Week 2 in Taiwan - Still a Wai Guo Ren

Hola Family!

Well Week 2 has already come and gone!  I loved hearing from all of you!! Keep it up ;)  The Brigham City Temple is gorgeous!  I can't wait to go!  Sounds like the summer adventures are coming to an end....yay for school!

  

I want to try to send a lot of pictures today, so I will try to give a little overview of our week :)

Sister Gibson and I had a lot of lessons this week which was great.  Our "golden" investigator right now is Nitti :)  She is 19 and is SO prepared, it amazes me.  Her baptismal date is September 8th so she is getting close!  They found her through English class and her mom actually has cancer right now so it has been a hard time for her family.  In our lesson with her on Mon, she told us how she had been reading the B of M and had read a verse that had answered her own prayers in Alma 32 on Faith.  Her Faith is incredibly strong and she is just so happy.  I learned a lot from her in that lesson........and then on Wednesday we taught her the WOW.  We knew she liked to drink tea and coffee( as most Chinese people do) so I was a little worried.  We had a wonderful pei ke( member at the lesson) who helped a lot......Nitti asked her questions, but decided right then and there that she wouldn't drink tea or coffee anymore!  When her family goes to get coffee, she tries hot chocolate and other sweet drinks which she is still getting used to :)  She is becoming an incredible example to her family as she has begun to try to pray with her mom and it has greatly blessed her mom.  She came to the Elders baptismal service on Saturday and said it helped her to not be nervous and is so excited for hers :)  She couldn't come to Church this Sunday because she already had family plans which we were kind of bummed about.  About 10 minutes before Sacrament ended, I heard someone walk into the Chapel.  I turned around and it was Nitti!  Her mom's plans had changed so her mom said it was fine for her to come to Church!  The Lord is preparing her so much and I literally feel like we have a miracle with her every day.  Keep her in your prayers as this beautiful daughter of God prepares for baptism :)

We have a Mom and a daughter we met at English class last week who have no religious background and were really excited to meet with us.  We met with them on Thurs and showed them the Restoration video and are meeting with them again tomorrow so I'm excited to see what happens with them!

We have an LA( less active) mom who's daughter we taught this week.  Her name is Xie Jie Mei and she hasn't been to church in about three years.  We have been struggling in trying to figure out how to get her to come back because she still thinks she is a strong member, but she needs church on Sunday!  For comp study today, I did the lesson on Activation through Family History.  It testified of the power of family history with bringing LAs back to Church.  It reminds them and helps them understand what the Church is all about- bringing every soul back to God's presence.  I think it is what we need to try- so pray for the LAs and that Family History work will help them!

My first Sunday with the wards!  We have two wards, so Sister Gibson and I have to split up on Sunday and each go to one of the wards.  I was super nervous, we had an investigator coming and I didn't know what I was supposed to do.  The ward was so kind to me and it was one of my favorite Sundays of my life!  As a missionary, Heavenly Father helps you to do things you would never be able to do.  It's amazing.......I know with faith we can do anything.

Ok funny story for the week........we went to a ward singles activity last night at a member's house.  They had a soup dinner things that you put over noodles.  There was a sweet hong dou( red bean) mixture next to the big bowl of soup that I assumed also went on top of the noodles.  This nice newly baptized member tried to stop me as I poured it on my noodles....I was like it's hond dou, I like it!  Apparently that was the dessert......and nobody puts it on with the soup.....yep still a wai guo ren( foreigner).  Everybody thought it was pretty funny and kept teasing me about my love of hong dou the rest of the night.

Things are great and wonderful!  We have hard times and good times :)  The Church is true wherever you are......open your heart and Heavenly Father will pour out His Spirit to you.  He loves you all so much........we have a Savior who has given everything for us.  I love you!

Sister J. 

PICTURES!

Sis. Jarvis and her MTC Sisters

Arriving in Taiwan!

Sis. Jarvis and her first companion, Sis. Gibson

Welcome to Taiwan...and Tainan!!

Sis. Jarvis's first report from Taiwan!  She refers to Sis. Fitzpatrick, who was her roommate during her semester abroad in China....

Familia!!

A big Chinese hello from Tainan!!  My first area! Cool, right? :)  These last few days have flown by!  Let's start at the beginning.....

