i can't believe it has been so long since i last emailed. i feel like so much has happened, but that i've forgotten all of it. last move i wrote in my journal every day. this move we have been so hardcore, i'm always worn out at the end of the day, and spend most meals working on the language. i need to got better at writing; i'm having amazing experiences every day that i need to remember. what has happened this week?...
sister blackham and i get along great. i can tell it's going to be a good move and that it's going to go by fast. i like that she hears my ideas and concerns and they are being put into action. i feel like we're helping pingdong (finally) and i'm so grateful for that. we're doing a lot of less-active work. some missionaries think it's a waste of time and would rather focus on contacting during down time when they have no investigator lessons. i completely disagree. i know that inactive members are as precious to the lord as those who have not heard the gospel. they need to come back and most need help to do so. i feel like if we organize our time well and work our hardest to help everyone around us, especially they branches/wards that we're serving, we will be showing heavenly father our will to do this work well and will be blessed with new investigators, either from street contacts or member referrals. (of march and april's baptisms in the branch, more than half were member referrals. members- give missionaries referrals, prayerfully talk to your friends about the gospel. remember how david o. mckay said, "every member a missionary."?) sister blackham and i work hard. we pedal fast (we get everywhere in about half the time we did last move, i love it. sister ipson rode fast and i missed it.) she's known in the mission for being an amazing contacter. i'm usually kind of shy and timid because i'm selfconsious about my chinese (worries that our perpetuated by our beloved district leader that thinks i'm illiterate or something). she's teaching me a lot about talking with everyone and bearing simple testimony with every contact. i'm working hard to improve so that i can do it on my own when she dies and goes back to the u.s. (in 4.5 weeks!).
s. blackham thinks i might go senior companion next move. i'm praying that i don't and seriously contemplate sabotaging pingdong so that there's no chance i'll be in charge of myself. this week, for the first time since i got on island, i felt completely overwhelmed. because i'm the one that has been in pingdong and knows it, i'm the one that carries the ward lists, the potential investigator lists, the keys, the cellphone, the map. more than once this week, i've gotten us lost. it's a lot. monday night i wanted to cry, but i remember what qian laoshi said... "if you feel stressed and overwhelmed by the work, you're not relying on the lord enough." i know that that is true. i think this move so far i have, at times, asked myself what i need to do, rather than what the lord needs me to do. i think recognizing this will help me loads and loads and loads the rest of the move, and the rest of life. (i am so grateful to be a missionary. i'm learning how to be a good disciple of christ and a good person in general the rest of my life!)
new foods of the week... it has been an exciting week food wise because i'm eating more fruit. it's not only healthy, but also delicious. this week i tried lychee for the first time (somebody call kyle bunker and tell him that it is, in fact, amazing!). i also had my first fresh passion fruit. so tart! we ate dragon fruit and i've fallen in love with japanese/korean (i'm not sure which it is) pears. i like that they taste like they are full of water and therefore low in calories but tasty. the mangoes are only getting sweeter! a less-active's mom gave us taiwanese bananas. she grew them herself, they are little and i hear they are spectacular. as soon as the bunch she gave me are ripe, i will let you know. the wang jiating's dad gave us an unidentified drink that stunk. it was difficult to choke down and i worried that he was inviting us to break the word of wisdom. after finishing more than enough my companion and i concluded that it was fruit vinegar. i'm glad to have tried it but never want to again. i think a shot glass full would have been enough, but we probably drank about 2/3 of a cup. as we rode home my stomach felt acid-y, i'm not sure how to describe it. i'm so grateful for the cadbury cream eggs still in my fridge, sister blackham and i ate one a piece to get rid of the yuck inside our mouths. this week i also had my first taiwanese hot-dog! nothing compared to the magic of icelandic weiners (who am i that just said that? i'm not erasing it, because i'm real. but really, who am i?) but yummy nonetheless. they have a lot of weird condiments to choose from that i'm going to have to try including sweet chili sauce and soy sauce, i know they don't sound that exciting or weird, but when you consider them on a hotdog they become so.
this week i've had some interesting bug bites. i know that when i got home i'm not going to be phased by mosquito bites or other crawling things. i got another spider bite in the same place as the last one (my lower right leg, right near the knee). i'm not sure how, just that it was huge and red and hot and now is brown and bruisy. i was bit by something other than a mosquito on my foot, between the ball and the arch. it is such a pain, it's swollen and uncomfortable to step on. last monday was super rainy and we went tracting. one house had a mosquito infestation of sorts. when we got home i thought i had somehow avoided them because my ankles were clear. later, i found out that they were pervert mosquitoes! the bites were not on my lower legs, but on my hips and bum. they have flown up my skirt! gross! the last bite to share is on my hand, between my first and second finger. i don't know how they end up the places that they do. weird.
i'm having trouble coming up with other news...
on sunday the district leader called us and told us we have to go grocery shopping on monday to make sure we had enough food because all of taiwan was on a typhoon watch. it would have been my first typhoon! but it went to the phillipines (all the way from mexico) instead. i'm sure there will be one soon. the season is starting. sister blackham said that sometimes the wind is so bad that it lifts cars. the rest of the week is going to be rainy, and hot.
gao jiemei/wang mama officially died! she finally admitted that she doesn't need religion because she believes in herself and that the only reason she meets with us is because she's too buhaoyisi to say no. it's kind of a relief. i think one day she'll be ready.
earlier this week i was kind of sick. i started to lose my voice a bit. chinese is even funnier sounding when it's breathy and hoarse. kind of cool.
i think that's all. i'm boring. i'm sorry. but, i love you all! oh! this is kind of cool. kind of. i come home a year from today! i figured it out. i'm not ready to leave here yet. but, now you can all look forward to lauren's next birthday, because i'll be home a couple of days after!
