Week 40 - Hi everybody!

Nov 28

I love you guys so much... Happy Holidays!

Everyone had like the best week of your life’s it sounded like. I am really glad that everyone is so happy and so exhausted. Thanksgiving break is always really fun. It sounded way more fun then Halloween. :)

This week was great! It was power week! It means that we left the door early and we had a special thing that we were focusing on each day. We were supposed to set really high goals and work extra hard. It was a good week, but exhausting. ha As a mission we passed out 1037 Book of Mormons in a day. To legit to quit.

Today was a busy day. It’s the last P-day I have with all my roommates. We ran a ton of errands and got all our Christmas shopping done. Move call is coming up next week, and so we will be split up. It was SOO much fun while it lasted. I made best friends for life with these girls, and some of the best memories of my mission so far have been bonding with this apartment. Good times, good times...

Ren Mama is adorable. We went and visited her last night, and after we had been home for about 20min she called us just to say that she misses us. She asked what we were doing, and we asked what she was doing. She was reading her scriptures with her son. It was so cute. She is an aboriginal and so she taught us how to say, "I love you" (sa har gu gan nu) in her dialect. Sounded nothing like Chinese. It was awesome.

She has had a rough week... we had this feeling that we should go and see her on Monday night, and when she showed up she was balling. balling. balling. she found out that her son was dying. It was a perfect time to get out the scriptures and review the plan of salvation with her. She felt lots better by the time we left and then on Tuesday the Elders went over and were able to give her a blessing. She didn’t come to church on Sunday which we were both really really sad about. Her baptismal date has been push back and so she just might get baptized on Christmas Eve with her son. That would be the best Christmas present ever.

Other highlights from this week:

Traveling up to Shen Gang and everyone being so nice to us and having a lot of success.

Having our less actives randomly show up to English

Going to the Relief Society broadcast with a recent convert

Making Turkey Hands on Thanksgiving as an apartment

Helping a member with her LA son

Meeting lots of Less Actives that were on our ward list

Miracle Chen was too busy to meet with us this week, but we called her everyday and shes doing great.

Its good being a missionary. It was a great week to re-energize for the next move call.

I love you guys a lot. Thanks for praying for me. I’m really happy, and thankful for the time to serve in Taiwan. It’s really humbling. Really humbling. But it’s great. Its perfect, and I am loving it.

Love Sis Lee

Week 39 - What a day... :)

Nov 21

Hi Family!! I love you!!

We just got back from a zone activity and it was really really fun... Well we just walked around a lot and saw a whole bunch of flowers. We walked and walked and walked, and it was beautiful and a blast. We are all sun burnt our feet hurt and are all really happy.

This week was a growing week for me. I realized that I hit my half way mark and so I did a lot of goal setting and reviewing... We had a great week with an even better ending!

This week at church an investigator sneaks in the back half way through sacrament meeting and Sister Rigby and I are confused because we unfortunately didn’t have any investigators confirmed for church.

After sacrament meeting was over we went up to her and introduced her self. She was on the phone with her Mom who we found out was a member in a near by stake. She said to us: "Hello! My name is Chen. I want to get baptized. What do I need to go. I have been to church twice, I want to know Jesus. I was in a different church before, but now I realize that doesn’t count."

We were thrilled. We were so so excited. That is the kinda miracle you always hear about but you never expect would happen to you and your companion. Before leaving the door that morning we said a pray asking for a miracle at church, and the Lord blessed us with one.

I have learned a lot about Faith on my mission. Faith brings forth mighty miracles. The Lord himself said: "If ye have faith in me, ye have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me." (Moroni 7:33) This area has been hard. We have had to say goodbye to so many great investigators but I know that the Lord has blessed us because of our faith, and I also know that there have been weeks we really haven’t seen a lot of success because we haven’t had a lot of faith.

I’m just grateful that the purpose of life is to learn and get to become perfect in Him step by step grace by grace.

I love you all so very much. Thanks for your prayers and support. You know you are the best family anyone could ever ask for.

Today at some points during the zone activity I felt like Mom and it made me so happy. You taught me well. :)

143

Sis Lee

P.S. Ren Mama is doing great. She came to the family ward activity with her son and they had a blast.

