zui hou yige (the last one)‏

Shengdanjie Kauile! Merry Christmas everyone!

Thank you so much for all of you loving and supporting me, while I've been on my mission. Mom, I got your package! I loved it! I gave out the popcorn balls to random people who weren't expecting it, rather than the people in my district. An old lady practicing really basic piano hymns in the chapel, two high school students who went to a classroom in the chapel to study for a test, the chapel security guard. It was fun.

I sort of feel like my life is ending, like I've been floating peacefully in this universe for a while on the crest of a wave, but the waves are suddenly getting larger, louder, more intense, and any second now I'm going to crash against the firm hard shore, and I don't know what will happen then. I feel nervousness and fear for facing life after the mission, deep sadness for the people I will love here, and also an overwhelming gratitude for this experience.

At the same time, I have this sense that life actually isn't any louder or more intense than it seems. I am still me, still owner of those quiet, delicate decisions I make in my heart every day. I still have to drag myself from sleep and have time to stretch in the mornings. I still like to sit on the floor and cuddle up to the space heater during studies, like I have every winter day of my mission. I still have to think about and carefully choose my words when I talk to Sister Chu, and shift the space heater in her direction when she clutches her legs, indicating she is cold. In a week life will be as peaceful as it's ever been, just with different scenery.

Like, really. The details of life are always so beyond our control. I want to live inside that sweet reality I've found  during my mission, where life consists of a continual stream of choices to love or to not love. It's like an assembly line in a factory. You pick up one thing at a time, one person, one lesson, one conversation, and you decide what you do with it, and then you set it back down and do the same thing to whatever life brings you next. Over and over again. Life is just all these quiet little decisions we do in our hearts.

I feel so thankful for the atonement, for teaching me once I have set something down in the past, not to worry about it so much. Sometimes we have time and eyesight to rectify our mistakes, but sometimes we do all we can and it's still not enough. If we start freaking out about all we did wrong, we're going to miss all the opportunities for better decisions that keep coming down the line. We have to keep our minds focused on whatever person or challenge or requirement is in front of us right now, and just doing the best we can.

Okay, I have to go now. I guess I'll see you all on Saturday afternoon... awkward. Just kidding. I really do love you all and am excited to get reaquauinted!
Have a very Merry Christmas!!!

Sister Brown

the christmas choir and making old people cry, and stuff

Zao An,

Time has gone by so fast. I feel the pull coming from the other side of the world, and it's really strange. I'm trying to be excited, not scared. I am worried most about losing the clarity I have developed out here, that comes when I'm able to think about others and not myself. Lately there has been this self-consciousness settling in on me, as I think about going home and who I will be. I have no idea how to be a "normal" person. At the same time, I feel how toxic this kind of thinking is, how much time it wastes, and what a deception it is to think that there is such a thing as being "normal" or that other people know reality better just because there are fewer people who challenge their definition of it.

I want to just keep doing what I've done on my mission, which is to not worry about these questions. Just live, and love the people around me and do whatever occurs to me is best to do--and don't get in fits when I have limited knowledge or abilities. Do what I can with what I've been given, and enjoy whatever comes after I've done that.

I'm just trying to be where my feet are. Luckily we have been really busy.

The missionary Christmas Choir has been bringing lots of beautiful experiences. And as usual, the loveliest ones are those that come unintentionally, in between things. For instance, we have been traveling on the MRT (metro) to different wards to perform.When we travel together with a group of missionaries, there is always such a temptation just to talk to each other. But there is always a very evident stickiness to our conversations together; we all feel the tug to look behind us, to our sides, and start talking to the people around us. So we do. And this huge, delightful energy engulfs the train as all these white shirted, white-bloused, red-scarfed people with name tags start making friends with separate and start making friends with everyone around them.

We found some people who had interest in coming to our concerts or coming to church, but we also apparently impacted people we didn't even talk to. On Saturday afternoon, we ran into the Danshui Elders. They stopped us and said, "We really need to thank you!" Apparently while we were contacting on the MRT the night before, a less active man had seen us. He was so touched by how happy we all were, even though many people were caught off guard when we started talking to them and didn't seem to have much interest.  He decided to start coming back to church, so he called the elders and asked what time church was, and if he could meet them. When he was meeting with them, he showed them a picture he had sneakily taken of my companion and me talking to a woman with not very much interest. haha.

Another lovely little thing happened on Saturday. We went out to a really famous busy streets where crowds mill around to shop or go out to eat, and we started caroling and handing out flyers for that night's performance, inviting people to come. Then we remembered that our investigator, Jiang Jiemei, lived nearby. She is a very intelligent woman in her 70's who lately has been really humbled by her declining health, and is learning the gospel fast. (She is getting baptized on Christmas!) We walked with the Elders to her first floor apartment. She opened the door and we sang Silent Night to her. She watched us quietly for the first two verses, but on the third verse, she just collapsed into silent sobs. I think all of us wanted to cry, too; there was such a beautiful spirit, among us. We invited her to that night's performance and she firmly said, "I'll be there."

Between the nativity performances, our choir performed, and I also played some songs I arranged with Elder Darger, an Elder who plays guitar who used to play in a band in Provo, like me. It was so fun; we got a really enthusiastic crowd to watch us, and we were kind of rocking out to our minor-folky style Christmas songs in a missionary way, haha. I can't believe how much I've used my violin on my mission, and how much my experience with my band has helped me learn how to write things quick, improvise, and perform so I could play out here. I am really lucky.

I don't know how life has been so good to me.
Okay, have a great week and stuff! Love you!

Sister Brown

聖殿合照‏

Nihao everyone!

In the picture are my companion Sister Chu and a woman I met in a hospital, named Sister Su. She is a member from Southern Taiwan, but is recovering from cancer in a Taipei hospital. I went to visit her with another sister once while we were on exchanges, and found her to be one of the happiest, warmest people I have ever met. She sat up in bed to chat with us about our lives, and kept demanding her son to peel oranges for us or to search the cupboards for snacks to send us home with.  I asked if I could take a picture with her, because I wasn't sure if I would see her again, but she said no--she doesn't want any pictures taken of her when she is in the hospital. (That was probably insensitive of me to ask? I didn't think about it.) But she promised as soon as she got out of the hospital, she would come to the chapel where I serve and find me, to take a picture. I didn't think she would, but she really did! I wasn't even at the chapel when she came, but when I showed up an hour later several people said, "Hey, a lady is looking for you!" And there she was. She kept her promise. That meant so much to me.

Sister Chu and I went to Hualien on exchanges this week, (that lovely town on the east coast), and had an amazing time. When we got back, we were full of fire that we wanted to use in our own area. On Friday we were like little kids, hurrying to get our homework out of the way so we could go out and play. We got all our planning and training done in the early afternoon so we could have several hours of free, uninterrupted contacting time on the street. Somehow it seemed we were laughing the whole night long--whether we were pedaling our rusty bikes down a long stretch of road, or getting rejected, or staring wide-eyed at each other after just saying goodbye to someone who surprised us with how "golden" they were. We had such a happy energy between us. Neither of us are afraid of talking to strangers, and at this point we are either good at bringing up the gospel naturally with people or (more likely) are totally immune to the sting of social awkwardness, so we went crazy making friends with people and inviting them to learn. We met a woman who wants to get married and is really interested in our church's family values, an insurance agent who watched people reject us several times and was so touched by our cheerful responses that he wanted to get to know us more, a college student who has always wanted to come to church but never felt she could just walk in by herself, a man who wanted to know if there was anyway to experience God in his life. Unfortunately, most of the people we met didn't live in our area, so we may never see them again, but we got a lot of good referrals for missionaries in other areas!

Really, life is just so good. We have a big, 3-hour training we are in charge of this Wednesday, and I am getting a bit stressed. But whenever I start feeling overloaded with all the things I have to do before then, I remember God. He wants me to embrace whatever situation I am placed in, do my best to make it more beautiful than it was before, and then just enjoy whatever comes from my efforts.Dad asked me in his email today what I think of the "what if" questions we always give ourselves, regretting how we've handled things in the past. Obviously self-introspection is hugely important, but it is also silly to think introspection can ever allow us to see ourselves clearly or our special way of making waves in the universe. So there is also a space we have to find during our daily-repentance-processes where we acknowledge how much we need's God's mercy and find a humble enjoyment in the goodness of life as it already is. Read D&C 59. Or the Pearl of Great Price. Or just think about the atonement! We all know the half of the atonement that says we need to change and repent, but we often forget about the part that says we can let ourselves free after we have done our best.

So, can I still call you all for Christmas? I could just talk for a few minutes. Mom, I don't need a lot for Christmas. But could I ask for a new set of scriptures? It's a long story (that is actually a really cool story, you should ask me about it when I get home), but basically I don't have any scriptures anymore so i've been using a cheap set I bought at the distribution center here. Also, I don't know if you're considering getting me a cell phone, so I hope I'm not making assumptions, but if you are, go for cheap! If it can text and make calls, it's good enough for me.

Love you all! Have a great weeK!

