Week 14

Me and Sister Lew

Bowling as a Zone

Face Masks for Female Fun

So I have these types of moments with my companion everyday:

"We are in Taiwan, in skirts, being missionaries.... spreading the Gospel?" My life is so blessed. :)

I havent gotten an email from you guys yet, and so it gives me a little bit of time to gather my thoughts before I want to respond to all of your guys crazy week.

First off... My sister is married, and I missed it. So hard. So crappy. So not fun. I PRAYED my GUTS out that I would be ok the day of the wedding, and its a miracle that I was. Thanks for praying for me too. I know I couldnt have made it through the day without your prayers. Heavenly Father took really good care for me and I know he took just as much care for you guys too. All my roommates wore coral tops, and I got to wear the skirt mom made for me. We celebrated her wedding by eating mini "wedding cakes" at dinner, and we all prayed for Audrey. I hope she had a good day, and I hope that everyone else did too. Im DYING to hear about it. I almost doesnt even feel like it happened? Its such a strange feeling to try and describe. I have thought about you guys so much! I cant wait to see pictures.

This week was incredible. So many stories to tell, and all so fantastic. Its so sad I cant tell you all the details about every person and everything that has happened. BUT its ok. :) I can give you highlights!

We have 8 progressing investigators and all of the have baptismal goals! Ridiculous right? There is so much work to do in this area, and I am so excited for these amazing people. We are teaching 3 families, and a couple of teenage girls. Its crazy how fast you "fall in love with these people".

One friend we are working with is Meng Ying Ying. Do you remember me mentioning her last week? She had her baptismal interview this Saturday! She is getting baptized! We are so so so excited for her and she is so incredible. We had a lesson on prophets earlier this week, and Sister Lew asked her a hypothetical question: "What would you ask President Thomas S. Monson if he was coming to Taiwan." Her face was like in shock and she got so humbled, and she responded: "The prophet is coming?" It was such a sweet tender moment that right there in the lesson I totally broke down, and started balling. She has such pure simple faith and she hasnt even seen him or heard him or met him, and she totally believes he is a man of God. Such a sweet humbling moment for me. She is going to China to drop off her youngest son to have him raised by his Grandpartents for a couple of years while she raises her other little boy. Mom it totally made me so so grateful that you were a stay at home mom and raised 6 kids. When I told that to Sister Meng, she freaked out. ha Such an amazing lady with so much faith. She is such a great mom too.

Last night we had a meeting with the Bishop to see how we could help him with the ward, and afterwords we got to talk to the Young Women about how being in Young Womens has effected our life up to this point. It was so fun. Those girls are so great, and help out with so much missionary work with us. I love them. There are actually 3 of them who are the bishops kids and grew up in America so they are like American teenagers. Its so fun talking to them. They remind me of my family. I shared this experience I had with getting an answer to my prayers about my Patriarchal Blessing through the scriptures and how that experience forever effected how close I was to the Lord and how that ripple effect has effect all my life's decisions including me coming on a mission. It was so crazy that I shared that because as I was sharing the Lord totally blessed me realize that. I have never thought of that before and it was really sweet being able to share it with the Young Women.

The Lord has taken good care of me this week. Its been a really humbling week. ha

There was one day where Sister Lew had to go to a training meeting so I got to go on splits with Sister Cooper and Sister Smith. It was so much fun! We had a couple of self contacts, and it was great learning from other missionaries how the contact and how they do missionary work. I learned SO much and I feel really grateful to get to go on Sister splits early. We were tracting in this one place, and we bummed into a lady who was going home, we said hi to her and immediately she started yelling at us telling we needed to go back to America because we are wasting our breath and offending the people of Taiwan by telling them they need to change. She wanted us to stop talking to people at stop lights, and leave them alone. It was such an unexpected response, but Sister Smith said something magical I couldnt really understand and seriously the next thing that came out of her mouth, was: "Sure come up stairs". Can you believe it? You just never know who or when people will be ready to receive the gospel.

The biggest lesson I learned this week, that the Lord works in his own time and in his own way. I am so stressed out about Chinese but through prayer and experiece I know it will come.

My companion is awesome. I love her to death, and we get along creepily well. :) She is like Ms. Mozart, but is an rapper. So funny.

It rained like everyday this week. We got to buy some rad rain coats, and the Elders made fun of us for looking like Taiwan Grandmas. I love it will all my heart, and almost hope for rain so I can wear it. ha

I was introduced to Bing this week. Its like shaved Ice with brown sugar and lots of squishy stuff you can put on the bottom. ha I didnt like it at all, but I hear my taste buds go through a change and Ill crave it in the summer. We shall see.

