04/27/14 ~ The Lord is Definitely There For Us!

1). How many people attend church in your ward?

Like... idk.... 100 ba?

2). Are you liking the area more?  Are members feeding you?

The area is pretty okay.  No members feeding us, though tonight we will be going to visit Sister Wang at a Curry place.  She is our RS pres.

3). Did you get the photos that I sent you yet?  I hate for you to draw stick figures of me any longer than necessary.

Nope, still waiting....  Don't worry, the stick figures are very flattering. :P

4). Any luck with getting any investigators or LA or RC to teach?  I hope you are able to keep your enthusiasm and spirits up.

Nope.... kind of?... we've got some potentials, but they are all too busy, or they are just so so interest...

5). What foods is Zhang Hua known for?

Ask Grandpa.  They have these things called rou yuan or in Taiyu: Ma Wan.  I haven't had any yet.  My companion seems not very willing to stray from the restaurants she already knows... most of which are very expensive.  I'm all for trying new places, but every time I suggest it, she's like "Uh..."

6). Are you sweating to death already?  Do you think you'll be able to tolerate the heat and humidity better this year since it's your second year?

It's super-hot, but I'm doing alright so far.  It's not really the middle of the summer yet though.  I heard the summers in the middle of Taiwan are a bit better than in the south, so, I should be doing okay.

7). So, do you think you’ll get to go to the temple one day?  I love the new movie that they made since you have been out.

 There is a temple day in May, so I'll be able to go!  Yay! I'm one of the few missionaries who have been on island for so long without being able to go to the temple at least once.  I'm super excited!

8). How are you and your companion, whose name I forgot, getting along?  Are you guys a good match?

Sister Fuller and I get along great! :D

9). What can do to support you this week, and what should I include in my prayers?

I guess you can pray that we'll be able to find people.... yup... that's about all...

****************************

Hello Mom and Family and Friends!

Well, April is almost come and gone... Weird eh?  I hear that April has brought its annual showers back in Utah.  We had a bit of rain two days ago.... but other than that, it's been pretty hot.  Oh, well, aside from today where the weather decided to be windy and overcast...  I always wish that we missionaries could look at the weather reports so we know what to plan for.... that would be so useful.

Anyways, as for the weekly missionary reports, the work here has been...going a little bit better than last week.... but only by a smudge.  We actually taught over 10 lessons this week! Yay!  Improvement!  Though, I've never had the work be so dead before.  Being here in Zhang Hua has definitely been... humbling and faith trying.  But we are going to find people! Just you wait and see!

Though, the Lord is helping.  I guess the most exciting day of the week was last Monday.  After a tiring P-day (We went to Lu Gang and walked through their "old street" which was just a bunch of old houses and vendors selling food or tourist items... and we did a lot of walking... like a ton....) we were greeted in the evening with two phone calls telling us that the people we set up lessons with all cancelled... so we had to figure out what we wanted to do with all that empty time.

So, as many missionaries do, we just went out to go tracting.  So we tracted and tracted... and tracted... and tracted... and everyone was rejecting us, and we were thinking it was about time we did something else.  So we tracted the last house on the street, when this lady answered and let us in.  Well... it didn't take us long to figure out that she was a bit special...  She had some sort of memory loss, which was actually pretty sad.  We spent like 10 minutes talking to her, in which she kept saying things like "Are you guys foreigners? Are we in Taiwan?" And "People say I'm 40, but I just don't know...."  We were at loss of what we should do but then, a 20 yr old woman comes in, and we start talking with her.  She said she was Buddhist, but she was willing to take the time to learn more about what we had to share.  When we prayed with her, she said she felt good inside, she felt peace.  She was super nice!  And we were super happy to have found a new potential investigator.

So, we leave and we start biking when a lady calls out to us.  She starts off by being super friendly and then she starts asking us about the Ten Commandments.  We figured out fairly quickly that she was quizzing us, and so we wearily began to recite to her the Ten Commandments.  When we get to fourth one about keeping the Sabbath day holy, she then starts hammering us about why our church celebrates the Sabbath on the first day (Sunday) of the week, not the seventh(Saturday).  The Spirit immediately left the conversation, and no matter what we said, she wouldn't leave.  She was just talking to us to argue.  I just don't understand why people enjoy doing such a thing...  I am so grateful not to serve in an area full of Bible Bashers.... I think I would go crazy.... Arguing about doctrine is not the way of the Lord...