that's all i guess. love love love love from formosa.
sister jade
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
The Longhaul Transfer 3:Week 1
moves calls came... guesses anyone?well, heavenly father is giving me something to learn, in more ways than one. i'm still in pingdong! the hottest area of the mission with sisters! i don't know how i'm going to deal, but i look forward to the fact that maybe the heat will help me lose some white rice weight. the last few days were probably the most emotional of my mission so far. i was stressed/sad/excited/anxious. my new companion is sister blackham. she's dying this move, so i'm going to be here until september (yes, through the entire summer!). i'm excited to kill someone. initially i was scared to death of this move. sister blackham is known for being really lihai and xinku (i'm trying to think of how to translate those, i'm definitely losing my english. um, awesome and intense/hardworking.) i don't know if i am able to live up to her way of chuanjiao-ing (spreading church? another one i can't translate well). but, she's here now and i'm excited. i talked to her last companion on the phone briefly this morning and sister guerra said that sister blackham thinks i'm funny. i mean, who wouldn't? i'm jade l. ozawa. but, it's comforting to know that she doesn't have the pre-existing notion that i'm the nutjob we all know i am. so far things are really good. i'm myself and she seems okay with that. i think it will be a good move.
seeing sister juang go (she's going to jiayi to serve with sister angulo, it's the furthest north. i'm jealous.) was really hard. we got really close. she knows pretty much everything about me. she even knows about the time that i punched mom when i was two (details are not to be revealed over such a forum) and about me licking the soles of shoes. i know that we'll be friends post-mission. we have a lot of exciting plans and that makes me happy. the move calls this transfer and last combined are really weird. let me see if i can explain... i started in kaohsiung with sister ipson, serving in the same building as sister blackham and sister angulo. i came to pingdong, replacing sister guerra who went to serve with sister blackham. my mtc companion, sister mcintosh, took my place in kaohsiung. now sister juang is with sister angulo, sister blackham is in pingdong and sister guerra and sister ipson are together covering both wards in the kaohsiung building. does that make sense? it's all kind of round and weird. my new district should be good. elder lancaster heads to the states tomorrow, weird. elder mickelsen is gone, sad. elder chen will be with elder anderson of heber city. we were in the mtc together. we talked about music once and he tried to one up me by saying he listens to the format. we got along great from that point forward, i'm excited to serve with him. elder swenson is going senior and district leader this move and will be serving with elder ye from taichung. elder ye was converted by elder swenson's older brother, so that's really cool! i'm excited.
enough about moves... this week had some exciting stories.the first is kind of sad and disheartening. aki hasn't been to church in two weeks!!! i don't know what is going on. i'm stressed about her. she was so good, i don't get what is happening. we had an appointment with her this week and she stood us up. don't get teary-eyed yet. it was a blessing in disguise...
while we waited at the church for her we watched special witnesses of christ (that detail is pointless, but the moral is that it's great and you should all watch it.). we saw two people walking through the corridor and assumed they were waiting for he elders, until they kept walking past. then they peeked their heads in the room (what fools we were for not going outside to talk to them). they asked if we were a mormon church and said, "we want to learn more about your church." what? how amazing is that. so, we gave them a tour of the chapel and answered some of their questions. they committed to come to church and to meet with us on sunday afternoon. to be honest, they didn't come to either, probably because it was pouring pouring pouring rain (and still is) and they live like 30 minutes away. i feel good about them though, and hopefully in the next 3 months i can help them.
that afternoon we went to see gao xiaojie/wang mama. she's crazy. i don't even know what to say about that lesson, beside the fact that we are meeting with her this friday and she wants to take us to the place where her brother committed suicide. weird. weird. weird.
this is the exciting stuff i wanted to get to... it has been raining and raining. on saturday the storm was right over our apartment. like lightning would strike and IMMEDIATELY after there would be thunder. i've never jumped at the sound of thunder before that day. it was so loud that car alarms would go off after it crashed. crazy! the lightning was bright and frequent. luckily, we were making calls and doing things in our apartment. a lot of people get struck by lightning here, and i am not ready to go yet. later in the night the storm continued and the sky started turning strange colors. it was ten at night, but outside looked a bit past dusk (is that called twilight?). the sky was a purple color and when lightning flashed it would turn lavendar. it was so beautiful. it reminded me of the northern lights in iceland.
the next morning the rain continued and i felt my first earthquake! there was one a few weeks ago, the week i dreamed that chloe walked off a ledge. actually, this is kind of freaky. that dream was more of a nightmare and was bad enough that it woke me up. i looked at the clock and it was like 2:15. the earthquake was said to have hit around 10 after 2. so, my dream was during the earthquake. this earthquake was in the morning as i sat writing questions for "don't eat pete", a game we planned to play with the wang family. i was sitting at my desk and my chair started rocking. i wasn't doing it, so i looked around and things were moving subtly. it was like the building was swaying. cool! it was a neat feeling. i shouldn't be celebrating it, next thing i know it will be a REAL earthquake and that would be no good.
last week i said that i'd write about bin lang. it's gross. get ready. bin lang grows in trees, it is plucked then wrapped in a banana leaf. it looks like a little round ball, about the size of the top section of a man's thumb. it's an opiate and is chewed. when people chew it, the bin lang reacts with the leaf and creates a red foam which is then spat out onto the ground. all over the road you can see bin lang stains. sometime you can smell it. it's a musky, woody smell. undesirable. it stains the chewer's mouth. their teeth and lips turn a rusty red color. often times it bleeds through the lips into wrinkles. it's one of the biggest word of wisdom problems here in taiwan (just below tea and tobacco). a lot of the men that gawk and sister missionaries (i'll write about that next week) are bin lang chewers. once a guy was trying to get me to talk to him as he chewed. he got frustrated and spit as i rode off. i barely dodged the red mess that shot from his mouth. gross.
