Trailer Parks and Spiders: October 13, 2014

Good week! There probably isn't going to be much flow to this. I will try my best.

Miracle: we were about to drop one of our investigators, Trailer Park Ray (62 and missing a tooth. Also a little creepy. The Lord looketh upon the heart.) Sometimes he doesn't seem that interested and says he knows everything. plus, we invited him to conference and he totally bailed at the last minute, so that was kind of annoying. So on Tuesday we were going to have a make-it-or-break-it lesson with him, and we decided to stick it out. He says he's been thinking a lot about religion a lot more recently, and he wants to stop smoking and change his life, and then we invited him to church and he immediately accepted! We thought we would have do a lot of convincing but he was so excited to come. Then Satan broke his water heater so Ray didn't come to church. But we're making steps!

We knocked on a door where someone told us a Chinese man lived. A definitely Caucasian blonde woman answered the door and inside was her very fair-skinned, possibly albino three-year-old. We had an awkward conversation trying to figure out if we even stopped by the right house or not and determined that yes, this was the right house but Mr. Zang was not home. Yes, that child was half-Chinese. No, they don't really want to hear our message. And yet we stood in the front hall and talked to Mrs. Zang for more than an hour in great detail about many of the trials of her life. It was an interesting evening.

On Saturday we had an awesome opportunity to listen to Sister Linda K Burton, the general Relief Society President! She came to our stake and gave a wonderful talk about joy: true joy can be had by relying on Jesus' Atonement, Obedience, and Yielding our hearts and will to God. She was very inspiring and I got to hug her afterward! I'm really lucky to be here in Utah.Our mission president's wife came to the event and sat with us, then afterward we took Sister Hansen out on splits with us. We didn't have any set appointments to teach so we decided to take Sister Hansen to the trailer park to meet someone we are teaching, Sharron.

We have had better ideas.

It was hot. Sharron was not in a good mood. There were cats everywhere. Sister Hansen is allergic to cats. Sharron wouldn't let us inside for some reason. We stood outside on the porch. It was still hot. There were flies. Sharron did not want to listen to a message. Sharron wanted to tell us every detail about her various surgeries and when her husband died and how she is still paying on a truck she doesn't even have. Sister Hansen was wearing the wrong shoes. In conclusion, it was not a very successful appointment and I still feel bad that we made our mission president's wife stand outside in a trailer park. But, you live and you learn! I hope Sister Hansen forgives us.

We got to see Meet the Mormons on Friday! I highly recommend it: it's a church-commissioned movie directed by a family friend of ours, Blair Treu. It was so good. It's like a documentary about six different people and families showing that Mormons are just normal people; it really is a documentary so if you don't like that sort of thing you might not enjoy it, but I loved it. Totally cried. Totally would see it again. 

Things missionaries get excited about:

conference talks

Mormon memes on LDS.org

Meet the Mormons

return appointments

how old the general authorities are

HOLY COW we caught the biggest spider ever on our sticky mat in the basement the other day. It was a wolf spider. It was two and a half inches across. I about died.

Last, I had a dream that my visa never came and we all got another reassignment. This time I was reassigned to Portugal. It might happen. But actually, Sister Hansen said that the new rule is that visa waiters will stay for the whole transfer, so that means I will be in Utah until about November 4th. It's great!

Love you all,

Sister Cardon

The Salt Lake Life: October 6, 2014

It's been a week, alright!

Conference was fabulous. We had tickets to both the Saturday morning session and the Sunday afternoon. It was so cool to be in the conference center! We had a ridiculous amount of stress about who to take with us, since we need to take an investigator or less-active or someone, but seriously no one wanted to go with us. This week was a little rough: hardly anyone answered their door, or their phone, and most people cancelled their lessons like the day of. We did a lot of walking and driving around and saying "..Well, where should we go next?" after yet another person didn't answer their door. Or opened their door a little bit and said, "We're not religious. Good bye." But hey, one cool thing was that we knocked on a door and the lady was very friendly and said "You are the first missionaries I've ever seen!" She had moved here a year ago from guess where... Sammamish! So we had an instant connection and were totally about to baptize her but then she said she didn't want any brochures. Someday, lady. You came to Stansbury Park for a reason. 

