Learning to be Humble, Patient & Grateful

Hey Mom!

Thanks for all the pictures! Everyone looks so happy and stuff! I love seeing pictures. Sorry I don't take more pictures. I'll be better at it! haha I think I've been saying that for about a year now. I really will though. We were planning on going sight seeing today but the weather is looking a bit rainy so we might end up doing it next week. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures, though. 

Michaela says this LDS church building is the largest LDS church in Taiwan

This week was pretty good. Tuesday I went on exchanges with Sister Anderson. It was muuuuch needed. I love her so much! We stayed up way too late talking (oops). It was good though. 

We still haven't found any new investigators. It's starting to get a little humorous, going so long without finding a single new investigator. It's got to be a record or something haha. I'm working my tail off, though. So I know its not a lack of work, diligence or obedience. Heavenly Father probably just wants me to learn how to be humble, patient, and grateful. I set a goal of the kind of person I want to become, its all of the characteristics listed in Alma 7:23-24. I'll get there, one day. 

Wanna hear a funny story? Ok, so..thursday? Yeah, thursday morning we are walking out to our bikes and I start to tell Zhou JM how much I just love my bike. I told her that my bike is like my best friend, that it has been so good to me, it hasn't ever given me big problems and it rides nicely and on and on. We ride out of our apartment complex and about hmmm...1 min later I hear a big POP. I look down to see if there was a rock in my tire thing place...where all the little metal things are. That's what it sounded like. But there wasn't, so I just shrugged my shoulders and kept riding. We were riding out to Hemei, which is about 30 min bike ride. Well, maybe 10 min in to the ride I notice that it's getting harder and harder to pedal. So I pull over and guess what! That big POP noise was my tire...it had no air. At all. This has happened a couple of times before, it's a pretty easy fix and you can still ride your bike til you find a shop to fix it. So I keep riding. But guess what, the inner tire that holds the air started coming out! haha. oh man. So we had to walk for FOREVER because we were in the middle of nowhere. It was ok though because there are lots of rice fields out there, it was really sunny and we just sang some hymns while we walked. So we finally find a bike shop and he fixes my tire but guess what, my brakes need to be switched, too! They were worn all the way down. haha...oh man. It was pretty expensive. We left the bike shop and Zhou JM laughs saying, so much for your bike not giving you any big problems. haha! I still love my bike, though :)

Michaela's bike-her best friend

That night we went to the bishops house to eat dinner with his family and a bunch of other members from our ward. I was chatting with the bishops wife while she was preparing some of the food and told her about my bike experience. As we were leaving after dinner and our spiritual share, she gave me a hug and then plopped a red envelope in my hands. Red envelopes in Taiwan mean you're getting money given to you. She wanted to give me the money that I spent on my bike. I was really touched. I didn't accept it of course (we have a rule, we aren't allowed to accept money), but I was really touched that she was so generous. The people here are so giving and wonderful and I just love them to death.

Hmm..what else. Oh, one day Sister Zhou and I were doing a finding activity. I prayed to know where we should go to find a new investigator. I started riding my bike and followed promptings from the spirit. I was getting nervous because I was being led to a place where there was absolutely NO ONE. The thing about Taiwan is that there are people EVERYWHERE. But I turned down road after road and there were less and less people. I kept thinking to myself why in the world am I coming here?? Then we stopped. I walked up to a house and knocked on the door. An 18 year old girl answered and we taught her about Heavenly Father and prayer and baptism. She said we could come back. She wasn't willing to tell me what her name was or what her phone number is, but we wrote down her address and will go back this week. That was pretty cool. 

View from Michaela's 12th story apartment

Michaela and her companion with ???

Well, that's probably about all for this week. I think it's interesting that you said in the picture you saw you thought I looked confident and content. Sister Anderson said that I have developed a...resilience? That I am just like, strong and more content with myself.That I won't let people take advantage or push me around, but am still my same sweet self. I would say that's probably true. I'm so thankful for all that I'm able to learn while serving the Lord. This is the hardest, most tiring, happiest best thing I've ever done. I love being a missionary. 