We said goodbye to Emily. She just isn’t quite ready. It was hard saying goodbye, but I’m really glad that I got to meet her and butter her up for the next missionaries. She'll get baptized.

Week 38 - I believe in miracles!

Nov 13

It was a good week. Lots of good stories for my journal.... :)

It poured poured rain this week. Its all clear and sunny now, but there was a couple of days I had to break out my tights. On Wednesday Companion and I were riding to go tracting and a random girl on her scooter rides along side of us and yells "Sister!! These are for you!!" I have no idea to this day who she was, but she gave us a huge bag of oranges. It was so random and so nice of her! On the way back from tracting to the church we saw this cute little man picking up garbage. He has it piled above his head on his scooter, and bulging out the sides. There was a line of cardboard drink cartons on the road that went through two stop lights. We pulled over and walked down the road helping him pick up his recycling. After we helped him get all his recycling gathered up we walked back to our bikes and Sister Rigbys bikes lost balance and fell over. The oranges went flying and then he waddled over and helped us pick them up. We gave him a orange to say thanks. It was such a great moment. I just knew that Heavenly Father was happy. It reminded me of the movie Finding Faith in Christ. There is a point where Jesus helps this man pick up a basket of pears, and the man gives him one to say thanks. It feels good to serve people just like Jesus.

Thursday was Sister Exchanges. Sister Rigby wanted a day with Sister Tan to see the way she did things. I got to spend the day with Sister Bryce. She passed off her phase one evaluation and I was so proud of her! It was so much fun getting to be with her and learn from her. We saw so many miracles that day. It was pouring again and we were on our way home. I stopped this girl at the bus stop and we just started talking to her. We told her about God and her relationship with. We taught her why prayer is so important and how you can communicate through prayer with our heavenly father. As we are having this lesson one of our members pulls up and gives us food! There were able to meet and our member invited our new friend to church. It was perfect timing and you just knew that God totally planned it like that. :)

Friday was 11/11/11. During weekly planning our apartment wished at 11:11 and then we all snapped a picture holding up one finger so it looked like 11/11. Sister Rigby and I placed 11 Book of Mormons in honor of 11/11/11. It was really fun, and met a lot of great potential investigators.

Saturday my 11/11/11 wish same true! I wished we would find Ren Mama. My wish totally came true!! She disappeared all week, and Sister Rigby and I were totally sad. She was progressing so well and doing so great, and then we couldn’t even get a hold of her. She’s been moving to a different place and we had no idea where she was moving to. We stopped by her house and she wasn’t home. We were writing her a card, right as she pulled up. Yahoo!!! She was so excited to see us, and she took us to her new house. Its literally in the middle of the mountains in the middle of no where. Its surrounded my a grave yard, and its gorgeous. We walked from one house to the other and back again, and we were able to review everything with her and teach her a lesson. It was great getting in touch with her again. Its amazing how much you love and care for your investigators

Its been good this week. I feel like Companion and I are seed planters here in Tanzi. We meet so many great people and have so many great lessons, and then they kinda drop off the earth. Sometimes its really hard and frustrating, but I don’t mind what kinda job the Lord wants to give me in his vineyard. I am just fine being a seed planter. :)

Love you guys.

Love Sis Lee

Week 37 - Happy November

Nov 7

This week I reached my 6 month on the island mark.

Next week I reach my 9 month mark.

In case you guys weren’t counting. ;)

Kader happy birthday dude!! How was it? I want to see all your pictures.

Monday: We had dinner at a members home who makes xylophones. It was cool having them show us everything. Dinner was delicious. We got to introduce our selfs and it was great getting to know their family. Mormon family. 3 little kids. Last name: Lu. :) Great solid members.

Tuesday: Companion and I were tracting and we had an adorable Husky follow us around for 3 hours. We loved him. Its ridiculous how attached you can become to an animal. ha Delan I totally knew you were going to love that story.