i'm excited to be in pingdong longer. there is a lot i want to do, a lot of people i know i need to help. we have a lot of inactive recent converts and even more less active old converts. they need to be reminded of their testimonies. we have a lot of so-so investigators. i hope sister blackham and i can whip them into gear. i think we'll be able to get a lot done here. i look forward to it. i know that if we work in righteousness, seeking the lord's will, we will be successfull, even if the success isn't immediate. it's his work! i'm so grateful to be doing his work.
thank you thank you thank you family. i love you and miss you!
love,
sister jade
seeing sister juang go (she's going to jiayi to serve with sister angulo, it's the furthest north. i'm jealous.) was really hard. we got really close. she knows pretty much everything about me. she even knows about the time that i punched mom when i was two (details are not to be revealed over such a forum) and about me licking the soles of shoes. i know that we'll be friends post-mission. we have a lot of exciting plans and that makes me happy. the move calls this transfer and last combined are really weird. let me see if i can explain... i started in kaohsiung with sister ipson, serving in the same building as sister blackham and sister angulo. i came to pingdong, replacing sister guerra who went to serve with sister blackham. my mtc companion, sister mcintosh, took my place in kaohsiung. now sister juang is with sister angulo, sister blackham is in pingdong and sister guerra and sister ipson are together covering both wards in the kaohsiung building. does that make sense? it's all kind of round and weird. my new district should be good. elder lancaster heads to the states tomorrow, weird. elder mickelsen is gone, sad. elder chen will be with elder anderson of heber city. we were in the mtc together. we talked about music once and he tried to one up me by saying he listens to the format. we got along great from that point forward, i'm excited to serve with him. elder swenson is going senior and district leader this move and will be serving with elder ye from taichung. elder ye was converted by elder swenson's older brother, so that's really cool! i'm excited.
enough about moves... this week had some exciting stories.the first is kind of sad and disheartening. aki hasn't been to church in two weeks!!! i don't know what is going on. i'm stressed about her. she was so good, i don't get what is happening. we had an appointment with her this week and she stood us up. don't get teary-eyed yet. it was a blessing in disguise...
while we waited at the church for her we watched special witnesses of christ (that detail is pointless, but the moral is that it's great and you should all watch it.). we saw two people walking through the corridor and assumed they were waiting for he elders, until they kept walking past. then they peeked their heads in the room (what fools we were for not going outside to talk to them). they asked if we were a mormon church and said, "we want to learn more about your church." what? how amazing is that. so, we gave them a tour of the chapel and answered some of their questions. they committed to come to church and to meet with us on sunday afternoon. to be honest, they didn't come to either, probably because it was pouring pouring pouring rain (and still is) and they live like 30 minutes away. i feel good about them though, and hopefully in the next 3 months i can help them.
that afternoon we went to see gao xiaojie/wang mama. she's crazy. i don't even know what to say about that lesson, beside the fact that we are meeting with her this friday and she wants to take us to the place where her brother committed suicide. weird. weird. weird.
this is the exciting stuff i wanted to get to... it has been raining and raining. on saturday the storm was right over our apartment. like lightning would strike and IMMEDIATELY after there would be thunder. i've never jumped at the sound of thunder before that day. it was so loud that car alarms would go off after it crashed. crazy! the lightning was bright and frequent. luckily, we were making calls and doing things in our apartment. a lot of people get struck by lightning here, and i am not ready to go yet. later in the night the storm continued and the sky started turning strange colors. it was ten at night, but outside looked a bit past dusk (is that called twilight?). the sky was a purple color and when lightning flashed it would turn lavendar. it was so beautiful. it reminded me of the northern lights in iceland.
the next morning the rain continued and i felt my first earthquake! there was one a few weeks ago, the week i dreamed that chloe walked off a ledge. actually, this is kind of freaky. that dream was more of a nightmare and was bad enough that it woke me up. i looked at the clock and it was like 2:15. the earthquake was said to have hit around 10 after 2. so, my dream was during the earthquake. this earthquake was in the morning as i sat writing questions for "don't eat pete", a game we planned to play with the wang family. i was sitting at my desk and my chair started rocking. i wasn't doing it, so i looked around and things were moving subtly. it was like the building was swaying. cool! it was a neat feeling. i shouldn't be celebrating it, next thing i know it will be a REAL earthquake and that would be no good.
last week i said that i'd write about bin lang. it's gross. get ready. bin lang grows in trees, it is plucked then wrapped in a banana leaf. it looks like a little round ball, about the size of the top section of a man's thumb. it's an opiate and is chewed. when people chew it, the bin lang reacts with the leaf and creates a red foam which is then spat out onto the ground. all over the road you can see bin lang stains. sometime you can smell it. it's a musky, woody smell. undesirable. it stains the chewer's mouth. their teeth and lips turn a rusty red color. often times it bleeds through the lips into wrinkles. it's one of the biggest word of wisdom problems here in taiwan (just below tea and tobacco). a lot of the men that gawk and sister missionaries (i'll write about that next week) are bin lang chewers. once a guy was trying to get me to talk to him as he chewed. he got frustrated and spit as i rode off. i barely dodged the red mess that shot from his mouth. gross.
i'm excited to be in pingdong longer. there is a lot i want to do, a lot of people i know i need to help. we have a lot of inactive recent converts and even more less active old converts. they need to be reminded of their testimonies. we have a lot of so-so investigators. i hope sister blackham and i can whip them into gear. i think we'll be able to get a lot done here. i look forward to it. i know that if we work in righteousness, seeking the lord's will, we will be successfull, even if the success isn't immediate. it's his work! i'm so grateful to be doing his work.