One of my favorite talks in conference was Elder Ballard's about how we need to stay on the ship of the church and wear life jackets. He is so powerful! And Elder Holland's talk was so good, he doesn't care about talking about hard subjects like depression or poverty. He just says it like it is. And Elder Bednar's was great. I never understood why missionaries all love Elder Bednar so much, but now I do. He is so great. We are totally printing off his talk and giving it to everyone ever. And I really loved the simplicity of President Monson's message: be Christlike. We are a Christian people, and we need to follow His example. That's it! I am so grateful that we have inspired leaders of the church who tell us what we need to hear. I felt like the theme of this conference was personal revelation, that we need to gain a testimony for ourselves and then ACT on it. So great. 

Chinese this week: coolest experience. We went up to Temple Square and tagged along with a Chinese tour! It was so neat. I legitimately understood what the sister giving the tour was talking about the whole time, except for the brief moments that I zoned out and sort of lost it. Also, little details sort of slipped, like how many pipes are in the organ at the tabernacle. I don't know how many pipes there are, but I do know that she was talking about how many pipes there are. That, my friends, is improvement. She also included me in my companion as real sister missionaries in the tour, like asking us question about how knowing we are daughters of God has blessed us. I totally responded in Chinese, and people may have thought I talked really slow and didn't know what I was saying, but the important part was that I did say things. And I got to bear my testimony in Chinese, which is what I was called to do. Life is great. We had to go all the way to Salt Lake to find Chinese people, though. We went to a Chinese restaurant in Stansbury last week and I asked the girl at teh register where she was from-China! "Ni shuo Zhongwen ma?" (do you speak Chinese?) "What?" "...Ni shuo..." "Oh, I speak Cantonese." Cool.

One of our less actives, Ezequiel, is doing great. He has been struggling with drinking but the week before I came Sister Payne made a deal with him that if he didn't drink until November 1st, she would not eat McDonald's until then. And they are both holding to it! Ezequiel calls us every time he has a test where someone asks him to come out drinking and he has passed every time. We are so proud of him. The Gospel really changes lives, and I am so grateful for the influence it has had in my life. 

Love you all, stay strong and share the Gospel with your friends. It's fabulous. 

Love,

Sister Cardon 2.0

Somewhere Close to Grantsville: September 29, 2014

Wow, what a week. My first area is Stansbury, UT, right next to Tooele and pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Have you gotten to speak any Chinese, you ask? Well, let me tell you about our conversation with the owner of a house which a few weeks ago my companion saw an Asian lady gardening outside. We knocked on the door and a white man opened up with a "Oh, it's the missionaries" disgruntled kind of look on his face. He asked what we wanted and after a brief introduction:

Me: Well, you see I'm actually going to Taiwan on my mission so I'm trying to learn Chinese and I thought... your wife... might be.. Chinese.

Him: ...no. She's from Korea.

We then left as awkwardly as possible. So the answer is no, I don't think there is anyone who speaks Chinese here for maybe 40 miles. But if there is one person, then by golly I will find them! Actually cool thing, we got permission to go up to Temple Square and tag along with a Chinese tour there so I can find some people to practice with! So not all is lost.

It has been a crazy week, much different than anything I was expecting. I'm out in the middle of nowhere, and it is great. We cover six wards in the Stansbury Park Stake and there is so much work to do. We get fed every night and meet all sorts of neat members, nonmembers, and less-actives alike. And guess what? We are over a trailer park. Yes. I get to walk around a sketchy trailer park and tell people about Jesus. IT'S SO COOL. Interesting characters I've met so far include Ray, who smoked during our whole lesson and has interesting ideas about what we do with tithing money, Shirley, the 60-year-old black Muslim lady who didn't want to go to Women's Conference ("BOOOring!"), and Bob, singing and guitar playing fellow who we have convinced to do a musical number with me in church the week after conference (if I'm still here). It is so cool! I also chatted with a Bishop who served in Taiwan 40 years ago, met a family with 9 kids all hanging out in the living room on Sunday evening, and walked dogs for service at like 8:30 in the evening when it was way dark outside. I am not a dog person. That was hard. Another day we sat in a McDonalds for like 20 minutes because we didn't realize that our appointment was actually for the next day. 

