ShengDanJie Kauile! (Merry Christmas! Literally: Holy Birth Day Happy)

Dajia Hao.

 

Merry Christmas!!!! This has by far been one of the sweetest, most memorable Christmases of my life. We are taking a shorter time for emails today since both of us are calling home so soon (SO EXCITED!) but I will tell you a little bit about how my Christmas has been.

 

First, the missionary choir was performing all weekend. I have barely been in my area at all, which is actually hard in a lot of ways. I still feel so new to this place and I feel like I haven't quite figured out how to be a missionary in this new area and ward, etc.

But, the missionary choir performances have been so fun. There is such a comraderie among us, and we have basically been getting a tour of all of Northern Taiwan, traveling to all these different places by car, bus, metro, or on foot. Have I mentioned before how much I adore Taiwan? I know I still have a year left but the thought of leaving makes something inside me go cold. There are a lot of difficult things about being a missionary, but I have never been happier in my whole life.

 

Speaking of missions, JEFFREY!!!! Congrats on your mission call!!! I am so excited for you!!!

 

Anyway.

President and Sister Day, I think, are very sensitive to the fact that many of us are spending our first Christmases away from home. Today (Christmas) is a P-Day, (and after P-day ends at 6, we have a baptism--best day ever, right?) And yesterday we had a special zone conference. Before lunch, we had some training. Then we had a huge, home-cooked, American Christmas dinner. Turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, rolls, salad, fruit... It was so good. After lunch, we had a talent show that was one of the most fun, and also most touching talent shows I have ever been to, for sure. All the missionaries who wanted to find some talent to share could participate. Some people did goofy/entertaining things--like juggling, performing comedy monologues, or solving a rubix cube. I told everyone about the little street performing band I was in a couple summers ago called, "Triforce" where we made money in downtown Salt Lake playing Mario and Zelda music, then I played those on my violin. I didn't play it super well because I had zero time to warm up, but it's funny to think how little I cared! All of us made tons of mistakes, but all it showed was that we have more important things to be doing than practicing instruments and worrying about what people think of us. One of the most touching performances, for me, was a Taiwanese Elder who simply played Sweet Hour of Prayer from the hymn book. So many Americans would feel they would have to do something fancy to merit playing in a talent show, but you could tell he was proud of himself for being able to play just the simple version.

 

Isn't that the way it should be? I have learned so much on my mission that the goodness of things is found in the intention behind it rather than what it is.

Another example--there is an Elder in my mission who has a severe leaning disability. He is a little slow, when you talk to him. But he is absolutely the sweetest person you will ever meet. Several times he has written me notes--and I don't even know him!--encouraging me to keep working hard, or thanking me for playing the violin. He does things like that for everyone. I know his Chinese can't be that great, I know he probably recognizes how much harder things come for him than for other missionaries, but he doesn't seem to let that shame him into not trying.

For the talent show, he sang a song that he wrote in the MTC. It was one extremely out of tune, had horrible rhymes, and borrowed nearly all its lyrics from previously-existing hymns or scriptures, but it was absolutely my favorite performance. He sang about Christ's love for everyone, and how we need to do the same, because "Perfect love casteth out all fear." It moved me so much, thinking about him as a person--his individual challenges and how he deals with them so bravely and cheerfully. Later, he was part of a choir group that sang "The First Noel" on stage, and he started crying while he was singing. I felt the love of Christ so strongly, and I couldn't stop crying either. I never, ever want to forget his example. How silly it is that I complain at times about my own Chinese, about my own insecurities and challenges, the things that hurt me--and I at times use them as excuses to bury myself. Bury my talents in the sand. He is one who perhaps has much less, but does all that he can to be a good person. Wow.

 

I have to go soon, but really quick I want to tell you about my Christmas Eve Dinner! Sister Duggar were so full of Christmas spirit that on our way home last night we decided we wanted to buy dinner from some of the poor people selling street food. I saw a rather old woman huddled up in the cold and looking rather bored and pitiful. She had a wooden box on her little metal food stand. I didn't know what she was selling that she had inside it, but I wanted to buy something from her. So I gave her my 25 kuai and she pulled out of the box one of those pigs-blood rice patties on a stick, which she then preceded to dip in a spicy sauce, then crushed up peanuts and cilantro. She smiled and something in Taiwanese I didn't understand, while I cheerfully took from her absolutely the last thing in the world I wanted to eat for dinner. But it made my day. I loved that lady so much! Haha.

 

Sister Brown

Born that man no more may die

Dear everyone,

 

I feel so sick, right now, having just read about what happened in Connecticut. Such horrible, needless suffering.