Sister Brown

qiji de meiguoren (A miracle American)‏

Zao An,

I am thankful for things that take me out of my comfort zone.
I think it's so beautiful, how our every day efforts to be good are never enough and never perfectly executed, but they still chip away at the mass of pain in the world, and they change us.

On my mission, I've been able to love and work well with people who are so different from me. Chu Jiemei, my companion, has a heart of gold, but is extremely naive. She doesn't think very deeply about things, and it never occurs to her that others could have ill intentions. I used to be really snobby towards people like that, and felt that our worldviews were too incompatible to get along.

The reality is that Chu Jiemei and I are really, really happy together. After we turn off the lights and say our prayers we stay up late talking and laughing; I listen to her tell stories about earlier in her mission or the famous Taiwanese singer she has a huge crush on. I genuinely love her, and learn so much from her every day. Her naivete allows her to do good that I can't deliver in the same way. She saw a lady collapse in the Metro the other day and dashed over, frantically trying to help. Within ten seconds it was apparent the lady was simply drunk, and her husband embarrassedly shooed us away, not wanting us to make it more obvious than it was. But the way Chu Jiemei cared for the lady was so touching and compassionate; she didn't care the reason for her fall. Chu Jiemei will also forgive me in a second's time, when I get stressed or impatient. Usually it surprises her when I apologize, because she never noticed me do anything to express my frustration.

Why are we all waiting to develop some superhuman abilities to be able to conquer life? All we need to do good is already within us; all it takes is a desire. Like Bill pointed out, no amount of knowledge can compensate for a lack of desire. No perfected qualities can, either.

I love D&C because God is always so clearly working through imperfect people. He chastises them at times, but he also forgives them so often, and tells them it doesn't matter what they did in the past--if they are willing to be humble and work now, he can use them to do good. He repeats over and over again the theme that if they have a desire to serve, they can and should serve.

Somehow the point of religion must be to help people develop and foster that desire, to give a place for it's expression.

I had a really incredible lesson on Friday night with an American named Nathan, who is here for a month to study Chinese. I met him on the street a few nights before, and invited him to come take a tour of the chapel. He said yes and gave me his phone number. As it usually is when I am contacting men, I wasn't really sure if he was interested in learning about church or interested in me, but I'm so glad I didn't judge him--when he came, he introduced himself as an extremely spiritual religiously-unnaffilliated guy who loved learning about philosophy and religion.

We had one of the most intelligent, deep, spiritual lessons of my whole mission. We went  thoroughly through the whole restoration. He loved the concept of continuing revelation, saying that kind of openess is essential to being one with God. He resonated with Joseph Smith's loneliness over his spiritual experiences that he couldn't deny but that others couldn't understand. He was probably very aware of polygamy and all the stigma against Mormons, but he was so kind, open, and accepting, while listening to us. He shared his own very enlightening thoughts with us, as well, about how he has come to compromise science with spirituality. He has really complicated theories about how God created the chemicals in our brains in just a way so that certain triggers will allow us to physically experience his existence. I shared with him a line from D&C 93 that has helped me a lot: "Spirit and element, inseparable connected, experience a fullness of joy." He gasped and threw his hands up in the air excitedly and said, "Mind blown. That is PERFECT. I love it!"

 When we were finishing, he said that he had had a feeling before coming to Taiwan that something big, spiritually speaking, was going to happen to him here. And he said that while he was in our chapel, he felt something. "The spirit, that connection... whatever you call it. I just--I don't know.. I want you to know I really feel closer to God, now."

I felt like I was on a high, after our lesson with him.
Talking to people on the street is so interesting, because there are always so many people and the million tiny decisions we make each minute about who to talk to and what to say can influence eternity. I didn't have to talk to him, or invite him to meet with us. I really, really didn't have to. When I am contacting it is so easy to get discouraged and to not have faith in people. But I'm so thankful for the encouragement I've received from this gospel to keep going, to keep having faith, to keep going out of my comfort zone to do good in the world. It really can make a difference.

I love life. Have a great week!

Diana

Here is a baptism we had this week! Ren Jiemei. She is so cool! I think she is really proud of herself for making it to baptism, and even though she's a little quiet about expressing her feelings, I can tell she has changed so much. Over the past few weeks, when she has decided to get baptized, there has been something so much softer and kinder in her demeanor and in her interactions with us. I wish she were more open so I could know the story in her heart.

And another picture of some friends who came to visit me on Saturday! There is Xiao jiemei, my Taiwanese twin who got baptized in one of my old areas, and another ward member. We are standing in front of the temple, here. It is so hard to have to start saying goodbye, to people. Although it's also a little funny, because it'll be a million times easier to stay in contact with them once I get back and have facebook.

my heart will go on....?‏

Hey Everyone,

For some reason, this internet cafe has an instrumental version of Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" on repeat. Kind of weird, but I appreciate the reminder, as I going to be breaking up with Taiwan soon.

But life is still so good!
This week I received my last wonderful companion, Sister Chu! I don't know how I've gotten so lucky, but 5 out of the 8 companions I've had on island have been native Taiwanese. I feel I get along with them better than Americans, and I love speaking Chinese all the time, from the groggy early morning to lunch conversations to the happy after-planning talk. I don't know how I'm going to talk to any of you, when I get home. Chinese comes more naturally out of my mouth these days; I catch myself speaking it accidentally to the senior couples or new missionaries who totally don't understand it, and half to correct myself.

Here is a picture of Chu Jiemei and I sitting on my bed, in front of the Christmas tree Mom sent me, which I love so much!! Thank you! The other picture is of me and Vic, who I wrote about last week.

Chu Jiemei and I are always laughing. She is like a child. She says whatever comes out of her mouth, which is sometimes chattery gossip, and sometimes a random song. While she is in the shower she will sing two lines of one hymn and then randomly switch to humming "Happy Birthday' and then thirty seconds later start belting, "You Raise me up!!! so I can stand on mountains!!!" in her cute accent. I love it, it cracks me up, and I am always so curious at how her brain makes these connections.

Lately, in between teaching investigators and talking to strangers who meiyou kong (don't have time to talk), we have been doing a lot of training. This week we had new missionaries come in, and we did some training on dealing with stress in missionary life, and responding to pain the way Christ responded to pain when suffering the atonement. I drew a little diagram that I thought up during studies one day that depicted stress/pain as a heavy weight sitting on top of Christ, and drew another of the same weight sitting on top of the natural man. The Natural man feels it, and resents it, and in resentful response shoots sharp arrows at the world around him, including other people. But Christ is somehow able to bear the weight while still experiencing and sending out love towards the world around him, so I drew little hearts surrounding him. It was cute. Training is really fun; I love thinking of creative ways to teach, like games, or using art, or good discussion questions. We have to give a ton of different trainings, this next transfer.

A random list of things I love about life:

1. Dou Hua. A hot ginger soup with soft, sweet tofu in it. So incredibly SHUFU (comfortable, but that word really can't be adequately translated), Sister Chu and I love to eat it.
2. The Christmas Choir, which I am doing again this year! We start performing next Sunday
3. Chinese puns. Chinese characters lend themselves SO easily to puns, because so many different characters with different meanings are pronounced the same way. A bunch of missionaries in my district were sick last week so I drew them all cards with fun Chinese puns on them. Then I got sick a few days ago, with one of the worst colds I have ever made in my life. (I basically had a fever for three days, but except for one night I was still able to work.) So they made me a cute satirical card with puns and inside jokes on it. Stuff like that makes me so happy!
4. The love I can feel for random people who I just meet on the street, who don't care to talk to me and may even be rude sometimes but it doesn't matter. I still love them.
5. Being close to God. He really is there. Lately I have been stressed about going home and worrying that he won't be there the way he is now, but he has been finding all these ways through scriptures and the words of people around me or analogies I see every day in the movement of birds or water to teach me that he is always there, and always will be, with his arms stretched out still.

Love you all! Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you all have a great week and lots of bread to eat, since we descendants of John Tanner. And I hope it's not gutter bread.

Dai Jiemei

Vic

Zao an,

A couple nights ago as I was falling asleep, it occurred to me that in six weeks I will be in the Shadow Ridge Ward, giving my homecoming talk. And I thought about all the old ladies in the ward with their nice clothes and cars and spacious houses, and how none of them (or any of you!) know anything about JinHua Jie  or DouHua, speak no chinese, and think Asians all look the same.

That was the first time I've cried, about going home. I felt bitter about it for a few minutes, but then I realized it's really stupid to resent something I know needs to happen, and that I don't want to sour the love I've learned to have for life. I'm going to try to just transfer this love to a new place and new faces, when I get back.

I just want you all to know that no matter who I become in the future, no matter what choices I make, and no matter what I say about my mission then, right now, this is where my thoughts are: I LOVE MY MISSION. I love God. I love people. I love Taiwan. I have never been so happy or felt more real, anywhere or anytime in my life. I love teaching, which is basically an excuse to just have sincere, open, interesting conversations with people about things that matter. I love increasing my knowledge and faith in the restored gospel, which I have chosen to have faith in because it clicks so much in my soul, even if I don't understand it all.