The following conversation occurred on my first day in the field with a 10-year-old girl:

Girl: blah blah something about an older sister who's not here.

Me: Oh, did your sister go to college or something?

Girl: No, she's gone. Forever!

Me: (very kindly and sympathetically, I might add) Oh I'm sorry, did she pass away?

Girl: ... NO! Why would you say that?! She's not DEAD! Why would you ask me that? Oh my goodness, that is so sad! I'm going to cry! *proceeds to burst into tears*

So I also made a little girl cry on my first day. So many adventures just in one week! It is so great.

My companion is Sister Payne from Calgary (don't worry, I tease her about her Canadian accent at every opportunity) and she is just great. She's been out six months and is so much fun, we are having a great time together. 

I also got to go to Women's Conference in the Conference Center! We had five tickets to it and then one lady dropped out of coming so we went with some members, and it was so neat. We went out to dinner afterwards and a group of older couples at the next table paid for our dinner! It was so sweet. It's pretty great to be a missionary in Salt Lake, I have to say. But it was a little weird to be driving around Salt Lake City at night, it felt like I should be going back down to Provo for school, not back to the mission. But it was so cool to see the conference live. I really loved President Uchtdorf's talk. He spoke about how God is essentially raining down blessings on us. It is our doubts and fears and sins that keep up an umbrella so we don't receive those blessings. All we need to do is have faith and repent so that we can put down the umbrella and receive the wonderful rain of the blessings that God wants to give us. It was very inspiring, and very fitting since it was like pouring rain in Salt Lake that evening. 

In conclusion, life is good. I'm having such an interesting time here in Stansbury and I'm loving this mission. I'll be happy to go to Taiwan, but in the meantime I'm appreciating the blessing this experience is. 

Love,

Sister Cardon

P.S. My mission office address is 

1535 S Edison St 

Salt Lake City, UT 84115

so you can so write me for the next few weeks.

Last One, Best One

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, here it is. I am down to my last few hours at the MTC. Some of you may know and others may not that I have not yet received my visa for Taiwan and have therefore been temporarily reassigned. I will be serving in the Utah Salt Lake City mission until my visa arrives, hopefully within two to four weeks. That means that in about three hours from now I will be taking the Frontrunner train up to Salt Lake City to meet my new mission president and wife and start my real mission in the field! I AM SO STOKED. My mission covers north of SLC, including Bountiful and up to Layton. Then it also has like all of the salt flats. Maybe I'll go convert the pirates of the Great Salt Lake.

This week has really been so great. We have had so much fun with our last classes, in-field orientation, teaching our investigators for the last time, and creating our last memories with our district. We have had such a close district that it has been hard to say goodbye; luckily, though for the next few weeks we will be going to places as diverse as Seattle and New Hampshire, we will all meet up again in Taiwan since all of us are going to the Taichung mission. It's really exciting. We had an awesome time last night at our departure devotional, the evening devotional, spending time writing notes in our memory books, and then the elders gave each of the sisters a blessing to prepare us to go into the field. The Spirit was so strong and I'm so glad that I've had such a good relationship with these people, all 12 of us. 

Wow, I'm trying to think what else I could say about this week. Our teacher Sister Wu cried during your last lesson teaching her as an investigator, and probably the best moment with Brother Wu is that he said "hao chi!" completely voluntarily. We knew he appreciated us. What's going to be hard about going to the the field in America is not having someone you can ask questions about Chinese to all the time; boy has it been nice to have a teacher standing there ready to tell you the difference between dailing, lingdao, zhidao, and zhiyin. (Hint: they all mean the same thing, to guide or lead. Except some of them are nouns and some are verbs. Wait a minute, Brother Wu didn't actually finish answering that questions, I have no idea when to use which one. Zaogao!) So it will be a little difficult to keep up my Chinese while I'm in Salt Lake, but luckily I have an hour to study every day and I know the Lord will provide a way for me to study and remember so that I will be prepared when I get to Taiwan. Man, this whole faith thing is great. I love it.

