MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

Wow, as the year has wound down, it's felt like everything has been counting down to the end of my mission. Life still feels more or less the same though, so it's really hard to believe that I'm actually leaving, and this is my last email. Since I'm not going to get another chance to share with you all as a missionary, I want to share with you the testimony I've gained on my mission.

As a missionary, I've learned to trust in God's miracles. When I first came out, I had a rather dumb mindset towards missionary work. I decided I already had faith, so I didn't need to see miracles, and I was just fine with working hard and toughing it out if that's what God wanted me to do. I guess I was trying to brace myself for disappointment or something. I've since learned that that was a really dumb way to go about things. Missions are going to be hard no matter what, but what I didn't know then was that when Heavenly Father's involved, even hard and disappointing times can still be joyful. What's more, if we have faith, we have His promise that we will see miracles (See 2 Nephi 27:23). I can say without a doubt that serving a mission has been the hardest thing I have ever done. It's a constant battle to measure up and be the kind of missionary the Lord wants you to be. It's often discouraging. But in the midst of all that, I've seen miracles. I've lain awake at night unable to fall asleep because I am marveling at the perfection of Heavenly Father's plan for us. I've watched people's eyes light up as the gospel fills a part of them they didn't know was empty. I've stood in awe as Heavenly Father has revealed a solution to a problem we didn't think could be overcome. I've knelt in prayer and felt a love so strong I didn't want to stop praying, even long after all my words had been used up. 

Before I came on a mission, I had to choose a scripture to be put on my missionary plaque. I chose Doctrine and Covenants 123:17:   

"Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed."

When I came out, I had hope that this scripture was true. I clung to it as assurance that I would see the salvation of God on my mission. Now, it has been proven to me. I know without a doubt that God is aware of us, and we can trust Him in everything.

I'm so grateful I've been able to share this mission experience with all of you. Thank you for your love and support! See you in the new year!

Love,

Sister Sofi Hull

Pics: 

1. Our ward had a Christmas party, and it was amazing! There was so. much. food. 

2. We had Zone conference this week, and 4 of my companions were there! It was so much fun to be surrounded by people I love so much.

3. We made oreo truffles for the ward Christmas party. A lot of the Taiwanese people thought they were way too sweet, but I thought they were delicious!

4. There is a corgi who lives in our apartment building, and he is our best friend. His name is Hanji, which means sweet potato in Taiwanese. 

The Second to Last Email You'll Ever Get From Me as a Missionary

Hi Everyone!

Friday I hit a very important milestone: I have officially been on a mission for 18 months. That day we had several hours without any appointments, so we felt like we should bike out to this little town on the edge of our area nestled up against the mountains. The hour bike ride was beautiful, through rice fields and little forest-y areas. Of course, we had to stop and take a picture.

When we got to the little town, we ate dinner and then we only had about 20 minutes to contact before we had to head back to make it back to an appointment in Xinying. We were really excited, because we felt like we had really been prompted to come to this town. Our first contact was amazingly awkward. Our second contact was too busy playing Pokemon Go to talk to us for very long. We didn't find anyone else to talk to before it was time to head back. We were both kind of disappointed because we'd biked a really long way, and nothing had really come of it. We made better time coming back than we thought we would, so we had a few minutes before we had to go to our appointment. We decided to stop real quick at a little park and stretch because we were super sore from riding 18 miles. As we waited across the street from the park for the light to turn green, a man on a bicycle rode past us, stopped, and asked 'how can I get in touch with you?' We stopped and talked to him, and he said he is really interested in coming and understanding our church. We gave him our contact information and invited him to the Ward Christmas party, then headed off to our appointment. We realized that if we had not been coming back into Xinying, there is no way we would have been on that side of that particular intersection. We got sent on an 18 mile bike trip to find someone 2 minutes away from our house. But it was a really cool miracle! 

So I need to brag for a second, this week I figured out how to tie a tie all by myself. I'm not sure if I did it right, but it looks like a tie, and the skinny part slides up and down like it's supposed to, so I'm pretty proud of myself.

I don't know if you remember when I told you all about our guacamole making party a week or two ago. He had been meeting with the missionaries for a while, but he kind of stopped right before we got there, and he thought Sisters were awkward. But then after a lot of prayers on our part, he suddenly asked us to teach him to make guacamole. This week we called him, and he said he could meet with us. We set up a time, and his wife, who is a recent convert to our church was also there. We shared about the blessings of eternal families, and how big and amazing those are, and we explained that we really love his family, and would like to help them be sealed. We asked if he would be willing to start meeting again and keep learning, and he said yes! Then his whole family came to Stake Conference yesterday, which was awesome! It's been so cool to see how Heavenly Father has been working to give us opportunities to keep working with him. We're super excited to help him come closer to Christ and receive of His blessings. 