Wednesday: Elder Gong from the 70 presidency came and visited the mission. I got to shake his hand and meet him and his wife. It was a great mission conference. We talked about being quick to observe. When you are quick to observe you see things that aren’t necessarily visible without the quite promptings of the spirit. Sometimes I feel like I am in Mommy training. I love my investigators like they are my children and I take care of them like they are. I felt like it was awesome mom advice as well as missionary advice. After the meeting we all the sisters got to meet with Sister Bishop and Sister Gong. We talked about the importance of communication in our companionship's and again I felt like I was in some sorta spouse training. It’s really interesting and amazing how the simple doctrines of the gospel are universally applied to all stages of life. We had a little question answer portion and it was really fun.

*We also decided to start celebrating Christmas early. We put up our tree and we have been listening to Christmas music all week.ha

Thursday: We went tracting again. We love tracting. Its been working recently which has been a great blessing! We went to go visit Emily, but no one was home. We were bummed out, and sorta sad we didn’t get to see Ama watching Karaoke on TV.

Friday: We went to go visit Emily, and as soon as we turned the corner to her house, we saw a huge bai bai tent up. (Bai Bai tent is a place where they worship their ancestors when they die. It has their picture up, fruit and flowers all around it.) I ran over to see whos picture was up and it was Ama. Our cute little grandma friend. Emily's mom. I cried and cried and cried. Grandpa saw me crying and went and got Emily. I felt so stupid, but I couldn’t help it! I loved that old lady! She is Emily’s mom for goodness sakes. Anyways... It just made me grateful for the strength that prayers and scriptures can bring in times like that, and also the doctrine of the plan of salvation. It was hard being all happy the rest of the night, but we went out and worked hard and felt better.

Saturday: I dont remember. Oh wait! Yes I do. That was less active power day. We went and had lots of great lessons with a lot of our less actives. We were finally able to get a hold of a Mom who hasn’t come to church in years and years. She has two great kids who haven’t been baptized and she has nothing stopping her from coming back to church other than not knowing anyone in the ward. She was so cute and so nice, and we are really excited to start helping her. :)

Sunday: None of our investigators came to church. And we cant get a hold of any of them. Ren mama found a house and is moving and totally MIA, Cherry is feeling like she doesn’t belong and wants to give up, and Emily is dealing with funeral stuff. It was sad. We have tried to get a hold of them, but still no luck. We still had a good day. We went tracting that night, and talked to tons of people. It was a huge blessing.

Today: We went shopping and I got my hair chopped off. Such a sister missionary right?

Work is slow, and sometimes its really hard, but its all soo worth it. I am still happy and really liking it over here in Taiwan.

I love you guys all alot alot. Help mom with Kristas wedding. Be nice to each other. Read and Pray and thank Heavenly Father for your gabillion blessings.

xox

Sis Lee

Week 36 - Happy Halloween!

Elder Gong visits the mission.

Happy Halloween Slippers!

Artwork by Delan, Color by Camille

Her District

Check out the cute fall fashion!

Oct 31

Family! You guys all looked ridiculously good. Love Halloween. It deff was not as crazy over here in Taiwan, but still a blast. :) We played games with the Elders and had little fall cookie bake off. Relaxing and fun. I had such a great time. We dressed up in fall colors and just loved life.

I don’t have a lot of time, but here we go...

This week was awesome! Bah I love being a missionary. I love it. First of all I am obsessed with my companion. We have so much fun, and we get a lot done. I like meeting my best friends here.

Alrighty...Folks. Cherry is back!! Do you remember her? She is the cute Pilipino mom that we met at 7 and she cried. Well we set up with her, and she loved it. She ate it all up, and she brought her little boy to church.

Ran Mama the little grandma that cried who and just lost her husband recently. She came to church and she loved it.

Remember that mom stopped us on the road and we ate lunch with? We have met with her a couple times this week, and its been great. We met her daughter and her little girl is SO ready. She is even cooler than her mom. We can’t wait to keep helping them grow.

How blessed are we?? We both feel blessed and its really fun being able to teach and grow with people.

We have a less active family in our ward that we are trying to get ready to go to the temple and its been great doing follow ups with them.