Oh my goodness something I was totally going to forget to write about was that we had the awesome opportunity to have Elder Richard G Scott come and speak to the whole MTC, and it was also broadcast to like five other MTCs! It was so cool. And guess what, I got to sit on the stand with an apostle. My district was assigned to provide the opening and closing prayers and the ushers for the devotional, and my companion was asked to say the closing prayer. So of course I had to sit up there with her and I was within twenty feet of an apostle for like an hour, nbd. No, I didn't shake his hand. He spoke about the importance of prayer, and he told us we needed to have a blast on our missions. He also told the sisters that their missions would bless their lives and future families in ways they cannot even begin to imagine. It was such a neat experience to hear from an apostle of the Lord and learn from him.

Aside from spiritual times this week we also had some fun times. Sisters Ashby and Geddes had to drop off another sister to the travel office at like 4:30am on Wednesday morning so the night before Sister Ashby was getting into bed and I realized she was wearing her whole Sunday clothes, name tag and all. So I said "Sister, you probably shouldn't sleep in your skirt," and then a mild discussion occurred about the ridiculousness of wearing your clothes to bed and there may or may not have been pillows thrown at each other. It was great.

A cool thing about having teachers who are RMs teach us is that they have awesome stories. We were talking about different cultural things in Taiwan and Brother Wu, who is tall, white, and ginger, was telling us about this one time on his mission in Taichung and he stopped to talk to someone on the street, or maybe someone sitting on the bike next to him at a stop light. He started saying hello and sharing about the gospel when the Taiwanese person he was talking to didn't say anything, just simply reached out their hand to stroke his face. Turns out Taiwanese people really love to see white people, to the point that they may or may not touch your face. Man, I'm so excited to go there.

To conclude I would just like to say that I have had such a good experience at the MTC. I have grown so much spiritually, learned more Chinese than I ever could have in 9 weeks somewhere else, and have made some of the best friends I have ever had. I've learned so much about my purpose as a missionary and in life, and I have so much more love and patience and humility than I ever have had before, I think. I'm so grateful for the opportunities I've had here, and I can't wait to serve the people of Salt Lake and Taiwan. 

Life is good.

Love,

Sister Cardon

Hao chi!

Hey family and friends!

Let me see what I can remember that I want to say about this week.

Performing: I performed three different times yesterday, it was great! On Saturday night my companion and I put together a number for sacrament meeting, and besides my music falling right on top of me when I turned to page it went well. Sister Wawro likes to make me play things that aren't actually written in the music, but it usually works out and it's a good exercise for me to practice improvising. Then in the evening devotional I accompanied for two different songs: a violinist playing I Need Thee Every Hour and two elders in my district singing Where Can I Turn for Peace. Both went really well (from other people's perspective, at least. I knew where I messed up and I tried really hard not to look like I was freaking out on camera. Sources say I looked pleasant and happy, though, so that's good.) and lots of random people have told me it sounded awesome. One elder going to Houston Vietnamese speaking said, "Now don't be modest. Are you really good at the piano?" What am I supposed to say to that? Still, it was a cool experience to get to perform for the whole MTC and Ted Callister, who gave a really awesome devotional that ibn all honesty I don't remember much of because I got really exhausted after my adrenaline rush of performing, but I know it was really inspiring. (I sound like a terrible missionary, but I promise I really did listen!)

Chinese is still great, we sure have good times in class. Last week our teacher Brother Wu was writing a whole scripture on the board in pinyin, which is romanized Chinese. You write how the word sounds then draw a line over it representing which tone it is, which I can't really do in the email but hopefully you get the picture. Well he finished writing the scripture on the board and then started stranslating it, starting with "shi de," which essentially means "yea." So he writes "yea" on the board and draws a fourth tone over it, which, if you don't speak English, is not something you do. It was pretty funny. Now we sometimes assign tones to English words just to spice things up. Yes, I've been here for eight weeks and yes, that spices things up. Another thing we do when we're super bored is add "hao chi!" to everything. It means "good eat" and is used to describe delicious food, but we pretty much just say it whenever the opportunity is presented. Last week the following conversation happened (all in Chinese, of course):

Brother Wu: Next, we're going to practice inviting people to be baptized.