Have a great week, mom! I love you so so much!

Sister Fuller

IT'S THE BEST!!

Hey Mom!

Thanks for filling me in with whats going on at home. It's always fun to hear :) Also, the pictures are great! The one with dad and the fruit made me and my companion laugh haha. 

Found Dragon Fruit at Grocery Store. Sent a picture to Michaela to see how to eat it.

The dragon fruit (its the pink one) is one of my favorites! I don't know how you guys have them already though, its not dragon fruit season yet! haha. It's pretty easy to eat though, just cut it in half, then use a knife to slice it. You don't slice it all the way though, just cut it into cubes but when you get to the skin stop cutting. Then when its all in cubes, flip it inside-out. Does that make sense? So it will just fall out of the skin. Delicious! I can't really see what the other one is. If it is what I think it is, just peel the skin off and eat it. There's probably a huge seed in the middle, don't eat that part ;)

As for me...well. Moving is really hard. You get to one place and you love it and the ward becomes your family and the investigators you love with all your heart and then you have to leave. 

I was really, really sad. And my new area...we met with one investigator the entire week. So...there is lots of room for improvement! I am super excited though! 

Zhanghua city is pretty similar to Taichung. Lots of people everywhere and buildings and TONS a places to tract. But our area also covers the more like....xiangxia...like..rural! The rural outskirt little places. So we ride our bikes A TON and there is like, no one to talk to. Which is hard for me because the dynamics of what I just came from (tons of investigators, riding as fast as we can to get from lesson to lesson, ect.) and to what it is like here are completely opposite. It's been cold and grey this week so it's not that pretty right now, but once the sun comes out and the rice starts growing its going to be a beautiful place! I love more rural areas :) 

Can you find Zhanghua (spelled Changhua on the map)?  West coast, middle of Taiwan in yellow area.
Taichung, which is where Michaela has been the majority of the time, and just got transferred from,
is just above Changhua in the blue area.

My companion is called Zhou Jiemei (Taiwan person! Yeah! She is helping my chinese a TON). She herself has admitted to being lazy, so I'm not afraid to say it out-loud. She is pretty lazy. But she is also really humble, so we are working on diligence! She just finished training, so I very much still feel like a trainer. She is wonderful and we are having a ton of fun together. I'm excited to get to the point where we can both be 100% obedient and diligent (I'm not perfect either) because it is then that the miracles start coming down like rain.

Sister Zhou

Hm...what else? We did see a miracle with the investigator we met with this week! Her name is Luo Zi Xuan. She is 16 and GOLDEN! Zhou JM had met with her once before with her previous companion, they taught the first lesson. As we were preparing for her lesson, I mentioned we needed to invite her to come to church. Zhou JM was apprehensive because she is super busy with school and she has a job on Sunday, too. I told her we would pray really hard for her and invite her anyway. So we did. The lesson went AMAZING! She accepted an invitation to be baptized on April 5! She herself even mentioned going on a mission! What!? She is more than prepared. We also invited her to church and she was really excited to come. She said she would pray to find a new job and that she would come on Sunday, which she did! It was Zhou JM's first time having an investigator come to church! So yeah, really cool :) I asked her if any of her family would be interested and she said her mom would probably be interested, so hopefully we can start meeting with her mom soon too! 