As I mentioned earlier, we had Stake Conference this Sunday. Our ward took a bus up together because it's pretty far away. We even had two people we are teaching come! We met in a rented auditorium because our stake doesn't have a stake center. There were some really good talks. Our mission President gave an awesome talk completely in Chinese about the circumstances that prepared their family to come to Taiwan. His wife also gave a really sweet talk and bore her testimony in Chinese. They haven't been here very long, but she already speaks pretty well, which is amazing. The gift of tongues is real! We also got to hear from the temple president and his wife, who used to live in our ward. They are some of the most Christlike people I have met, and it was wonderful to hear them talk powerfully about the blessings of the temple. The blessings of the temple are so real!

After we got back, we went to a park called Swan Lake to contact. While there, we talked to a ton of people, and also got to admire this beautiful black swan:

Next week will be the last week I send out a group email as a missionary. Thank you all so much for supporting me through the last year and a half. Serving a mission in Taiwan has been an amazing experience, and I'm so glad I got to share some of the highlights with you!

Have a great week!

Sister Hull

My new fantasy is to become Sleeping Beauty

Without the prince or anything, I just want an excuse to sleep for a few years. 

Hi Everyone!

Wow, this week has been absolutely insane. But like, a good kind of insane with lots of miracles and spiritual insights. 

(good morning)

This week we saw a really cool miracle. We're friends with this recent convert to our church, Pan Jiemei. She has the cutest family ever, and we love going to visit her and reading scriptures with her. Her husband, Xu Dixiong, used to be taking the missionary lessons from the elders. When we switched the elders out though, he stopped meeting because he thought meeting with Sisters was awkward. We had almost given up, but we still felt like we needed to help him because we love Pan Jiemei and want to help her family. We were at our wits end though about how we could connect with him (the elders connected by playing basketball with him every week). It had gotten to the point where we were considering taking up basketball in the hopes that at the very least he'd be touched that we were willing to make the effort, but we weren't really sure if that would work. I was pretty stressed, and praying a lot for a way we could help Xu Dixiong.

Then, the other day we were at a ward activity. There was food, and Pan Jiemei had brought guacamole. I mentioned to her that when our family made Mexican food at home, it was always my job to make the guac. A few days later she came up to us all excited. She said she'd told her husband I knew how to make guac, and he wanted me to come and teach them how! So we had a Mexican food night, and Sister DeJarnatt and I taught their family how to make homemade tortillas and guacamole. It was exactly what we needed to be able to connect with him. We had a lot of fun cooking together, and it was so much better than our feeble attempts to play basketball would have been!

This week we had a mission tour, where a general leader in our church met with our entire mission in two big meetings. We were in the meeting with the bottom half of the mission- almost 100 missionaries. The visiting leader, Elder Homer, was awesome. He shared a ton of really great insights and helped us get super excited  for missionary work.

At one point in his trainings, he shared the story of Nephi, a man in the Book of Mormon who is commanded by God to build a boat. Nephi has never built a boat in his life before. On top of that, he and his family have been living in the wilderness for a few years, so he doesn't even have any tools to build a boat with. And he's not just building a fishing boat, The Lord tells him to build a boat that will carry him and his entire family and all their stuff across an ocean. When Nephi's brothers hear that he wants to build a boat, they just laugh, because they know he can't do it. But Nephi's response is different. He thinks about it, then prays and tells God, "If I'm going to build a boat, I need tools. Where can I go to find metal to make tools?" After finding metal, he learns to make tools, and slowly, step by step, the Lord teaches him how to build a boat.

Elder Homer connected the story of Nephi building a boat to us doing missionary work. When we came on a mission, none of us knew how to do missionary work. On top of that, we were in a completely new country with a new culture and language. And we weren't just trying to get people to come to church, the Lord told us to help people completely change their lives and help them embark on a journey that will lead them back to their heavenly home. When people in Taiwan hear that we're trying to teach a bunch of Buddhists about Jesus, a lot of them laugh, because they know no one here will want to change their culture. But that's not the point. If we follow Nephi's example, it doesn't matter what we don't know. We just have to ask Heavenly Father for help and be willing to try. He will guide us, and step by step we will start to see miracles. The things that we do will not be what experts in advertising, psychology, or sales would recommend, because they're not the people we're looking to for help. The Lord will guide us and show us His way for sharing the gospel, and it might seem a little weird at first, but in the end we will find miracles. 

The mission tour was in Gaoxiong, an hour or two trip by train and subway from where we live. We had to get to the meeting early, so we went down the night before and stayed with the sisters who lived in Gaoxiong. It was super fun to see them, and the mission tour was amazing, but by the time we made it home over 24 hours later, we were exhausted. Can you see it in our eyes?

