The Gift of Tongues

Happy New Year Everyone! 

This has been a crazy week and I don't even know where to start, so I'm going to share some stories that all fall under the category of the gift of tongues. The gift of tongues is a promised blessing that every missionary speaking a foreign language clings to desperately. And it is a very real thing. 

1. We met a French guy outside a Starbucks a few days before Guo Nian, and he said if we didn't have any plans we were welcome to come visit his family. We gladly took him up on the offer, and spent a very enjoyable evening chatting with him and his adorable wife, who is Taiwanese. He was super interested in what makes our religion different from others, so I ended up sharing my testimony of prophets and the Book of Mormon. One thing I love the most about our religion is that we believe that God still speaks to His children today. I'm so grateful for a living prophet with the exact same authority as in the times of Abraham, Moses, or Elijah. 

2. The other day I was talking to the husband of one of our investigators, and my pronunciation was so bad that he thought I was speaking in Taiwanese and got very impressed. I'll take what I can get.

3. Chinese New Year is a week long, and everything shuts down. Except 7-11s. I think the country would collapse if we didn't have 24 hour access to 7s. Since it's harder for us to find food though, our members fed us lunch and dinner every day all week long. It was super awesome to experience authentic New Year food and traditions. Aside from burning incense at temples, as far as we can tell the main New Year tradition is to sit around and eat lots and lots and lots of food. Chinese New Year also has very specific foods that have specific symbolism all based on making puns out of the name of the food. Chinese people really like puns. They also really like fish, because fish sounds like the word for luck or abundance. Because of this, Sister Hubner and I learned a new side of the gift of tongues- namely the gift of eating weird stuff and smiling while doing it. This week I've eaten whole fried fish, fish eggs, clam feet, jellyfish, some weird dried fish stomach thing, squid, octopus, and shrimp. I've also fished chicken toes out of my soup. Many of you know that I have a fish phobia, so the fact that I managed any of this is a literal miracle. I prayed a lot. The members are all incredible though, so it's been a ton of fun to get to know them better!

4. One day we had lunch at the house of the former bishop of our ward. He and his wife are incredible. They joined the church together as young parents, and are now super strong in the gospel. They've also served a service mission in China, which is incredible. When they were telling us about the missionary that taught them the gospel, they pulled out the Christmas card and letter they'd gotten from his family. They're an incredible family who just adopted three 14-year olds from Bulgaria, so I started reading the card with great interest. After a few sentences though, I looked up and asked if they knew what it said, since it was all in English. They said they didn't, and they were hoping I could help them translate it. With the help of my phone for some tricky words, I translated the letter for them on the spot. It was a remarkably spiritual experience to help this amazing couple connect with the missionary who had changed their lives. Hearing their story made me feel even more excited about the work that we're doing out here to bring the people of Taiwan the joy of the gospel. I love being a missionary!

Happy Chinese New Year, have an amazing week!

love you!

Sister Hull

Pics:

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1. Probably my favorite food we ate all week. mushrooms? you may ask. That's what I thought too. Turns out it's a mini baozi with sweet sesame inside! Delicious and adorable!

2. On our way to a member's house, some random person saw us and took a picture and posted it on facebook. An investigator saw it and sent it to us. Yeah, we're famous. ​​

3. This is the former bishop and his wife who we ate lunch with a day or two ago. They're amazing!

4. We've been giving New Year's cards to our members and investigators. Now that we have Line, we get to add fun filters and stuff. We've been taking great advantage of that fact.

I'm Still Alive!

Hi Everyone!

Ok, important news first, Sister Hubner and I survived the earthquake that struck Taiwan this week. In fact, I slept through it. Sister Hubner was awake though, and she said it was pretty big. Her deoderant fell of the shelf and my mattress shifted a few inches. We also have a nice big buckle running through the middle of our floor now, so we get to play The Ground Is Lava every night as we get into bed. I was sad to hear about the people that were more affected across the island in Hualian.

This week we had zone conference, and it was amazing! One thing I really liked is that we talked a lot about how to make missionary work more personal and less like business. I think the thing I've loved the most about being able to serve here in Taiwan is all the people I've gotten to know and love. I've never spent more time actively loving people before, and it's great! I've been reading the New Testament lately, and I love how personal Jesus' ministry is. Even though He came to save the world, He goes about it in a very individual way. The more Sister Hubner and I try to break away from routine and meet each person where they're at, the more we've been able to see miracles. It's so much fun to be able to just go up to people in the street and start a conversation and learn about them and their lives and the things that are important to them. 

At Zone Conference, I also had a Very Important Event: After six months of circling each other on this tiny island, I finally got to see Sister Barber! Here's a picture:

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As you can tell, she's gorgeous and awesome as ever. It was so cool to see her for a bit and hear about how her life's going! I'm so happy I get to share this experience in Taiwan with her! I was walking on clouds for the rest of the day just because I got to see her.

This week we also went to a service project with the other missionaries in our district. This neighborhood was having a new years' party for the elderly, so we helped set up then served tea and cake for a bit. Old people here in Taiwan are adorable and hilarious. They were so excited to eat cake with us. They kept fussing over Elder Degn and telling him to sit down because he's too tall (he's 6'5). Apparently several of them also offered Sister Hubner their sons in marriage. She graciously declined. 

