Hualien - Week 25 - A New Home
A New Home
Hualian is a beautiful place. I have never had so many mosquito bites in my life.
It's probably not like you imagine; we never really do missionary work on a sunkissed beach where the ocean waves are crashing within our earshot. We usually don't teach lessons in the middle of rice fields that stretch for miles (though we did bike two hours both ways along a lovely mountain landscape in order to get to our investigator's house for a lesson last Tuesday).
The area is beautiful, yes. But I think the most beautiful part about Hualian is its people. Many of them are so friendly, they welcome us into their homes and they're dependable.
Sister Tu and I have been getting along so well. I love her so much (and not just because she makes me breakfast and dinner all the time). It's pretty crazy because we both come from different cultures and we speak different mother tongues. Sometimes I say something in Chinese that comes across in a way that I totally didn't mean, and sometimes I struggle to grasp the meaning of what Sister Tu is saying...in these instances we have to pause and do our best to explain ourselves again. For the most part, though, we are on the very same page. Heavenly Father is helping me speak this language and communicate more and more with the Taiwanese people, step by step.
The two of us are, all while trying to find new investigators, working hard to meet the ward members and all of our current investigators so we can really start to help them progress. This week I feel like we started building relationships with them and it feels so great. Sister Clyde once told me, back when I was in training, that her favorite part of the mission is being able to collect people to love. It's so true. So far in Hualian, we've begun collecting more people to love.
Our mission (and I guess a whole bunch of missions in Asia?) has established this goal: each companionship baptizes one convert per month. On Thursday of this last week, our Zone Conference was a training from a member of the Asia Area Seventy on how we can accomplish this goal. We all got so pumped. In preparation for the conference we discussed in depth with our companions how we can apply principles from the first chapter of Preach My Gospel into our work to baptize every month.
I learned from Preach My Gospel that our callings as missionaries give us authority. We must worthily exercise our authority to receive the spiritual power from God to bless His children (Alma 17: 2-3). We decided on three things that we will focus on to access the spiritual power, always have the Spirit's guidance, and be able to achieve our goal: being unified as a companionship, exact obedience, and charity.
Those attributes will take a lifetime to perfect (and not even in this lifetime can we become perfect). But we feel that as we focus on these principles and carry out the plans we made together, we can become sharper tools in the Lord's hands to help Him accomplish His will!
Wahoo! Missionary work is the most stressful thing ever but somehow it's simultaneously the most happy work ever. It's Jesus Christ's gospel we're talking about! There is nothing more crucial or serious, yet nothing more joyful.
I love you all and I shall write you next week!
It's probably not like you imagine; we never really do missionary work on a sunkissed beach where the ocean waves are crashing within our earshot. We usually don't teach lessons in the middle of rice fields that stretch for miles (though we did bike two hours both ways along a lovely mountain landscape in order to get to our investigator's house for a lesson last Tuesday).
The area is beautiful, yes. But I think the most beautiful part about Hualian is its people. Many of them are so friendly, they welcome us into their homes and they're dependable.
Sister Tu and I have been getting along so well. I love her so much (and not just because she makes me breakfast and dinner all the time). It's pretty crazy because we both come from different cultures and we speak different mother tongues. Sometimes I say something in Chinese that comes across in a way that I totally didn't mean, and sometimes I struggle to grasp the meaning of what Sister Tu is saying...in these instances we have to pause and do our best to explain ourselves again. For the most part, though, we are on the very same page. Heavenly Father is helping me speak this language and communicate more and more with the Taiwanese people, step by step.
The two of us are, all while trying to find new investigators, working hard to meet the ward members and all of our current investigators so we can really start to help them progress. This week I feel like we started building relationships with them and it feels so great. Sister Clyde once told me, back when I was in training, that her favorite part of the mission is being able to collect people to love. It's so true. So far in Hualian, we've begun collecting more people to love.
Our mission (and I guess a whole bunch of missions in Asia?) has established this goal: each companionship baptizes one convert per month. On Thursday of this last week, our Zone Conference was a training from a member of the Asia Area Seventy on how we can accomplish this goal. We all got so pumped. In preparation for the conference we discussed in depth with our companions how we can apply principles from the first chapter of Preach My Gospel into our work to baptize every month.
I learned from Preach My Gospel that our callings as missionaries give us authority. We must worthily exercise our authority to receive the spiritual power from God to bless His children (Alma 17: 2-3). We decided on three things that we will focus on to access the spiritual power, always have the Spirit's guidance, and be able to achieve our goal: being unified as a companionship, exact obedience, and charity.
Those attributes will take a lifetime to perfect (and not even in this lifetime can we become perfect). But we feel that as we focus on these principles and carry out the plans we made together, we can become sharper tools in the Lord's hands to help Him accomplish His will!
Wahoo! Missionary work is the most stressful thing ever but somehow it's simultaneously the most happy work ever. It's Jesus Christ's gospel we're talking about! There is nothing more crucial or serious, yet nothing more joyful.
I love you all and I shall write you next week!
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