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

so thankful I brought my violin‏

Here are some pictures from the past week! In the first one I was on exchanges with Sister Peay. Here's what happened. We were walking along the sidewalk after dinner sipping drinks, and all of a sudden I noticed a mom and daughter behind me, the daughter (about college-age) holding a violin. I said, "You play violin? I do, too!" and her Mom, seeming delighted that an American was showing interest in them, said, "Let her play!" So the daughter took out her violin on the street and I played "Meditation". Then we started talking about the gospel. Turns out they are Christian, so we said a prayer, taught them about the restoration, and the daughter was HOOKED. She kept asking questions that sounded like she was a fake investigator sent from the MTC, like, "How do I know this is true? How do I know Joseph Smith really is a prophet?"It was a really awesome experience, and we took a picture together afterwards.

The other picture is also of a time I got to use violin while proselyting this week! We got invited to a dinner party that was on the roof of an apartment building. It was absolutely beautiful; we were surrounded by tall towers on all sides, and as the night settled in we felt like we were so small in the middle of a starry city and starry sky. The member with the guitar is kind of a hipster, and he has looked up Searching for Celia music because I told him about the band. We jammed together, and it felt like I was jamming with Seb or Robby, it was so beautiful!

I love life!

this week

Dear Family,

I feel so thankful to be alive!
I have learned a lot, on my mission, about faith.
The mission life, as a lot of you old returned missionaries probably remember, is really tough sometimes. They push us to always seek high numbers of lessons taught each week, investigators, baptisms, etc. Sometimes they give us invites to do things that we think are insane, like invite every person to baptism that we teach. And sometimes we fear that all of it is a cruel organization that is trying to impose on our ability to be human.

I have my days when I still feel like that, I'll be honest. But I also have learned an incredible thing over the past year. That when we switch our mindset so we decide to love rather than resent the organizational aspects of the mission, incredible things happen. And we find that maybe it is more inspired than we think it is.

This week, for example, we were invited to invite people to get baptized in every lesson. I heard this and felt nervous, feeling obligated to be obedient but not sure how I was supposed to manage doing this without scaring a million investigators away. So I decided to really pray and study about it. And I decided I would at least have the desire in my heart in every lesson, and determine by the spirit whether or not it was right to bring up baptism.

What happened this week? I found myself thinking of ideas to explain baptism, analogies to use, words to say, that I have never thought of before, even though I have been in Taiwan almost a year. I also found my heart to be humble and oriented towards obedience, even though there were some lessons when I decided not to mention baptism. And we also had SIX investigators commit to get baptized, including the family I thought never would, and a woman who we had asked before and she said no. Not only that, but they all seem to really GET it. The woman said, "Of course I want to get baptized. I want that clean start that Christ can give me."

That was really a beautiful thing.
I have learned so, so much on my mission about the importance of having a full-of-faith, problem-solving attitude rather than a complaining one. Missions, and the church in general, really do give us tough standards sometimes that we want to resent at times. We sometimes really just want to fight back and say its not fair. But when we switch our attitude to one of love, and try to at least do our best, somehow things really do work out.

I really love God. Like really. Sometimes I remember all the doubts I had about the church before, regarding hard-to-handle issues like same sex marriage and polygamy, and in many ways I still have them. But the overwhelming reality of my soul is just that God is real and I love him so, so much. I can't do anything to deny him.

Love you all,

Sister Brown

Ma Yoyo and miracles

Nihao-dy,

Thanks to whoever anonymously sent me the YoYo Ma CD! Or the Ma YoYo CD, as I now know his name is called. Du Jiemei and I love it!

This was a really great week.