Flight:  Best international flight I've had!  If you aren't watching movies, you can sleep so much better and read much more inspiring books :)  It was about a 13 hr. flight to Tokyo, but it actually went by really fast and I was able to sleep which I was so grateful for. On the way to Taipei I sat by this really cute girl from Taipei who was just coming back from Idaho.  She had been to church once in Idaho so she knew a little bit about it, but I gave her a B of M and she seemed like she would really read it....so hopefully she did! I was just so excited that I had handed out my first B of M :)  President and Sister Bishop met us at the airport with the APs.  We also had 4 native Sisters who had arrived about an hour earlier- the native sisters are the best!  They are so cute and happy, and a lot of them have only been members for just over a year so they are stellar.  We had some mini orientation on the bus, went to sleep, and woke up at 6:30 the next morning to go running!  It was so surreal running through the streets of Taiwan and realizing you were finally in your mission chuan dao bu(mission area).  The Bishops are so so great!!  We got to stay at the mission home because there was a much lower number of new missionaries and it felt just like home.  Sister Bishop helped us feel right at home and it was a perfect place to get over our jet lag :) President Bishop is stellar- he makes you just want to be a good missionary because you don't want to disappoint him or the Lord.  I know I will learn much from him!  

We had orientations/workshops throughout the day and then had a traditional restaurant for dinner.  Then it was Dan Jones time......this is the mission tradition where they take all the new missionaries to a big night shopping area, we stand on boxes and shout our testimonies for all to hear.  I was super nervous right before, but it was really exhilarating to just run up, hop on the box, and yell my testimony while holding a B of M in my simple Chinese!  We were paired up with other missionaries and immediately began proselyting!  We got 6 Adds( people who are interested in meeting with you) so I was excited!  It was actually really fun and had some great experiences bearing testimony to people.  The next day was meeting our trainers!!  We met them in the Chapel and Sister Fitzpatrick was standing there with her huge smile that she always has.....it was the happiest thing ever!  I just hugged her and couldn't believe after all this time of reading her emails, I was now serving here with her!  We sat by each other during the pre-training session before we found out who are trainers were.  She is incredible- they had 19 investigators at church last week in her area!  As much as I wanted her to be my trainer, I knew that it was up to the Lord and I would be where and with who I was supposed to be.  They had each of us come up one at a time to get our hong bao( Chinese red envelope) and I read mine off.....Sister Gibson Tainan 2!  Sister Gibson is an incredible missionary!!!  I'm so happy she is my trainer because her Chinese is super native, she is so obedient, and is an incredible teacher.  Sister Fitzpatrick and I still have time :) and funny story.....I am in the exact same area where she was trained! Same bed and everything so kind of crazy! 

Well they didn't waste any time!  Sister Gibson and I immediately went to the train station and hopped on our train to Tainan and there weren't any more seats so we just bought standing seats in the doorways....sound familiar? haha As a missionary, it's so cool because things that are usually really important to you or would be a hassle, aren't...I'm still working on some things, but a hot 2 hour train ride? No problem for us :)  She filled me in that we had two lessons that night and had a ward meeting...so as a good trainer should, she filled me in on who we were teaching and had me practice some parts of the lesson.  Tainan is a big city!  It is actually split into 3 different areas....it's nice and hot too cuz it's in the south ;)   Heavenly Father wants me to love the heat more I've decided, so that's what I'm working to do!  My 12 year old self would probably be dying haha  Our apartment is quite large- I'll take pictures this week and show you next week.....and we live super close to the church!  O and Sister Gibson is from Connecticut, studying Psychology at BYU, and goes home the first of December...she's such a great missionary example!  We are actually over two wards so we have to split and each one goes to one ward....that will be a good experience for me next week!  Taiwan people are so friendly and have the cutest smiles.  There are a lot of members here, but there is also a lot of retention work right now.  Our area has been struggling a little so we have some work to do! 

President Bishop gave each of us the dedicatory prayer offered by Elder David O. McKay in 1921 in Beijing for China missionary work......you should look it up.  These people are a special people and through missionary efforts, will know of their Father and Savior.  The language is.....coming haha I have much to learn, but had a really powerful experience my last Sunday at the MTC in knowing that my true teacher is my Heavenly Father and I know that if I study all I can, He will help me. 