Me: hao chi!

Brother Wu: ...what does that mean?

Me: Well, when you eat good food and you really like it, then you say hao chi!

Brother Wu: ...yes. I know that. But why did you say it?

Me: We've been here for eight weeks.

Good times.

Lessons have been going well, although we still have many moments when we don't know what's going on. A few days ago we were teaching about resurrection and I asked our investigator what she thought about it; I didn't understand her response but asked if she had been talkign about reincarnation. No. A few minutes later she again talks for two minutes without me figuring out what she's talking about, something about bodies and perhaps being buried. I get an idea that she is talking about cremation, and how can someone be resurrected if they've been cremated? So I say, "Fire?" and make little fire motions with my hands. "Yes, fire." Sweet! Successful communication. I still don't know what she was asking. And I still haven't figured out how to say "cremation" in Chinese.

It's been a really good week and I've definitely been learning a lot about patience with myself, the other missionaries around me, and the MTC. But we only have a week left, and I definitely want to put in my best effort for the last few days I am here. I have such a wonderful opportunity to learn and grow and serve. I love it here, and I'm not sure I'm ready to go into the field, but hey, that's what faith is about, right?

Love you all!

Sister Cardon

P.S. You have one week left to send me a DearElder every single day if you want. Just sayin.

Napkins Are For When You Are Cold

Hello family and friends!

This has been a good week. We are still missionaries, lessons are goign smoother, and it feels like I can speak Chinese. I mean, if someone who A ctually Speaks Chinese starts talking to me I probably wouldn't understand them, but when other missionaries speak I totally get it! I even translated for our branch president's wife during sacrament meeting yesterday, which was really fun. I totally got most everything and it made sense to her, although I didn't know the word for "work" so that was confusing sometimes, and I might have just summarized instead of translating directly. But hey, cha bu duo. (Not much difference.) Also, one of the new girls may have said that she was really grateful that Joseph Smith loves us and God sent Joseph Smith to die for us. Not necessarily untrue statements, but I kind of think she meant to say "Christ." I don't blame her, Yesu Jidu and Yuese Simi are pretty similar names and easy to get mixed up.

Yesterday in class with our native Taiwanese teacher, Sister Wu, we had a section about Taiwanese culture. She told us things not to do (bouncing your knees while teaching a lesson: not cool. It looks like you are poor.) and that Taiwanese people don't really shake hands. It's kind of weird to them and you have to ask permission before you stick your hand out awkwardly. Then we were discussing table manners (always hold your bowl up to your face, not eat over your plate. Also, don't ask for someone to pass you a dish, just stand up and get it, or reach over.) and the subject of napkins came up. In America at a fancy restaurant, you shake out your napkin and put it on your lap. Do they have anything similar in Taiwan? Sister Wu looks at us really confused and says, "Why do you put the napkin on your lap?" Well, in case food spills, then your clothes don't get dirty. Then Sister Wu starts giggling. "I thought it was because you were cold!"

So we've had a whole week with our new teacher, Brother Woolsey. Also Wu Laoshi, so we call him Brother Wu. No relation between Brother Wu and Sister Wu, he's a tall gangly redhead. And he is a great teacher! He served in our mission, Taiwan Taizhong, and just got back in like April (we think so, at least. Sometimes when we ask him personal questions he says, "...hao." and moves on.) so it's really great to be able to ask him questions about the mission. And he is such a good missionary teacher as well, he did a teaching demonstration the other day of the first lesson and it was SO GOOD. We were all like, "Can we have a recording of that lesson?" and "Can you be our companion?" And he's like "No cause you're a sister." It was a little deflating. 