I don't have anything more to say about it than that. I just feel sick about it. But it is going to be coloring my thoughts and feelings, as I write this week's email, so I wanted to mention it.

 

Ironically, this was a very beautiful week for me;I had a couple, "I could die happy right now" moments.

The first was last P-Day. For the first time since coming to Taiwan, I left the city and we went to this old village called JiuFen up in the dark green mountains that overlook the coast. The ocean was foggy but so breathtakingly beautiful--and the village! All these old houses tucked into the steep hills, the tour buses winding up such narrow streets in the rain. The JiuFen old street is this little alleyway, completely covered by buildings, that weaves in and out of and underneath them and contains probably hundreds of tiny shops, selling Taiwanese food, snacks, desserts, pottery, toys, musical instruments, clothing--so many unique little things I wish I could show you all. Every once in a while the alley way would have an opening and you could see out to the coast again and the cold sea breath came up to greet our faces. The alley way was absolutely crammed with people, so loud, and the trash of their leftover lunches was overflowing from the garbage bins. But it was the loveliest thing. Apparently this old street was built years ago when Japan had taken over Taiwan, and this community up in the mountains didn't want to go down to the cities, so they built up shops in this little alleyway and sustained themselves up there. It's now a popular tourist spot.

 

I don't know why I loved it so much. I think it was the realization of this incredible place--barely a mile of geographical space but an infinity deep of history and culture--truly existed. It made me have so much appreciation for the beauty and diversity of human life, of the stories God lets us create. It was while we were taking the bus down the mountain and I was looking out at the ocean again that I had the feeling of such overflowing joy. I will have to show you the pictures some day.

 

Move calls were this week. I am officially done with training! (Training is our first 12 weeks on island--basically it just means we have an extra hour of studies every day.) I could barely sleep the couple nights after they told me I was moving. I would have to get to know Taiwan all over again! But really, as soon as I stepped out of the subway station into my new area, and saw the busy city streets--the Mcdonald's across the street, all the cars, all the people--I immediately felt this love for the area come over me.

 

My new area, ShuangHe, is not as ghetto as XinZhuang. XinZhuang was very... industrial. We would pass buildings sometimes and see  rows of women making school uniforms in front of sewing machines, or packaging pasta. Things like that. My new area is much more wealthy. There isn't as much street food, and everything is a bit more expensive. But, it is still the city! And I am totally a city girl, these days. In fact, an elder who has been serving here for a while said that YongHe, part of our area, is the third most densely populated city in the world. I am not sure if that is true. Maybe one of you can look that up for me? I have very little access to information like that.

 

My new companion is Sister Duggar. She is already very very dear to me. It is interesting how so immediately life can change--the challenges and strengths of our companionship are going to be so different from what they were with Sister Kang. I will have to write another time more about her, but even then I don't know how much I can while respecting her privacy. But I do want to say, I really have a testimony after being put with her that these move calls are inspired. I wish I could say all that has happened in the past three days of being with her. But it is too much for words, even if I had them all. Everything that happens to me here feels so, so big.

 

My other "I could die happy" moment came this weekend while performing with the missionary Christmas choir. We have been doing a couple performances each weekend at different wards in the Taipei area. This weekend we had four performances, and next weekend we have five. I play two violin duets with Sister Winters, who is a violin major at BYU. She is amazing! I love playing with her. One of our songs is a medley of "Jesus once was a little child" with "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus" and the other is "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem." This weekend, though, we also had to write little duet parts to play on the last verses of "With Wondering Awe" and "Joy to the World". I am so thankful for hours and hours of experience spent jamming with Searching for Celia! They gave us no time to write anything. I was writing in my head/plucking out a part with my thumb while we were sitting waiting for the one-time-through rehearsal to start.

 

This weekend, the choir sang different songs than our normal program because we were part of this big nativity program that the English ward in Taipei puts together every year. Let me explain first: Taipei has a temple square. It is a block in the middle of the city where the temple, a large, 3-floored chapel, a distribution center, and the mission home all sit. It feels like home for all the missionaries, and for many of the members as well, since there are so often activities or firesides held there. There are obviously fewer church members in Taipei than there are in Utah, though, so this temple square is much more close knit and has a feeling of community. All the sisters get turns to be temple square sisters for two days a transfer; we go temple square and teach lessons to people by using all the paintings they have in the chapel. They have paintings of temples, of Book of Mormon scenes, of Joseph Smith and pioneer days; but everyone's favorite hall is the one with pictures depicting many different events in Christ's life. I love teaching there because it's very artistic--you can point out different things the artists did--whether it is an expression on a disciple's face, or the direction Christ's body is oriented, or the distance between a boat and the shore--to teach gospel points.