Okay, so I told you I would tell you about Vic. You can stop reading now if your are bored, because it might be long. But I have given up feeling guilty for writing long letters. I think it is worse to record too little.
_______________________________________________________
Here is what I wrote in my journal the day I met him, November 6th:

"Sister Oborn and biked for nearly an hour this morning to visit a less active member who ended up not being home. We had climbed up a dusty mountain road lined with quiet houses that was so steep, we had to walk our bikes, at some parts. When we knocked and no one answered, we left a card decided to talk to people in the neighborhood. There weren't many people, just some construction workers and old ladies who spoke Hawkanese, a native Taiwanese dialect, not Mandarin. Everyone we talked to, though, realizing we were American, kept pointing up the hill. Apparently someone who spoke English lived up there, and they said we should go talk to them.

We slowly made our way up the hill, talking to people, until we got to the house they had indicated. We knocked, and waited, but there was no response. Then finally, when we were about to leave, we heard something stir behind the window and suddenly an old Indian man with dark skin, a large hook nose, and white patches of hair on the sides of his head came out to stand on the front porch. "She's not home!" he said, in English. "She's not home, she went to the hospital!"

We didn't even know who "she" was, but we started talking to this guy, who introduced himself as "Vic". Within a few seconds of talking, we learned that hew as a very intelligent, educated man.A scientist,  who was born in India and lived 45 years of his life in England.  At first he just shared with us casually his his thoughts on America--how it's a terrible place to live and Americans arrogantly think they are the next best thing after sliced bread. (His words). Then the conversation turned to religion. He is Methodist, and believes in God. And yet he said, "I am not sure God believes in me."

He told us how he had been robbed by am investor whose son was a drug addict, and that even though he had always just desired to give to the people around him, he had not necessarily received good in return. He had studied Hinduism as a child, and later Buddhism, Islam, and finally Christianity. "I believe in God," he said, "But like I said, I am not sure any more than God believes in me."

At first, Sister Oborn and I wanted to pipe up with our practiced missionary tones, but every time we tried to squeak about God's love or prayer, Vic would talk over us. He was clearly not in listening mode, and something about the wrinkles around his dark eyes, the dust in the air around us, and that deep, skeptical tone of his voice told me that it was my turn to listen. So I did. He told us about how he despise that religion often became a business, that priests were paid and drove in fancy cars and work rings and pricey watches while Christ wore a simple robe. He said his friends would tease him for dressing so plain when he could easily afford to wear classier things, but a $500 dollar pair of jeans would cover his knees as well as the old, slightly frayed jeans he was wearing right then. He said that there were many faces to God. THe story of live, no matter what face we turn to, is that we are born, we have to grow, we have to figure out how to care for our families, ourselves, and those around us. Then we die. He said he was learned to just thank God in prayer, and to ask for nothing. He said he is now willing to simply submit to God's will.

He said, "You've got to believe in yourselves!"

Before we left, I thanked him for talking to us, for sharing his wisdom. He joked about how I would bike down the hill and forget about him, (he reminded me so much of Dad!) so I told him I would write about him in my journal, and I took a picture. Then I asked if we could say a prayer.

In my prayer, I thanked God that Sister Oborn and I were able to meet Vic. I thanked him for all the simple blessings he has given us of health, family, and knowledge. I thanked him for Vic's example of sacrifice and service, and asked that he might feel peace about his efforts to give to the world. I told God that even though there was so much we don't understand about him and about why life is the way it is, that we believed in goodness. I told him we would continue to let our believe in goodness guide us every day. And I could barely speak because my throat was so full of tears. I really, truly believed in God, in that moment."


So yeah, that was my story with Vic. It may seem like a faith-shaking thing, but I remember the feeling of praying on his doorstep, and I felt this powerful warmth of God's love and acknowledgment of the three of us. It was so incredibly faith-promoting, to me. I love Vic, and all the good people in the world. And I want to be like him, to keep believing in God and in myself even if the world doesn't believe in him or in themselves enough. I love being on a mission because things like this happen that just feel like the movies.

Have a great week!

Diana

chouxiang de dongxi‏

Zao An,

This week was possibly even more full than last week. I went on exchanges every day from Tuesday to Saturday, basically getting a tour of all the cities on the Northwest coast of Taiwan. This week was really tiring, but good. So much traveling, so much thinking, so much talking to strangers.

Most missionaries hate what is called "finding time"--when we don't have lessons planned so we go contact people outside strip malls or at metro stations, or go knock on their doors. I used to not like it much, but now even though it is still certainly uncomfortable, I find it so immensely rewarding. I have to be so intellectually and spiritually on my toes. I have to be constantly thinking about who the various people are who I meet, and how to make the gospel make sense to them, and how to say that in Chinese. But it isn't just about rhetoric and translation--I have to have my heart right, to do "finding time" well. I have to feel in my heart the existence of God and his love for the people I meet. If my heart isn't right, I can't think of anything to say, or else whatever I say feels so hollow.

Remind me to tell you all about this man I met this week, named Vic. I will never forget him. I hope not, at least, because I promised him I would never forget him. Next week I will tell you about him, okay?

Sometimes I am so compelled by Buddhist philosophy. When we are contacting, it becomes apparent how differently they see the world. They are so perfectly okay with multiple realities existing--with Christ being my God and Buddha being theirs. They aren't on the quest for the one true phenomenological reality that Westerner's are on the search for. While missionaries in America probably discuss whether or not Joseph Smith's first vision really occurred, here the question is not whether it occurred but whether it matters.

Buddhism is appealing to me because I hate telling people they might be wrong. I hate being so arrogant as to assume I know how this old man should think about the pain he's seen in his life or what this young girl should dream about before she falls asleep each night. Adopting a single narrative of what life is about and what things are good in life is a scary, brave, bold thing to do.

And yet... The alternative isn't pretty, either. Last night I was praying about this question. And It really is so beautiful to me how God can guide my thoughts and I can learn things from prayer that I literally did not know before I started speaking to him in my heart. As I was pondering, I came to two conclusions that seemed so important to me at 11:00 at night that even in the dark, I grabbed my journal and a pen from off my desk and wrote them down in extremely messy handwriting. Here they are:

1) Buddhist thought renders my daily actions meaningless. Whenever I am most compelled by Buddhism, I also tend to be the most relaxed/lazy in my actions.  Why does it matter whether I talk to this person on the street about the gospel, or write a card to this ward member whose Mom died, or comfort my companion who is in a bad mood? Aren't we all just on different paths to nothingness? Service becomes really meaningless because there isn't any agreed way to serve, any need that we agree should be fulfilled. Even though I get scared when I think of the big picture, and what it means to have such a singular perspective on life, I really can't honestly agree that the small picture things--like whether I scowl at my companion or tell her I love her, right now--don't matter. They do, and they make such a difference.

2) Buddhist thought severely limits our experience of happiness. (I guess that is the point; it escapes suffering by escaping all judgments in life about what is good and bad, what is happy and unhappy.) Why does it matter whether or not my companion and I get along, whether or not this tired mother finds comfort in the scriptures we share with her, whether or not our investigator receives answer to her prayer? I am not able to find joy in even these simple things, as a Buddhist, because none of those things are REALLY good, they are just one dialogue among many for what good is. From a perspective of a God who wants us to experience happiness, it seems that we need to one extent or another to adopt a singular perspective of what happiness is, and that reach for that.

The other thing that just gets me at the end of the day is that I love God. I really, really believe in him, and that goodness is closeness to him. I have learned on my mission that faith has nothing to do with the strength of our rhetoric when we are bearing our testimonies, (I always personally feel more comfortable with the word "believe" rather than "know"), as it does with the moment to moment trust we put in him to show us how to live well. Sometimes I trick myself into thinking that if I can figure out the big picture of life somehow I can escape the vulnerability of living day to day by faith. I can't. But that's okay! Because nothing is sweeter than living by faith with him. It's a kind of happiness I never understand or really experienced before my mission, and I hope I can always sustain it in my life. I get scared of saying I know what happiness is, because of the reasons I stated above, and yet in my life I am so sure I know what has made me happy and made my bad moods shorter and my relationships with others better--and it really is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I wish I could express to you all the tiny prayers answered and the little thigns that just click, but it's impossible to express it all. Just know that even though I have my lost moments like we all do, in the end I really, really do believe.

Sorry for once again sending you all a really long and abstract letter. Hope it was at least interesting.

Sister Brown

women meiyou liyou gaoxing ma?‏

Hey everyone!

This letter may be long, but hopefully it will be worth it.
Last week was perhaps the happiest, loveliest, most meaningful week of my entire life. I even doubt my future will be able to bring a week so purely joyful. I was able to be totally consecrated towards serving God, and it sat on top of the past sixteen months of isolation from the world so I was prepared spiritually to receive, comprehend, and enjoy all the good that came.

The week started with a 5-hour train ride to the absolutely beautiful South-eastern corner of Taiwan, to Taidong! We passed miles and miles of green mountains and lonely house towers with curvy roofs, and I thought scary thoughts about my future, and whether there are such things as good decisions, or just decisions. But I prayed and read scriptures for several hours straight, and this deep feeling of peace settled in. I felt God so close to me, reassuring me that no matter where I went in life, he would always be there to help me enjoy it, to see how to serve others, to better and beautify my world.