Last week we got to try Skype TRC for the first time, that was fun! We got to a special computer lab and Skype with members actually in Taiwan which was way fun, except the sister we were Skyping with didn't have a camera so it was just like a phone call and it was really confusing and we can't really speak Chinese. But it was fun nevertheless, and we get to try again tonight, so hopefully that will go well. We should probably plan our lessons. That would be good.

Oh so I've mentioned the past few weeks that the Taiwan group ahead of us has been having visa issues: well now they are having official visa issues and are going to be reassigned stateside for six weeks. The Taiwan visa process is changing so they had to resubmit and now it's going to take another four weeks for them to get theirs, so they are all getting new mission calls this week for the first transfer. It's kind of sad, but they're all pretty excited to try a stateside mission for a little bit. Prayers that we won't be in the same boat would be much appreciated! 

Sorry no pictures this week, the computer is freaking out. Also I don't really have any pictures you might want to see, yesterday we had a "who can take the creepiest picture" contest in our district and I don't think you want to see the random close-ups I have of complete strangers. 

Love you all, I'm so glad to be here on a mission and learning so much about patience and faith and charity and the Spirit and all those good things. Life is good.

Love,

Sister Cardon the Younger

That's us: God's Henchmen

Turns out in Chinese that if you try to say that some one is somebody else's man, you are saying either 1) they are in a romantic relationship or 2) they are the person's henchman (we figured this out by my native Taiwanese teacher trying to explain "mafia" to us). In conclusion, when someone asks you in Chinese what a prophet is, you should not try to say that they are God's man. You should learn the word for representative or messenger. That would be less confusing.

Another week here at the MTC! Life is still good, we are still learning a lot every day. Two major things happened in our little lives around here: the district that was supposed to leave this Friday for Taipei hasn't gotten their visas yet, so we might have them for a whole extra week or they might leave on Wednesday or anywhere in between. So that's been exciting. The more major event though, is that since the BYU semester is starting up schedules have changed, and there was so many logistics with that change that Brother Olsen is no longer our teacher. He was there the first day with us and is so much fun and such a good teacher, so it's actually been really hard on us this weekend. We'll still see him around and our new teacher Brother Woolsey is great, of course, but it's not the same. But don't worry, the church is still true.

hmm what else. We have a running joke that Elder Tatton is keeping a pet hamster in his room (he isn't actually, don't worry) and have managed to convince the new zone leaders that it's actually true. Some entertaining shenanigans have ensued from this situation.

We have Mandarin Sisters' Soccer on Saturday and had a really good game a few days ago. My favorite part was when Sisters Bowman and Lew weren't touching each other or the ball and we still screaming because they didn't want to hurt each other, just waving their feet in the air. it was great. I totally made an awesome goal. Also, I am way good at Four Square now.

We had an awesome devotional last Tuesday from Elder Martino of the Seventy, and he totally told us that we need to be putting in our best effort and I was like YES MAN I WILL. I can probably still put forth more effort. Then last night we had a devotional from Brother Holzapfel who used to be a mission president in Alabama and he teaches at BYU and he was super inspiring and kind of yelled at us Elder Holland-style and then the closing song was 'How Gentle God's Commands" and I kind of laughed a little bit. He told some really cool stories and I was so inspired and excited to be out in the mission field where I can follow the Spirit to just drive a little farther and find a woman in a trailer in the middle of the woods who is ready to hear the gospel. Except, I'll probably be biking a little farther to the next rice paddy to find a cute little Taiwanese family who needs the gospel. Point is, people all around the world need that gospel and I am so happy that I get to do just that: share it.

I'm out of time and need to go eat dinner, but I love you all and guess what, I'm still so happy to be here and learning and growing and having the chance to feel the Spirit so much and speaking Chinese even though I can't actually speak it and be edified by Christ's servants and humble myself and learn how to teach the gospel so that I can help the people of Taiwan come unto Christ. Shall we not go on in so great a cause?

Love,

Sister Cardon

P.S. Best quote from this week: "The most rebellious thing I've ever done is have a bad attitude at a service project."

P.P.S. Here's a mildly awkward picture of our district because it is super hard to get people to take good pictures on Temple Walk.