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