Sister Museus, June 21st, 2010

Hey Everyone, Thank you Mom, Ashley, and Alex for emailing me this week. It is always very wonderful to hear from you and what you are doing back in Utah. I'm glad President Hoer sent you a Taiwan CD. I didn't know that they were going to do that and I just knew they were going to send you an email of the pictures they took. I'm really sad to hear that you played badmitton without me, but when I get back I really hope we keep this tradition up so I can play it with all of you again. Don't get too worried about me mom. I do get very homesick each and every day, but the Lord is always there to comfort me and I have a great companion who is willing to help me with everything. It is very much like a roller coaster ride while being on your mission. I could be in the best mood and I feel like I am getting use to the humidity, but then I find out some terrible news about our investigators and my mood completely changes and then I realize how humid it is. I need to do better with not having these mood swings so often. I guess I just miss you all very much and when people here keep pushing the Gospel away and won't listen to you, it can get really hard here, wondering if you made the right decision to come out here when so many won't listen to you. I'm really excited to here that some of you are going to the Philippines. You will enjoy our cousins, the culture, the scenery, and the great places to shop! I haven't found very many good places to shop at here in Taiwan, except for really cute shoes and clothes. I can't find any plaves that sell cultural items, I will have to keep a better eye on things. But, I have to remember that I am in the poorest part of Taiwan that sisters get sent and the most humid, just my luck hehe. Just know when you get to the Philippines remember that the humidity in Taiwan is worse and very little places have air conditioning. Things were a bit rough for my companion and I this week. Usually you around 30 new investigators to our record, but this week we only added about half that and we didn't get very many referrals either. We didn't have a baptism this week either, but there are several people who are ready for it and we are still waiting for their parents' permission. Yesterday, we went over to Elaine's house (a progressing investigator who wants to get baptized, go to the temple, and serve a mission, and her brother does as well), however, things didn't work out and their mother wasn't willing to give them permission to get baptized. We pray each night that these investigators' parents will soften their hearts and allow them to get baptized. The majority of our investigators are teenagers or younger and it seems like most missionaries are in Taiwan. To me, it seems like the younger generation are more willing to hear our message maybe because they're not too set in their ways and still have a willing heart to listen and feel the Spirit bear testimony to what we are saying is true. Today, we have the opportunity to go with our district on our Preparation Day to visit different parts of Taiwan. A native investigator is going to feed us lunch and then take us on a tour of different parts of the island. I'm pretty stoked since I've seen very little of Taiwan. I'll make sure to take lots of pictures so you can try to experience it with me (in some sense). Each day my love and gratitude increases for each one of you. Please continue to do your best and I know the Lord will be there for you. I can already see Him blessing my family as I faithfully serve Him for another 15 months. Each day is hard being here, not being able to pick up the phone and call you, but in the end it will be worth it because souls will be saved because of my efforts. We have an eternal investigator who know the church is true and has been investigating since February. I had a feeling one day that we should share family history with her. We taught her about family history and she loved it. Later that night we did a follow-up on her and continued to thank and made copies of all of her family history (which she wasn't suppose to do because her family didn't want her to). We are hoping this will help her have a more of desire to be baptized and continue to progress. I'm so glad that Bonnie helped me gather so much family history because it is so beneficial here in Taiwan. The people here love their ancestors and each day we several people burning things for their ancestors, especially money. They believe that their ancestors need help and by burning pretty much everything they will be taken care of in their afterlife. Because of this they also have really good family records that can go back farther than most people can. However, they keep these records very sacred so in a few of them are allowed to see them and keep them. Just think about it...by having one person here come unto Christ and be baptized and you teach them about family history and doing work for the dead....you are saving thousands of souls who are waiting to have their work done for them so they can progress. One of my teachers at the MTC who was from China, collected 10,000 names from her ancestors and her friend collected 30,000 names. This is how important this work is and each and every day we pray that their ancestors can help us along the way was we preach the gospel to these people. Well the humidity continues to get worse since summer is here and it's the rainy season. On Saturday, my companion biked for a total of 3 hours trying to visit less active members and investigators. The same day we did some service by pulling some weeds. By the time the day was over I literally felt like I was wearing a swimsuit since I was completely drenched in sweat. The sweat here is completely different because it's not salty....which is gross to say. I'm sweating just sitting here writing this email to you. Hopefully, one day I'll be fine with it, but I really don't think that it's a