The feel of that train ride set the tone for the whole week. I worked hard--really hard--both on my feet and in my heart. Because of some special assignments from President Day, I ended up going on exchanges every day and serving in three different cities (Taidong, Hualien, and ZhongLi). That alone required so much service, as I tried to understand, love, and learn how to work with a new companion every day. All of them tell different stories, have different ways of looking you in the eye, and have a different way of taking up space in the world, whether they're standing on a stranger's front porch or biking ten yards ahead of me. I feel I could write a book about each of them, and the things I learned, but here are some highlights.

Sister Singh is a new missionary, and we had long hours of contacting people together. I really wanted to help her feel safe and confident to be herself, while talking to people. She feels herself has kind of been silenced my Chinese and missionary routine, since she came, so I tried to help her see it didn't have to be that way. We laughed at the funny things that happened, like a woman coming up to pet my nose because it was so straight, and took pictures of an insane spider web we saw. I asked what was important to her and she said dancing--so we thought of a bunch of dancing metaphors she could use when she is teaching people. We biked home through the quiet streets at night insanely happy, and were singing primary hymns with each other.

Sister Miao has been on her mission longer, so we had a great time just learning from each other's experiences, and getting to be closer friends. She is an older missionary--28, but so humble and open to learning from other people. We saw amazing things together, including a lesson with an investigator whose door the elders had just happened to knock on the day before--who was so incredibly in need of the gospel! She has had family members die, recently, and really wants to be connected with her purpose in life. She cried as we prayed, because she felt so "good". It was such a beautiful experience that seemed to come just out Preach my Gospel.

I also got to go on exchanges with Sister Briggs, my old MTC companion! There was a sacred joy that seemed to flow between us, as we biked together through lovely fields with foggy mountains in our backdrop, and we silently appreciated how much we have grown over the past year and half. In between the houses we knocked, we discussed how much we had changed, and how we felt like sisters. We talked about how our missions were in many ways experiments to see if we could really love--and at least in our relationship, it seemed true. There is a faith in Sister Briggs that wasn't there, before. We had so much fun, together, having good conversations with Taiwanese people who we can really communicate with, now, and in discussing which houses seemed too Buddhist to knock on, based on the elaboration of their altars that we saw through their windows.

The last exchange of the week was with Sister Call. She is another incredibly humble, good person who is trying to learn how to be confident in this world. In our one day together, we saw an amazing thing happen of a girl changing her heart from wanting to have her records removed from the church to being willing to give the church a second chance. This happened as a result of several decisions made on top of a random coincidence--that we ran into this girl as she was handing out flyers for her work on the busy street outside the train station. Sister Call awkwardly said hi, then walked away. I didn't think anything of it, until we were unlocking our bikes and Sister Call told me this girl had stopped coming to church soon after she was baptized, last April. She wasn't sure why, but she knew this girl wanted to have her church records removed.

We were late to an appointment, and I didn't know this girl at all, but it occurred to me that we shoudl take advantage of the fact that we had just seen her. I asked Sister Call if we could write her a card, so I wrote a quick one in Chinese about how I hoped her life was going well and that I believed God loved her, no matter what she decided to do. We walked back to give it to her. She was surprisingly friendly and talkative, asking bluntly, "Why did you write this for me?" I shrugged, not sure what to say. We kept talking, and she agreed to meet with us the next morning.

We met with her the next day at a members' apartment. I was so tired, as we sat down on the couch, said a prayer, and started talking. It had been a long week! I was a bit tempted to zone out and let Sister Call lead the lesson-it was her area, after all. But I knew that wasn't honest, so I said a silent prayer to be able to concentrate and dived into the lesson. It was so powerful. THe girl was open about her concerns; she was basically confused about some doctrinal issues, and as a result had stopped praying, coming to church, and keeping commandments. We were all really open and vulnerable with our experiences and testimonies. There was a magical hush that settled in on us. In the end, the girl ended up seeing that removing her church records wasn't really going to solve what she was struggling. She agreed to do a month-long experiment of reading scriptures, praying, and keeping commandments every day, and would decide after that what to do.

WHile we were going down in the elevator, I felt for the millionth time that week like screaming how happy I was. I was able to make a difference in a person's life, for good. Why? How? Just by doing the simple things. Saying prayers, looking our for others, and trying to be good in every minute. It was God, that silent, smiling friend in my heart--who helped me make all those small decisions along the way of writing the card, scheduling the appointment, choosing to concentrate so I could teach with the spirit. This is why theories like Marx's that religion is just an opiate for the masses don't really seem to understand religion, like it plays out in my life. For me, believing in God is believing in the good that can be done in every minute. It's something that keeps me constantly on my feet, walking and going somewhere--not sitting in my house hiding from the pain of the world.

I love life so much! I love you all a lot, too! Have a great week!

Sister Brown

A Christmas Tree for Diana

I would like to send Diana (and her brother Jeffrey, who is a missionary in Chile) a Christmas tree from home--just a big cut out tree of green paper, but I would like the ornaments to be pictures of family and friends.  Could you send me a picture that I could place on a paper ornament for Diana's tree?  If you would like to send her a message to be placed on the ornament, you could send that too, or you could create the ornament yourself, but I would like to receive the pictures this week so I can get Diana's Christmas tree in the mail to her next week.  Thank you for the love and support you've given Diana throughout her mission.  Hope to include you on our "tree"!

 

thanks,

Lorraine Brown

If you would like to send a picture, please leave a comment or send a message on Diana's facebook page so we can give you more information. Thanks!

xin de zhihui‏

Hey everyone,

Homecoming talk December 29th? I can do that. I just hope I won't fall asleep.

Things keep going, here. There are good and bad moments, happy and sad, faithful and faithless moments. Here's something I was thinking about this week:

My new ward is in central Taipei; it is the oldest, larges, and probably the wealthiest ward in all of Taiwan. The vibe there and the interactions among members and missionaries are the mos similar to a Utah ward since I have seen, since coming to Taiwan. People's knowledge of the gospel is more deep and thorough, the teachers are more articulate and polished, and people tend to be more devoted to their callings. There are more families in this ward, rather than a large collection of random individuals who missionaries brought in. These families tend to be second or third generation church members, rather than first generation members. People dress nicer, and are just more "classy" people, I guess you could say. In many ways, this ward--while imperfect--exemplifies the kind of ward we are encouraged to build in other parts of Taiwan.

Yet these smaller, younger, poorer, "weaker" wards and branches get things that my new ward does not. People are more open with their lives, elsewhere. Talks and lessons are more simply, less logical, and less thought-provoking, perhaps,  but more vulnerable in what people share. When people lose the fire of their testimony, they just stop coming to church rather than floating around out of habit, like they might in a more established ward. That means that the ones who stay have a strong feeling of community among them. In Tucheng, there were always several members who would hang out at the church literally all day on Sunday just because they loved the feeling there--a sense of belonging and love they didn't get outside. Other wards also tend to take care of missionaries really well; it is an honor to invite us to go eat at their houses, and they are always excited to talk to us and I've been given countless free stuff--skirts, scarves, musical instruments, notebooks, pens, etc.--from members who want to make us happy. These wards have a lot of room for progress in terms of spirituality, gospel knowledge, keeping commandments, etc. And yet they are just so delightfully humble, and good.

A couple of weeks ago we went to visit our bishop. He said that one reason a lot of members don't invite missionaries over to eat is because they are just too busy with their jobs, because everyone is worried about the economy. All the wards I have served in previous to this one are nowhere near as financially blessed, but this is the first time I have ever heard any member complain about the economy.

There is so much beauty in things that are still in the process. Sometimes it feels like we are always waiting to get to a higher level of strength or spirituality or knowledge, but somehow all we ever need is already contained within every day.

This goes along with a theme in my life that I have been trying to  figure out, lately. I want to find a balance between ambition and enjoyment, reaching forward into the future to become something better and loving the way my life currently is.  Before my mission I was always too hard on myself and never let myself be satisfied. On my mission I have learned the beauty of enjoying and appreciating simple things, like a good bowl of noodles or my companion's really long story about how her parents met. But giving entirely into enjoyment leads to a really dissatisfying feeling of laziness and complacency. There really is a sweet spot that needs to daily, over and over again, be found in the middle of things, in between ambition and appreciation. Does anyone have any other thoughts about that?

I think somehow, that's what God is able to miraculously do for all of us. His love reaches us wherever we are, whatever our circumstances look like. And Moses 1 leads me to believe he really does find a sort of enjoyment in our simple existence. And yet there is never any point where he says simple existence is all there is forever; he always wants us to become more, to live more fully, to gain wisdom and clarity to see the world.

I am going to go get on a train in a few minutes. President is sending a bunch of missionaries to the east coast of Taiwan, the quiet, slow-paced, dreamy on-the-coast places with trees and jungles that everyone always wants to get sent to. He is putting several extra missionaries there this week for a "power-finding activity", so all we will do is contact people all day every day. I get to go; I am so excited!! Be expecting really good pictures, next week.