 

Anyway, all of that is just to say that JinHua Jie, (the street where temple square is) is very precious to me. It's a place where I have felt uplifted by meetings or firesides, energized by seeing other missionaries, enlightened by the spirit. This weekend we had three performances of the nativity, two on Saturday and one of Sunday night. Several hundred people came to each performance. The stage was set up outside, in between the temple and the chapel. There was a lot of time, talent, and money put into this--there were costumes, a real horse for Mary, and three different choirs involved. The reading of the Christmas story was done in both English and Chinese, but all the songs we sang were in English. I have been singing Chinese Christmas hymns for the past month, but singing them in English is a totally different experience. I have a long history of experience and meaning with each word. I can't tell you what joy it was to be singing about Christ in this beautiful place that a year ago I didn't know existed--surrounded by palm trees and apartment buildings. And all these wonderful people in front of us, in the audience, singing of the same beautiful promises in their own language. They are so good, so loving and full of hope. They are so... humble and unrecognized. This topic deserves much more attention than I can give it right now, but do you know they all tend to think everyone in Utah must be so happy since their whole families are members of the church? These are people whose lives have been changed by the simplest of gospel principles.

 

My favorite Christmas hymns are "Once in Royal David's City" and "Hark, the Herald Angel's Sing." I remember singing these in sacrament meeting last year, and trying to hide my tears. I remember singing them in the family room on Christmas Eve. I remember Aya singing in Japanese. I remember all the tension and pain that so often sits in between persons. And I think of Christ and his promises to us. They have proved so true for me on my mission.

Will you read through the words of those songs for me? I want to type them up for you but I don't remember them exactly.

 

There is so much suffering I don't know anything about. Like hearing that your child was shot in their kindergarten class. It is too heavy and huge for understanding.  I don't know anything about that. But I know about some other things. I know about the fears and loneliness that is a part of my life every day, here. Sometimes they seem very huge, as well. But how do I explain how knowing him in my heart allows me to love it all? I have honestly never been happier with life than I am, right now, but I have never been so faced with difficult obstacles. Every day when I get scared I remember that I need to take up my cross and follow him. What does it mean to take up my cross? To me it means to accept and to do what needs to be done. To accept that for whatever reason, I am in Taiwan right now with certain people and certain responsibilities. I don't know what is going to happen when I get home from my mission, or even tomorrow. But I know what I can do today, because if I have a mind and heart oriented toward solving the problems of right now he fills it step by step, line upon line, with answers. To take up my cross is to accept that I can't be with you for Christmas, and all the other things, too, but to go on working because there is love in my heart. To bear suffering the way Christ did. He really is there.

 

I love you all so much. I hope you all have a great week! Merry Christmas!

 

Diana

Rainy Days

Dear Everyone,

 

This was a very rainy, wet, but wonderful week. I think I have seen more rain in Taiwan already than I have in Utah my whole life. And by the way, if you ever get called on a mission to Taiwan and ask people who have been there if it gets cold, and they tell you, "Of course not, it's an island!", DON'T TRUST THEM!!! Especially if they weren't a missionary. Rainy weather takes on a totally different meaning when it's not just something you see out the window--you have to go on a half-hour bike ride through it right now. And even though you have this tarp-like rain suit you put on, your shoes and tights, the bottom of your skirt, and the bangs of your hair sticking out of your helmet will be soaked and damp all day. I come home and change into mercifully dry clothes at the end of the day and stick my poor white feet in front of my space heater. They look like they do after going swimming. haha.

 

But seriously, it's amazing how much I don't care, while we are actually out there in the rain. And in fact, sometimes it's the happiest times. There is a point of surrender at the first stop light when you realize all your attempts to stay dry, warm, and clean-looking have been cancelled out for the rest of the day, but that you love Taiwan anyway. And all the puddles you glide through and the constant downpour of more water than can possibly exist in the world are just cause to laugh. I'm serious. Maybe my energy and adoration for things will wear off after a while, but for right now all the rain's discomforts just add charm and uniqueness to my experience in Taiwan. I think just in general, there is an innocent sweetness that graces all the challenges and discomforts we have every day. A heart that wants to be cheerful and loving can find a lot of surprising things to be cheerful and loving towards.