thank you thank you thank you family. i love you and miss you!
love,
sister jade
Friday, June 13, 2008
SUCCESS is a good quality.... Transfer 2: Week 7
the subject line sounds prideful, but anyone who knows me knows that i've
learned utter humility from my father. wonderful sarah anderson wrote me this
week and told me she loved the weird english on the subject lines of my email. so, i'm giving the people what they want! that sentence was on a book end in an investigator's home. so i thought i'd share.
let me start by saying. i love you! i love you all! everyone within reading
only a few days left in the transfer. it freaks me out. i'm almost at my six
month mark. strange! i really need to jia you (add oil), and start working
this last week has been good. on Friday i finally put my finger on the little
gray cloud that seems to float over every fifth day of the week. so, i email and write letter(s) (usually i only have time to write the weekly to mandi and maybe one other) on Wednesday. somehow, every Thursday there are a million things that happen or go through my head that i want to share with my dearest ozawas. on Friday i can't wait for the next p-day because i want to write write write. by Saturday it feels like preparation day will never come and i've accepted it. Sunday goes by really fast. Monday also goes by incredibly quickly. then Tuesday is the day before p-day and i can't believe i'm going to be writing again. needless to say, weeks vanish before my eyes. it kind of freaks me out. Friday syndrome hit especially hard this week.
on friday i sent a special package to las vegas. goodies for everyone, and
birthday gifts for lauren, naomi and phoebe. i hope you enjoy the pieces of
taiwan and the pieces of my heart that are now in transit. i didn't put pictures on a cd because it was like $70 to do so and i'm a missionary, but i sent my sd card so that you can have the pictures and make a cd of them then send the card back. mom, can you be in charge of opening the box. the gifts aren't wrapped yet, but are clearly explained in the "content key".
this week our investigators were all a little wacky. it was kind of really
disappointing. i love pingdong, but i don't feel the same attachments to the
people that i did in gaoxiong. kind of sad. i hope this fact doesn't leave mike olsen feeling let down, i'm sorry mike, i'm sorry.
-gao xiaojie/wang mama (she asked us to call her something different than we had been calling her, so now she has two names every time we refer to her) is the really depressing investigator i think i've mentioned before. we planned to have a kill ke (a do or die lesson), i was prepped to say goodbye without any tears. and then she committed to come to church! and said she'd get baptized when she knows it's true. what in the world!??! in the end she didn't come to church, so we don't know what to do, but her willingness to accept the invitation threw us for a loop.
-we visited bao xiaojie but ke (my favorite) wasn't there. bao wasn't drunk this time, but was still hilarious. she makes me sad. we saw pictures of her when she was younger. she used to be normal, with a husband and a family. now she's a mess. she drinks a lot and chew bin lang (i'll explain next email). she told me my nose was pretty so i showed her how my nostrils can flare HUGE. she laughed up a storm and started hitting my knees and telling me i'm funny. then she asked me to give her my teeth. i laughed. my nostrils flared. and she laughed more. (the elders this week also discovered my nostrils. funny. everything is funnier when my nose flaps it's wings.) teaching bao was so-so. she belongs to the aborigine christian church and doesn't understand how ours is different.
-cai jiating was the high point. those kids are amazing! this week they were so open with us. they explained that they want to believe but haven't seen proof yet. we talked about prayer and they told us about experiences where their prayers were answered. we helped them to see that that is the "proof" they are looking for. they are so cute! SO CUTE!
sunday was a dragonboat racing festival. for that holiday they eat traditional food called zongzi. zongzi is sticky rice with meat, vegetables, peanuts, beans, whatever, wrapped in a very specific way with bamboo leaves. we were given to much zongzi! our fridge is full of it. it's really good, i think. i love taiwanese food, but i think it's messing with my tastebuds. on monday we ate at a restaurant by our house. it has a salad bar. one of the dishes at the salad bar was a chilled oatmeal-like thing. it's kind of runny and slightly sweetened. i love it. but as i ate it i realized how not sweet it was in comparison to american food, moreover that it was plenty sweet for me. i think my tastebuds are starting to discount the wonder of butter and sugar and vanilla. mom, you are going to have to repair me when i get home.
(i realize that every email i proclaim something new that i'm going to do when i come home. i guess i really have no idea. i do know for sure that i'll spend summer in vegas then start at the u in august. i do know that i want to live in salt lake with mandi and beloved lolonani. that is what i know.)
i have only a few minutes left, and i haven't written about the funeral i
attended yesterday. it was interesting, and it will wait until next week. move calls are on saturday, then p-day will be on monday. so, the next email you get will be on sunday night or monday morning, so write before sunday afternoon if you intend to. a few quick other points...
-i finally finished passing off the first language learning book, it was words based on the chinese translation of the pmg lessons. it was boring. i'm excited for the book i'm on now, it's more interesting and next i'll get to study characters! i went through some of the character cards, i think i know a little over 100 so far, which makes me happy but is only a beginning.
