mom! i am in complete shock amd excitement. i think that's what i'm feeling. i'm having a hard time putting a finger on my emotions lately. but, this is why this utter joy is here now. we are so connected! the last week or so i've been feeling really guilty for the fact that almost every morning "my first christmas..." by the vandals is in my head. now i don't! it is quite possible that i was trying to erase it with "let us all press on" as you guys were belting it through central utah. i'm pleased to know that we're on the same page even from thousands of miles away.
every once and i while i get a small burst of homesickness. nothing too big, not anything like i am about to call president hsu and ask to return to america. just that sometimes things happen and i don't want to talk to anyone here in taiwan. i want to talk to mom or dad or lauren or chloe or the littles or a grandparent or mandi... the list continues... last thursday was one of those times. hardcore. the first was in kaohsiung when i got athlete's foot. pingdong has had a few like when i was looking for rock sugar at carrefour or wondered if i could substitute butter for shortening in making corncakes. this one was worse. probably the worst thing that has happened to me since i got to taiwan.
on thursday after district meeting, elder swenson and elder britt were asking my companion and i some questions about less-actives, for the member book that they are trying to update and put to use. as we discussed, i looked up towards the class door into the relief society room and saw xu enyu's mom. (remember, xu enyu is a less-active i've been working with since the beginning of the move with sister blackham.) her mom didn't look right. we opened the door and she started crying as she told us that enyu had finally succeeded at her suicide attempts. she jumped from the fifth floor of her family's home. i don't remember the last time i've cried so hard. i've seen enyu about once a week every week for the last three months. i've celebrated every time she's been in the chapel and have born testimony to her more than i have anyone else on this island.
on tuesday she was released from the hospital. we went to see her in the afternoon and the nurse told us that she had gone home. i'm not sure what our backup plan was but i insisted that we track her down. we headed to her house but she wasn't there so we went to her family's store. she wasn't there either. we called and met her and her mom at another hospital where her mom was waiting to see a doctor for heat stroke. we visited with them for a while and brought dinner to them. enyu looked better than she did in the hospital but wasn't completely herself. i wasn't sure when i'd see her next if i moved so i had her write her information. i wish we could have stayed longer but we had a dinner appointment. again, like when we left her at the hospital, it was tough to ride away from her solemn face.
from what her mom told us, doctor's prescribed enyu stong medication that made her shake and unable to keep down much food. on wednesday morning her mom when to the hospital for kidney treatments. while she was there some workers from the salon next door to their house called and told her what happened. no one is sure how intentional it was. enyu wasn't really able to control herself at that point. she may have gone to the balcony considering things and thinking about jumping then dozed off and fell. the necklace her mom gave her the day before was ripped off, so her mom thinks she woke up in the air and tried to grab something. i don't know. this morning we sang at her funeral. last night we shared alma 40:12? with her family about the happy state of the righteous after death. i'm grateful for the feeling of peace in their home. they asked me to keep in touch with them. her older brother has plans to come to the us, maybe vegas in the next couple of years.
i have a lot of questions in my head about all that just happened with enyu. i keep wondering if she'll be able to repent for committing suicide. or whether or not it will be held against her in consideration of the medication's effect. (in the arms of the angels by sarah mclachlan just came on in the email place) i can't help but think about how much more i could have and should have done for her and her family. i think that last move there were a lot of things that i didn't try my hardest at, and she may be one of them. i know that the branch is having a hard time. they are embarassed that enyu's mom didn't have any branch member's phone numbers and that few people knew her situation. this has helped them to realize that their less-active members really need them. i know that that is true, and that as disciples of christ we need to support one another and strengthen those around us. so, i challenge you all to reach out to someone within your ward or neighborhood that needs you. remind them of heavenly father's love for them.