 

Another of our investigators, Chen Wei Ting got baptized on Friday! Six times, actually, because her hair kept floating up. I felt so bad for her. Several times during lessons with her, she brought up how she really didn't want the water to be cold for her baptism, so we made extra care to check the water heater that day. The Elders told us they had turned it on. But they did it wrong somehow, and it was ice water that filled up the font. She figured it out before the baptism, and we apologized and consoled her by saying, "Don't worry, you will only be there for about a minute, max--it goes really fast." But she was in there for probably over five minutes by the time she was properly baptized. It was cool, though, to see that despite the realization of our empty promise to her she still had this determined look on her face that stayed until it was over.

 

One of the best parts of this week was going on exchanges with Sister Sutton! For those of you who don't know, going on exchanges means you switch companions with missionaries in a neigboring area for 24 hours. They are very educational for interrupting the routines you sometimes get in, and show you how other missionaries work and teach. Sister Nicole Sutton is the person I started talking about approximately two seconds after I read where I was going. I still remember shrieking, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to Nicole's mission!!" We basically have the cutest friendship ever. I got to know her over a year ago when I was the TA for a sociology class she was taking. One night after a review session, we were walking home together (and I later learned that the way we walked was only convenient for me, it was out of the way for her--but she walked with me anyway. She was then and still is, a very thoughtful friend.) And we confessed to each other that we both were thinking of going on missions. We shared with each other why we wanted to go, what our worries about it were, etc. and built each other up. Then a couple of months later she emailed me saying she was going to the Taiwan Taipei mission. My first thought was, "Woah, how exotic! And poor girl, she has to learn to speak Mandarin." And then a few months later I opened my call and read that I was going to the same Taiwan Taipei mission.

 

It was seriously really cool, to be companions with her, and think about how different life is for us now than it was a year ago. Our heads have a lot less sociology and a lot more gospel and Chinese in them than they used to, and our legs are a lot more muscled. Our reality together used to be discussing Marx and Weber in front of white-boards and speculating our futures in front of the Clyde building on BYU campus; but now our reality together involves biking over freeway bridges with dozens of people on scooters, striking up conversations with strangers in a language we barely speak, struggling to decipher the characters on restaurant menus so we can figure out what to eat for lunch. It's really cool to see how life can be so, so different than it was--but you can keep going. You find that you can live without some things (or even some people) you thought you could never live without. And you find joy in things you never thought to have joy in before. It's sobering, because when you love something or someone or some place you want to believe there is no other way to be than close to it/them. But it is inspiring, too, to see how adjustable we are, in the end.

 

Life is really, really good. It is just as hard and nuanced with those tough, crucial moments of having to accept and love people and responsibilities you don't want to accept and love, but the closer I feel to my savior, the more motivation there is to do it. I wish I could say all the reasons why in my heart, but there aren't enough words. Still. Just know I really believe in God.

 

Diana

Lovely Messes

Hello everyone!

 

Thank you so much to those of you who wrote to me! It is so great to hear about your lives and the challenges/opportunities that fill them. Jeffrey, that is so awesome you are finishing up your mission papers! Still not-so-secretly hoping you will come join me in Taiwan. It is going to be so exciting seeing what changes happen because of the missionary ages. All of us are now aware of several 18-year-old boys and 19-year-old sisters who are coming next Spring to our mission. We are all pretty much guaranteed to be trainers because the numbers of incoming sisters are going to increase so much. I'm a bit worried about that experience... I think I definitely make a more mature missionary now than I would have at 19... But everything will work out, we'll deal with things as they come up.

 

This week I experienced my first break up as a missionary. A break up occurs when you have been meeting with an investigator for some time, and then they decide it is not working out. They don't want what you are trying to offer them. So they contact you some way--sometimes on the phone, sometimes in a letter, and sometimes in person--to tell you that they need a break, the timing isn't right, it isn't going where they thought it was going, etc. And we snifffle andrespond with the hurt but understanding, "we respect your decision" and "is there anything we can do to change your mind?" We leave the door open if they ever want to come back. "Moroni's promise is still true, you know..." 

 

It was Joanna that broke up with us. She hadn't seen us in about a month. It was really sad. She started crying and telling us about how things had been so hard in her family--her brother had died and her parents divorced in the past year. She said that usually her life with school and work kept her really busy but during lessons with us she felt she had to slow down and "tcouh things she didn't want to touch". And she felt like the answers she had received from prayer, that maybe she gave those to herself and they weren't really from God after all.

 

I felt super awkward dealing with the whole thing but I tried to do my best. I still feel a bit sad about it. Sad for her; she really is having a hard time with life. At the same time, I am pretty optimistic about God's ability to make really sad things be okay. Also, the whole experience does have a tinge of humor for me because of really how similar it was to a relationship break up.