-i bought my first taiwanese brand toothpaste. it's called heiren, which
translates to "black person". an obvious name, it makes your teeth white and
bright like a black person's! cool. i like it. it makes me feel clean.
that is all. i love you! i miss you. one year and two weeks until i come home!
until then, i'm where i need to be, and i'm happy! so happy!!
with the sweetness of concentrated dong gua cha,
jade
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Waterlogged Tranfer 2: Week 6
next week is my last one in this transfer! i can't believe it's already pretty much gone. i feel like i should have done more for ping dong. i have a feeling that i'm going to move but i'm not sure. part of me really wants to stay. ping dong is known for it's mangoes and mango season is just starting. but, part of me wants to go. ping dong is said to have two suns, and we all know how i feel about the sun.
since i wrote last it has rained every day almost all day. in some ways it's really fun... weekly planning with the background noise of thunder and raindrops was a blast and warm almond milk is always more enjoyable under a gray sky. but in most ways it's a nuisance. close your eyes and imagine. jade. no make up. curly, big hair in a ponytail. mid-calf length skirt. in a lavendar poncho that is almost as damp inside as it is outside, but the inside moisture is more salty than the outside (catch my drift). shoes soggy. skirt drenched. face dripping a mixture of polluted rain and sweat. i'm so cute in taiwan! the rain is supposed to stay until friday then stop for a bit before typhoon season hits. the nice part is that it has cooled down a lot thanks to the clouds and percipitation. that alone keeps me from complaining too much.
on saturday aki and monica were baptized! how cool is that! aki's baptism was so great. when she came to the church she said, "i couldn't sleep last night. i'm so excited!" the poor thing had to be dunked five times! she was funny about it. when the branch president was welcoming her into the big family of pingdong 1st branch he talked about going under 3 times. she said she was trying to break the record. i love her! i realized that one of the reasons that i like her so much is that she is like a mix of all of my little sisters in one. she has lauren's concern for others, chloe's little attitude, phoebe's affection and naomi's silly/crazy personality. i love being around her because it's kind of like being in the ozawa house, but not as wonderful. (i miss sumac ridge court so much!) aki already has a calling as the ysa representative. she's going to be so good at it! she's going to share her testimony with the whole of southern taiwan.
honestly, she amazes me. i didn't have the baptismal covenants memorized until this move (i don't know why, it's not like their hard). but she knows them all... CTR- follow the Commandments, Take on the name of christ, always Remember him. a lot of the time when we talk and things of the world come up, or she hears of unchristlike things that people in the church do, she says, "that is not representing christ very well. haven't they taken on his name?" i think she truly understands what it means to be a disciple and to strive to show it in your actions. she has taught me a lot about it through her actions. she testifies of how using christ's ways in her classroom has transformed her students. she says that kids that used to never do their homework now work hard. kids that used to hit and yell are kinder. kids that seemed apathetic are trying to earn praise. the church is true!
i'm not sure what else exciting is happening around here. so to list form we go:
-i started a new journal this week. exciting.
-lately i can't put down "our heritage". i definitely like "our search for happiness" more, but i love reading about how amazing the early saints of the church were. i'm grateful for their sacrifices.
-almost every person, non-member and member alike, when seeing our family pictures for the first time (the one of all of us but phoebe, who is more righteous and stayed at church, at my farewell and one of all of the girls when we out for sushi sometime in fall) say that we look like moviestars. they think chloe looks like ashlee simpson. everyone says that! it makes me laugh every time. they also say that mom and dad are really young. more than once i've been asked if dad is lauren's husband. um, a little gross.
-yesterday i saw the biggest snail in my life. seriously, it was the size of the snail on the neverending story. seriously! (i thought of lauren's kiss of death. ha)
-yesterday after my language pass-off, one of the elders gestured like he was going to deck my companion (it was kind of weird). sister juang said, "ni yao da wo ma?" (you want to hit me?) instantly the song "hit me" by the sounds popped into my head. it made me happy! chinese and english are becoming one.
-i finally had mango bing! a rite of passage really. it's like the mango shaved ice we get at tea planet, but better. the ice is shaved off of a block of frozen sweetened milk. straight from the celestial kingdom.
-i have wonderful friends. lately people write me about their spiritual experiences. i really like it. i'm sorry that i'm not equally spiritual in return. (and i'm sorry there are many i haven't written back yet, there is literally no time.)
-my favorite thing these days, beside spreading the glad tidings, is to play hard face. family, play it tonight. this is how you play- two people look each other in the face. one person starts by saying "hard face" then it goes back and forth each person saying one word in attempts to get the other to laugh. i like to play with elder chen. we're both horrible and end up laughing before we even say "hard face". elder mickelsen is the best. my goal is to get as good as him, i feel like it's imperative if i do in fact end up studying business. aki broke him though. he said "man" she said "hot" we all about died. try it!
-all of this last week we had a mission-wide SYL (speak your language) meaning we were supposed to speak only chinese from wednesday night until last night. i thought i was going to die, but it wasn't too bad. i was even able to tell sister juang the story of my first fake kiss (remember cuba? he's on a mission in canada) during an hour bike ride from a local university using only chinese! write that one in my book of accomplishments.
-lately in comp study we read a bit of proverbs each day. the whole thing seems to be about adultery! we definitely get the hint! "strange women" are not to be trusted. i think my favorite verse (so far) is one in chapter 7 "in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night" some of the best poetry i've read since january.
-the elders gave us my new favorite investigator. ke jiemei. she's an aborigine. she's beautiful but so humble. she has trouble walking and is really embarassed so she won't come to church. i have never met anyone with such kind eyes. we're going to help her, i hope. with her we also teach bao jiemei, the aborigine sister that took us to sandimen's aunt. when we met her she was drunk and kept yelling stuff and talking about how much she'll miss elder lancaster because he's so shuai (handsome). she had recently fallen and had a big bump on her head that she made each of us take a turn touching. hilarious and awkward.
