she asked her family to take her to Yangmingshan. The flowers were in bloom, so her parents would hold up a flower close to her face and let her smell it. Candy also expressed a desire to go to the temple. Although she couldn't see it, she could hear the fountain close by and knew by that sound and by the feelings she had that she was near. She told her parents that she wanted to go back to live with Heavenly Father - they said, "alright, Candy. Save us a spot and we'll be there soon." Apparently yesterday was going to be one of her last. She told her parents, "I'm going back! Give me five, and then I'll be off! 3-2-1... launch!" And then she went to sleep. Hearing about Candy and what she wanted to do and what she talked about as she was close to death made me think about what I hold dear. One of the many blessings of being a missionary is that I've been able to see what's really important in life. My mom told me that one of the biggest changes her mission brought was that before her mission, she wondered how she could fit the Gospel in her life. After her mission, she instead asked herself: "How can I fit my life inside the Gospel?" I know that that change has happened in me as I've served, too.
Alright, everyone! I love you. I'm so grateful for each of you. Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Sister Winters
No comments:
Post a Comment