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| Some fun pictures of Amie's District! |
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Thanks for forwarding me those
pictures. :) Haha I wanted to see them too. It was so crazy to see the Calton's! We were
just giving a tour to this investigator, and I saw them walking towards us and
pretty much just stared for a few seconds because I was so confused and surprised,
it was so fun though! Sister Calton shared a message about faith with the investigator
and everything, it was super fun. It was definitely a great surprise!
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| Amie ran into Brother and Sister Calton when she was giving tours in the building next to the Taipei Temple. Sister Calton, pictured here, was one of Amie's Young Women Presidents in Shanghai, and they still live there! Fun surprise! |
Thank you for all the cards! Hahah it was such a nice surprise to have so much mail last Monday when we checked :) I loved it. And then Saturday some sisters checked our mail for us and I had the last one, with the super cute owl stickers! Haha, I love them. Thank you for all the mail :) It makes me really happy, haha.
Well, this week’s been good! It was
weird this week, the first half of the week actually seemed to last longer than
the second half this time. Normally it's the other way around! But it's been
good! Sister Edwards and I were talking last night and it was actually
full of miracles too, so it's been really cool.
I think one of the coolest things
is that we hit almost all of our goals for this week! We even got 4 new
investigators, and had 7 lessons with a member present (which hardly ever
happens, it's really hard to find members sometimes). Last Monday night was
especially cool. Monday nights are always a little hard, because we're still in
the P-day mood, and it's just a little hard to get back in the work, but we
went out contacting, and we only had about 20 minutes because we were meeting
with a member, but in that 20 minutes we found an amazing new investigator! It
happened so fast. We're meeting with her tomorrow I think, so I'll keep you
updated. It's always a miracle to find a new investigator, and she was so nice
and willing, it was awesome. I feel like little things like that happen all the
time lately. It's really nice, haha.
I also went on exchanges again this
week! This time it was with the Sister Training Leaders. It's always kind of fun to go to new
areas, and be with different missionaries to see how they do things. It really
kind of just made me grateful for where I am. TuCheng had absolutely NO hills!
And this might sound crazy, but I actually missed the ridiculously steep, long
hills in DanShui. Haha, I like biking up the hills. It's funny, exchanges are
great but it is nice when you can just go home back to your area and your
companion. Another little funny note, the only backpack I could find (since I
didn't bring one) was a full on American flag one, so that was interesting. And
I had to carry my stuff with me the entire time we were outside, because we
never had any time to drop it off anywhere, so contacting people with all my
stuff probably looked so weird. But it was fun :) (she
told me that she just found that flag backpack in the apt., haha)
Wednesday night at English class was
also SO FUN! Haha, we didn't teach English at all because it was the last week
in the transfer, so on the last week you just do an activity/game type thing,
and since Thanksgiving is coming up, we had it all Thanksgiving themed. We made
little hand paper turkeys, and had tons of fun with the students, and then made
cookies. And those were SO good. Oh my gosh I love cookies, haha. Don't get me
wrong, the food here is amazing, but they don't really have just normal
chocolate chip cookies all that often. All the kids loved it too I think. We
took some fun pictures too, so I'll get those to you soon too.
Another little miracle was lunch one
day. So, practically everyone had cancelled on us, so we were a little
apprehensive for the long day ahead of us, so we decided to eat Italian food
and there was a guy from Haiti
sitting in there who asked us to sit with him, and we ended up having a lesson
and giving his number to the Elders. Turns out he's talked to the missionaries
before, but then the missionary he was meeting with moved, and something
happened and he hasn't met with them since, but he's read the Book of Mormon at
least once all the way thru, and seemed really sincere about meeting with the Elders.
He's just here studying computer engineering, speaks English, Chinese, and then
French, and was really nice! It was fun.