So you said you want to know what it's like being a missionary in Taiwan. Let me tell you. IT'S THE BEST!! I absolutely LOVE it with all of my heart! Imagine being on a bike all day. Super sweaty. Stop at a stop light, talk to every female. Look em in the eye and promise that the message you have will change their life. Most of the time you get rejected, but you just smile and ask them if they've eaten yet. (It's a Taiwan thing, are you full?) You get to shock a ton of people when you hear them talking about you because they think you don't understand what they're saying but it's a great way to introduce why you're here and why your Chinese is so good (or not so good haha). Knock on doors and kindly but firmly get rejected because their family is "bai bai" and all religions are the same anyway. Get force fed a bunch of delicious food by loving members. Ride your bike some more (through some rice fields with the sun setting behind some palm trees with mountains in the background). Meet amazingly humble people and remind them to come to church. Call/text people and tell them to read their scriptures and pray, promising them JOY that they won't find anywhere else. Man. I can't even describe how much I love it! I love it all! It's extremely exhausting and I constantly feel like I could pass out any second and sleep for 5 days straight, but I've never been so happy in my life. I've never felt so much love for other people that I've never even met and I've never felt Heavenly Fathers love and patience with me in so much abundance. I've learned so much from this experience and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. 

So hopefully that gives you a little taste. I hope you're saving your money, because I'm definitely coming back and I've already promised a lot of people that I'd bring you and dad with me. They're excited to meet you guys haha. 

I think that's all for this week. As for the school thing, I think I've decided on BYU. It's funny, Sister Anderson is also serving here in Zhanghua, so we get to see each other pretty frequently (YAY! I love her so much!). She said, "Sister Fuller I've been thinking about it, and I think I know why Heavenly Father needed you to come to Zhanghua. It's so I can convince you to come to BYU." haha. Regardless of how persuasive she is, I really do want to go there. And after praying about it I've got a good feeling about it. So yeah. If I could room with Rachel that would be amazing! I love Rachel! 

Well mom, I love you SO MUCH! I hope your week goes AMAZING! Pray that Zhou JM and I can find some new investigators! We need em! Thanks for all you do for me! Love you!

Sister Fuller

Power Week

(This email was from last week, February 24, 2014.  Michaela's mom needs to get on the ball)

We were listening to music this morning as we were getting ready today and "This is the Christ" came on. It made me think of the day before you took me to the MTC and we went to Deseret Book and bought that CD and then on the way home listened to that song really really loud haha. It seems like that happened last week. But it's been over a year! So crazy. 

This week seriously had SO MANY! This week was "power week", so basically every single day we came home absolutely extra exhausted. Every day President Blickenstaff gave us a goal to hit and we left the house early (at 9:30) to go out and hit the goal. Because we went to the temple (which I'll talk about later) it was a little messed up for us, but we still worked our very hardest to hit all the goals. It was fun! Monday we went out and tracted, hoping to get let into two different houses. We didn't hit that goal, but in the process we found a girl that we tracted into a while ago and said we could come back. So that was cool. 

Tuesday's goal was to hand out 13 Books of Mormon and exchange contact info so we can follow up with them on how they like it. We handed out 13 books but 1 person just would NOT give us their information haha. So we just barely missed the goal. That day we ran into a bunch of Americans, they were all Christian and it made me really grateful that I am serving in Taiwan. They basically said, "I admire your search for God and Christ, I can see that you really believe in what you're doing, I'm just said that you haven't found Him yet." It wasn't that much fun. Xinku missionaries who go to the bible belt. 

Wednesday we went to the temple!!! Oh man, it was SO GREAT! We do the session in English, and we saw the new movie! It was SO GOOD! Oh man, I love it! I learned a lot from that temple trip, the biggest thing I think I've been learning lately is that God created us so that we can have joy. He wants us to be joyful! He wants us to not only have joy in this life, but eternally. And the best way to have that joy is through living up to our potential. The only way to fully live up to our potential is through Christ. 

Thursday we had to drop in 5 week E baptismal goals, which means that they want to work towards getting baptized in March! We didn't hit that goal either, but we did meet with a new investigator that we found a while ago. She came to English class a couple of times, and while she was there we gave her a book of Mormon. We kind of lost contact with her because she was busy, but we met with her this past week and when we got to her house she pulled out her Book of Mormon. Turns out she has been reading at least 2 pages every single night before she goes to sleep! She loves it! We gave her a baptismal goal, but she is super busy, so it's hard to meet with her. Her son has autism so she is always taking him to classes and to see the doctor and stuff. Pray for her! Her name is Liu Jiemei. 