Funny picture for you:  my first day in Tainan I really looked like a wai guo ren( foreigner).  My bike seat wasn't adjusting so I was riding across the big intersection sitting much much lower than my handle bars, my skirt is stuck in my wheel...just a typical day.  I would attempt to jie chu( contact) at the stop lights and it was pretty funny...I'm dripping sweat while trying to tell them to come to our church, but I've decided the sweat just helps us shine more :) I'm still getting the hang of a lot of things....but I do love it.  This is the real work now.....the MTC was so fun and great....but not like this.  I bare my testimony to real people every day who have never ever heard of the Church, Christ, or Joseph Smith.  I feel like I have so much to learn in how to communicate better or teach better, but I'm just trying for little improvements every day.  I was teaching the Restoration to Zhen Jie Mei last night and she had never heard any of it before.  It is such a privilege to teach such a precious story that changed the course of mankind forever.

Powerful experience yesterday.....it was Stake Conference, my first Chinese Stake Conference!  They have a beautiful new building and the new Asia Area Seventy was there along with President and Sister Bishop.  The Chinese people are so cute.....all of the women in the choir had matching blouses and all ages filled up the Chapel.  I was sitting with one of our investigators, Nitti, who is 19 and has a baptismal date set for a month from now.  At the end of church this little tiny older lady came over to us and was so surprised that Nitti was there- it was her aunt!  Background: we didn't know anyone in her family was a member and I don't think Nitti did either!  Her aunt grabbed her hand and started bearing her testimony......she had been a member for 30 years and her kids served missions...she has been doing so much family history work and been doing lots of work in the temple for them.  She had tears in her eyes as she told us she has been praying for her family to accept the Gospel and couldn't believe it when she saw Nitti here.  We all started crying as this little aunt bore such a powerful love and testimony of this Gospel and for her desire for her entire family to be members.  Nitti was also very touched and is still wanting to work her baptismal goal- yay!

This work is so wonderful....the Gospel is truer than true.  The Atonement is real and changes every single one of us.  Heavenly Father knows every worry or happiness we have :)  Love you all!

Sister Jarvis

Sister Jarvis Arrives in Taiwan!!

We haven't heard from Kirsi yet, but the Mission Office sent this photo as evidence of her safe arrival.  We did get the chance to talk with her by phone before she left the SLC airport.  She was happy, healthy and very excited for what awaits her in Taiwan.

Week 4 - Immersed in Chinese and Loving It

Kirsi is leaving for Taiwan on the 7th!  Her visa did come through so she is ready to go.

Hello Everyone!

Wow- time is flying!  I see why we need 18 months :)  Well this week was our first week with our Chinese District....and it was an experience!  Sister Bambrough and I were put into a district that had 10 elders and had never had sisters before.....we changed that :)  We were really nervous about it, but they were all so nice and made us feel really welcome.  Class this week was a rollercoaster......but when is a day in the life of a missionary not haha  We have great teachers and realized that we could understand what they were saying the majority of the time, but we learned quickly that we really don't know the gospel in Chinese like our district does.  The gift of tongues is so real.  Here are ten 19 year old elders who have never studied Chinese before, with the exception of one, and they can teach every missionary lesson in Chinese....it's amazing.  We got new Chinese investigators this week and have learned a lot from those lessons.  In our old district our "investigator" was Catholic so she knew about God and Christ, but it was a whole new experience with our Chinese "investigators" when we asked them what they thought of God and they said that they came from a Chinese background so they didn't really believe in Him, or that they had never heard of Jesus Christ, or ever prayed in their life!  It's exactly what we will encounter in the field, so even though it's hard, it's a great blessing to learn how to deal with these situations.  No matter how much Chinese I know or don't know, Jesus Christ is our master- He knows Chinese better than any other human being.  I know that it is only through Him I will be able to teach and bear testimony to the people of Taiwan.  English missionaries are so great and it is such an amazing experience, but your faith has to jump about 5 steps up when you are learning a language.....it's hard, but your not doing it for you...it's for your investigators and that makes it all worth it :)

Really cool experience Sunday!  We got to watch The Testaments in Mandarin!  I definitely didn't understand it all, I would understand one whole section and the next would go over my head, but I've never experienced anything like that before.  We had the entire Chinese Zone crammed into a little tiny room and we would all get super excited when we understood just one word.  I hadn't seen the move in awhile and as we started watching it, my mindset was changed to that of someone who had never heard of Christ, the Book of Mormon, or even the Church before.  I watched the entire movie like that and it was powerful.......you can't deny that Christ came to the Americas, you just can't!  Christ did come, and He will come again.  Those people personally felt the wounds in His hands and feet, and one day, there will be an entirely new group of people who will have the same experience.  These are moments when I'm like- this is why I'm here.  The world needs to know, the Chinese people need to know, someone in Taiwan needs to know that they have a Savior who died for them and He will return. 

