Hope is the thing with feathers

Dear Family,

 

This week certainly contained some of my most thoroughly miserable moments, on my mission so far. It also contained some of the sweetest moments. I'm excited to get to write about it!

 

First of all, a lot of you asked about New Years here in Taiwan. People definitely celebrated--much the way they do in America, with fireworks and going out with friends--but everyone says that was only a shadow of the celebration that will come during Chinese New Year, which lasts an entire week in Februrary. I am sure I will write more about that when the time comes.

 

This week we had more finding time than we had in the weeks previous. Finding time is when we don't have any scheduled appointments, so we will go to a park or a busy street and contact people. Or we will QiaoMen, which means to knock doors--(but in Taiwan, that means ringing apartment buzzers.) Street contacting is so interesting! You get some people who see your nametag and start taking a long path around to avoid you, or will quickly say, "Wo gan shijian" (I don't have time) before you open your mouth. You have people who want to talk to us because we are American and think we are cute. You get people who aren't interested in hearing what we have to say but think we are interesting and admirable for doing something hard, so far away from our families. And you get people who really do want to learn more about our church. 

 

Finding is often really awkward and discouraging. It especially was for me at the beginning of my mission because my Chinese was so pitiful, I felt more like a lump with a few preachy-sounding things to say than a real person, when talking to people. I also was still working hard to overcome my personal fears and insecurities about striking up conversations with strangers. I am still working on my insecurities and my Chinese, obviously, but things have been getting so much hetter! I am coming to genuinely enjoy finding time. People are just interesting; I love hearing their perspectives and stories, even if it doesn't always lead to a lesson or someone new to teach. We are encouraged to always love people and get to know them, and I feel so close to God when I use that perspective to talk to people. I find that when I feel love towards them, talking about the gospel can be really natural and sincere--not awkward or pushy. And I am okay with it if they don't want to talk to us more about the gospel. I hope that even if it is nothing more than carrying a smile because I have a source of hope in my life, that I can be a positive influence on them.

 

Sister Duggar is so good at street contacting. She is upbeat, natural, and very loving towards people. She has taught me so much, already. Unfortunately, though. She doesn't believe it. She also gets extremely self-conscious and insecure when people don't want to talk to us. On some of these long finding days, she would get in moods that were pretty heavy, and she would tell me all about her self-doubt and how she doesn't know how to be a missionary and she wishes she were as successful as Elder so-and-so, etc. It is a lonely and delicate thing to try to navigate sensitively my conversations and interactions with her so I can build her up, and make sure she never has cause to be offended or hurt over anything. Sometimes, I have to be honest, it is just plain miserable--to be working all day in the cold, drizzling rain, with someone in such a stony, sullen mood, in which nothing I try to say or do seems to make any difference. Those moments have definitely been some of the hardest parts of my mission, so far. If I let them get to me, they make me doubt myself, too--I start to feel effect-less as a missionary, as a companion, as a citizen of the earth.

 

The sweetest moments, though, have been when I have turned to God to try to deal with it. The first day that I was companions with Sister Duggar, she started telling me about her depression and I felt this strong sense saying to me, "Your most important purpose this transfer is going to be loving and serving your companion, not the other missionary work." At the time I had no idea what that would mean. I am coming to learn. And I am unfortunately having to learn it over and over again, as I try to balance wanting to go out and talk to people but not wanting to make my companion miserable, wanting to be more bold but not wanting to make my companion feel pressured, wanting to have success as a missionary but not wanting my companion (or me) to feel as if our success is what makes us valuable. I am learning a lot about my own weaknesses, and not being judgmental. (I have suffered a lot this week over realizing just how far my judgmentalness has extended towards people in the past, and how many times I have hurt people I should have loved.) Over and over again when I turn to my Heavenly Father and ask what to do, I am told, "Love her." I am also told, "Be happy. Don't feel so sorry for yourself." I am also told, "Be humble. The sacrifices you make for her are only a shadow of the kind your savior has made for you."

 

One of the most despairing, but also coolest moments for me this past week was when we spent almost a whole rainy day finding, and things seemed so bleak, and I felt so confused and alone--and the night ended in us watching "17 miracles" with the ward and one of our investigators at the chapel. We had spent much of the day inviting people on the street to come watch the movie with us, since it was a ward activity, and not a single person we invited to came, even the ones we had good conversations with. In retrospect, it's probably a good thing because 17 Miracles is definitely not a warm, fuzzy movie. But anyway, it was kind of a hard day. And even while watching the movie, and being sucked in by its interesting plot, all the ethical questions it raises, I was doubting myself--maybe we should have still been out in the rain, contacting people, or making calls to referrals, doing something more productive than watching the movie. I felt so weak and unsure of my place in the world. I still don't know what the right thing to do was.

 

But the message of that movie, combined with my own personal circumstances while watching it, have brought me a lot of comfort and peace this week. One of the coolest things about that movie, I think, is that none of the ethical questions are ever really solved. You never really know, for instance, whether all these miracles truly happened or are the fantasies of starved, hallucinating minds. You never know if Levi Savage was right to submit to his leader or if this was an example of corrupt leadership. You never know if it is truly right to suffer so much, even to death, for the sake of your religion, or if this truly is a crazy thing to do. Those questions are all still gapingly open and raw, at the end of the movie. But what you are left with is with the contrast of the Willie Martin Handcart company with the Donnor Party. While the Donnor Party resorted to cannibalism, people of the Willie Martin Handcart Company were willing to carry each other across icy rivers, give their last meager portions of food to their loved ones, etc. That, to me, is the only question that really was answered--that when human suffering reaches its maximum, we as human beings truly are still capable of love. I am trying to understand what that means in my life.

 

Hope is the thing with feathers!

 

Have a great week! I love you all!

 

Diana