-the cai jiating is so good. they ask the best questions. they are amazing for their ages (12 and 13). they totally get the plan of salvation and the principle of repentance. i really think they could be baptized soon, but we don't know how their parents feel about it. their mom encourages them to meet with us, but won't let us in their home. it's kind of awkward. parents, any suggestions about what we should do?
that's life in taiwan i guess. it's a happy, hot, green, asian place. it's good. i miss you all. thank you for being behind me and for being spectacular!
love love love,
sister jade l.o.
since i wrote last it has rained every day almost all day. in some ways it's really fun... weekly planning with the background noise of thunder and raindrops was a blast and warm almond milk is always more enjoyable under a gray sky. but in most ways it's a nuisance. close your eyes and imagine. jade. no make up. curly, big hair in a ponytail. mid-calf length skirt. in a lavendar poncho that is almost as damp inside as it is outside, but the inside moisture is more salty than the outside (catch my drift). shoes soggy. skirt drenched. face dripping a mixture of polluted rain and sweat. i'm so cute in taiwan! the rain is supposed to stay until friday then stop for a bit before typhoon season hits. the nice part is that it has cooled down a lot thanks to the clouds and percipitation. that alone keeps me from complaining too much.
on saturday aki and monica were baptized! how cool is that! aki's baptism was so great. when she came to the church she said, "i couldn't sleep last night. i'm so excited!" the poor thing had to be dunked five times! she was funny about it. when the branch president was welcoming her into the big family of pingdong 1st branch he talked about going under 3 times. she said she was trying to break the record. i love her! i realized that one of the reasons that i like her so much is that she is like a mix of all of my little sisters in one. she has lauren's concern for others, chloe's little attitude, phoebe's affection and naomi's silly/crazy personality. i love being around her because it's kind of like being in the ozawa house, but not as wonderful. (i miss sumac ridge court so much!) aki already has a calling as the ysa representative. she's going to be so good at it! she's going to share her testimony with the whole of southern taiwan.
honestly, she amazes me. i didn't have the baptismal covenants memorized until this move (i don't know why, it's not like their hard). but she knows them all... CTR- follow the Commandments, Take on the name of christ, always Remember him. a lot of the time when we talk and things of the world come up, or she hears of unchristlike things that people in the church do, she says, "that is not representing christ very well. haven't they taken on his name?" i think she truly understands what it means to be a disciple and to strive to show it in your actions. she has taught me a lot about it through her actions. she testifies of how using christ's ways in her classroom has transformed her students. she says that kids that used to never do their homework now work hard. kids that used to hit and yell are kinder. kids that seemed apathetic are trying to earn praise. the church is true!
i'm not sure what else exciting is happening around here. so to list form we go:
-i started a new journal this week. exciting.
-lately i can't put down "our heritage". i definitely like "our search for happiness" more, but i love reading about how amazing the early saints of the church were. i'm grateful for their sacrifices.
-almost every person, non-member and member alike, when seeing our family pictures for the first time (the one of all of us but phoebe, who is more righteous and stayed at church, at my farewell and one of all of the girls when we out for sushi sometime in fall) say that we look like moviestars. they think chloe looks like ashlee simpson. everyone says that! it makes me laugh every time. they also say that mom and dad are really young. more than once i've been asked if dad is lauren's husband. um, a little gross.
-yesterday i saw the biggest snail in my life. seriously, it was the size of the snail on the neverending story. seriously! (i thought of lauren's kiss of death. ha)
-yesterday after my language pass-off, one of the elders gestured like he was going to deck my companion (it was kind of weird). sister juang said, "ni yao da wo ma?" (you want to hit me?) instantly the song "hit me" by the sounds popped into my head. it made me happy! chinese and english are becoming one.
-i finally had mango bing! a rite of passage really. it's like the mango shaved ice we get at tea planet, but better. the ice is shaved off of a block of frozen sweetened milk. straight from the celestial kingdom.
-i have wonderful friends. lately people write me about their spiritual experiences. i really like it. i'm sorry that i'm not equally spiritual in return. (and i'm sorry there are many i haven't written back yet, there is literally no time.)
-my favorite thing these days, beside spreading the glad tidings, is to play hard face. family, play it tonight. this is how you play- two people look each other in the face. one person starts by saying "hard face" then it goes back and forth each person saying one word in attempts to get the other to laugh. i like to play with elder chen. we're both horrible and end up laughing before we even say "hard face". elder mickelsen is the best. my goal is to get as good as him, i feel like it's imperative if i do in fact end up studying business. aki broke him though. he said "man" she said "hot" we all about died. try it!
-all of this last week we had a mission-wide SYL (speak your language) meaning we were supposed to speak only chinese from wednesday night until last night. i thought i was going to die, but it wasn't too bad. i was even able to tell sister juang the story of my first fake kiss (remember cuba? he's on a mission in canada) during an hour bike ride from a local university using only chinese! write that one in my book of accomplishments.
-lately in comp study we read a bit of proverbs each day. the whole thing seems to be about adultery! we definitely get the hint! "strange women" are not to be trusted. i think my favorite verse (so far) is one in chapter 7 "in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night" some of the best poetry i've read since january.
-the elders gave us my new favorite investigator. ke jiemei. she's an aborigine. she's beautiful but so humble. she has trouble walking and is really embarassed so she won't come to church. i have never met anyone with such kind eyes. we're going to help her, i hope. with her we also teach bao jiemei, the aborigine sister that took us to sandimen's aunt. when we met her she was drunk and kept yelling stuff and talking about how much she'll miss elder lancaster because he's so shuai (handsome). she had recently fallen and had a big bump on her head that she made each of us take a turn touching. hilarious and awkward.
-the cai jiating is so good. they ask the best questions. they are amazing for their ages (12 and 13). they totally get the plan of salvation and the principle of repentance. i really think they could be baptized soon, but we don't know how their parents feel about it. their mom encourages them to meet with us, but won't let us in their home. it's kind of awkward. parents, any suggestions about what we should do?
that's life in taiwan i guess. it's a happy, hot, green, asian place. it's good. i miss you all. thank you for being behind me and for being spectacular!
love love love,
sister jade l.o.
