15 May 2011
Week one in Banqiao, a week of self discovery.
My 1st week in my 5th area went over well. I am going to like it quite a bit I predict. But it was also a week of pretty intense introspection.
I realized this week that I have been really blessed so far with companions. They have all become my good friends (or even better friends in the case of Esther.) And all of them have been already fluent with the language, with the exception of sister Collyer and her Chinese was amazing anyway. It has sheltered me a lot I think. And I have been taking advantage of that fact maybe more than I should. I have been using it as a crutch more than I should.
This week I had a slump. love my new companion, Sister Wu is amazing. She is really non-intense and easy going. She loves people, she loves to laugh, and she is very outgoing with a Sunshine lit personality. But it outshines my own and I fade almost imperceptibly into the background. And I realize more and more how much that really bothers me. My entire life I've been shy, I don't like large crowds of people. All the energy confuses my everything and it gets overwhelming and I sort of press myself into a wall and disappear. And I hate it. People don't get to know who I am that way. I'm that tall girl that sometimes hangs out with so-in-so, or is the friend of so-in-so the the companion of sister so-in-so. I always sort of accepted shyness as a faucet of personality before, but I'm really starting to see it as a weakness. It hinders so much, and it bothers me it.
But on my mission, I seemed to have found something, at least in English I have taken a outgoing trait which was planted in college and started to grow a good seed. I found myself, and found that people can like me for my personality and for who I am. But I have to put myself out there for that to happen. And in a foreign language that is still neigh unreachable. I just don't have the words. They just aren't there yet. And it really gets me down.
Yesterday was one of those down days. We had some lessons with new investigators and by the end Sister Wu was good friends with them, where as they didn't even know who I was. I went home and prayed, hard. It was a little emotional. But by the end I was at peace. I believe that was the work of the Lord telling me to push harder, stop slacking, and it will come.
So the moral of the story is, don't be afraid to go outside of your bubble all you people! Go out and talk to someone! Go up and say hello, make a new friend this week. Because secretly everyone is wishing someone would, and everyone has the same fear that keeps them from doing it.
End! Love You All!
Sister Melissa Thiessen
24 May 2011
Well things are a lot the same this week in Banqiao. We had two baptisms in our ward on Saturday! The Elder's investigators. They were a set of happy guys. It was a great service and we missionaries delivered an astounding rendition of the "if you believe" song from the Prince of Egypt soundtrack.
We had exchanges on Monday (our P-day was pushed back, but more on that in a moment) and I went to a neighboring area, Xinzhuang, for the day. I was with an older missionary Sister Steinquist. She is pretty cool. She is much like I am in introversion however so it was interesting. I really enjoyed the experience and I learned a lot about myself and my abilities. It is a little harder for her to be outgoing for investigators too, so I really found out how much my Chinese is actually getting better. All of my companions before me have been fluent so I never really had to put in too much if they didn't stop speaking and give me space. Sister Steinquist had a lot of silent moments and I felt like for the first time in a long time that I was an important part in the lessons that we taught. It was good.
I also realized how much I have learned from the outgoing sunshine personality of my current lovely companion Sister Wu. I have gleaned from her a budding ability to be very friendly and outgoing with people. I was joking and laughing with the investigator and members we visited. My language is still really sub par, but I am so grateful for how far it has come.
I also had an experience while contacting. We did a lot of single contacting (contacting by yourself outside of a companionship) which is a very common thing but which I have previously not done much of. Which has been perfectly fine with me to be honest because I have an active disliking for it. But I learned that I can do it, and I can talk to people and they for the most part reject me but I do it pretty well. I contacted a father that night, it was raining and damp and very unpleasant. We had 15 minutes and the street we were on was almost completely empty. He was at his little fry cart absolutely void of costumers. We were walking by him for the second time so I stopped to talk to him, which was unusual because usually we don't bother the vendors, they don't appreciate it. We held a pretty good little conversation he and I. He had a family with two little girls. And as I was talking to him for one of the first times I really really had a desire to make him see the importance of the gospel. He was a sweet guy, I'm sure his family is great. I wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him, "do you know that you could have the priesthood!? the power of God to lead and direct your family? The power to be sealed forever in Gods house? The power to bless your children?!" But I didn't. He turned down our offer to share the gospel twice, but I left with a good feeling in my heart. He will remember the missionaries.
Also, He said that he was surprised that at my Chinese. He said something like "Most foreigners come to study the language but I can't understand a word they say, and you are talking to me now and I understand everything!" Haha. That gave me a happiness. Most people give me this look when I talk to them that says 'you poor tall blond lost American, what are you doing in Taiwan?' hah.
Well today we are going to the temple! Which is always a good thing. Temple weeks our P-days get moved to Wednesday. So sorry for the late email. That's about it! I love you all! Send me letters :p
PS, I want to send a thanks to the Byers for writing me :D
Sister Thiessen
30 May 2011
Mid Mission Moment
This Wednesday officially marks the mid point of my mission. The nine months had passed away and I'm staring down the last half. Quite appropriately I think I've grown a lot this transfer already. So to commemorate this moment I am going to write this entry a little differently.