Love you all!

Diana

wo kuai yao si de xiangfa

Dajia Hao!

This was a good week. We didn't have to spend nearly as much time in the office as I thought we would, so we had much more time to spend in our area, contacting. I think I will happily die here. (To die in missionary terms means to go home, at the end of your mission.) And if any of you are interested, I'm going to die on December 28th. I will miss Christmas, but I'm totally okay with that. There will be many American Christmases in America and only two in Taiwan.

So what do I mean, when I say we go out contacting? You might be wondering. Well, we pick a specific place like a street or a park, and then start striking up conversations with strangers. It's really easy to do that in Taiwan because there are people everywhere! We ask them how they are and where they're going and what their families are like and what they do for work, and then find a way to introduce what we are about. There are always various levels of awkwardness involved, but I find the best way to get over that is to just tell them the truth. I tell them that I really believe in God, and that in this church we can learn how to love more and experience happiness and have hope for change and receive guidance through prayer or whatever else occurs to me. I tell them that's why I came on a mission, and that's why I'm inviting them to learn more. Whatever seems true to say that day. (I despise feeling fake when I'm contacting people, although I will definitely admit that I have been guilty of various levels of fakeness when I'm not as spiritually alive.)

Anyway, often we have really beautiful experiences with people, right there on the street. One that is coming to mind is when we met a doctor who was waiting for a bus outside a hospital. He didn't want to learn more about the gospel, but we had a really good conversation and I was so touched by what a good person he is. He told us about how worried he was about some of the patients he was taking care of. We said a prayer with him, and this tall, gray-haired man, wearing his white doctor coat, started to tear up. He just kept thanking us. For some reason I decided to ask about his family, and he told us he wasn't married and lived alone. Then he thanked us again and walked away.

It is getting tempting, now that my time is running out in Taiwan, to live with my mind propelled forward into the future. Sometimes I worry when I see people's faces that I'm not seeing them as clearly, as singlemindedly, as I did when I was a new missionary. Back then, what seemed like endless mission time ahead of me  isolated me into a world where  faces were all I saw, and my responsibility to serve them was all I felt. I'm trying to continually remind myself to be here now, with the rain sprinkling on my hair and my shoes tapping on the pavement and a person with black, pulled back hair and a pale face in front of me. That's where God is; he's not found in our crazy dreams for the future or our confusing conniving thoughts about what others are thinking of us. He's found in the simple, daily things, the attention we give to other people's stories, the fruit we cut up and place in a bowl for our companions, the mental energy we take to the scriptures.

 I feel this sadness settle in sometimes because God is the best friend I have ever known and I never know him quite enough. And I worry that going home will drag my further from him. But I know that the daily choices I make will really determine that, rather than my environment.

I was reading through my journal this week and found something  I wrote back in June, that really helped me. It was from my infamous 7th transfer where I continually felt as humble as dirt because it was so hard to get along with my companion. I thought I would share this with you.

June 23, 2013
Today was beautiful because the gospel is true--it really does change our hearts; and when we let it, we open ourselves up to God's tender mercies that are sweeter than anything else. This morning I was praying to know what to do with my companion, and a line from Marion's 'Prolegomena to Charity' came into my mind: "Suffer as if you are guilty." I wrote a card to her, apologized and aid I understood if she couldn't forgive me. She warmed right up. As we road bikes to church and she made light jokes with me, part of me was a bit hurt and bewildered. "Wait... Isn't she going to apologize, too?" I gasped in my heart. But the voice of heaven came back saying, "Peace is what you asked for; don't resent it when it comes." And I was filled with the love of God which I realized is what I really needed, most. Most of the day I felt like singing about all the prayers of mine he has answered.

I hope you all are doing well. Mom and Dad and Chris and Tanner, I hope you get back safely from the East Coast and had a really good time!

Sister Brown

you yixie gaibian

So here's what happened: I moved into what will probably be my last area (because I only have two transfers left). This area is basically Taipei Temple Square, and the part of the city surrounding the temple.  My companion and I are in charge of supervising tours, training all the sisters that come in to do tours, helping President with any special projects he gives us, and going on exchanges to train the other Sister Training Leaders and  new missionaries who just came on island, and then keeping up our own proselyting area.

So now a lot of the work I do is in an office; there isn't as much time on the streets. I've been stubborn about this change; it seems like moving to a cozy position is a betrayal of all the awkward, sweaty, helpless-but-hopeful missionary work that most missionaries spend their days doing. I feel a sacred loyalty to that life, and don't want to ever feel myself above that. There really isl a deep sadness that those days are over. I will still get to do normal missionary work, but not as much.  Still, I'm trying to have a positive attitude and keep myself focused on others. And I have to admit, working on trainings to give other missionaries, critiquing art to put up in the chapel, getting called into President Day's office to give him feedback on some of his crazier ideas--some of the things I've done the past couple of days--also brings out an intellectual, analytical, creative side of me that I have been really missing.

I've been thinking a lot, this week, about the painful gaps in understanding between the bureaucracy of things (which I've now become a part of) and the mundane, real-life work the bureaucracy sits on top of. There really needs to be dialogue between both. Since coming here I have realized that a lot of the complaining we did about rules, why President thinks this or that, why the system is like that, etc.--was all a bit unfair. I have been impressed with the creativity and spirituality I've seen going on in the office, to solve different problems as they come up. I think my mission President is an incredibly genuine, loving person who is doing his best.

But I also see how the people at the top of the system are sometimes a bit out of tune with the real experiences of the missionaries. For example, a couple of days ago one of the assistants asked me about a Sister who I am really close to. Her numbers have been ridiculously low. She had one week where she literally had no lessons--we're not sure what she did with all her time.
This sister is Taiwanese, and I have been companions with her before, so I know her situation much better.  She has no confidence in herself, struggles with having a rigorous shcedule, doesn't like to keep mission rules, and  isn't very happy with mission life. Last week I went on exchanges with her. Her apartment was a WRECK. As she was taking a shower at night, I had a few quiet moments of washing her dishes and feeling quite overwhelmed with how to help her. I really wanted to do treat her how Christ would.

So here is what I did. When she got out of the shower, I told her that I felt like cleaning her apartment was more important than going to bed on time. We spent the next several hours sorting papers and sweeping, and talking. She was really open to me about all the challenges she's been having lately, with her testimony, her confidence in herself, etc. I knew innately my job was just to listen, to provide comments when helfpul, to encourage her, but mainly just to be honest and let her be honest. At one point I was trying to sympathize with her; I told her I new missionary work was a difficult sacrifice, and she said, "Actually, I don't think it is." Then she told me something she has never told me before, in our months of friendship. Before her mission, she had a huge pornography addiction that really negatively affected her schooling, her family relationships, her activity in the church, everything. She said a large motivation for going on a mission was to have a year and  a half where she could completely avoid porn. She has never felt cleaner in her whole life than she does right now.

I felt so overcome with love and compassion for her. We hugged andI told her how much I admired her. I could tell it meant a lot to her, that I just listened and didn't judge her. And maybe this sounds weird, but I feel like that moment--while we were sitting on the floor among dust piles and stacks of paper, and she told me about her porn addiction--was as real as any of the baptismal services I've had on my mission, in feeling like I was really making a good dent in the universe.

So do you see how when the assistant asks me why this Sister hasn't handed out a single Book of Mormon in the past seven weeks, I want to smack him a little bit? There is such a gap between the reality she lives and his understanding of her reality. But at the same time, I know he is just doing his best and this is why it's important to have people in my position, to be bridges between the two worlds. There needs to be open communication on both sides, not resentment.

So yeah. Those are some of my recent thoughts. I really believe God loves everybody, and everybody's testimony is beautiful--even if all there testimony is is that mission life standards allow you to avoid bad habits. I love this life so much, for helping me to see these things. I love that I was able to come here and learn Chinese so I could have a good influence in this Sister's life, that night. I don't know if it's apparent but I really believe in God, and believe in his love for all of us that covers every second whether we think it does or not. I LOVE what President Monson said to the relief society sisters that God's love is there whether we deserve it or not. It is simply always there.

I love you all! Hope you all have a great week!

Sister Brown

Dear whoever reads these,

Next week I won't be writing until Wednesday because we are going to the temple next week. Also, this week are transfers. I will be separated from Sister Du (*sad face*) and I will be moving to a new area. President Day pulled me into his office when I was at the mission home last week and had a talk to me. My life is going to change a lot next transfer. But you'll have to wait till next week to find out why.

I feel at a blank as of what to write right now. I don't remember what any of you think is important or like to hear about. If any of you have things you WANT to know, ask and I will try to answer next week.

If I had to sum up everything I have learned so far on my mission into one sentence, I would probably say this: Everyone needs a savior. On my mission, I have given so much of my heart and energy to working, to loving people in the ways I know how. But then there are times like this past weekend when I sort of crash and see how maybe I should have expressed love differently than I did, maybe I was emphasizing the wrong thing all along. Specifically, I have always struggled trying to balance having a strong work ethic with being patient with companions who don't. I have just tried to deal with this every day--every hour figure out when it is right to push or relax, when it's right to talk about investigators and when it's right to talk about boys, when it's right to take time to laugh with my companion as we're on the bus and when it's right to talk to the person sitting next to us--but even with this approach, I make many mistakes. Sometimes I feel so overcome with regrets about how I handled things, about pain I have been blind to. But I know that going forward in the other direction will lead me to be blind to other types of pain. I feel sure we should seek balance more than extremity in one virtue.