Also we met another less active family that is more special. They both have problems, and it’s kinda a bummer. Well I noticed that she has a box of hair dye and I knew that she wanted to dye her hair so bad, but couldn’t do if her self so we went over there the next day and taught a lesson as I colored away. Who knew I was going to be doing that on my mission? ha

I saw this old grandma carrying a lot of really heavy stuff so I offered to help her carry it on my bike and she wanted me to call down a taxi for her instead. ha So my companion and I biked down the street and had the Taxi follow us to the cute little grandma.

We met another Pilipino at another 7 and just started talking to her about church. She started crying. I don’t know why that always happens recently but random people we meet with on the street will just cry and cry and we never see them again, but its crazy cause that’s when I feel the most like a missionary.

Ok fine so this email might be really lame, but just know that I am feeling really blessed and having such a great time.

This week we have mission conference. Elder Gong and his wife are coming to talk to the mission and I am really excited. I will tell you all of the best parts of course.

Ok oh and I forgot we get to go to the temple next week!! I am so excited. :) So we wont be emailing on Monday. Cause we go to the Temple on Wednesday so ill be emailing then. xoxo

Love you bye.

Sis Lee

My testimony is growing, I can feel it. :)

Week 35 - Well folks that’s a rap. Like the kinda of thing a gangster does.

Oct 23

Today marks the end of my 4th move call. I am staying in my district with my companion, and I am SOO happy. I love this girl; she is my best friend on this Island. I was having serious anxiety that we were going to have to separate. We got the phone call really late on Saturday night. Once Elder Lindsey told us that we were safe together, I just started crying. It was so hilarious. Everyone in the apt was laughing at me. Don’t worry... we got in on tape. :) I’ll be sending that soon.

Happy Almost Halloween everybody! I sent awesome letters to all of you, and then they were sent back, and so I am going to resend them. :)

Ni hao! Nimen hen bang. Wo zhenda hen ai nimen! Nimen shi wo zui hao de pengyou. Wo xian nian nimen danshi wo zhidao shijain kuai daole. na meiyou guanxi. wo hai you shijian. wo ai wo de chuanjiao.

Anyways. This week was power up week!! yahoo! I realize that means nothing to any of you. ha Elder Lindsey gave us a "power" goal each day. He gave us all these tools to help us try and reach our goal. We promised to do our best to try and hit the power up goal. We were super diligent, and totally rocked our goals out of the water. It was way fun. He was a great District Leader. We saw a couple of cool miracles because of it.

We were riding our bikes, and I saw this girl getting off her scooter. I stopped and talked to her. She was just about to go into a restaurant. We just started telling her how great this gospel is and how much she needs it in her life. She asked us if we had eating lunch. We hadn’t yet, and so she bought our lunch as we talked to her about the gospel! It was so great. We are meeting with her tonight, and I am excited to keep teaching her. She was great. Her name is Judy.

Fun story number 2. The Elder in our area gave us a referral. Pan Mama. She is 60yrs old, and her husband has just recently died. She is so sweet, and has such a great heart. We went and visited her on Saturday night, and it was a great end to a great day. Because her husband died her husbands family is selling all of her stuff for money and kicking her out of her house. Its so weird. Its so sad. When we first sat down with her were small talking it up getting to know her, and then she just started pouring out her heart. Then she started crying, and I just ran and gave her a big hug. She hugged me so tight, and was crying so hard, naturally I just started crying. She has a heart condition, and so she kept saying: "I don’t want my heart to hurt anymore." It was so sad and cute all at the same time. She has incredible amounts of faith. She kept saying that she knows if she relies on God he will bless her. She says that she prays when she is sad and when she is in pain, and that she always knows that God is there watching over her.

No matter how old you are, or what walk of life you come from this gospel can bless your life. I feel like prayer is a big band-aid, and I know the Savior can help heal any wound. I love being missionary. Only because my life has purpose and what I do everyday is important. But the coolest part is that even when I am not a missionary anymore I can still be doing important things everyday. I can love and serve and lift and bless and inspire just like the Savior did and I don’t need a name tag to love everyone’s guts out..

Emily. Let me tell you about Emily. We found her tracting. She’s single, and works for a fan store in America. She is our progressing investigator. She is reading and praying, and changing and growing, and its so cool. She wasn’t to be happy and peaceful. And I can tell she’s going to take a lot of work and love, but she is so worth it. I am excited to keep you updated.