Friday we had to confirm 14 people for church...we confirmed 12! haha so close. 

Saturday we needed to talk to 20 families about the gospel! We did it! Woohoo! Including meeting with our family, the Lin Jiating (family of 6, 4 kids). Our lessons haven't been going that great with them, we have been having a really hard time teaching them. We finally realized that we just need to be really, really simple with them. They have absolutely no idea who God is, who Christ is, or anything. We are started from nothing. It's hard! haha. I'm really excited to see them grasp the gospel, though. They have a desire to know (otherwise they wouldn't keep letting us come back haha)

Sunday the goal was to have 4 investigators at church. Ready for a huge miracle? we had 10!!!Ten investigators at church! That is the most I have ever seen on my mission! The Lin family came, all 6 of them, at 8:30 in the morning! They came for all 3 hours! Man, we were so happy! We also had a less-active husband come who we have met with twice, Wei JM (our amazing investigator whos parents wont let her get baptized yet) brought her friend who we will meet with this week and then Xie JM. Xie JM is a miracle in and of herself. Let me tell you about her.

I don't know if I've mentioned Xie JM before or not. Her husband is already a member, he served his mission in Canada. Anyway, they went to Japan a while ago and we lost contact for a month. Two weeks ago we finally met with her and told her she was ready for baptism, she just need to decided to do it and then work hard for it. So she said ok! Then this past week we met with her almost every day, finishing up all the lessons and helping her prepare for baptism. And she's ready! She passed her baptismal interview on Saturday! She was telling us that her 7 year old daughter kept asking why she wants to get baptized. She said because she wants to be with dad for forever. Then the daughter said, I want to too! Can I get baptized? So we got her a children's Book of Mormon with pictures and after her interview on Saturday we all sat in the park eating fruit and read (and looked at the pictures) from the Book of Mormon. I got to talk to Xie JM about the temple and how amazing it is and she is so excited to be able to go be sealed to her husband. And oh man...they're going to have an eternal family!! It's the best feeling in the world! I love Xie JM so much! She has completely changed. You can physically see the change that the gospel has brought to her life. It's amazing. Oh man.

A lot of miracles, right? Well that's not even all of them! Sunday we were riding home from church and decided to stop at a park and talk to some families there. We talked to one family and the mom was like, I've run into you two on the street....three times..! haha. Heavenly Father is really putting her in our path. She was there with her husband and two kids, all of whom are willing and excited to invite us over to their house and listen about the gospel. We gave them a Book of Mormon and will call them tonight to set up a time to meet. ALSO. Last night we went over to Wei JM's house, we went last week and met with her and her mom. Her mom committed to reading the Book of Mormon, and we also told her about priesthood blessings. She has some heath problems and so we arranged for Su Dixiong to come over last night to give her a blessing. So last night we talked about faith and we all shared some experiences we have had with priesthood blessings. The spirit was really strong. After the blessing we asked her mom if she would let Wei JM get baptized this Sunday. She said we will have to ask her dad, which I think is a step forward! We are praying SO HARD for a miracle. Wei JM deserves it.

Also, yesterday Bishop Stevenson (the general presiding bishop of the church) came and spoke to us. We got to hear from him, his wife, and President and Sister Blickenstaff. It was so good! I also got to see Sister Mancilla and Sister Anderson! Oh man, it's been a long time since I've seen Sister Anderson. We hugged for quite some time. I love her so much!

So yeah, basically this week was really really...really really great. Heavenly Father LOVES HIS CHILDREN! I know that to be true with all my heart. I am so blessed to be able to be here and to get to know these amazing people. Move call is next Monday, I'm super scared I'll be moving. I don't want to leave,  l love my area so much. That's usually how you know it's time to go, though...

Well, I think that's about all. I hope your week goes really great, mom. I love you so much! Thank you for being the best mom in the world. 

Sister Fuller