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

Do you believe in love at first sight? ...or should I walk by again?

Hi Everyone!

(Translation: Good morning. Success relies on action, health relies on exercise)

Wow it has been an amazing week! With amazing miracles! And funny bits. And mainly, life is just good. On Friday, we went down to a little town about a 20 minute bike ride away to do service at their public library. Only to discover when we got there that the library was randomly closed. There was a lady on a scooter in front of the government office next to the library, so we decided to chat with her before deciding what to do next. The lady told us she was waiting for a man who conveniently pulled up on his scooter as we were talking. He turned out to be an employee at the building we were standing in front of, and he invited us inside to give us a tour. Once we got in, he apparently didn't really know what to do or why he invited us, because the inside of the building was just a giant office space with a bunch of desks. We all stood there awkwardly for a bit while he tried to motion over some other people to take over as tour guides, but they were too scared (a lot of people in Taiwan are legitimately terrified to talk to us because they're afraid we'll try to speak English with them). When that didn't work, he asked if we wanted to take pictures in front of the building. We agreed and went and took some pictures. Then we went back in, stood awkwardly for a few more minutes, met his coworker whose English name was Emperor, and left. And thus ended my first experience in international relations. 

The highlight of the week was that we got to go on exchanges!! And my STLs right now are Sister Taylor and Sister Hubner, my two previous companions!!! So needless to say, it was a party. I got to spend 24 hours once again tearing up Taiwan with Sister Hubner, and it was a dream. We were comps toward the beginning of our missions, so it was fun to see how far we've come since then. Sister Hubner and Sister Taylor are two of the most amazing missionaries I've met, and as a companionship they are doing incredible things. 

We had a cool miracle while on exchanges. Sister Hubner and I had finished teaching a random English class at an environmental protection building, and were headed out to hit up the big park for a half hour before dinner. On our way, we saw the other sisters bike past us, and thought nothing of it. We got to the park, and started talking with the first person we saw, a dad sitting on a teeter-totter playing a game on his phone. He looked up, and immediately asked, 'how many missionaries are there in this town? I just talked to two more of you!' he then very accurately listed off our address, and the times for our English class and church services. Accidentally going somewhere missionaries have just been is often the worst nightmare of missionaries who share an area with another companionship, but we decided to play it cool and kept talking to this dad. 

Dad: 'Don't you plan where you're going so you don't have any overlap?'

Us: 'No, because God sent us here specifically to talk to you!'

Dad: (thinks a bit) 'huh. Well, We actually live right next to your church, but we've never been inside because it's always closed'

Us: 'yeah, we are mainly open for our English class an Sunday meetings. But if you would like we could give you a tour'

Dad: 'No you can't, it's always closed!'

Us: 'We have keys!'

At this point, a woman sitting on a bench nearby who had been listening in started laughing and came over to join the conversation. Turns out she was his wife. They had only seemed mildly interested when they met Sister Bast and Taylor, but second time's a charm, because we were able to share some doctrine and set a time to give them a tour before English class this week! It was really cool to see how Heavenly Father knew the needs of this family, and turned an awkward situation into a powerful teaching moment. Turns out the four of us sisters together in the same area is a dangerous combination. 

We had a really cool lesson from our bishop about faith and revelation on Sunday. He blindfolded a member, spun him around, then asked another member to give him directions to find a hymnbook placed in another part of the room. Bishop pointed out that the member could give directions in lots of different ways, such as telling him where it was in the room (on the chair under the window), or using cardinal directions (go due west), but these would mean nothing to the blindfolded member who had no idea where he was in relation to anything else. The only directions the blindfolded member could understand were step by step directions using left, right, straight, and back. Likewise, often when we have a question or desire, Heavenly Father could tell us the exact answer, but it would mean nothing to us because we don't have the same understanding that He does. The only way He can get us where we need to go is with step by step directions, slowly, with lots of little course corrections. It takes a lot of faith on our part because we still can't see the end result, but if we trust Him, He will never lead us astray.

To start off that lesson, Bishop asked a few people if they could ask God any question, what they would ask. One unmarried sister said she'd ask where her husband is (there are a lot of unmarried people in our ward in their 30s and 40s). A man in the ward said 'I can answer her question, He's right here!' and pointed to the unmarried man sitting next to him. He continued to point to other unmarried men in the class saying, 'or here, or here, or here!'. What followed was several awkward seconds where everyone avoided making eye contact with each other and Sister Bast and I laughed uncontrollably. Do I miss Singles wards? No, I do not!

Have an amazing week! I love you all!

Sofi

中秋節快樂!!!

Hi Everyone! Happy Mid Autumn Festival!