The fun for the week didn't stop with the mission tour. We spent most of Sunday with our ward. After church, we went to a nursing home that one of our members stays in and sang Christmas carols. That evening we headed back to the church for a family home evening. The bishop gave a really good lesson on managing family finances. We were in charge of the games and treats. Our ward members are all really good sports, so we had a ton of fun with the games and couldn't stop laughing. We have such an amazing ward here. I think that's one of the things I love the most about our church as an organization, is that you can travel across the world to a new culture and new language, and you still feel like you have a family when you walk into church.

Have an amazing week everyone! Don't forget to #LightTheWorld!

Love,

Sofi

A Tree in a Field

Hi Everyone! 

(Good Morning. Everything is wonderful)

IT'S DECEMBER EVERYONE!!! CHRISTMAS MONTH!! The most exciting part of December for a missionary is 100% the Light the World activity that our church does every year to help people remember the Savior and follow His example (If you want to know more, click here). Most of the world is focusing on the theme 'Give as He Gave', but in Asia they decided to do things a little differently. Most people here barely know who Jesus is, so we're focusing this year on inviting members and nonmembers alike to learn more about Him, and to 'Live as He Lived'. The focus is on helping people share with their friends and family through service and testimonies so all of Asia learns a little more about who Jesus Christ is, and why He's important.

To kick off Day 1, Sister DeJarnatt and I wrote a bunch of cards with little messages like, 'you're an amazing person! Have a great day!', and handed them out randomly whenever we felt someone needed it. We made several people smile with them, which was fun. At the end of the night, we had one card left to give, and we were headed home. On the way, we saw a woman leading a very tall blind man down the street, and decided to give her the last card. As we got closer, I recognized the man she was leading as a student from a university in Zhanghua, one of my past areas! We got to stop and chat for a bit and reconnect, and his mom was really touched by the card. Yay for service miracles!

We have this one friend we're teaching, Jovan, who is very into star signs. Whenever he introduces someone to us, he'll include their star sign- 'this is May, she's an Aquarius'. In our lesson this week, I asked a little more about the personality traits of people with my star sign, Libra. He gave this analogy: 'imagine there's a field, with a tree growing right in the middle. You're lying under the tree sleeping, and there's a slight breeze across your face. That's Libra's personality'. This is now the only way I will ever introduce myself.

This week a kid in our ward opened his mission call. A lot of the ward turned out to watch him open it, and we had a potluck too. In a weird twist of events, they invited me up to read the call letter. I assumed it would be in English and they wanted me to help translate, but I got up there, and it was in Chinese! Thankfully I knew enough to read haltingly up to where he got called to California, and then a member took over and informed him that he is headed to Los Angeles! It was kind of awkward to suddenly have to read in Chinese, but it was so fun to see him and everyone else so excited about his call. He's going to make an awesome missionary!

It's not just missionaries who are involved in Christmas preparations, the ward also has a lot of plans in swing. On Sunday we stayed late with a lot of the members to practice some songs we're going to go sing at a nursing home next week. We're singing a bunch of awesome carols, including Jingle Bells in English. We helped everyone practice the words, especially the tricky way of singing 'in-a-one horse open sleigh' with the words squished all together. This is us with several of the YSAs in our ward. The one in the very front is Grace, who was visiting from one of my previous wards in Zhanghua! It was super fun to see her again!

One of my favorite parts about missionary work is our ability to connect with people. We have had a couple of experiences this week where we're in the middle of this lesson and people open up to us with very personal, deep struggles. It never ceases to amaze me that they are willing to share with two teenagers they just met about the deepest worries, desires, and sorrows of their hearts. What I love the most about this is that we are able to help. We are here as representatives of Christ, who is the Master Healer. His job is to fix the unfixable, and we get to be here and deliver this message of hope to people who think there is no hope left. The ability to spread hope is probably my favorite thing about being a missionary. 

Happy December Everyone! Have an amazing week, and Light the World!

Love you,

Sofi

[No Subject]

Hi Everyone!

The train stations in Taiwan have started this poster campaign to stop people from doing dumb stuff. They all feature an adorable cartoon Death convincing people to do dumb things at the train station. This is my favorite one:

Underneath the English tagline, the Chinese says 'Lower your head for a moment, regret it for a lifetime'. Savage. 

The big news of this week, and the reason you didn't get an email from me last week, was we had transfers! Sister Bast moved down way South to Pingdong. Pingdong was explained to us by a member as being 'the Florida of Taiwan', or in other words, very hot. With winter coming, I'd say that's pretty perfect timing! 