Anyway, I have learned about myself that I am always, always going to have blind spots. At the end of the day I just feel so thankful to have a savior who can forgive me, for all of it. I really never, ever wanted to hurt anyone.

That is sort of depressing. But I also want to say that I have learned so many beautiful things about how good life can be and how many people we can help and how many problems we can solve if we will just ask ourselves what is right and then try to do whatever we think is best. I think most of the time we think we are living lives according to our consciences, but we live rather passively. We don't actually ask ourselves that often what the right thing do about this or that is. I don't think nearly as much as I should. Sometimes answers are so obvious when I just take time to think about it clearly.

I forgot what I was going to say.

Oh yeah. So like in 2 Nephi 32:9, it talks about how we should pray before we do things and God will consecrate what we do. I take that to mean that even though I have lots of blind spots and sometimes the right way to do things is really unclear, if I do everything with a prayer in my heart and try to live by actively (rather than passively) doing what I think is right, he will make whatever I choose the right thing. Following the spirit is not so much about doing what was engraved in the heavens that you shoudl do as doing whatever you choose to do with a heart full of love, full of desire to be good. I think that's what it means to be consecrated, to have a savior.

Love you!

Diana

Dear friends/family,

The highlight of this week was on Saturday, getting to go to the coast for a stake activity!  I got special permission to attend because my ward invited me to play violin. Yay!

In the morning we went to a beach and had a baptismal service in the ocean! It looked just like a movie--stunningly white clothes in blue water with a backgound of green cliffs and a foreground of dozens of admiring people standing on the sand. After the service, we all cleaned up the beach as a service activity. Everyone pulled on white and yellow vests, grabbed trash bags, and picked up litter that people had left or that had washed up on the shore. The first picture is Sister Du and me with some of our friends in the ward.

The second picture is from the afternoon, when we went to a park to eat lunch and have a mini concert. I felt like I was in paradise the whole time! It was so lovely, quiet, and peaceful feeling. The mini concert was just me playing several pieces, and this old guy and his wife from another ward,  who performed Classical Chinese music with a Chinese harp. I am always so thankful to Taiwanese audiences who think I play really well even though I don't play near as well as the average BYU music major.

Anyway, that day was wonderful!

I think Jeffrey and I had similar themes in our missionary work, lately. This week, I found myself over and over in a sort of counselor situation, sitting next to crying middle-aged women, trying to summon something from my 22 years of life experience and pretentious hopes for the world that seemed appropriate to say to them. Mainly I learned to just listen and ask careful questions.

On Friday night, we sat in a dimly-lit Thai restaurant with a ward member, Sister Wang. She barely picked at her plate of rice and her big brown eyes filled with tears as she told talked on and on about how hard it has been lately to keep faith. Her work--selling eyeglasses--requires her to always think of money, and her own needs, and it all just feels so empty. On Saturday morning, I sat on the beach with a non-member woman who had been invited. She sullenly watched the waves as she told me about the noodle restaurant she and her husband run.  with her husband run. They work all day every day, with only two days off a month, and also have to take care of their daughter. She embarrassedly started crying as she told me how tired she was, and how she wants to be a daughter again, not a mom. On Sunday night, we visited an investigator, Sister Zeng, whose husband lately had bad things happen at his work and has been taking it out with a temper on his family. We watched the side of her face as she read the card I had written for her. (I can lots of stuff in Chinese, now!) It really touched her; she started crying and reached out to grab my hand.

That was a depressing paragraph.
But actually, all these experiences, I think, were positive ones. I felt like I was doing good in the world, by being at these women's side. Most of the time I didn't know what to say, and didn't feel like I had any credibility to say anything about their pain--I have never been in their shoes. But I really listened and cared about them. I thought about what God would want them to know, what pieces of the whole picture they were forgetting about. I found little things to say here and there that seemed to come from the bottom of the universe, not just the bottom of my own little heart. All of them left feeling better than they had before; and I think mainly that was because they had someone to talk to them, to sit at their side, to express concern.

Sometimes helping people is so much simpler than we think it is. I used to think I needed to help solve people's problems, in moments like this.  But problems are so complicated; they take weeks or years to unravel, and then there are new ones. Now I am trying to be better at just listening and loving people in their weakness, the way God loves me in mine. I try not to emotionally demand for the problem to get better immediately.

The other thing I learned, is that as hard as it is to have faith, there isn't any other real option. In all of these conversations there was talk of "giving up"--but we all were able to see that giving up doesn't take you anywhere. Having hope for things to get better allows us to continue to live, find enjoyment in things, and honestly, bravely work at problems when they come up. Giving up just kills any desire to do this--and is that really a desirable life?

Sorry for writing so much. Life is great! Mom, could you find out when I am able to register for classes? Also, you might have to register for me!
Love you all! Have a great week!

Diana

Happy Mid Autumn Festival!

It was exactly this time a year ago that I first came on island, and got to witness Taiwan celebrating "ZhongQiu Jie" (Mid-autumn festival). The families huddled around their barbecues, laughing, talking, biting at shrimp and mushrooms from skewers, were all the same. But now I can understand what they're all talking about. Also, now I enjoy eating the moon cakes and green lumpy fruits called youzi, that people give to their family and friends during this holiday. Last year I thought moon cakes were tasteless. Now I love them--especially taro flavored ones!

Hope you enjoy these pictures! They can give you a feel of what people's houses are generally like--very cluttered and colorful. Taiwan packs a lot of people and a lot of stuff into small places. The first picture is just of a pretty-painted house I saw this week while walking around contacting. The second picture is of me, (yes, I did totally forget to wear my nametag that day), and the Liao family in their house. They are a less active family that can't come to church because the daughter is handicapped and can't move her legs. It is fitting that Liao Jiemei, the Mom,  isn't looking at the camera. She is an adult, but painfully shy. Usually she just giggles and smiles at her feet when we talk to her--but if we get her to start talking about her childhood in Indonesia, she will start talking to her feet about the yellow rice she would cook and how slow the pace of life was, and go on and on. Our lessons with them usually include just a short spiritual thought and then some sort of game we make up to get Liao Jiemei to talk about Indonesia.

When I think about the phrase, "The first shall be last and the last shall be first", I think about people like the Liao family. They are so simple, down to earth, and forgotten by the world in many ways. And then there's me, smiling confidently at the camera as if there isn't a doubt in me at all that later people will want to look at my picture and think I am cool. What makes me feel like I am so important?

One of the things I have learned on a mission is that there is no such thing as a bad missionary. Sometimes people's success is judged by their numbers, by their ability to be bold and energetic in the work, etc. But here's what I see in real life: The bold, energetic, no-fear missionaries do have a lot of success. It's true. But sometimes it seems the people who have the easiest time being bold are those who are most convinced of their self-importance and just seem to automatically assume that people should want to listen to them. There is certainly a beauty in this way; we Americans grow up assuming we have talents and are encouraged to share them, expand on them, and enjoy them. But then  I compare that type of missionary to people like Sun Jiemei, that extremely humble, shy companion who I trained. She is in some ways really limited in the work she is able to get done because she has such a hard time getting over her fears of talking to people. And yet there is a lovely, delicate kind of sincerity to everything she does. When she talks to people--she knows with all the fluttery feelings in her stomach and her shaking legs that she is talking to another human being! It terrifies her. And I think there is something beautiful and true about how nervous she gets to talk to people, that us more-arrogant Americans could really learn from.

I don't think there is a right or a wrong way, necessarily. I think there is a beauty in both.
On my mission I have really learned that everyone has a place. Every companion I have had does things so differently! People don't come in categories of good or bad. Their worth and their contributions to the world can not be answered with yes's or no's, or even on scales of one to ten. Each person's influence on the world is a different color, a different shape, a different melody. I think we are all infinitely valuable because each of us has such a unique awarness of the world that no one else can imitate, steal, or make unreal. Sometimes these awarnesses are different in huge ways, like growing up in Taiwan or America. And sometimes the differences are so small, like the taste of garlic on our tongues.  To kill, neglect, or deem stupid any human being is to press mute on a song you have never heard and will never hear again.

Have a good week!

Sister Brown

Hello everyone!

I hope this week went really great for you all! And for some reason I almost spelled great totally wrong. I didn't think this was possible, but if you haven't been able to tell--my english really, truly has digressed. I don't really speak English much, anymore. I just write english, to you and in my journal. It makes me feel much more unarticulate and awkward when I write emails, but that's just how it is! Thanks for your patience. And also, seriously, thanks if you really do read my emails. I know they are long, but it's all I have to communicate this life with you all. There is so much to say.