I hate writing letters in the afternoon Transfer 2: Week 5
in the afternoon my brain doesn't seem to work as well as it does in the morning. my thoughts are more scattered. it doesn't help that my english is not up to par these days. elder mickelsen said it perfectly, "my mandarin isn't improving that quickly, and my english is getting worse and worse." i feel the same way. by the time i come home my grammar is going to be out the window, i may have to look for esl classes whereever i end up.
this week has been eventful! i have so much to write about. a lot of good things...zone conference was on thursday! i didn't realize how much i have missed sister ipson and sister mcintosh until i saw them. did i tell you that they are serving together in my last area? weird. they updated me on everyone. SO HAPPY! Monica is getting baptized on saturday! the same day as aki! she told her mom that she was getting baptized whether she had her support or not and that was it. i'm so excited for her. she's going to be the type of member that our church needs more of. now if only there were more worthy brethren in taiwan. qiu jiemei, the less active i became really close to hasn't missed church in the last month. she's moving out of her boyfriend's apartment and he's meeting with the elders. if he doesn't accept the gospel she's leaving him, because she has set a goal to have a temple marriage! when i met her she had no interest in the church and had no testimony of god's love for her. now she wants nothing but an lds family! i don't think anyone could have given me happier news! if i am unable to touch anyone else in taiwan, i will go home knowing that my experiences related to qiu jiemei's and that i somehow helped heavenly father remind her of things she had forgotten.
at zone conference i got to see robbie again. i really want to serve in the same district as him before he goes home in september. he always calls me jade and it makes me a. laugh, b. feel like a real girl for a split second.
at zone conference i got some mail, including a letter that had me livid. i mean, i was furious. i wanted to scream, and i'm not the screaming type. apparently, a friend of mine was bashing on sister missionaries to another friend of mine. " Sister missionaries are so overrated. the don't do anything. they just sit at the president's house all day. and they seem to be sick five times more than elders..." this person continued in their negativity. i was and am still so so so mad. in our defense (for anyone that agrees that sister missionaries are worthless)-- last move my companion and i had half of our district's baptisms. my companion now and i had the only baptismal date in the district until last week, we still have half of the baptisms for this transfer. elder lancaster, my district leader, was in the office for six moves. he knows president and sister hsu and the ins and outs of the kaohsiung mission more than anyone. he told me that president always requested more sisters. the area president laughed and said, "everyone wants more sisters! you should expect more anytime soon." i'm sure the mission presidents of the world aren't requesting us for our laziness. when elder scott was here at our mission conference, he had all of the sisters stand and face the elders. he then told them that they should respect us and look for women like us when they get home and prepare to wed. i think sisters sacrifice more than elders when they leave their schooling and social lives for missions. they come back older than elders do, and face the types of stereotypes that this individual is perpetuating. as our district discussed this matter on our train ride home from kaohsiung, elder swenson made a great point, it was something so much more than i would expect from him which makes it that much more strong. he asked, "if that's what he's saying about sister missionaries, what do you think his opinion is of women in general?" what is disappointing, this person was supportive and praised sister missionaries as i worked on my papers. a lot of people rag on sister missionaries all the time. i can testify that we work hard and do our best. there are a lot of doors we can't get into than elders can, but by the same token we can touch many that they cannot. look up what president hinckley said about sister missionaries.
the rest of the week only got better after that lame news...aki is still getting ready to be baptized. this saturday! i'm so excited. she's so wonderfully strong. she has so much faith. her testimony of the commandments has come through living them and her testimony of the restoration is unshakable.we have a new investigator that i'm really excited about. she has the same surname as me, zeng! she's 22 and so cute. a member referred her to us. she does acrylic nails and was talking to one of her customers, a member about how she feels that most churches teach their own thoughts rather than god's will. when we met with her she had a million questions about mormonism. we went over just about every commandment. she told us about her church. she described how they speak in tongues and hug each other as they pronounce blessings and revelations for each other (sounds like an apostate priesthood blessing). i think she's going to become a really good investigator. she was really excited to get a book of mormon, but said if anyone from her church saw it they would take it from her and burn it. i hope that next week i'll have good news about her.
we met another great potential investigator this week with the surname lin. she's a cute mom. they whole time we met she talked about change and becoming better. she sounds ready for the power of the atonement. at the end of the lesson she said something to me no one has ever said before, "sister zeng, you can open up. you can share your feelings. when you talk you furrow your brow which means you are self-correcting before you speak. just say what you feel and want to say." what? i am like the most open person on the planet. did i furrow my brow when i would talk back home? i know that i've gotten more awkward and much more easily embarassed since i left the us, but i don't think i've become closed off. weird.
what else from this week?-a sister from one of the branches got vitamins for me at costco in kaohsiung. they were kind of expensive, but i figure my health is worth it. i had her get b-complex, fish oil and a women's multivitamin. the b-complex is supposed to help keep bugs away. so far it has worked wonders! the only bites i've had are a spider bite that caused my elbow to swell and turn purple and some type of bite on my eye that had a reaction similar to my lip. my eye looked truly asian for the first time ever!
-at dinner on monday night aki told off a 50 something old man that wouldn't stop staring at my body. he initially approached our table then sat down and started hollering from across the restaurant. aki yelled at him until he left.
-i didn't get hit by a car, but ran into one. i was so embarassed as i stopped my bike from colliding with the motionless vehicle full of passengers by slamming my hand of the hood. i don't really know what happened, just that i spazzed out big time.
-in my president's interview this week president hsu asked if you, mom and dad, work at the temple. weird question. i told the truth, that dad's a veil worker. sorry, the "less active" plan is foiled.