My new companion is Sister DeJarnatt from Pleasantview, Utah. She is absolutely amazing. Some of my favorite things about her: She loves musical theater. She's an amazing listener. She has an impressive talent for spotting wild Geckos. She is really good at teaching, especially at asking just the right questions. She, like me, places high priority on sleep, so we've been able to get to bed on time most days this week (not an easy feat on the mission, especially when you like talking with each other). Also, we learned from one of the people we're teaching that, since our star signs are Scorpio and Libra, we are especially suited to being companions and will work really well together. So yeah, it's a companionship that was written in the stars. Here is an artist's representation of Sister DeJarnatt, as drawn by our 8 year old English student, Cherry:

Here's an actual picture of Sister DeJarnatt and I celebrating Thanksgiving with hand turkeys. I feel like I've had so much to be grateful for this week. Here's a short list:

1. We have a grandpa we're teaching who doesn't really speak Chinese, only Taiwanese, and we couldn't find anyone who could speak Taiwanese to come with us, but then someone said they could at the last second, and we had an awesome lesson. 

2. The weather is still in the 70s and 80s most days.

3. Our ward had a potluck yesterday, and there were quesadillas, and someone was playing Christmas music on the piano.

4. Honestly, just our ward.

5. Sister DeJarnatt is amazing!

6. My family

Sister DeJarnatt and I got up at 5:30 am for our bi-weekly street sweeping with a bunch of Amahs and Agongs. When we wrapped up, they took us all to a field of sweet potatoes. The corner that wasn't planted with sweet potatoes was covered in weeds a couple feet high. The old people dove in with incredible energy and we cleared about 100+ square feet of weeds in about 20 minutes. I want to be an Amah when I grow up. 

This Saturday was Taiwan's election day, which was quite a party. This year's elections were all local- mayors and stuff, so there was a ton of campaigning that went on. One of the favorite campaign methods was to drive around in a parade of jeeps. One jeep would have a drummer banging on an enormous drum, and another jeep would have the candidate standing on the back waving and smiling and yelling into a microphone about how everyone should vote for them. It was all very exciting. We also saw a couple of rallys and what might have been a rave. 

As results started coming in election night, of course some people were overjoyed and others were very disappointed. We were walking back in for the night, and saw our appartment security guard standing solemnly and staring at the TV announcing the election results. With wet eyes, he told us that his party had been ousted, and the other party was now in control. While we had no idea what either party was, it was really sad to see our guard so sad. We I wrote a card, and Sister DeJarnatt drew a smiley face on an orange, and we ran it downstairs to him right before turning in for the night. It felt good to find a simple little way to serve someone who was having a rough day.

A recent convert in Jiayi, the town right above us, contacted us to let us know that she wanted us to start teaching her boyfriend who lives in our area. We were a little worried at first that we'd end up in a lesson with a guy who had no interest in religion whatsoever, and just wanted to make his girlfriend happy, but it turned out amazing! The boyfriend, Xie Dixiong, is super friendly and thoughtful. His girlfriend had told him about eternal families, and he really wants to know how he can have his own eternal family. We met with them on Saturday, and they came to church on Sunday. Turns out, he's coworkers with our Elders' Quorum President! The Elder's Quorum President, Wang Dixiong, was super excited to see him, and immediately put his arm around him and showed him around and answered all his questions. The rest of the ward was really excited too because they all love Wang Dixiong, and Wang Dixiong was singing his praises all day. Xie Dixiong felt really welcomed, and loved the things he learned at church. It was so fun to see everyone super excited to welcome someone new at church!

Have an amazing week everyone! I love you all!

Sister Hull

冬天來了

Hi Everyone! 

So apparently according to some Chinese calendar, winter officially started on the 7th, which gave the creators of the good morning pictures a whole new theme to riff on:

(Good morning. Today is winter.)

We have definitely felt the coming of winter this week, though not in the weather. The weather has been lovely and warm, but the winter pollution has been awful. Apparently every winter the smog settles in for a good few months. There were a couple of days this week where it looked like the morning fog just never lifted. Sister Bast and I invested in some facemasks. 

For English class this week, we planned an activity that required us to bring a cardboard box from our apartment to the church. The box was already partially dismantled, and was too big to shove in our basket or bike box, so I used my reflective light gear to strap it on my body. We rode all the way to the church that way, getting quite a few stares. I couldn't resist shouting 'To infinity and beyond!' a few times on the way. 