I love you guys. The church is true, and it changes life. Study the Book or Mormon, prayer for longer than you usually pray, do something nice for someone else that you don’t want to do, forgive and forget, and just love people.

:) Sis Lee

Week 34 - Wo hen kuile! That means I am really happy.

A Pet Pig!

Birthday Bash!

Oct 17

I’m being tempted!!

I have never experienced true temptation on my mission until now... The man to my left is watching the last part of Harry Potter 7?? I’m dying people...DYING?! But still surviving and not looking at his screen. Be proud.

All of my roommates write to their families in Chinese. Or they put Chinese words into their emails, and I think that would be good for you guys to be a tad bit cultured so that is what I am going to do to.

In Taiwan, if someone asks you if you want something you have to say bu yao, or bu yong. That means. I don’t want it. I don’t use it. It sounds so rude, but that is how you have to communicate with these people. Straight forward. I think we could all learn a good lesson form the Taiwanese. In some ways they communicate way healthier than Americans. When my companion wants me to give it to her straight she says: "Stop being an American." ha its funny... I encourage everyone to be more straightforward about what you feel and what you want. It’s the way to go. You actually get what you want or don’t want and you communicate your feelings.

Today was Sister Rigby’s birthday celebration. We all sang her Happy Birthday in our man morning voices as the alarm was still going off this morning. It was pretty funny. We spent the day shopping, eating and all getting our hair cut. We took pictures, and laughed all day. It was so much fun. Tomorrow is actually her real birthday, but tomorrow is sister exchanges so I won’t be here. I’ll be with another Sister doing some missionary work somewhere else. :) She had a great day. I know it. I took so many pictures of her today I felt like Mom. It was such a good feeling. :) Oh! We went out to eat today, and I didn’t like my noodles. I have been here long enough to taste a difference between good noodles and bad noodles. It’s exciting!

On Tuesday we were eating at our regularly Douhua place. We were leaving and the cute worker started talking to us. She was so cute and so nice, and started asking us all sorts of questions. She has lived in Tokyo, Japan for the last 20 years and was visiting this weekend. We invited ourselves back into the place and sat down with her, so we could continue talking to her. It was great getting to know her. We just started talking about how much our missions have changed our lives, and how grateful we are for the knowledge of the gospel, and how it has blessed our family... by the end of the lesson she was crying and telling us that the reason why she was in Taiwan was because she was there for her brothers funeral. She was really sweet, and we were able to give her a Book of Mormon. We got her information and we will send it to Japan, but I know she has the most important book ever. I really hope she reads it. It’s will change her life!

Remember that great investigator Cherry we met last week that was from the Philippines? Well she disappeared. She won’t answer her phone. It’s so bizzaro that this keeps happening. We have amazing great first sit-downs, and then they disappear. ??? Well we went to go hunt her down, and thought about lingering around the 7 / 11 where we met her. ha We didn’t find her unfortunately but, we did find another miracle sit down. She was smoking outside, and so we naturally started talking to her. (That’s what we do…We are missionaries.) Come to find out, she had been to church before and she loved it. We gave her a B of M and she was reading before we got on our bikes. We have a meeting set up with her this week. It’s going to be great getting to know her a little bit more.

We saw success and the Lord blessed us by finally meeting a couple of our Less Actives and Recent Converts that we haven’t met all move call?! We were SO excited. Because of their schedule and their stubbornness its been really really hard to meet up with them, but we got to meet some of them this last week, and it was great. We had great lessons, and invited lots of them to start praying and reading again.

Hmm what else? All is well over in Tanzi. I love my companion, I love my ward, I love my cute Recent Converts Less Active's, and I love those people I don’t really know yet. We had 2 solid progressing investigators, and they just kinda dropped off into the middle of no-where and so we are still faithfully searching for those ready and willing to change their lives and accept this gospel.

I love you guys. Thanks for updating me, and keeping me involved in your life. I love you all so very much. I pray for you like all the time. :)

Love you!

Sis Lee