-my options for the future are as open as the pingdong horizon... who knows where i'll end up. president hsu mentioned harvard in our interview. i'm not sure if it was an inspired comment or not, just that a semester at harvard is on my list of 100 life goals. that aside, lately denver has been on my mind. what if i move to denver and go to school there?
i love love love you all!
ping an (peace),
jade, zeng yu xin
this week has been eventful! i have so much to write about. a lot of good things...zone conference was on thursday! i didn't realize how much i have missed sister ipson and sister mcintosh until i saw them. did i tell you that they are serving together in my last area? weird. they updated me on everyone. SO HAPPY! Monica is getting baptized on saturday! the same day as aki! she told her mom that she was getting baptized whether she had her support or not and that was it. i'm so excited for her. she's going to be the type of member that our church needs more of. now if only there were more worthy brethren in taiwan. qiu jiemei, the less active i became really close to hasn't missed church in the last month. she's moving out of her boyfriend's apartment and he's meeting with the elders. if he doesn't accept the gospel she's leaving him, because she has set a goal to have a temple marriage! when i met her she had no interest in the church and had no testimony of god's love for her. now she wants nothing but an lds family! i don't think anyone could have given me happier news! if i am unable to touch anyone else in taiwan, i will go home knowing that my experiences related to qiu jiemei's and that i somehow helped heavenly father remind her of things she had forgotten.
at zone conference i got to see robbie again. i really want to serve in the same district as him before he goes home in september. he always calls me jade and it makes me a. laugh, b. feel like a real girl for a split second.
at zone conference i got some mail, including a letter that had me livid. i mean, i was furious. i wanted to scream, and i'm not the screaming type. apparently, a friend of mine was bashing on sister missionaries to another friend of mine. " Sister missionaries are so overrated. the don't do anything. they just sit at the president's house all day. and they seem to be sick five times more than elders..." this person continued in their negativity. i was and am still so so so mad. in our defense (for anyone that agrees that sister missionaries are worthless)-- last move my companion and i had half of our district's baptisms. my companion now and i had the only baptismal date in the district until last week, we still have half of the baptisms for this transfer. elder lancaster, my district leader, was in the office for six moves. he knows president and sister hsu and the ins and outs of the kaohsiung mission more than anyone. he told me that president always requested more sisters. the area president laughed and said, "everyone wants more sisters! you should expect more anytime soon." i'm sure the mission presidents of the world aren't requesting us for our laziness. when elder scott was here at our mission conference, he had all of the sisters stand and face the elders. he then told them that they should respect us and look for women like us when they get home and prepare to wed. i think sisters sacrifice more than elders when they leave their schooling and social lives for missions. they come back older than elders do, and face the types of stereotypes that this individual is perpetuating. as our district discussed this matter on our train ride home from kaohsiung, elder swenson made a great point, it was something so much more than i would expect from him which makes it that much more strong. he asked, "if that's what he's saying about sister missionaries, what do you think his opinion is of women in general?" what is disappointing, this person was supportive and praised sister missionaries as i worked on my papers. a lot of people rag on sister missionaries all the time. i can testify that we work hard and do our best. there are a lot of doors we can't get into than elders can, but by the same token we can touch many that they cannot. look up what president hinckley said about sister missionaries.
the rest of the week only got better after that lame news...aki is still getting ready to be baptized. this saturday! i'm so excited. she's so wonderfully strong. she has so much faith. her testimony of the commandments has come through living them and her testimony of the restoration is unshakable.we have a new investigator that i'm really excited about. she has the same surname as me, zeng! she's 22 and so cute. a member referred her to us. she does acrylic nails and was talking to one of her customers, a member about how she feels that most churches teach their own thoughts rather than god's will. when we met with her she had a million questions about mormonism. we went over just about every commandment. she told us about her church. she described how they speak in tongues and hug each other as they pronounce blessings and revelations for each other (sounds like an apostate priesthood blessing). i think she's going to become a really good investigator. she was really excited to get a book of mormon, but said if anyone from her church saw it they would take it from her and burn it. i hope that next week i'll have good news about her.
we met another great potential investigator this week with the surname lin. she's a cute mom. they whole time we met she talked about change and becoming better. she sounds ready for the power of the atonement. at the end of the lesson she said something to me no one has ever said before, "sister zeng, you can open up. you can share your feelings. when you talk you furrow your brow which means you are self-correcting before you speak. just say what you feel and want to say." what? i am like the most open person on the planet. did i furrow my brow when i would talk back home? i know that i've gotten more awkward and much more easily embarassed since i left the us, but i don't think i've become closed off. weird.
what else from this week?-a sister from one of the branches got vitamins for me at costco in kaohsiung. they were kind of expensive, but i figure my health is worth it. i had her get b-complex, fish oil and a women's multivitamin. the b-complex is supposed to help keep bugs away. so far it has worked wonders! the only bites i've had are a spider bite that caused my elbow to swell and turn purple and some type of bite on my eye that had a reaction similar to my lip. my eye looked truly asian for the first time ever!
-at dinner on monday night aki told off a 50 something old man that wouldn't stop staring at my body. he initially approached our table then sat down and started hollering from across the restaurant. aki yelled at him until he left.
-i didn't get hit by a car, but ran into one. i was so embarassed as i stopped my bike from colliding with the motionless vehicle full of passengers by slamming my hand of the hood. i don't really know what happened, just that i spazzed out big time.
-in my president's interview this week president hsu asked if you, mom and dad, work at the temple. weird question. i told the truth, that dad's a veil worker. sorry, the "less active" plan is foiled.
-my options for the future are as open as the pingdong horizon... who knows where i'll end up. president hsu mentioned harvard in our interview. i'm not sure if it was an inspired comment or not, just that a semester at harvard is on my list of 100 life goals. that aside, lately denver has been on my mind. what if i move to denver and go to school there?
i love love love you all!
ping an (peace),
jade, zeng yu xin
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