Anyways, after we finally got her to leave us alone, we biked to a 7/11 to call some phones, to see if we could get people to set up with us.  And lo and behold! The first phone we call is this lady who immediately says: "I'm soo happy you called! Can we meet tonight?"  She then sets up a meeting point that is at a different 7/11 down the street.  We meet with her, and she is like the happiest lady in the world! She is super sweet, and super nice!  She starts telling us how the day before she was having some trials and she was feeling a bit down, and she was praying for the Lord to give her some help.  And then we called her.  She is a former investigator, who was dropped just because she was too busy (her job is a baby sitter).  But, she reads the Book of Mormon EVERYDAY! And she prays on a regular basis as well!  

So, we went home feeling in awe of the night the Lord gave us.  Everything that had happened was because he had it planned out.  He gave us the opportunity to see of his miracles, by first giving us trials.  We were originally frustrated because our lessons dropped, but we were lifted by having other lessons given to us and by having the opportunities to meet new investigators we can work with.

The rest of the week was a bit... yeah... it was just a lot of biking and such.  Like, I've never done so much biking on my mission, as I have here in Zhang Hua.  

Oh, on Saturday morning we attended a funeral of a very awesome member of the ward who died before I came.  So I never had the chance to meet her, but from everything I've heard she was a great example and friend to everyone.  The funeral was beautifully done, and you could see the love and support of all the ward members to the family.  You could also see how much hope the Plan of Salvation brought to the people here.

Hmm... anything else I'm forgetting?  I don't know.... Sorry, I'm so tired!  This is what missionary work does to you! It makes you tired and so you can't remember what things happened only days before.

Oh! I found this video.  It's Elder Holland's report on his visit to Asia with the last few months.  I'm grateful to be a part of the work of spreading the gospel in Taiwan.  The Church is Growing! https://www.lds.org/prophets-and-apostles/unto-all-the-world/gospel-light?cid=HPTU042214727&lang=eng

I really hope all of you are doing fantastic!  I've hit like my... what 11th month anniversary of being a missionary!  It's been amazing so far, but I still have several more months that are going to be full of miracles!  I am so grateful to serve, and I know that what I am doing is the Lord's work!  I love you! I'm praying for you!  

Until Next Time!

Love, Sister Nicholle Peng

4/20/14 Easter Is Not Really Observed In Taiwan!

1). What is Easter like in Taiwan?  Does it involve chocolates?
Easter? It was Easter? Whoa! Haha! No... Easter.... wasn't really celebrated.  It was weird.  There was like NO mention of it at church... except by me, since I had to do my introduction testimony.... It was kind of sad....

2). What can I do to make up missing you something for Easter?
It's fine, Easter isn't about gifts from the bunny. It's about celebrating the life of Christ, because: HE LIVES!

3). So, how do you like Zhonghua?  How is this mission area different from your previous ones?
IT's huge! And.... we have NO investigators and almost NO ONE is willing to meet with us... so.... But the ward is great!

4). Tell me a bit about your companion.  Are you guys getting along?  Do you weak English or Chinese together?  How is her Chinese?  Do you guys have similar interests?  Did she initially think that you were a native?  
Sister Fuller is AMAZING! I love her!  She is so diligent, spiritual, beautiful and fun!  We use English together.  Her Chinese is good.  Haven't really found any similar interests except Chocolate and Music.  IDK on the last question.

5). What is your companion's best attribute? 
Her faith!

6). Do you think that you will get to do some sightseeing on P-days with your current companion?  I appears that y have done considerably less than other people I know in Taiwan.  Danny seem to go to a lot of places.  His parents went on vacation there recently.  Didn't know if he met with them but they did meet with the Blickenstaff's.  Whitney has been able to meet with some of her relatives it appears.
We are going to Lu Gang today.  And another day we are going to see the huge Buddha (which I can actually see from the apartment!)

7). What do you miss the most about Tainan?
The food... Haha! I miss a lot of people.... That was the hardest thing.  I didn't really have a chance to say good bye....

8). What are your plans for the day?
Going to Lu Gang.  Shopping.