possibility. When the day was over I had a huge missionary tan and I was pretty much red all over, oh well....that's the Lord's work for yah. I love you all very much and I'm sorry that I still can't give you my pictures that I've been taking. There isn't a lot of them since I can only take pictures on Mondays, but I will try and send them off to next week. My companion thought her adaptor would work, but my card was too small. I failed to bring my plug-in for the computer and left it at the house. I will try and find one this week and buy one, but if I can't I hope you will send it to me so I can send some pictures to all of you. I apologize for forgetting somethings really important. My companion believes that we will find one so hopefully I will. Remember to continue to go to church and do the right things. Mom, I hope you continue to go to Sunday School and maybe one day to all three of the meetings, I'm very proud of all of you. I'm glad to here that Ash is continually doing better, keep up the good work Ash and keep going to church and you will see many blessings in your life. By the way who is Marc? I'm also excited to see pictures of your business Alex, it sounds really cool and awesome. Keep me updated on it and what you're doing. Please, everyone keep me updated on what all of you are doing. I love hearing how you're doing and what you're doing. I love you all very much and think about you each and every day. Please do what is right so we can always be an eternal family forever and so we can see dad again. Love you all and I will continually have you in my prayers. I can't wait to see you all in 15 months love and miss you very much. Take care! Love you Always,Sister Museus

Sister Museus, June 7th 2010

Hey Everyone, I miss you all very much. I hope in the future each of you will email me. This is by far one of the hardest things I've ever done and I know if I read your words of encouragement and love it would definitely help me get through each day. So please take the time and at least email me once a week. I would love to hear what everyone is doing, your thoughts, and how things are in Logan. I arrived late at night in Taiwan (10pm) and then had to drive for two hours to Taichung. Pres. Hoer and his wife met us at the airport where they went over things in the bus and how the missionaries are doing in Taiwan. Right now Taichung has the highest baptism number for the Asian missions, which is really exciting to hear. Later, we arrived to an apartment where we stayed with a senior couple for the first two nights that near the mission home. In the morning, Sister Hoer made us breakfast and then introduced her family with a slide show as well as the Taichung mission. We went over a lot of rules, expectations, and how things work in the mission field. However, before we went to the mission home we ran on a track for 30 minutes, which about killed me because of the humidity. My shirt was completely soaked through by the time I was done running. Nevertheless, I fell down some stairs (because of the tile here...why would you put tile on the ends of stairs???). Anyways, I ended up getting a huge bruise on my bottom because of my embarassing fall. After a busy morning, my mission president and his wife took us to lunch where we went to a pot soup where you had whatever you like in your soup and watch it cook in front of you, it was pretty good, but I had a very hard time using chopsticks. Later, we went to the mission home and the assistants talk to us on how to contact correctly and how to be a successful missionary. I have to admit that I only paid attention to some of it because I almost falling asleep because of the jet lag. Later, we went out to eat dinner, which was pretty nasty. Most of their food is cooked in oil and I can't handle that much because I hate fried food and eating it in humid weather makes it worst. A lot of the elders were eating duck brain and eyes, fish brain and eyes, etc. It was pretty nasty. After dinner Pres. Hoer talk to us about Dan Jones who was a successful missionary in England and how he had baptized so many people by standing on a box (soap box). For our big suprise we had to go in the middle of a huge night market and stand "Dan Jones" box and start preaching the gospel to the people. There were many people staring and some actually stopped to hear what we had to say. It was pretty embarrassing and I ended preaching about the Book of Mormon and the truthfulness of it. Afterwards, they had older missionaries take us around and start contacting them. (Contacting is sharing two gospel principles, testifying, and then extending out a commitment....such as if they are willing to meet with us, go to church, or even get baptized.) I was very unfortunate and went with Pres. Hoer and his wife to contact for a whole hour. It was very intimidating, especially since my Chinese isn't good at all. Luckily, they were very nice and helped me out when the Taiwanese people couldn't understand me or if I was stuck on what to say next to them. I ended up getting several contacts and some that actually said they wanted to get baptized or at least meet with us again. However, you have to be careful because some will give out phony numbers or names instead of telling you that they're not interested. Pres. Hoer says they do this because it's almost disrespectful to tell some no (it deals with face to face contact). The following day the assistants took us to a vender off the streets to eat breakfast, which was okay. I'm definitely have to get use to soy milk because that is all they drink here and real milk is very expensive. We ended up eating a burger and a breakfast burrito for breakfast. I ended up giving away my burger because that wasn't appetizing to eat for breakfast. Later, we visited a Taiwan temple (which they have many of....Buddhist or Daoist temples). Afterwards, we went to a nice park and the biggest Buddha in Taiwan. I would love to share