 

I ate goose liver this week. It was terrible. TERRIBLE. The texture of liver is dense and slimy, and goose has this very strong flavor that I haven't gotten used to yet. The aftertaste was the worst part, though. It came in a sudden wave after I had swallowed--this rancid flavor swelling in my mouth. But, I don't regret trying it.

 

What else happened this week? Just the usual. Biking across town, up hills and down hills to lessons or meetings. Having my mind blown open by studying the scriptures. Trying to figure out how to navigate the inexpressible gaps in communication between me and God, me and my companion, me and investigators. Laughing with Sister Kang. I love her so much. I feel like our friendship has really started growing into something more tangible, lately. Which is sad, because transfers are in two weeks and it is very likely that I will be moving, since I will be technically done with my trainining period (the first 12 weeks of your mission.)

 

Lately I have been thinking about how much I want to treasure every moment in Taiwan as if it is my last day to live. Sometimes I have moments that blow me away with their utter uniqueness and value--like sitting in a rusty blue drink shack off the side of a highway, trying to share Book of Mormon of Mormon scriptures with a family who was slightly drunk. They gave us cans of coca cola because it was the only W.O.W. approved substance they sold, but we just continued clutching them in our cold fingers continue clutching in our laps because we were fasting that day.

 

Or another time, meeting with a very old, curly-haired lady in her video game shop that didn't sell anything newer than a bright yellow gameboy color. She had shelves and shelves of old, dusty nintendo games, action figures, and game systems that were probably cool before I was born. Her shop is in the middle of a very quiet street where it seems only old people hobble around. It's hard to imagine her ever having a single customer. We met with her because an elder in our district insisted she was "golden"--(long story)--but we met with her to find she only knew a little bit of Mandarin. Many old people here only speak Taiwanese, a language more native to this island. She got that we were Christian, though, so she gave us glasses of unsweetened barley tea to sip while she turned on a track of a really dramatic preacher reading from the bible in Taiwanese.

 

I really never want to forget these experiences. There is something so precious about the idea of us young, naive American girls coming in contact with these people in the smallest corners of Taiwan, and trying to communicate. They are precious for so many reasons. In part because a year ago I never, ever had had such experiences and now they fill my days. In part because these people are just so good and valuable--just as valuable as I am. In part because they are metaphors for the struggles of learning, problem-solving, and communication that affect all of us every day. We find ourselvs confronted with things we have never seen before, tasks we don't know how to accomplish. Every day is a foreign country, if we're really keeping our eyes open. But we plow through these challenges anyway because it is the only thing to be done. Our efforts are inevitably imperfect, tainted with our own weaknesses and short-sighted understanding, but when we decide to just dive in and deal with it we find things get done anyway. Or if they don't get done, at least we tried!

 

One of the coolest things I've learned from being on a mission is that if you try, things will get done, even if you don't think you are capable of trying. There have been so many moments  when I've been pushed to have to talk to people, to teach lessons, to express ideas that at the outset I literally feel I have no ability to do. Sister Kang will hand me the phone to handle a certain call, or I will be put in a room alone with an investigator because my companion has to teach someone else. And while inside I'm screaming, "No, you don't get it, I REALLY don't know how to say that in Chinese!" or "Don't you remember I've only been in Taiwan for a few weeks?" I also realize that the seconds are mounting up, and I have to open my mouth. So I do it. There's no time to think too hard or to plan. And whatever happens, happens, and you just deal with that as it comes up.

 

But it's really cool. I have found I have been able to do things I literally thought I was incapable of doing. I have learned that there really isn't any time to wait and plan what a perfect missionary would do and then do it. There is no such thing as a perfect missionary, or perfect missionary work. Every word and movement is colored with our imperfections and our current state of being. But rather than those indicating some grave deficiency, even those--strangely and beautifully--have a place in the task of getting things done. For example, sometimes I think people say yes, they will meet with us, because they get that my Chinese isn't strong enough to understand any excuse they try to give me.

 

I don't know. It's all just really cool. And I like thinking about how God knows all this--he is so much more aware of how little we know what we are doing than we ourselves are. But he is obviously okay with that fact. He is obviously okay with people even younger than us doing this same work. He knows we are going to make messes but he is okay with that. It seems like maybe we learn more from just dealing with the messes the best we know how in the moment than sitting back, talking about the messes and hating them so bad that we make ourselves miserable.

 

Okay, got to go. Love you all!

 

Diana