Life goes best when I remember what matters, when I am connected to my purpose in life. In my  Sociology classes at BYU, we studied Weber's critique of capitalism. He argues that capitalist behaviors initially emerged out of protestant religion valued hard work, frugalness, dedication, etc.  So people lived pursuing these ideals, which made them great money-makers, but eventually these patterns of success became a more rigidly established routine and got separated from their inital purpose--which was to please God. He called capitalism an "iron cage"; "iron" because the system of capitalism became so powerful and established in society that it is nearly impossible to escape, "cage" because it traps us. He said because capitalism eventually became disconnected from its religious roots, it runs the risk of being an entirely meaningless, money-making system that doesn't bring real joy in life. Maybe this is too broad, but I think it's very similar to the argument Christ made against the Scribes and pharisees, or that Abinadi made to the priests of King Noah--that the systems they used to order life (Law of Moses), were empty and meaningless when disconnected from God. The purpose of the Law of Moses wasn't written on their hearts.

Anyway, my worst fear as a missionary is going along with the system while being disconnected with the meaning. It is surprisingly easy to slip into routine, and it is a daily struggle to counteract it with constant striving for personal improvement, sincere prayer, scripture studies that really engage my soul, and just trying to never, ever forget what I am really doing.

One of the ways I try to do that is by reminding myself to love and be happy. I think that is the purpose of the gospel, to teach us how to view every person, every flower, every piece of bread we put in our mouths as the incredibly valuable, beautiful thing God created it to be. To love people and things with the love Christ embodied. I On my mission, I have experienced that there is nothing more joyful then just sinking into whatever is around you. Sometimes I wake up early in the morning and pull myself out of bed just to take pictures of the sunrise, or of my slippers on the floor. I don't know why, but I just love it all.

I also really love sinking into lessons. Just listening to what others are saying. Listening with my whole being. Yesterday I had a lesson with a woman who moved from China to Taiwan to escape a terribly abusive relationship. She cried and cried. She talked  about how Chinese culture doesn't really value women, and her Dad never wanted her because she was female. She never graduated high school because of a lack of financial support from him. She works now in Taiwan selling make up, and is just thankful to be safe. I had no idea what to say, as I listened. But I felt so aware of her suffering, and my heart was frantically searching for the most loving, true thing to say in response. What I said probably was not perfect, but I tried to use a filter of compassion to understand her, and I think because of that what I said was good.

I have learned SO many interesting things about China, since coming to Taiwan. I think their culture is both awe-inspiring and terrifying. They are so brilliant--I have heard about how they manufacture and sell foods pretty much entirely made out of plastic or chemicals, but which look and taste exactly like real eggs, meat, vegetables, etc. That is an incredible scientific accomplishment that on one level really deserves to be admired. But selling this to ignorant consumers kind of manifests the danger of a culture that is so driven by money and so disconnected with things like religion, or questions that bring moral guidance to our lives. It seems to be all about money, for them. The woman we met with yesterday asked me several times if I was paid to represent the church, because she thinks I look like a model. She couldn't seem to grasp the idea that I really was a volunteer, acting in at least large part out of the sincerity of my heart, and wasn't receiving any financial support. And I can see why; she is someone who has lived in such desperate circumstances; I don't think she has been ALLOWED to conceive of her own life choices as including something like voluntary service.

And that's why the gospel is so, so important. Because if we are continually reminded of our purpose for living, which is to have joy, and to value everything around us, then this woman wouldn't be in this situation. Her dad would have loved her and treated her well, and her husband would have, too. And all China's cool scientific improvements could be used for the good of others rather than personal financial benefit.

Anyway, life is really good. I am trying to be happy and thankful at the end of each day, and the result is that things just feel magical sometimes! Stuff really happens that sounds like stuff out of movies. Last week I started talking to a woman at a stoplight. She set up to meet with us the next night. She said that night she had chosen for some reason to walk home from work instead of take the bus, and she didn't know why. She said she had been really sad and walking aimlessly, for an hour. When she saw me at the stoplight, she thought of all the times she had seen missionaries before but hadn't been interesting, but this time she knew in her heart that she was ready. So when I invited her to meet with us, she accepted.
Like really, she said all of that. The scary thing is I was almost too shy to talk to her.

I love you all so much! Take care,

Sister Brown