Man I love you gusy so much. I have a tape ready to go and pictures Im sending today so that fun huh?

I love you all so much. Thanks for sending the pictures. It was really good to see them. Tell Audrey and Davey hi for me!!

Everyone be really good and dont forget to serve each other. Find some small way you can make eachothers day better. :)

Read, Pray, and CTR

Love,

Sister Camille Lee

Week 13 - I'm in Taiwan!

So much has happened this week, I feel like I have been here a month. :)

Ok so first off SOO good to hear from everyone. I have been faithfully taping to you guys everyday, and so I have a tape ready to send out. Delan, Paige, Kade, Mom and Dad I have responses to all your questions later. I’ll talk to you them on the tape. :)

Ok where to Start?

*Wednesday night we came home a little gecko on our wall. We caught him and named him Pascal? (from Tangled) and then let him loose out side.

*Ovalitne Boba’s are my favorite treat and when we work really hard Sister Lew and I get rewarded.

*The fruit in Taiwan is incredible. The pineapple tastes like candy, and that’s another thing we can’t seem to get enough of.

*Living in an apartment with 4 sisters is a blast. We have so much fun! In the mornings and nights we are all constantly laughing our heads off. I can already tell you that I’ll have some great stories to send home. One fun thing we do is sing together as an apartment at the beginning of companionship study. We all actually sound terrific and it’s so fun harmonizing and sounding oh so good.

*We went bowling today for a zone activity. The bowling alley is a 1 min walk from our apt and there is a huge bowling pin outside. (That is how I know we are home.) :)

*The weather this week has actually been amazing. And by amazing I mean sweat your guts out hot. There was only one day this week where it rained a little bit. Its been nice that I haven’t had to get drenched on, but the little rainstorm that we did have was fun. :)

*Personal Study had been a highlight of my week. At the beginning of my mission Pres. Bishop gave us our own copy of the Book of Mormon and had us do the little activity in Preach My Gospel about highlighting your scriptures. So cool! I have learned so much. 1 Nephi 9:6, 15:11, 16:29 15:8 are some scripture that comes to mind. So great. So powerful.

Ok! Soooo

We have met so many people this week! The Lord has some big plans for this area because people are falling into our laps like manna from the heaven. Our days are jammed packed with lessons and everywhere in between we are contacting and calling our investigators.

We have met new investigators that have come to English class randomly, we have met them in cafes eating dinner, on the road waiting to pass the train tracks as a train passes by, getting an ovaltine boba, and bumping into them while accidentally taking a wrong turn. It’s so incredible how much the Lord is willing to bless us. We just talk to everyone!

We have a couple of investigators that are really cute and special that we have been working with this week.

(None of these people will have names because I don’t know them and you guys cant read Chinese anyways. haha)

We went and saw a Blind lady and we committed her to baptism, we had a great lesson with her and we had a member there as well. She sorta lives out in the country and so it was a pretty bike ride to her house. I am so excited to keep meeting with her because she is so humble and willing to keep her commitments.

Meng Jiemei is a dream! She is a cute young mom from China, and is GOLDEN. We have extended so many commitment to her and she is also so willing and so humble to listen and obey, it’s been great seeing her change, and she just glows every time we meet with her.

Shi Dixong. This guy is amazing. His wife is a recent convert of a couple of months, and she is already the primary president. We had an incredible lesson with him last night. He just raves about the changes he sees in his wife since she got baptized and he wants that same thing for him. He is such a sweet man with a sweet heart and I’m excited to tell you more about him next week.

I am almost out of time. I took a long time to write Audrey today because she is getting married in just a couple of days, and needed to give her some sisterly advice.

Mom-I am so sorry that you haven’t been feeling well! I know you will find a dress. It’s going to work out perfectly. I’ll make sure to pray extra hard that things all work out like they are supposed to. Don’t you guys dare stress out too much and ruin the magic of the wedding because everyone is grumpy from no sleep and a delusional perspective of perfection. ok? It will be perfect no matter what. It’s Audrey we are talking about ok? Her life is like a fairy tale remember? ha Mom you have done such a good job and all your hard work is going to pay off.

Ok I gotta go now. I am so sorry this was so short! I promise to do better next week. I love you guys so much and thank you so much for all the letters. The lord is everywhere! I’m so grateful to be a missionary. I love this work. there is nothing more important for me in my life right now. xoxoxoxo

Love Camma