Sister Du and I! We are the cutest! I can't express how much I love her, how thankful I am to be her companion. The first picture of us is from an outdoor zone conference we had this week. We got to go hiking with a bunch of other missionaries, and stopped several places along the trail to have a training.

The other picture is of us in an elevator of a rest home, about to visit a very special girl named YaFei. She just turned 25 on Thursday, but she lives in a rest home with old people because she can't move her legs. She used to be an investigator, so she has had all the missionary lessons, and still really loves reading the Book of Mormon, but because she is kind of... well, crazy, she isn't able to get baptized. I feel really bad for her; I think her loneliness has led her to develop some really terribly mainpulative social habits. Sister Du and I visit her almost every week, partially because it is a service opportunity (we know how much it means to her just to have someone talk to her), and partially because we are coerced. Like seriously, every time we leave she pulls out her planner to schedule another time. If we are unsure of when we can come, she starts telling us that we don't care about her and that we are going to forget about her just like this person, this person, and this other person in her life. So we go back week after week.

Every time we go to visit Yafei, we have to wear the surgical masks, (which people always wear here if they are sick or concerned about air pollution). Then we sit down at a table with Yafei; she wheels her wheelchair over to us. We sing a hymn, say a prayer, and she starts preaching to us about whatever she feels passionate about that week--usually about the Word of Wisdom. I don't know why she has a special love for that topic, but she does! She recommits us to keep it every single week! I am always shaking silently, trying not to laugh behind my mask. This week was her birthday, and we have been being commanded every week to visit her on her birthday and bring not only a card, but cake as well--ever since June. In her birthday card, I wrote that I was really thankful for her teaching me about the Word of Wisdom and that it had totally changed my life. She read the card out loud, and she was delighted! Then she pulled out the Word of Wisdom pamphlet, put on her best baptist-preacher impression, and taught us once more that we really ought to quit smoking. It was great.

But thankfully, most people we teach are not like that.

I have been feeling really, really humbled lately. It's hard to explain why.

I've been studying the Pearl of Great Price lately, and every day it blows my mind. It's been about two weeks now, and I still am not past the Book of Moses. Here is something I have been learning lately that has helped me a lot:

while I was reading, I was just thinking a lot about what makes God, God. I thought about the significance of him giving man their agency--him giving humans the capacity to do things he could not control. I think to be a God means to be able to create/oversee/deal with things we can't control but to love them anyway. And that is what gives him ultimate control, because such a perfect love is something that won't die when we disappoint him, and will eventually overcome all things. It's a kind of control that doesn't come for the thrill of having power or security; it is not sought after for itself, and is certainly not for God's personal benefit. The kind of control/power God has is a natural side-effect of his perfect love, and ironically can only come to us when we admit, accept, and continue forward in the midst of what we cannot control. It comes when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable in the face of another's agency. God is so powerful because he is so okay with vulnerability; he chooses to have this love for us that is never swayed.

And I thought about how so often we try to make others into objects we can control; like we talk about them as slaves, or women, or enemies, or dumb blondes, or less actives, or some other sort of category like that. Other times we use these categories to blame them, to insist that they really should be acting another way than they are. But these are all deceptions; they delude ourselves into thinking they are nothing more than what we say they are, when in reality they are infinitely more. And we also really try hard to control other people's impressions of us, to make them love us by acting in accordance with whatever categories they place us in.

I think I could do so much more good if I could just grasp the secret of seeking the control that comes from love/vulnerability. I want to love and be loved, but if I try to secure love for myself by trying to control others, I'll never get it. I want to choose to let love come, not make it.

Sorry that probalby made no sense. I love you all  a lot!

Diana

Dajia Hao,

This week it hit me that I only have FOUR MONTHS left in Taiwan! I felt like someone punched me, as I thought about that. I had been riding through strip of the MRT (metro), looking out the window at the rows and rows of apartment buildings, advertisements strapped to their sides, shops at their feet, colored roofs and bird-cage windows, and the sweetness of this lovely, simple life overwhelmed me. It feels so wrong to ever have to leave it.

I know I will need to decide to love life in Utah as much as I have had to decide to love here. But just know I am genuinely enjoying life--especially lately. And that sometimes things we need to choose to love at the beginning can turn into the things we feel absolutely sick about parting with.

I don't think I ever had to choose to love Taiwan. From the day I set foot on island, I have been enamored by the culture, food and people--rice with every meal, people's openness about pointing out your weight or acne changes, Buddhist shrines, women's insistence that cold drinks are bad for your uterus, cluttered houses, on and on and on...

But I have had to grow and decide to love missionary work. There has always been a desire to do it, a sense of its importance, but there are times when thinking about others so much or talking to strangers has been difficult, and not the joy it is now. And don't get me wrong--I still have to CHOOSE to let it be a joy, every day. But it really has come to be just that--joyful--to me.

I think contacting strangers on the street is so fun and interesting. I used to worry about what I was supposed to say that could get them to show interest, or to lesson the sting of rejection, but now I think about things really differently. If they don't have interest, just smile and let them show you care about them anyway, and talk to someone else! It's not a big deal!

You never, ever know what you are going to encounter. Last Friday, Du Jiemei and I were eating Hong Dou Bing for dinner (a sort of cake with mushy stuff of various flavors inside--read bean, cream, taro, cabbage, peanut, black sesame, on and on...) We were going to buy them from this guy who only had one arm and was selling them on the street, but he refused to take our money. We questioned him why, and he pulled a bible from off of his cart. In America that would probably be some sort of threat against us, but in Taiwan that was his way of saying, "I'm Christian, too! I approve of missionaries!" So we gave him a Book of Mormon in payment. Then he told us that he wanted to go home and see his daughter and that if we didn't help him eat the rest of the Hong Dou Bing he had in his cart, he would throw it all away. So he filled up more paper bags full of them and gave them to us for free! This is a picture of Du Jie mei and I enjoying them together! (By the way, Hong Dou Bing is one of my absolute favorite things to eat here!)

Another thing I love about missionary work is just teaching! As my chinese has progressed, I've realized that lessons are just really great conversations with people about stuff that matters. I absolutely love teaching, if I am in a good mood, have the spirit with me, and am willing to really dive into the conversation.

And other times, teaching is just hilarious. A few weeks ago, Du Jiemei and I were having a lesson with one of our recent converts (who is a little slow),  who admitted that lately she hasn't been coming to church very much because she is really constipated.  She worries people will laugh at her if she has to go to the bathroom and takes too long. We told her compassionately that there are three stalls in the chapel restroom, and we of course would not judge her for this issue. Then Du Jiemei went on to confess that when she was in high school, sometimes she would spend up to an hour and a half in the restroom because she woudl start reading Harry Potter and didn't want to stop. Our recent convert felt very comforted that Du Jiemei could understand her experience.

Probably the most joyful thing about missionary work is just knowing people. I have come to love people more than I ever thought possible. That girl has changed my life. I don't know how it is that I--a spoiled Mormon girl from Ogden Utah--was able to become best friends with a Chinese-speaking, painfully shy, Muslim convert to Mormonism who grew up on a Mango farm in Southern Taiwan with parents who have never written her once on her mission--but somehow we are best friends. We stayed up really late that night, just talking and talking.  She told me she thinks I am her "Qiansheng de Pengyou" (Her friend from the premortal life). And I responded that of course I am--not because I necessarily believe that is literally true, but because sometimes we need to say dramatic things like that because what else can express the meaning of the friendship we have together? One of the hardest things about leaving Taiwan will certainly be leaving her.

When I give my heart to God, things just go well.

I love you all so much! Keep up all the hard work!

Diana

zhege libai de qifa‏

Hello everyone!

Thanks so much to everyone who was just emailing me! I love you all so much and miss you and find so much joy from knowing you! Happy Birthday to Chris and Tanner!!

Sometimes I am completely awed by the way I can find answers to tough intellectual/spiritual blockades through simple prayer and scripture study. I used to struggle so much with a lot of philosophical difficulties I had towards the existence of God, organized religion, and sometimes the Mormon church specifically. I still have a lot of questions that come and go, but I have found that if I take seriously the promise of finding answers and guidance in the scriptures and from the Holy Ghost, answers really do come. Usually they come by showing me the error of how I'm perceiving things from my heart, which leads me to some change--a decision to be more open to something, or to admit that this thing is more important than that thing, or to see that my thoughts are too extreme in some aspect. And somehow such a tiny decision in my heart can change my world from darkness to light. Or maybe a less arrogant way of saying it would be that my world becomes several shades lighter than it was before.

This week I feel I slipped into some bad, old habits of thinking. Things have been going really well in the work, lately. Du Jiemei and I have been having a lot of success with finding and teaching people, and we also get along really well. I think this week I started feeling more prideful and self-satisfied than I should have, which doesn't feel so bad until it starts making me feel entitled. So then when the little annoyances come up that I would usually stoop to solve in a humble way--like laughing when Du Jiemei tells me my garments show when I'm biking, instead of getting annoyed, or trying to help an investigator understand in another way instead of wasting time feeling hurt that they don't appreciate my well-thought-out metaphors. So yeah, I start to get entitled and when I keep being demanded by my environment do work work work, I just get tired and things feel doing chores. It's not a physical tiredness, but a spiritual tiredness, a wanting to stop the relentless kicking at the hulk of my weaknesses.