pictures with you of the places, but I failed to bring my camera. I will make sure to bring it next week and send the pictures to you. Luckily, my new companion brought her camera so I have a few baptism pictures to share with you. Later in the day, we met our new companions after they shared a video of our Dan Jones night and our contacting. We each got a red envelope (the newbies) where everyone did a drum roll and hit the gong as we opened it up to see who was our new companion and the area we would be proselyting in. Luckily, I got a great companion that I was hoping I would have who is from Salt Lake City and her name is Kelsey Anderson. Later, we ate at Ruby Tuesdays, which has been the best meal I've had since I've been here in Taiwan. Of course I ended up getting grilled chicken because it will be one of the last times I'll have it for a very long time. Later, they took us to the train station where we loaded up all of stuff and stayed on the bus for 1 hour and 30 minutes. It was very nice being on the tain station since it air conditioned. We had a good long talk about the investigators and the ones she had baptismal dates for already for the month. Later, we got on a bus to head to our area which is called Huwei, which is a very new area for the sisters because they just white washed it for the sisters (white washed=excellent sisters going in and doing a trial where they will see if the ward is being very supportive of the missionaries and that they are finding people who are willing to get taught and baptized. I guess they closed down the area for the sisters because of something, but I'm not sure why.) I am the first trainee to be in this area for the sisters, which is pretty nerve-racking. Luckily, I have a great companion whose Chinese is really good. Once we got to our new apartment, which is in a big building, we went to eat dinner and talk about things. She took me a yummy bakery where I know Mom would love it so much. I ended up getting a sandwich and some cheesy bread. I know mom would have gone nuts and bought everything in the store since everything I tried (since they have samples), was really good. We will definitely have to go here when all of you come out to get me. I'm going to buy a map today so I can start marking up the good places to take us. My companion helped me with contacting and other great things to say to the people so you can get them to listen to you. Afterwards, we met up with some investigators and taught them a lesson on the Restoration of the gospel. The two sisters were taking in all our words and loving it...or you might say my companions words since I talked very little because of the lack of Chinese that I know. I've noticed that the younger generation is always willing to listen to our message and get very interested, but their parents our always against, which is I think the hardest thing to get them baptized. Somehow my companion and I need to soften the hearts of the parents so they can allow their child to get baptized. Or better yet, get the parents to listen to our message so we can baptize a whole family....this is one of our goals to do in the next 6 weeks before our next move call (transfer). The next morning my bike showed up and we went biking all over town. My bottom is very sore as well as my arms since I need to raise the front part of the bike so I don't hunch over all the time. This day we went and visited some more investigators and some less active member to see if they were willing to come to church again, etc. There tends to be a lot of people who get less active and mainly because of the lack of support from family, friends, and even their own ward. This took about the entire day as we biked everywhere and I felt like I was about to die from the humidity and the sun. My companion ended up getting a flat tire too, which took forever to fix. In the mean time I just studied my phase one book. They gave us three phases that we need to accomplish and pass off with our district leader as soon as possible. It is full of vocabulary, grammar principles. teaching phrases, commitments, blessings you can receive by keeping the commitments, scriptures, definitions of church words, etc. It will probably take me about 12 weeks before I finish the phase one. The other two phases deal with more vocabulary and learning the characters and how to read and write them. It will definitely be a lot of work. Later that night we went to two baptisms that my companion and her last companion taught and got them to be baptized. I attached some pictures of their baptism, which was really neat. The spirit was very strong as I watched them get baptized and see how excited they were and to receive the Holy Ghost at church tomorrow after they confirm them. It was neat to see their excitement and to realize again how real and true this gospel is and too often we take it for granted. We are so lucky to know so much and to know the purpose of life and to realize that we can be together as a family forever and become like our Father and Mother in Heaven. What a privilege it is to know and realize this. The following day we went to church, which was hard because I could understand very little of it. Luckily, we have some Americans in the ward that I talk to a lot during church. It's hard to understand them here because of their accent and how fast they speak. However, the building was air conditioned which was really nice and relaxing. My companion doesn't like turning on our air conditioning because it costs money for the church so every night we only use a fan, which I'm still trying to get use to. Later we biked more and met some investigators and taught them more lessons. In other emails I'll make sure to talk about them, but I don't have much time left so I will talk about our cute investigators later. Afterwards, we went contacting and I actually got a sweet girl about my age to commit to allowing to meet with her. She was very patient with my Chinese, which really helped. Today is our Preparation day where we just bought a few things for my bike and other little things to help me with my studying and buying some small socks since I don't have to wear nylons here. I love you all very much and thank you for everything. I enjoyed talking to all of on the phone last week. It was such a joy to hear from all of you and to see what you've been up to. Know that I'm praying for all of you to make righteous decisions so we can be a family forever because that is what life is all about and our purpose here in life. Thank you Whit for writing me. I always enjoy hearing from you. Please all of you email me and let me know what you're doing. Tell me about your week and everything else that you're doing. I love you all very much. I will tell you more next week on Monday. Take Care! Love you Always,Sister Museus