O and did I mention that I love the MTC?  I love it so much!  Sister Bambrough and I got to help host the new Senior couples yesterday and we just loved it!  O! and I wanted to tell you the conversion story of one of my teachers.  His name is Luo Lao Shi (Teacher Luo) and he is from Mainland China!  He said that he always believed in God and that his grandma is an inactive member of the church.  One day when she saw him praying, she had her friends bring him to Church.  A couple members taught him all the lessons in 2 hours....and then that next Sunday they taught him all the lessons again and he was baptized that afternoon!  So cool!  He is totally going to be the first member of the 70 from China :)  Just an example of how prepared and ready the Chinese people are!   Obedience is so key to being a missionary and I have definitely been learning that you really have to be exactly obedient.  My companion and I finally made it all the way through the lesson plans for the first time this week and we felt way more prepared then we ever have!  When you choose to go to bed at the right time, wake up when you should, or use your day as it is scheduled out, the Lord blesses you.  It goes for all areas of life though - obedience is prepatory to blessings & I am definitely learning that!

So I'm suppossed to leave with the group next Tuesday, but my Visa hasn't come yet............they aren't worried and think it will be here, but I don't know details yet.  As soon as I know, I will write you!  Just playing the waiting game, but preparing for leaving next week!  

I can't believe how close I am to leaving.........I feel like I need so much more time, but if the Lord wants me to go now I know it will be ok.  He has already helped me so much and is molding me into the person I need to become.  We finally got to go to the Temple today which I LOVED.  It was beautiful and so peaceful.....SO grateful there is a temple in Taiwan!

Well I love you and I'll let you know what I find out!  Moroni 7:33 :)  love that scripture and love you all!

 Sister Jarvis

Week 3 - Pioneer Day, A New P-Day and Taiwan on the Horizon

Hello, Hola, Ni Hao!!!  Happy Pioneer Day!

So obviously we have had some big changes because today isn't Friday :)  Yesterday was a crazy day for us- one Elder in our district found out yesterday he is leaving tomorrow!  We Sisters also found out we begin with our new Chinese district today- and it's their P Day :)  We are really excited to jump into complete immersion, but also just a little whoo-hoo, but we are excited for this next part of our adventure.....we'll see how our class goes tonight!  We know a few of the Chinese Elders and Sisters, and also just met a few more, but they have been so incredibly nice and welcoming to us.  They all think we have better Chinese then them, but they will be suprised tehe O! and from the looks of it, it seems that Brother Danny Anderson will be my teacher! haha It will be kind of funny to teach him when he's an investigator, but he's great so it should be good!  Our other teacher is actually from China so we will get the experience of listening and responding to a lot of native Chinese.  O! and our companionship is getting split :(  We are SUPER close so we were really worried, but they are letting us stay as roommates!!  It is so true that your companions become some of the greatest friends you will ever have :)  I will still be with Sister Bambrough and Sister Embley is going to be companions with a Sister from the other three-some.  It has been such a great experience to be in the International Branch and I'm so grateful I got to experience it!  We had incredible teachers and I met such strong people from all over the world......we had a Sister from Greenland who is one of 6 members in the entire country and we are friends with this adorable Sister from Madagascar who is the first Sister from her country to serve on Temple Square :)  P.P.S. You should go to Temple Square soon and look for a Sister Puttapong from Thailand....she was our roommate and is adorable :)  So if we get our Visas in time, I will be leaving August 7th! Taiwan feels more real than it ever has.  We had an amazing, yet simple, testimony meeting last night with our district.  The Spirit was so strong as everyone testified of God's blessings in their lives and thus far in their mission.  I'm trying to be better at understanding that this is not about me in any way.  It's easy to get your own thoughts going and be concerned with you, but we are literally the Lord's tools and He moves us where He needs us and we say what He wants us to say.  Nothing is about us, and I love that.....I hope to strive to let go of everything so the Lord can dwell in me and use me in His work.  Not too much to say, but just wanted to fill you in! 

I have received more letters than I ever thought I would!  Thank you SO much- I treasure every single one of them :)  Aunt Mary's family also sent me a package filled with letters and her DELICIOUS chocolate chip cookies- everyone loved them! 

Heavenly Father loves you each so very much :)

Love you all!    

Sister J :)