Contacting with Charity

This week the main theme seems to have been contacting and strange experiences from talking to people. We are really focusing on finding new investigators and are practicing the missionary lifestyle of talking to everyone. It's hard! You really have to get out of your comfort zone. And we have had some interesting moments, like the lady who couldn't remember her last name and gave us a phone number for someone living in Taipei, or the guy waved at us like he knew us and then asked "Do you know who I am?" like twenty times (we didn't). But most of the time we have had some cool miracles where we have been in just the right place to talk to someone who is willing to listen and give us their phone number and set up to have a lesson. A lot of those lessons are next week, which is sad because we would like to teach people now. But you have to sow a little before the reaper comes! Or something like that.

 

Other things that happened this week:

we ate lamb soup for the second time and I didn't like it any better. I wish people would recognize that there is such a thing as too much ginger.

 

Exchanges! I got to stay in Gangshan and Sister Fernley, our Sister Training Leader, came with me. It was fun! I got to be leading the area for the day, which was fun. Turns out I really do know where I'm going! And I'm pretty good at Chinese. But don't tell anyone that because I actually just mostly figure out what people are saying from context and if they think I can speak Chinese they will start talking faster and then it will come out that I actually don't speak Chinese. But in the meantime I mostly get what's going on. I still am not sure what the difference between mother-in-law and wife is.

 

I had a bike accident for the first time! Here's what happened: For the past couple of days the brake on my front tire has been struggling and on Saturday morning I realized it was missing a bolt. We didn't really do anything to fix it and the on the way to Luzhu I was noticing the different things that get left on the side of the highway (the greatest common denominator is gloves. I saw like at least 8.) when suddenly I noticed a bolt on the ground. That sparked the brilliant idea that I could pick up a bolt from the ground and fix it myself, saving both time and money! It was too late for that particular bolt but I kept a keen eye out for the future road. Finally I saw one! I stopped and got off my bike, then due to the restrictions of the narrow shoulder determined that the best course of action would be to run backwards holding my bike in order to get the bolt. My companion kept going. I trotted backward. My bike fell over. I fell over. A knee was skinned, a bolt retrieved, and we decided it was probably best to stop by a bike shop where some nice guys drinking tea put in a bolt for free in like 2 minutes.

 

This week I have been trying to focus on charity, and I have awesome quote that has been hanging in a cupboard in my mom's kitchen for years, from Marvin J Ashton: "Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don't judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone's differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn't handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another's weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other."

 

I love that! Charity is expecting the best of each other. I am trying to expect and hope the best for everyone I meet instead of thinking they won't be interested or will never change. If you think like that you won't be willing to try, and that's just dumb. So give people the benefit of the doubt and have more charity for everyone.

 

Love you all!

Sister Cardon

Baptisms and a Bicycle

Another week gone by! Still here in Taiwan. Still love it. Still have new interesting things happen every day.

 

Last week after we emailed we experienced one of those new and interesting things. We went to have our hair washed. Yes, that is a thing. No, it is not a simple shampoo and conditioner thing. For us it was a two hour process where the lady generously soaped and massaged my head for much much longer than she needed to, then rinsed and massaged for an additionally long duration of time, then blow dried it very thoroughly. Then she ran into a problem; she herself had grown up in Vietnam and lived in Taiwan for a number years, and this was the first time she had ever worked with my American hair which does not like to be blow dried in humidity. ("Your hair is so frizzy!") When she didn't know what to do with it I suggested a straightener, mostly meaning that I could straighten the front part myself and then go because what's the point it's just going to be wavy again tomorrow. But no, she insisted on giving my hair the most thorough straightening it has ever received, including separating it into at least 8 layers. And guess what? It was wavy again on Tuesday. But at least my head felt clean!

 

On Wednesday we had a pretty exciting day where we had 4 lessons with a member present! It was really wonderful. In the morning we met with Chen Li Zhu, who has already learned so much and the gospel is helping her so much. She is struggling with a few things in her family right now so most of the lesson was spent listening to and comforting her. Sometimes when that happens as a missionary it is hard to know what to do. I have limited life experience and don't know how to help her on one hand, and on the other hand we're not here to be counselors. But we are here to help people feel the love of Christ, and that's why I still felt like it was a good lesson; we were showing her that we love her and care about her, and we were able to share with her a Family Proclamation to help teach her some of the gospel principles that will help her family improve. I often think about how we are called to comfort the afflicted. It's a really wonderful role for me right now.

 

Then later on Wednesday we taught English class, where we are teaching the xiaopengyou class (literally "little friends", it's what they call kids). It's a little exhausting. And embarassing; it would be one thing to do the hokey pokey with just seven year olds, but it's another thing to do it with seven year olds and their parents. But I'll get over it. Then after English class we had 4 different investigators, two sets of friends, meet with us for lessons, so we split up and had two members be our companions for a lesson. It was cool for a little while to be the only missionary in the room where I knew that I was there to bear my testimony and help the investigator progress towards baptism. And I was grateful for the member who bore her testimony really well (and helped me understand what the investigator was said because I wasn't entirely sure if she said she thought she could get baptized when she was 18 or if her mom was opposed to it right now or what)(details like that are important). So overall it was a crazy day but was really wonderful.

 

AND the best part is that yesterday we had a lesson with one of the investigators Sister Grigg taught on Wednesday, Claire, and set a baptismal goal with her! It's been about a month since we've had anyone make a baptismal goal and I feel really good about Claire. All day Sunday I kept thinking about how we needed to set a goal with her in the evening, and even though our lesson was going late and we kept getting off subject we finally were able to talk to her about it and she is very willing to keep learning and pray about it. I know that God will answer her prayer and she will be baptized in February! And cool thing; she told us that she hadn't been sure if she wanted to come to dinner with us (we invited her to a dinner with a member that she hadn't met before) and she called us to tell us that she didn't feel comfortable coming. When she called us we were on our way out the door and the phone only rang once before it didn't pick up so we just decided to call her back in a little bit. When we didn't answer the phone she decided to pray to see if she should go to this stranger's house and had a really peaceful feeling that she should go. So she went and met us there and we didn't hear about this until later. What a miracle! God answered her prayer, we had a nice time with the member, and she now has a goal to be baptized. This is the kind of thing that makes being a missionary really worth it.

 

I did have a little bit of trouble eating the mini shrimp with their eyes still attached that the member gave us. And I'm not entirely sure what that fruity squishy plum-looking thing in the soup was that I ate, but I don't really intend on eating it again. The dumplings were good though!

 

And by the way, the answer to the question "Can both companions ride on the same bike at the same time?" is yes.

 

Love you all!

Sister Cardon