However, it kind of made me realize
that the better my Chinese gets, the worse my English gets! Haha, it's fine
when I'm not trying to think of things to say, for example just in normal every
day conversations. But when we do lessons in English (which gratefully doesn't
happen all that often) it is SO hard for me! I start switching back into
Chinese without even realizing it. It's ridiculous, haha, so don't be alarmed
if I get back and seem to not be able to speak English at all.
I've also gotten better at talking
to more people. I actually talked to this one girl on the MRT one day by
myself, and she was so cute! Just visiting friends and everything. Every time I
do make an effort to talk to everyone, it's a great experience, so I just need
to make it more of a habit now. People are so nice, and generally they'll talk
to you no matter what. And even if they aren't interested, you can just give
them a little pamphlet, haha, it's fun.
Our investigators are continuing
really well too! We had both B and A at church again! And they both
stayed for all of it! It was amazing. And then, Sister Edwards and I split up
and got with 2 members, and taught them both. So I taught A, with Yang Jie
Mei (the Bishop's wife, she's great), and Sister Edwards taught B with Chu
Jei Mei, and it went really well actually! I was a little nervous, to be the
only missionary in there, but it went really good! Yang Jie Mei helped me with some
things, like the commandment about not taking the Lord's name in vain, but I
did it! Haha, I was excited.
And A is still just doing
amazing. At English Class, we were writing the things on the Turkey's feathers
that we're grateful for, and she put Qiao Jei Mei and Du Jei Mei! (Amie and her companions names) Haha, it was
so cute! She also put that she's grateful she can come to church and meet lots
of new people. She really is great. She's already in 2 Nephi too. Sister
Edwards and I always talk about how we're so lucky to be able to teach her.
She's just 19, but she really is amazing. She's set for December 20 :) She's
also writing us Christmas cards! Haha, she was all stressed yesterday at church
because her English isn't good enough to write them, but we can 'kan de dong' (read and understand) the Chinese. She knows that I know characters, so I finally said to write
what she can in English, and the rest in Chinese. Or just all in Chinese, we'll
figure it out. She was so worried about it, it was cute. She also said last
week that she had to tell her friends she couldn't go out with them because she
had to wake up for church the next morning! Haha, how awesome is that?
We also had an awesome contacting
miracle last night too. We only had about 30 minutes, but we met this girl
originally from Taizhong who’s studying at Dan Jiang University, and we set up
with her for Friday! She was super cute too. Just really nice. She had a lot of
stuff with her, so we helped carry it back to her dorm, and she was just super
cute! It was great.
So yeah, this week really has been
full of miracles. And I've already been here 6 weeks! I'm already on my second
transfer! (she didn’t transfer, just the second
transfer time period) That is so weird to me! I feel so new still! But
at the same time, I don't because I feel like I'm finally really just adjusting
and getting into the swing of the schedule, and I know what's happening around
me.
It was nice though, during Weekly
Planning Session this week, Sister Edwards said one of my strengths was the
ability to be happy. And how when I'm not happy, I notice, and I change. She
said it's one of my strengths to be able to decide to be happy, and make it
happen, so that was really cool to hear. I've never really thought about that
before. She said as my companion, she's really grateful for it, haha.
We also had Mango shaved ice for
dinner one night, because we weren't hungry at all, and it was SO GOOD.
Probably the best desert I've had since being here.
And church was awesome yesterday! We
got so many set-ups! I've started to go up to sisters on my own and just
schedule times, and I know enough people at church that it actually feels like
home, haha, it's really fun :)
So yeah! This week's been awesome!
Well, I wrote you guys a letter last
week, but realized I forgot to write down your new address, so I'll send it either
today or tomorrow. I can just get your address from the cards you've sent me
now :)
Tell everyone hi for me, and Happy Thanksgiving!
I love you! I'll send pictures
later, the USB on this computer isn't working, so I'm going to finish emailing
and then try to switch.
Love and miss you!
-Qiao Jei Mei
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| The view from Amie's apartment |
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| So thankful for the reflective vests they wear at night! :) |
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