i'm devastated and glad to be out of pingdong. i will miss it so so so much, but i think it was time. i cried quite a bit yesterday, my last sunday and so did some of the members. now i'm in tainan, north of kaohsiung. my companion is fan jiemei, a taiwanese sister. her last companion was sister mcintosh, my mtc companion. we just switched places; she went to pingdong! i think last move i could have worked harder at my relationship with jiang jiemei, i regret that. i'm not going to make the same mistakes again here. i'm really excited about the new challenges ahead. new people to meet. new places to see. i hear that the food in tainan is amazing, which kind of worries me. haha.
some exciting things happened before i left pingdong, a lot actually:
wednesday afternoon we went shopping. we went to a crocs store to get some shoes for jiang jiemei. i found some cute canvas crocs for post-mission use. at a bookstore, while looking for a dictionary, i found an amazing cookbook. i'll cook for you all when i come home! that night for english class we had a carnival! it was great. i loved being the english unit leader, but i'm ready for a bit of a break. each game represented a commandment or gospel principle and had a consequence: a gold dot or a black. then according to the number of dots in each color, participants, in the end, were assigned to a kingdom (celestial, terrestrial, telestial) and we had a share about the plan of salvation and the imporance of our choices and actions on earth. there were some great set-ups with english students that night!
thursday night we met with guo jiemei. her husband said she can get baptized!!!! she's so great. when she said the closing prayer after our lesson, she prayed to be able to be baptized after the autumn festival. i've never had an investigator set their own baptismal goal like that! i'm so proud of her.
friday was a kind of typical day, then we met with a mom we set up at english. teaching her was so cool. sometimes it's easy to forget why you're a missionary and what your real purpose. in pingdong we were being rejected a lot a lot a lot. things were kind of tough. as we taught this zheng jiemei, she wept about her family situation. she was able to recognize that she needs the gospel. she is ready for change and is willing to let jesus christ be the catalyst. that's why i'm a missionary! because christ's gospel changes lives!! it was so wonderful to be reminded of that by the spirit as we taught her. i'm disappointed that i won't be able to see where she goes except through letters.
on saturday we went to lunch with melee. i'm still not clear as to what "the secret" is/was. the letter she gave me was another email to edit and it was not juicy at all. i don't know. it was night to eat with her. she brought her husband and daughter. they are great people. both she and her husband are philosophy professors and very skeptical. i with they would open their hearts to the gospel. one day. that afternoon we met with trista. she really wants to be baptized. sister jiang and i disagreed about what to do. trista's sister/mom say not until she's 18. i think that if that is the case we need to respect their wishes and keep teaching her until that point. sister jiang thinks trista needs to set a baptismal goal to work towards, with faith that a way will be provided. i worry that doing so will cause trista's family to say she can't come to church at all. after going to a few days of early morning seminary her sister said no more church activities except sunday. the next day she changed her mind to just no more seminary. i don't want them to think that we are encouraging trista to not follow their wishes. what do you think? maybe it doesn't matter because i've left.
after trista we visited circle. it was my first time seeing her since seattle. i will miss her so much. it was so sad to see her. she cried. she feels a lot of pressure in kaohsiung where she's going to high school. we did our best to assure her that she always has heavenly father and christ. we encouraged her to pray and read and to get in touch with the wards in kaohsiung. i hope sister jiang takes good care of her.
sunday i gathered a lot of addresses. it's going to be tough, but i am determined to stay in contact with all the people i love here. at the very least i will send birthday cards. i didn't realize how many sisters in the pingdong branches i've become attached to. one wrote in my bye-bye book (i hate calling it that! i think it sounds immature and dumb.), "you are the most non-american american we've ever met." should i be happy or offended? i'm still deciding. ding jiemei, one of my good friends, says i'm a double yolked egg, really really asian on the inside but white on the outside. i guess it's true that i love thousand year old egg and red bean, and i'm starting to think "the whiter the more beautiful". i'm going to come home so weird!
i think that's all from here for now. i still love you. and miss you all. i hope you are all well! muah!!
love,
sister jade
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