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
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