Recently, we've been trying to work with the ward more, so we sent around a sign up asking for people to choose one hour in the month of November that they can come do missionary work with us. Once they've signed up, we'll try to schedule a lesson with someone we're teaching at that time, and if we can't, we'll find some other thing to do with them. On Friday, we had one of our first appointments, so we set up a lesson with a friend we're teaching who lives near the church. When we got to his house, we found out he'd forgotten and gone to another nearby town. After talking with the member who came with us, we decided to go back to the church. On the way there, we ran into another one of our friends, Ivan, who just happened to be out riding his scooter. We introduced him to our member, and she invited him to come back to the church with us. He did, and we had an impromptu lesson with him. Our member shared an experience that turned out to be very similar to something Ivan's friend has been going through. She was able to give him some advice to help his friend, while Sister Bast and I just sat there reeling from the whiplash of going to teach one lesson and ending up in another. 

Last night we taught our ward how to make pizza. No one in Taiwan bakes, so pizza is a great activity because it's new to them, easy, and everyone can participate. They had fun making wacky flavor combinations, the craziest being banana and cheese. In the photo is one of our ward missionaries, Yaping, holding the bishop's youngest daughter, whose name is Little Plum. 

After getting sick a few months ago, my stomach is still not as strong as it used to be, so I have to be a lot more conscious about what I eat (which is probably a good thing- it's really easy to eat unhealthily in Taiwan). The other day though, I wasn't as careful about my breakfast as I should have been, and as we were getting ready to go out an hour or two later, I started getting stomach cramps. I laid down for a bit until the cramps mainly subsided, but the sunny Saturday morning was too enticing, so we went out as soon as I didn't feel like I was going to throw up. I still wasn't feeling great, but I figured at the very least I could follow Sister Bast around and nod affirmatively as she talked to people. We only had a half hour, so I was just focusing on making it through. As we started talking to people, I realized something very interesting. As long as I was talking to someone and sharing the gospel, my stomachache would go away. As soon as we said goodbye, it would come back, but as long as I was focused on missionary work, I was fully functional. We had several very tender contacts. We met one old man who was looking for a new job because his current boss was mean, and we said a prayer with him. We introduced a high school kid to the idea of a Heavenly Father for the first time. It was cool to see how, when I was willing to sacrifice a bit of my comfort, Heavenly Father sustained me while I did his work. And don't worry, I went home and rested during language study after :)

Have an absolutely amazing week!!

Lots of Love,

Sister Hull

THIS IS HALLOOWEEN

Hi Everyone!

Ok, first off, the subject line is not a typo. This month, all the 7-11s had fall themed candy displays with a big 'Hallooween' emblazoned across the top, which Sister Bast and I found very funny.

(Good morning ~ peace happiness)

The highlight of this week was Halloween! Since it was on a Wednesday, we prepared a special English lesson, and showed up in costumes. I was Mary Poppins, and Sister Bast was Totoro, from the Studio Ghibli film, 'My Neighbor Totoro'. Turns out no one in Taiwan knows who Mary Poppins is. They're pretty up to date on American culture in general, so I was actually kind of surprised by that. They were all confused why we would be watching a movie that was filmed so long ago. My only pictures from this week are from Halloween, so please enjoy me and Sister Bast being cute. Here is Sister Bast as Totoro, demonstrating all the different ways Asia has come up with to make a heart with our hands: 

I learned a new favorite word this week: 悟 (pronounced as a short, sharp 'oo'). When you put it into Google Translate, it translates as 'enlightenment', which I guess is kind of right. It's the moment where something that you understand intellectually suddenly clicks, and you understand it personally, with your heart. I feel like this happens a lot in the gospel. It's pretty easy to learn the basic principles and doctrines of the gospel, and understand them intellectually. The gospel's not that complicated. Learning to 悟 the gospel, on the other hand, is a process that takes a lifetime. Slowly, baby step by baby step, Heavenly Father provides the experiences we need to truly internalize and understand, or 悟 the eternal truths necessary for salvation. It's the process of 悟ing that helps us change and become more like Christ, and prepare to live with God again. I love Chinese!

We also had a really interesting contacting moment the other day. Our plan for a part of the evening was to hit up several 7-11s on the same road and talk to the people sitting down inside. The first 7 we went to was insanely awkward. The first two people didn't want to talk to us. When we approached the third guy's table and asked if we could sit with him, he took it to mean that we just wanted to sit at THAT SPECIFIC TABLE, and moved to another table to give us space. We tried to contact a fourth lady while sitting awkwardly at our newly vacated table, and she wasn't interested either. We made a hasty retreat to our bikes. After a quick prayer, Sister Bast joked that there must be some really prepared people at the next 7, so Heavenly Father must have wanted us to get through that first one quickly and get all our awkwardness out so we could get on with things. When we got to the next 7 though, Sister Bast's words turned out to be true. We walked in and sat down next to the first guy we could find, a dad waiting for his kid to get out of cram school. We had a really touching conversation with him about parenthood and God, and he said he'd probably have interest in learning more! Then we met another girl who is up in Xinying all alone, and really needed someone to talk to. We chatted with her for a while and were able to share a bit about the Gospel and her loving Heavenly Father. She also said she might be interested in continuing to meet with us, even though she's really busy. Heavenly Father definitely guided us to where He wanted us to be that night.