So anyway, last night I was feeling kind of like, "What is the point of all this? I'm supposed to get people to come towards Christ and learn to deny themselves the way he did so they can feel tired like I do?"  And that might not seem like a very important question to you, but it felt like a matter of the purpose of life to me.  I started praying about it, really opening up my heart to that dream and memory and hope of the loving God I believe in. And then things sort of clicked. I was reminded of some scriptures I love, some ideas of books and philosophers I used to read, and I was reminded of my own previous experiences that have taught me this: that we don't deny ourselves and devote ourselves to serving others the way Christ did because our selves are bad, we do it because others are SO GOOD!  Really! Human souls are valuable things, and our greatest joy in life is found in that space somewhere between the two of us and we commune and communicate and love is expressed. I really believe all of religion is to teach us how to have the joy that comes from truly loving and being loved by other people.

And I realized, while saying this prayer, how the pride I had fostered in my heart this past week had led me to live in a world where the role of others was either that of serving and flattering me or blocking me from getting what I wanted. I wasn't living in a world that was really open to enjoying others as they are, independent of me. I was turning people into objects, not letting them be people. So obviously "serving" them would feel like a chore, not a blessing. Suddenly it became clear how I needed to change my heart, and once I decided to I felt this love and gratitude wash over me that suddenly made everything clear. I felt reconnected with my purpose. And suddenly the struggle to be humble, kind, forgiving, and loving wasn't such a struggle because I thought about how much I love Du Jiemei, Sun Jiemei, the Huang Family, Lu mama--all these people's faces ran through my mind. When I think of how I love them, I WANT to serve them. I WANT to reject the tendencies in me that would hurt them or would choose to see them as burdens or obstacles or anything other than precious people who deserve to be loved. Serving them is a joy! And that's the kind of life that I want to give people--one that can experience people as they are, and find joy in doing whatever I need to do (even hard things) to be able to do that.

Anyway,  I guess that was a really long way of saying that I really love prayer. And God. I think he is really smart, way smarter than me. I'm glad I have learned tools and patterns of thinking that allow me to learn from him.

I also think that even though we claim we see clearly who God is and what our purpose in life is, as if  they are pieces of food on a plate that we can talk about and serve to all the world,  these matters really are so delicate and indescribable.

Hope you all have a great week!

Sister Brown

Zao an!

This was another beautiful week! We had another typhoon, which brought insane amounts of rain. We stayed inside on Wednesday because it was too dangerous to go out, but Friday we still went out and I felt like I was in a water park. Every time I pedaled I got water squirting into my shoes, and we were biking through several inches of rain in order to stay safely on the side of the street. I know it was probably dangerous, but it was also really, really fun. I felt like laughing the whole time, as we biked around town.

You may have heard, but there was a missionary in Singapore who died this week while biking. It was so terrifying to hear that. I feel so protected all the time, considering how dangerous it is what we're doing. But after thinking about it more, I also realized that if the terrible thing happened that I did die out here, I also don't think I could die any happier. I feel like every day is so worthwhile and meaningful. I have love in my heart. And even though I obviously don't want to die and don't think I will, I feel really grateful to be able to say that. Haha, keep praying for my safety!

One of the fun things about being a Sister Training Leader is getting to go on exchanges twice a week. Going on exchanges is when you switch companions for a day, and it basically ends up being a slumber party. We say our prayers and turn off the lights at 10:30, but end up talking until we start talking in our sleep. I love getting to know and learn from other sisters in the mission, and also getting to help them.

All the other sister missionaries, I really believe, just need to be told that they are okay. They are doing great. One of my favorite things to teach them is that I, like them, am imperfect and don't really know what I'm doing, half the time. I tell them this clearly, and try to be honest about my experiences. I also feel like somehow Heavenly Father helps them learn this in the way our plans work out. Somehow it seems like on exchanges I end up being late to EVERYTHING. And once we traveled an hour by bus to an appointment, only to realize I had left the lady's number and address at home, so we had no way of knowing which house was hers. It was frustrating, but I just turned to my companion and started laughing. I said, "I'm sorry, that was so dumb of me to leave it at home! Well, let's try to do something else worthwhile!" And we started just contacting people. I think for these poor girls who feel so stressed at being a perfect missionary and having lots of success, there is nothing more relieving than to see that it's okay to make mistakes.

There is a sister I went on exchanges with who is having a really hard time. She is considering going homes. As I sat across the desk from her and she lamented to me about this and that, and how she feels like people at home are moving on without her, a peace came over me. Earlier in my life, I feared things like this. People making choices that differed from mine seemed somehow to diminish the rightness of what I was doing. But my faith is stronger now; the sincere feeling that came over me was, "If she goes home, I wish her all the happiness at home that she wants!" And I really felt that God did as well. In the universe of decisions made, the decision to go home early from a mission is such a small one. It is so foolish to think that that choice, or any other choice, could somehow change God's love for us, or his desire to help us.

And as she talked to me, I saw things so clearly all of a sudden. I saw in the way she chose to twirl the pencil in her hands, in the way she chose to rest her elbow on her desk, in the words she chose and the twist in her mouth as she spoke them, how faith is a choice. My worry for her is not that going home will make God's love to her inaccessible, but that she will simply change places without solving the problem in her heart. Faith is about choosing to love and embrace our lives, the people in the them, the imperfections they inevitably bring. And it was so clear to me all of a sudden that faith is that choice that I am trying to teach people to make out here.
I love you all

Diana

The happiest summer of my life!‏

Dear Family and friends,

This week I got to go to Yilan, a beautiful place on the East coat of Taiwan, to play violin with a missionary choir for a youth conference. It was so much fun! I was companions for the day with Sister Johanson, who is with me in the picture. She plays the flute, and people are always asking the two of us to accompany them or write harmony parts to their musical numbers. We always have such a fun time together, off to the side, chattering quietly behind our music stand about how I can bring a feminist voice to our missionary leadership meetings, or how to get through tough companionships, or joking about how everyone thinks we sound great even though we play different things each time we go through the song. I love her so much!

You might be confused at who my companion is, because I am going on exchanges all the time these days. It is the beautiful, hilarious, always-happy Sister Du, featured in the second picture eating her wonton noodle soup! And in front of her is the dinner I enjoyed that night, which was Papaya milk and a bowl of Tian bu La. Tian bu la literally means "Sweet, not spicy" and as I described it to another missionary the other day, is "a bowl of a bunch of things I never saw in America with a sweet sauce on top." I think some of it is tofu, some of it is fish sausage, and the white thing is some sort of boiled vegetable. It's delicious. My tastes have changed so much since coming here. I remember when I wrote home to you all, proud of myself because I had eaten squid. Squid and octopus and weird mushrooms are all just chicken to me, now.

But anyway, about Sister Du. I absolutely love being her companion. One of the best things about our companionship is how well we teach, together.

I sometimes get nervous before lessons. It's not that fluttery, in-my-stomach nervousness that comes from self-consciousness. It's the overwhelming, humbling nervousness of other-consciousness, of knowing I have a big responsibility in front of me to care for the person in front of me. I have to find a way to express the gospel to them in a language and manner they can understand. I have to get to know who they are, what they worry about, what they hope for, and then speak to those things. I have to ask the right questions, promise the right things. I have to really feel love for them.

But when I have the nerves of other-consciousness, our lessons feel like magic. I have a continual, searching prayer in my heart ,pleading for the right words to come. And they do! We go slowly through concepts, treating them like the precious things they are, and somehow come up with metaphors, real-life examples, and good questions to ask on the spot. I feel so engaged, so alive, so totally sucked into what is being communicated from us to them and from them to us. Our investigators get sucked in, too. It feels so awesome!  And I'm pretty sure what we say is always what the spirit wants us to say, not so much in the sense that what we say is what God had written in stone before the world started, intending for us to say, but because we pick our words carefully with love in our hearts. And whatever comes from us when we have that way of being is going to be the right thing to say.

Being close to the spirit, I think, is just about being alive. It means having this constant desire, this constant searching for how to solve problems, or how to communicate, or how to learn. It's amazing to me how easy it is to be a lazy or a selfish teacher. Sometimes we are lazy in that we don't WANT to think so much about other people, and how they need things expressed to them. It's hard work. Other times we are selfish, in that we insist that lessons need to go the way we had planned them. When the person we are teaching asks questions we didn't anticipate or doesn't connect with our examples, sometimes I want to be irritated and think things like, "But I studied this topic so long this morning! You just need to open your mind!" But that is blaming them.

Being a selfless teacher means forgetting whatever work I put into my lesson plan and being willing to reinvent it on the spot for the sake of the other person. When we're not willing to reinvent ourselves for others, it's because we're so committed to the ideals we have in our head, which don't really exist to anyone but ourselves. And that's why being a selfless teacher, being willing to adapt to the situation that exists before us in the moment, invites us to be continually alive, to be REAL. There are so many ways to look alive, but not really to be alive.

I love you all so much! Hope you all have great weeks!

Diana