One Ama had handpainted ​those signs people put around their doors during the New Year, so they also made us take pictures with those. Communication was a tricky mix of Taiyu, Chinese, and English. If we didn't understand what someone was saying, they'd just push us to where they wanted us. At one point a lady just grabbed my coat pocket and dragged me into a better photo position. They were all super kind though, and it was really fun!

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Thanks to our new technology, we have a lot more possibilities when it comes to missionary work. President and Sister Teh decided to take advantage of this, and held a live Face to Face event for the mission last night. It was awesome! Just like the church wide events, they invited us to send in questions, then answered them in a live video. It was super spiritual, and just one example of the miracles that have been opening up in missionary work lately. I'm so grateful for the Tehs. They are absolutely incredible. They push and guide and lift and encourage us to become the very best missionaries possible. I want to be like them when I grow up.

Hope you all have a great week! Love you!

Sister Hull

P.S. There's a hospital here that has a vending machine library. What?

Earthquake

The earthquake’s center was offshore from Hualien on the east side of the island.  It is across a major mountain range from our mission boundary.  It belongs to the Taipei Mission.  As of this morning, we are not aware of any major damage reported within our mission.  We are happy to tell you that all of our missionaries are safe and accounted for.

Thank You,

President Teh

I'm alive part 2!

Hi family!

After last night's earthquake, President Teh asked us all to let our families know that we're OK. I'm guessing we're not close to the epicenter here in Zhanghua though, because I slept through the whole thing. All that really happened here is that Sister Hubner's deodorant fell off its shelf. So we're just fine. Would you mind sending us more info on the quake though so we can know who to pray for? Because it sounds like it was pretty big elsewhere. 

I love you guys so much! 

Sofi

I'm Alive!

Ok so good news, I'm alive! And this might be a long email, since it's been like a month since my last email. 

On January 11th, we said goodbye to Sister Wu and sent her off to the MTC! She went to the MTC with one other sister from our area, so I was companions with the other orphaned sister, and things worked out nicely. In the picture are Sister Lin, Sister Wu, Sister Liang (my companion for 3 weeks, and me).
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The night after we dropped off Sisters Wu and Lin, Sister Liang and I both got sick. I only had food poisoning, so I got better after like two days, but Sister Liang stayed sick for entire three weeks we were together, so I passed the time pretty much like this:

Being unable to leave the house for three weeks does interesting things to a person's mind. I am extremely thankful for the Gospel Library app. After a while though, it got to the point that I took up embroidery. I'm not joking.

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So that's pretty much how January went. UNTIL, Sunday morning we got transfer calls, aaand... I got moved to Zhanghua! ​Moving was nervewracking because both Sister Liang and I were moving and we had about 24 hours to completely pack and make all the arrangements to get us and our suitcases to our various destinations. It all worked out though, and this first week in Zhanghua has been so much fun! My new companion is Sister Hubner (there are dots over the u, but this computer refuses to do them). Here we are on our first day together:

Sister Hubner is amazing! She's super dedicated to sharing the gospel, and we've seen some serious miracles! We found five new investigators this week! Here are some other highlights: 

We were out exploring a smaller village in our area, and we stopped in a 7-11 to do some studies. A mom with two small children approached us. Without saying a word to us, she pulled up a chair to our table and sat her three year old daughter on it. She pulled her 2 year old son up next to her daughter, then left to wander the store and take care of some stuff. The poor little boy looked incredibly terrified. He flung his arm out and grasped my hand in a death grip. He managed to make it a few more minutes before the fear engulfed him and he melted onto the floor in tears. 

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The mom came and scooped him up, but left the daughter with us. The daughter was not afraid to talk to us, and told us in confidence that she sometimes sneaks sips of her mom's milk tea. That was the only thing she said that we could understand. A few minutes later the mom wandered back over with three cups of pudding for us and her daughter. She gave them to us and left again, so we had a pudding party with a three year old. It was the best day ever. 

Our district in this area is a little unusual. We have six sisters and two elders. The elders have started calling us the Relief Society. This week during exercise time we all got together and played ultimate frisbee. It was freezing cold, but a ton of fun! Here we are with two other sisters from our district, Sister Young and Sister Dower:
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We were contacting at a park the other day, and saw this dad teaching his son Taichi. We immediately ran over and asked if we could do it with them. The dad was very gracious, and taught us a basic taichi sequence, then even photographed us doing the sequence along with his son. It was incredibly relaxing, and we were able to share a video about Jesus with them afterward! They were pretty much the coolest family ever. Unfortunately, my email has gotten too big, so I can't put on another picture. I should probably wrap up anyway. 

It has been such an incredible week. Sister Hubner and I have been having an amazing time making plans and figuring out ways to improve in our work. We've been finding miracles, and having such a fun time doing it! I truly have a testimony that this is Heavenly Father's work, and that as long as we continually try our best miracles will happen. 

Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Sister Hull