That's all I've got for this week! Have a great week!

Love you all!

Sofi

Re: One year older and wiser too

Happy Birthday! 

On Sun, Oct 21, 2018 at 9:12 PM Sarah Sophia Hull <sarah.hull@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Hi Everyone!

(Good morning. Beauty in your mood. Cheerfulness in your life. Be a happy you.)

The happiest news of the week, Friday was my birthday! I am now 21 years old. It was fun to reflect on the last year I've spent in Taiwan. I was still in Training on my last birthday, and the changes that have happened from then to now are large. It was really cool to realize that I actually wanted to spend my 21st birthday sharing the message of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ with people. I love being a missionary! 

Also, I love Line, the social media app here in Taiwan. It conveniently informs all your friends of your birthday and provides a nifty feature where you can add a photo or a quick birthday message in about 30 seconds. I bask in compliments and love celebrating with people, but I also feel weird about telling other people to celebrate me, so it was very nice for Line to do the job for me so I could just focus on basking :) Actually though, I was really touched by all the people who reached out, even a couple of people we'd just met on the street a few days before. Sister Wu called that evening and sang a happy birthday song that included 4 different languages. I'm so grateful I get to love and be loved by so many people here! 

The rest of our week was pretty normal. We had the better part of a day free on Tuesday, so we went on an adventure to Madou, one of the farthest towns in our area. It's a 20 minute train ride and an 8 km bike ride away. Upon our return, we had a few extra minutes, so we stopped outside the train station to pray about where to go. When we stopped praying, we looked up and saw Karl standing a few feet away. We said hello, and then spent the next 20 minutes talking about our relationship with God. It was a really cool conversation! Turns out he lives a few minutes out of the border of our area, so the elders will be teaching him, but it was still really cool to be able to be the first step in helping him come to meet Heavenly Father.

Saturday was a really hard day. We had lunch with an investigator, and it was a really frustrating meeting. She would contradict or disregard anything we shared, but also kept pressuring us about when she could get baptized. Sometimes it's frustrating when you're doing your best to share with someone, and they listen, nod along, and then say something that shows they didn't actually register a single thing you said. We made it out of that, and had no time to recover, because we had three more lessons lined up back to back. The next two were with men, so as sister missionaries, if we wanted to meet in the church we needed another woman to accompany us. The two sisters who agreed to come for those two lessons both ended up cancelling last minute, so we had one lesson at the park next door, and the other one awkwardly standing in the parking lot of the church. By the end of our third lesson, I was completely emotionally, mentally, and physically drained. I didn't feel like I had anything left to possibly give in our fourth lesson. Thankfully, we had a half hour break, so we decided to grab some dessert before sitting down to skype our friend, Lawrence. Taiwan has a specific food category called QQs, which are squishy, chewy, sweet little desserts. Mochi falls into this category if anyone's tried that. With the help of QQs, shaved ice, and some fervent prayer, I was renewed spiritually and mentally, and our fourth lesson went great.

One thing I've learned a lot about this week is how God is able to sustain us. As missionaries, the majority of our schedules depend entirely on other people. As a result, things rarely go according to plan. Just because this is the Lord's work doesn't mean he's going to make everything go smoothly. There are so many bumps in the road, and sometimes it's exhausting to be always trying to keep up as you move through plan B to plan C, D, and on down the alphabet. Because I am a dramatic person with a narrow perspective, sometimes I get caught up in a particularly chaotic moment and imagine that this is how life will be for the rest of the foreseeable future. But what I am always surprised to find, no matter how many times I've already experienced it, is that God truly does have His plan, and while it doesn't usually match with our preferred timeline, He does His work in the time that we need it. There are always frustrating or disappointing days on a mission, but I have yet to have a day where I go to bed sad or discouraged. By the end, I am always amazed and awed once again by the angels He sends to lift us and help us accomplish the things we are called to do.

Have an amazing week! Love you!

One year older and wiser too

Hi Everyone!

(Good morning. Beauty in your mood. Cheerfulness in your life. Be a happy you.)

The happiest news of the week, Friday was my birthday! I am now 21 years old. It was fun to reflect on the last year I've spent in Taiwan. I was still in Training on my last birthday, and the changes that have happened from then to now are large. It was really cool to realize that I actually wanted to spend my 21st birthday sharing the message of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ with people. I love being a missionary! 

