Transfer #4!

Transfer 4 Area 4

Wow. Its been a week of miracles and I have a lot to be thankful for this week. I am going to start by relating a miracle:

On Wednesday my companion and I went to visit a recent convert a little farther off and on the way back we took a short cut to get to the church faster for a lesson and to see another recently baptized convert of Sister Collyer's. She has all the people she baptizes sign her Book of Mormon cover with their info and such and since she knew she was moving she wanted to get it done before she wouldn't see this dear woman again. But we got to the church and her scriptures weren't there. We called the house we had just been at and they weren't there either. We were very perplexed, and upon more fruitless searching it turned quickly into distress.

We went home that night and said a prayer of faith that she would find these priceless scriptures. She woke up that morning and as she said it, she'd had a vision of where the scriptures were, she'd seen exactly where they were. "They are on that dirt road." she told me as we were getting dressed for exercise. "Your sure?" I asked her. "The Lord told me they were there." She said. "Ok," I replied, "Lets go get them."

As we booked it out there and arrived on the scene we spotted them laying to the side of the dirt path. I have no idea how they fell out of her bag, the path wasn't even bumpy, but there they lay, untouched, un-rained on and un-ran over. It was a miracle. The Lord loves his children indeed.

The night of move calls also came this last week. Sister Collyer was up in anxiety all day. She'd been in Taidong almost a year, that's an absurdly long time to be in one place and she was definitely going to leave and it was paining her greatly to leave the people she had given her heart to. "You are not leaving," She told me seriously, "Get yourself used to the fact. No one has ever left Taidong in less than 2 transfers." She answered the phone when it rang bouncing up and down nervously on the balls of her feet. "Noo." She said in shock and thrust me the phone, "Sister Thiessen," my district leader Elder Sessions said, "You are moving. To Zhong Li, with Sister Wynder."

What a shock indeed! I'd resigned myself for a long haul in the beautiful Taidong but the Lord had other plans. No one has ever moved in one transfer that anyone can remember, except for me. But you know me, I don't live by other people's 'usual' haha. Oh beautiful paradise Taidong, I will miss you so. I will miss the wonderful members there. They were all shocked that I was leaving too, "Name de Quai!" (how fast!) they all told me.

Oh, but do you remember that friend of mine from school that decided to come on a mission then got called to the same mission? The one that was in the MTC with me? The one that is half Asian so already speaks perfect Chinese? Sister Esther...Wynder? Yes! She is my companion! What are the odds? I didn't think so good so soon in my mission. See the Lord does love me. And Zhong Li, do you remember my first area, Taoyuan? Well its the area right below it. I'm back in the Taoyuan city limits. Wow, never thought I'd be back here ha. I have the same Zone Leader.

Speaking of soon, I'm already on my 4th transfer on Island, I only have 6 left. I am no longer a new missionary, just an average one...oh the pressure. But a miracle occurred the last few days in Taidong. Suddenly its as if my ears opened and I can understand so much more of what people say! And I can compose a fairly understandable answer! Its amazing. Its like the Lord pressed an entire transfer of growth into three days. I still can't really communicate brilliantly, but its at least understandable.

Well That is all I have time for. I love you all. Thanks for the Snt. Patties cards! I love them! I also love the Letters Grandma! Keep sending mail!
Sister Thiessen

Tsunami

This week blew by me like a bullet train. I don't know where the time went, but it passed me right by all sneaky like. We seemed to have spend a lot of this week in Hualian. Hualian if you remember from my other emails is a city up the coast from us about 3 hours or so by train and is a out doors paradise of mountains and ocean and forest. But the headquarters for our zone is there.

