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