Also, I love Line, the social media app here in Taiwan. It conveniently informs all your friends of your birthday and provides a nifty feature where you can add a photo or a quick birthday message in about 30 seconds. I bask in compliments and love celebrating with people, but I also feel weird about telling other people to celebrate me, so it was very nice for Line to do the job for me so I could just focus on basking :) Actually though, I was really touched by all the people who reached out, even a couple of people we'd just met on the street a few days before. Sister Wu called that evening and sang a happy birthday song that included 4 different languages. I'm so grateful I get to love and be loved by so many people here! 

The rest of our week was pretty normal. We had the better part of a day free on Tuesday, so we went on an adventure to Madou, one of the farthest towns in our area. It's a 20 minute train ride and an 8 km bike ride away. Upon our return, we had a few extra minutes, so we stopped outside the train station to pray about where to go. When we stopped praying, we looked up and saw Karl standing a few feet away. We said hello, and then spent the next 20 minutes talking about our relationship with God. It was a really cool conversation! Turns out he lives a few minutes out of the border of our area, so the elders will be teaching him, but it was still really cool to be able to be the first step in helping him come to meet Heavenly Father.

Saturday was a really hard day. We had lunch with an investigator, and it was a really frustrating meeting. She would contradict or disregard anything we shared, but also kept pressuring us about when she could get baptized. Sometimes it's frustrating when you're doing your best to share with someone, and they listen, nod along, and then say something that shows they didn't actually register a single thing you said. We made it out of that, and had no time to recover, because we had three more lessons lined up back to back. The next two were with men, so as sister missionaries, if we wanted to meet in the church we needed another woman to accompany us. The two sisters who agreed to come for those two lessons both ended up cancelling last minute, so we had one lesson at the park next door, and the other one awkwardly standing in the parking lot of the church. By the end of our third lesson, I was completely emotionally, mentally, and physically drained. I didn't feel like I had anything left to possibly give in our fourth lesson. Thankfully, we had a half hour break, so we decided to grab some dessert before sitting down to skype our friend, Lawrence. Taiwan has a specific food category called QQs, which are squishy, chewy, sweet little desserts. Mochi falls into this category if anyone's tried that. With the help of QQs, shaved ice, and some fervent prayer, I was renewed spiritually and mentally, and our fourth lesson went great.

One thing I've learned a lot about this week is how God is able to sustain us. As missionaries, the majority of our schedules depend entirely on other people. As a result, things rarely go according to plan. Just because this is the Lord's work doesn't mean he's going to make everything go smoothly. There are so many bumps in the road, and sometimes it's exhausting to be always trying to keep up as you move through plan B to plan C, D, and on down the alphabet. Because I am a dramatic person with a narrow perspective, sometimes I get caught up in a particularly chaotic moment and imagine that this is how life will be for the rest of the foreseeable future. But what I am always surprised to find, no matter how many times I've already experienced it, is that God truly does have His plan, and while it doesn't usually match with our preferred timeline, He does His work in the time that we need it. There are always frustrating or disappointing days on a mission, but I have yet to have a day where I go to bed sad or discouraged. By the end, I am always amazed and awed once again by the angels He sends to lift us and help us accomplish the things we are called to do.

Have an amazing week! Love you!

GENERAL CONFERENCE!!

Hi Everyone!

(This is not a good morning picture. This is a member in our ward who was being sarcastic and I thought it was funny. The caption says "I'm so glad we have you!")

This week, we explored further into the outreaches of our area. Actually, our area is quite large, so we weren't anywhere near the edges, but we were farther away than we've been, so it felt like an adventure. We visited a tiny village named 'Small Foot Leg'. Had we gone farther down the road, we would have encountered an even tinier village called 'Big Foot Leg'. I'm not making this up. We didn't have a ton of time when we got there, but we did have time to eat some very yummy noodles, have the owner of the noodle shop offer his youngest son's hand in marriage to both Sister Bast and I, and meet a delightful family with perfect English. On the way to and from Small Foot Leg, we got to bike along a delightful road lined with beautiful trees. 

On Friday and Saturday, we got to go down to Tainan and exchange with the STLs again! This time, I got to go with Sister Taylor! We had an amazing time tearing up Tainan just like we used to two transfers ago. One of the sweetest moments, I got to teach one of my old investigators, Claire again, and it was amazing. One of the best things about a mission is the opportunity to love so many people with all your heart. Claire is one of those people.