***********************

Happy Easter! I hope you all had an Easter full of happiness and joy!  The Lord Christ Lives! And because He lives, we too will live a life full of eternal joy with our Father in Heaven!  I'm sure all of you are also had fun with the annual Easter Egg hunts and Easter Bunny Baskets.  But, it was actually a bit refreshing to celebrate the holiday without the worldly distractions.  However, it was also a bit saddening, since Easter wasn't really mentioned at all, and it passed as quietly as the other days of the week for the Taiwanese people.  We had the chance and the blessing to go and proclaim that the Lord lives on Sunday and to go to church and celebrate Him by partaking of the sacrament and keeping him in our thoughts.  But Easter isn't the only day that we can celebrate and show our love and gratitude for the Lord. We can and we should do that every day!  He loves us! He died for us! And He lived for us!

So, I start off this move call with hopes for finding miracles.  Also, me and my companion are hoping and praying for the "resurrection" of our area.  It is DEAD.  Like.... We don't have any investigators, and barely any LA's and RC's are willing to meet with us....  We had one investigator (Luo JM) who we just baptized on Saturday... so now we have NO ONE!  I've never faced such a hard predicament as of yet on my mission.  We were always meeting with someone... but here....

We have our work set out for us.  We've been working on being more bold and using more testimony when contacting people.  But as of yet, it feels like we are talking to closed ears.  Yesterday, the majority of the people wouldn't even let us talk.  They just kept saying: "We don't need your church.  We don't want to listen.  We are Buddhist/Daoist.  We have our gods.  We are busy.  To change would be impossible.  Go try the neighbors."  Even if they let us talk, they were fixed on having their hearts closed.  Sometimes it's so frustrating! No, it's ALWAYS frustrating!  We are sharing something that could potentially change their lives! But they aren't even willing to give us the time of day.  I know they have their agency, but it's just frustrating as a missionary to face so much rejection.

Anyways, aside from all of that.  This weekend, despite the fact that most of us missionaries in Zhang Hua lack investigators.  We had three baptisms in our Zone! Which was super cool!  One of them was ours, a Luo JM.  She is super rock solid in the Gospel! And she is only 16!  She is already saving her money for a mission!  Her faith is so great! She was willing to get baptized, even though Satan was mean and made her sick.  She was like: "I know Satan will try to stop me.  But I know that the Gospel is true.  So I'm still getting baptized tonight."  Another person who was baptized was in our ward as well.  The elders were working with a 67 year old man, who said he wanted to become a disciple of Christ, even though he's been Daoist for his whole life!  How crazy is that?!?!  See!!! People can change!! And he's pretty awesome!  It was cool too see this big burly old man start to tear up. :D

The ward here has a good feeling.  I mean, it was really fun watching all the kids running around, with loving moms trying to give talks in Sacrament meeting about how to raise your children with humility.  In Relief Society, they had a few minutes of "Hug your neighbor time" in which everyone got up and started hugging everyone.  Also in Relief Society I watched as an AWESOME mother quieted and calmed her baby by showing him pictures from the Gospel Art book and whispering teachings of Jesus to him.  It was sooo cute! And the baby kept staring intently at the pictures!  Babies can learn the Gospel too!

Oh, also, I learned something really cool from the Zhang Family.  It's a family of five, with one daughter and two sons who are all pretty young.  We played the Sacrifice Game with them, in which we showed them three choices of things such as Food, TV, and Church etc.  And asked them to choose one, and when they did, we would give them two other choices so they could decide what was most important to them.  It's funny, every time we play this game with adults, it takes them forever to decide between things like work, family and cars.  But with the kids, the choices were quick and full of faith.  They were holding a picture of family when we put down the picture of church.  Immediately they switched their choice to church, and after that they made the quick snatch to grab the picture of Jesus, when we put it as the last choice.  They knew that by choosing Christ they would be blessed in all other assets of life.  They loved the gospel! They were only kids! You could tell their parents really loved them and had taught the gospel!

So, as to the rest of this week... it was a lot of tracting and contacting.  But, the work still goes on!  We are praying to find those who are willing to receive us.  We are striving to do His Will.  We love the Gospel.  We live the Gospel.  We share the Gospel!  I love you all so much! Thank you for your support and your love!  Until next time!

Can anyone explain the meaning of this shirt?

Love, Sister Nicholle Peng