(Translation: Happy Mid Autumn Festival)

Today we are celebrating Taiwan and China's second biggest holiday, right after Chinese New Year. I'll get into a description of the festivities, but first I want to update you on the rest of our week. 

First off, I'm sure you're all wildly curious about the results of last week's mission wide cleaning competition. Last Monday, we poured our heart and soul, a large quantity of sweat, and a couple of tears into scrubbing our apartment. Sister Bast is a saint and spent a couple of hours cleaning the two remaining refrigerators. We bought toothbrushes and more or less scrubbed the entire apartment with them, one surface at a time. By the end I was so tired I puked, but new life has been breathed into our apartment, and it is now a place that I am proud to call home. And our hard work was worth it! Along with herculean efforts from the other missionaries nearby, our zone won the contest! In a little bit we're taking a train up to Jiayi to meet with the rest of the zone and feast on Costco pizza. 

Other than the excitement of cleaning, our week was pretty chill. We had a lot of cool tender mercies showing us that Heavenly Father is still directing the work. A couple of weeks ago we met a cool college kid named Lawrence. We've been chatting about the gospel on Line a bit, and the other day he asked about gay marriage. We told him our Chinese was not good enough to write out an answer, and asked if it would be ok if we video chatted the next day to talk about it. He agreed. When we called him, we focused really heavily on eternal families and God's plan for us. Somehow, we ended up teaching about gay marriage, the law of Chastity, not worshipping idols, and the importance of reading scriptures and coming to church. In case you're wondering, this is not what we normally share in a first met. Usually, we start by talking about who Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are, and what makes our church different, so when we get to things like commandments, they have context for where these are coming from and why we have them. Still, I guess this was what Lawrence needed to hear, because instead of running away quickly (which some people even do when we say 'God loves you'), he asked when he could come visit our church. It was really cool to feel the Holy Ghost there, teaching and testifying despite our broken Chinese.

Ok, on to the Mid Autumn Festival! ..Shoot I only have eight minutes left to write.. I'll make this fast. On Saturday, we got together with our ward to make pineapple cakes, a special delicacy in Taiwan. Pineapple cakes are filled with a mixture of pineapple boiled with sugar into a thick paste. We rolled the paste into balls and wrapped them in a layer of shortbread before pressing them into rectangular molds and baking them. Straight from the oven, they're amazing! Sweet and warm and fragrant and pineapple-y. Also very labor intensive. I'm not sure if I'd do it on my own, but it was fun to make with the ward, giggling and joking and trying not to get flour everywhere.

That evening, we reconvened to the church for a barbecue, the traditional Mid Autumn Festival activity. We were separated into groups around different barbecues, and before we got our food we had to do an activity sheet including get to know you questions, a scripture questionnaire, and minute to win it games. We ended up being at the barbecue for 3 hours playing, cooking food, and then finally eating. We got to know several more ward members, and learned a lot more about Taiwanese culture. A few people we're teaching also came, which was extra fun.

Taiwanese barbecue is why the Mid Autumn Festival may be my new favorite holiday. The barbecue is done over real coals in a tiny firepit. This picture below shows the barbecue a little better. Because the barbecue is tiny and the flame is small, Taiwanese barbecues can go on for hours. Everyone sits in a circle around the barbecue laughing and joking and slowly eating small slices of meat, roasted corn, peppers, and sausages as they're ready. After several hours, everyone is full to bursting. It's a really chill, informal way to spend lots of time together while you wait for the food to cook. Everyone has plenty to eat, and you can watch the fireworks going off nearby while you chat.

Sister Bast and I have been talking a lot about Grace, Mercy, Sin, and Weakness this week. We were kind of confused, because we were taught that we don't repent for weakness, only sin, but also that repentance is any change that brings us closer to Christ, and overcoming weakness definitely does that. After a lot of discussion, pondering, scriptures, and a really good liahona article (https://www.lds.org/ensign/2015/04/it-isnt-a-sin-to-be-weak?lang=eng), the conclusion we came to is that the difference between sin and weakness is all in our desires. With sin, our desires are bad, so we do bad things. With weakness, our desires are good, but because of mortal limitations our actions don't measure up. Thus, weakness pulls us toward Christ because we still desire to be good and realize that it is only with His help that we can realize our potential. This helped me a lot with my own self esteem as a missionary. I feel like this transfer I've really come face to face with a lot of the different weaknesses that I've dealt with before in different stages of my mission. Being able to recognize that my desires are still good has given me the patience I need to keep working diligently and seeking Christ's grace without becoming discouraged. I'm still working on it of course, but it's been really good!

Ok I officially have 30 seconds left, so I have to sign off. Have an amazing week everyone! Love you bunches!

Sofi