We had a special training meeting (or otherwise known as a zone conference) on Friday and it was amazing. We had a member of the 70 in attendance, President Perkins, the Asia area authority. I was excited to meet him because his son was my tutor in the MTC and I'd heard a lot about the fellow. He is definitely an inspired man I learned so much from that day of spiritual refreshment. It was sort of like a a monsoon in a desert. I had to put my sponge under the rain and see what it soaked up. I'm still wringing that sponge out. I took a whole chapter worth of notes...ha. It was insightful on listening to the spirit, the importance of the spirit and also the importance of faith. I would urge each of you to look up the spirit/ Holy Ghost in the bible dictionary, true to the faith (if you don't have that book, go buy it) and the topical guide and then study it in the scriptures. Understand why we need him and how to get him and it will change the face of your faith. It is the Most Important gift mortal man can receive from Heaven or Earth.

It was especially cool because our zone is so far away and secluded that we couldn't join with any other zones so we were very few in number. Instead of 60-90 missionaries there were about 18-20. So we all got some personal time and got to ask questions. A blessing ha.

The tsunami and the earth quake! We were just ending this meeting when all the phones in the room started to vibrate with this news, of course they were all on silent. Everyone went to the phones as soon as the prayer was said (by me...) and President Perkins got the news of the tsunami warning first. the missionaries that were in the Hualian area were to stay in the chapel all night but the Taidong missionaries, my district still had to try to catch the train home. It was a three hour train ride and the tsunami was supposed to hit right in the middle. Taidong and Hualian are right on the coast, the vulnerable side of Taiwan. They let the trains go though, and we didn't even see much evidence of the tsunami. Taidong is really right on the coast and we saw nothing big. A little disappointing really. I hear the US and other places got hammered much worse, but we don't really get to hear much at all about the news. Any news would be appreciated.

SO, to sum up. I am just fine. But thank you all for your concern! I was touching.
My time is up. I love you all
Sister Thiessen

EMAIL: melissa.thiessen@myldsmail.net

ADDRESS: (a regular size letter/card is .98 to mail and takes 1-1.5 weeks to get there.)

Sister Melissa Thiessen
106-42
Taiwan, Taipei Mission
F4, No. 24, Lane 183
Chin Hua Street
Taipei, TAIWAN

Off My Feet...

This week is gonna have to be a short entry, I'm not real long on time.

We focused all of our missionary efforts this week on getting people to church and helping our investigators really progress that way. Unfortunately only two showed up on the day of reckoning so we will probably have to drop more of them than I'd like.

We went to Haulian, a beautiful touristy town up the coast about three hours by train for president interviews this last weekend. Hualian is the only other city in our zone and since its closer to Taipei the president usually goes there. While we were there we went on exchanges with the sisters there. They are the only other sisters this far down in Taiwan so exchanges are special. Usually on exchanges we would split and cover two different areas for a 24 hour period, but since Huallian and Taidong are so far apart we all just cover the same area and live in the same apartment for a day. Its a lot of fun. Unless you are bedridden.

Monday I was bitten or stung by some manner of creepy crawly. Through the week it was red and really sore but I thought it was just a mosquito bite, they can be bad in Taiwan. But about Thursday it got very swollen. We went to see a dermatologist. Medicine here in Taiwan functions in a funny way. The doctor looked at it for about 39 seconds, asked me if it was itchy then gave me a package of pre-packaged pills of 5 different varieties and sent me on my way. Friday we headed to Hualian and by Friday night my foot was very very swollen. We were advised to take it to the Buddhist hospital in Hualian, a semi-famous medical location. So that took a large chunk out of my Saturday. They stuck a needle in me, hooked me up to an IV and shot me full of penicillin.

First they had to do a penicillin allergy test though. They shot the medicine right under the skin to make a little bubble sort of like a TB test. As the nurse was prepping me she was talking to another nurse in Chinese, and she said something about this test being very painful. I asked her if it was going to hurt. She looked at me in surprise and asked if I spoke Chinese, I said yes, and she kinda sheepishly nodded. "Yeah," she told me, "this is really going to hurt." And it really, really did. She was surprised. She said "You didn't scream. Most people scream" haha.

So now my foot is doing better, but I am instructed to still take it easy. It puts a bit of a damper on missionary work, which is all done on your feet.

Well that is all I have time for today. I love you all. I pray for you every day!

Love Melissa