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