Missionary work this week was a roller coaster. On the one hand, one of our people who was preparing for baptism decided she didn't want to meet with us anymore because she didn't want to stop drinking tea. She changed her mind a few days later, but then she got in a car accident and got a little banged up, so we still weren't able to meet with her. Sometimes it's frustrating to be able to see just how much Jesus Christ's restored gospel can help someone, and then have their own decisions, misinformation, and even freak accidents get in the way of connecting them to these blessings.

On the other hand, we met with a really sweet mom this week! She's a police officer, so she sees a lot of kids who are in bad spots because of poor family situations or other circumstances. She has an intense desire to help her kids have the best possible future. We shared the Proclamation to the World on the Family (read it here) with her a few weeks ago, and she really identified with its teachings. We were able to meet with her for a few minutes at a park yesterday, and she is super excited for us to teach her and her family more! 

I was feeling kind of emotionally exhausted with the various ups and downs of missionary work and life in general, but watching General Conference this weekend fixed that. I especially loved Sister Joy D. Jones' talk. She taught how if we do everything we do out of love for God, it will help us find joy even in challenging or menial tasks. I especially loved this quote she shared:

  

 “If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give the world the best you’ve got anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God … anyway.”

Also this week, we started reading the Book of Mormon as a mission. Our goal is to finish by the end of the year. Following President Nelson's invitation, I've been marking every verse that references Christ, and writing at the top of the page what that specific page teaches me about Him. I'd done something similar a few years ago, but I've still been astounded by just how present Christ is on every page of the Book of Mormon. I have yet to find a page that doesn't reference Him. He truly is the center of our message, and the center of God's plan for us. He is present in every one of our lives, and if we let Him, He will send us miracles.

Sister Bast and I realized the other day that we can flip up our ponytails and instantly become members of an angsty Korean boy band

Love you! Have an amazing week!

Sofi

Those rocks have been on fire for over 300 years.

Hi Everyone!

I don't have a good morning picture today, because I have something more important!

IT'S GENERAL CONFERENCE TIME!!! Or I guess, it's already over for most of the world, but if you live in Taiwan, we still get another week of the hype! We've already heard a lot of the big changes, but we're looking forward to hearing all of the spiritual messages. For those of you have already watched general conference, how was it? For those who have not yet seen it, to quote the picture, Are you ready? Aaaah I can't wait. A video for the conference can be found here. 

This week has been really amazing! On Monday, a member drove us up into the mountains to hike around for a bit. Turns out there are some famous hot springs 20 minutes from where we live. The hot springs are mud, not straight water, and apparently there are only two other places in the world that have springs like this. We did not go in the springs, but we did enjoy the beautiful scenery. 

I am so, so grateful for the members we get to serve with here in Taiwan. They are so loving and caring, and they are so kind to us. They are by far the best part of moving to a new area, and the worst part of moving out of an old one. The member who took us hiking is actually the mom of a member I was friends with in my last area, so it was fun to be able to connect with her more. 

The coolest thing we saw in the mountains was this spring. There's a well of natural gas next to the spring that has been slowly leaking out and burning for the last 300 years. Our member friend said it hasn't gone out once in that time. It was such a striking image, water and fire existing naturally in the same space. Heavenly Father's creations are breathtaking. 

 One thing I've gained a testimony of is just how much we need members! This week we had a lesson with a man who has a lot of questions. He doesn't necessarily care about the answers to the questions, he just wants to see how we will answer them. He asks them really rapid fire, and it's hard to stay afloat sometimes. He also has no filter, so whatever comes into his head comes right out his mouth. We had a really amazing member come to the lesson who was able to help answer his multitude of questions and keep the lesson focused and full of the Spirit. Without her, there would have been no way. 

Transfer calls came, and Sister Bast and I are together for another six weeks! This week, we completely lost the ability to speak English, and would either mix up words or forget them all together. At the same time though, we've developed an impressive ability to understand each other's thoughts telepathically, so even though we can't speak, we still understand what the other person is saying. We've decided to call this the Gift of the Lack of Tongues.

Another gift I've been developing lately is the Gift of Falling Asleep in Any Position. Sister Bast took this picture of me the other day during 'Language Study': 

Spurious gifts aside, we've seen lots of indicators that Heavenly Father is still guiding the work here in Xinying. We see it in the many tiny tender mercies we have every day. The other day we miraculously got out of English class on time, so we had an extra 15 minutes before we had to be home, and no plans. As we were biking out of the church, I got a random feeling to turn down the alley next to the church. We did, and we hadn't gone more than 200 feet before we ran into the mom of one of our new investigators out watering her garden. We stopped, talked with her, and told her more about our church. She came to church this Sunday with her son! It was little, just the thought to turn right, but to me it was a sweet testimony that Heavenly Father is aware of us, and of this mom who now also gets the chance to learn of Him. 

Have an amazing week! 

Lots of Love

Sofi