I'm beginning to realize just why a mission is such a great thing. Granted some of this is because of the hardships, and the pressure cooker struggle of being thrust into a foreign and mostly awkward world (honestly, talking to people you don't really know all day about Jesus in a foreign language has gotta be up there on awkward job descriptions) but I am beginning to grasp at much more than that. Really it prepares us for so much more.
I am beginning to see how much this has really affected my testimony. Going into this endeavor I had a belief, I knew God existed and that his Plan of Salvation was important. I knew that it blessed our lives and it was good for the human character, but I was never really sure about the how, the details of the why and the finer points of the plan there. But I am beginning to see them, and they are beautiful.
When we really understand these things, our relationship with our Heavenly Father and with each other, and our own worth and importance in the grander scheme of things everything takes on a different light and our priorities find their correct values. Some things that were highly important before we find out are actually on the second step, not the first. When we really search to know we will find, because we have the most powerful being in the universe rooting for us, and He has given us everything we will need to find our way back by giving us the sacrificial example of our older brother. It really all comes down to one simple thing. Love. It was all done out of love.
The things we learn here are important, and so are the experiences we have and the choices we make. They are crucial. And they are the only things that we will take with us. We are built up line upon line and precept upon precept but we have to seek first in order to find. And what if we don't seek? It wont be given. Don't be content with waiting to be taught, seek for the knowledge and be an active participant in revelation because every man and woman, son and daughter of God is entitled. Don't live below your privileges. God is power, power is knowledge, knowledge is light and glory. And if we don't seek for it and earn it here I'm not sure that it will just be handed to us in the hereafter.
I have begun to see the things that we study here change people. Change myself. It starts with a desire. I don't care who you are, prophet of God or the slum's heroin dealer, inside the human soul is the basal desire to be better. I honestly believe that. This Gospel gives you the way, and studying and applying the things within it affect that desire and it flames and becomes a change. We build attributes and responsibility when we read the scriptures, earnestly pray and go to church, then seek to apply and accept callings and do our utmost to fulfill them.
We learn how to work in our marriage, achieve the greatest happiness that the eternities can offer, coming from our family unit, and how to improve there in. We learn how to raise and treat our children and their study of this Gospel leads them from early on down the path that is lit with a light that the world cant see. That light is our Father in Heaven's way back to him. And it is the only way for true happiness. The only way under heaven whereby a man or woman can be saved.
Ok. Now I'll hop off my soap box. But wasn't it wonderful? See, I've learned so much :D ha. I hope y'all are doing well and having fun out there. I love you all. Write me yes?
Melissa Thiessen
05 June
Its getting HOT! Its really not a pleasant kind of feeling to be knocking doors in the dead of noon with blistering heat and sweat pouring down your every inch. Everything sticks to you. Your shirt, your skirt, the pamphlets that you are handing out, and when they don't stick to you they slip out of your hand. But nothing beats out a mountain of shaved ice piled high with fresh mango, just to let you all know.
We did a lot of finding this week, and it is not my favorite activity still when done for hours on end but that's ok. Its what I signed up for. We didn't really have much success however, we had a couple of new people set up every day that "fonged women de geze" or in other words, stood us up. That was disappointing. But we are really pushing for a raise in numbers this week.
We have been helping a new member here prep her house to paint this last week, and we will get to help her paint it this week. It was kind of a spontaneous thing. We were in a lesson with her and somehow the topic got digressed to her home and we mentioned that both sister Wu and I had some experience with painting houses and suggested that we could help her. She lit up like a newly strung Christmas tree. In Taiwan the walls get really dingy because of the humidity, the paint starts to peel and it turns a kind of gross grayish color. And she has a 10 year old that in previous years drew pretty scribbles all up and down most of the walls. She has only been baptized 1 month and she is so active, its great. She wants to reconfigure her whole home and make it a place the spirit will readily dwell. She wants to make it a place her family will love to spend time in together. She is a testimony to the changing power of the gospel this woman. Before her baptism and getting to know the church she had a really iffy relationship with both her husband and son. The family dynamic wasn't as good. She didn't really value being a mother and a wife. Now she says her husband enjoys spending time with her, he comes home to a clean house and a loving wife and wonders what in the world happened. That's a good thing for him to notice because he opposed to her accepting the church, now he is beginning to support her.
Anyway, today we will be going to watch the dragon boat festival. I'm not really sure on the history or the why yet, but they race dragon shaped boats down a river and its really cool. I'm pretty excited. But its going to be hot! We'll see if I melt or not.
Well that is it for today, sorry its a short one but I have a time issue. I love you all! Jia You and remember to write your dear missionaries!
Sister Thiessen
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