Sister Museus, May 31, 2010

Hey everyone, Thank you mom and everyone else for bringing my stuff for me. I apologize for asking for way too much. I know I will be set for a long time in Taiwan so don't worry about me. My roommates even helped me dye my hair which was really nice of them. I also apologize mom for not being able to talk to you. I know you wanted me to keep talking and I did too, but I could only explain my situation to you. I was suprised myself that they allowed me to talk to you. The majority of the time they will talk to you as I tell them what to say, but luckily I talked to the girl secretary and she willing to let me talk to you for a second. Everything is going fine here. I'm pretty much freaking out because I hate change and I finally got use to this place. However, I know it's time for me to go and teach the people in Taiwan and help them know of the sweetness that this Gospel brings in our lives. Too often we take the most precious things in our lives for granted such as family, friends, where we live, the job we have, the opportunities we get to have in life, and of course the gospel. Too many of us fail to realize the importance of family and the gospel. You tend to get use the fact that they will always be there; however, they can only be there if we take the time to be appreciated of them and take advantage of them as well. Being brought up in the gospel we tend to forget what it feels like not to have the spirit in our lives. I know through experience that we can feel closer to dad as we strive to live the gospel, seek for the spirit, and love our family. On Tuesday of last week we had the opportunity to hear from Elder Todd D. Christofferson from the quorom of the twelve. Luckily, we got excellent seat and were really close to him. He spoke about the importance of teaching with the Spirit and how it is a gift they we can have in our lives. I pondered about this for quite some time and realized the importance of his words. As a teacher it takes up to 2-3 weeks just to understand the children's needs for each subject area in class. You have to continually observe and kind a variety of different assessments in order to understand how they learn best and what they strengths and weaknesses are in all areas. However, as a missionary you only have basically 3 weeks to get them baptized. The Spirit is so crucial to have as a missionary so within 15 minutes or so from meeting the person, you understand what they need to hear about the gospel and how it can benefit their lives. In addition, with contacts and door knocking you don't have any time to get to know their needs. This is also where you need to have the Spirit with you so you can know what message to give to the investigator to help them understand the importance of the gospel. It was neat to come to this conclusion and realize how essential the Spirit is in all of our lives. Too often we fail to realize that we can have a member of the Godhead with us at all times if we continue to seek after it and follow the strait and narrow path. The Spirit is the most sensitive person you will meet, but he can also greatly benefit our lives by bringing us comfort, strength, encouragement, happiness, etc. Please everyone strive to have the Spirit with you at all times and I know each of you will be blessed. I pray for each of you continually to do your best, to avoid tempations in your life, and to receive the tender mercies you need in your life to know that our Father in Heaven loves as well as our Savior. I can't wait to talk to all of you tomorrow. I apologize for the confusion last time. Remember I will call you around 2 pm maybe even earlier or later depending on the security in LA. I hear that there is secret passage way for people who have already gone through security so we are going to try and find it. I will try and call you on Mom's cell phone first and then the office, since most of you will probably be there. I will be able to talk to you for 2 hours or more so try and have those hours open because I won't be able to talk to until Christmas. Don't send any Dear Elder or letters to the MTC anymore. You can still send Dear Elder letters to Taiwan, but it costs more than sending a regular letter. I forgot our Aunt Becky's (in Washington) email. So please send this to her and give me her address. She started up a blog for me which will come in handy for you and anyone else as well as for me when I get back. I will be able to email you for an hour next week and the rest of the time. I will also be able to upload my pictures to you through email, but I will also make sure to send them to you as well. You can always print them out on a flash drive at Wal-Mart or any other store with the flash drive. Please let the bank know I will be leaving tomorrow for Taiwan because when I get there I do need to pay for my bike and other small items (around 450 dollars). I love you all and I will send you my Taiwan address in just a minute! Take care and miss you! I will call you tomorrow, I can't wait! Love you Always,Sister Museus