Transfer 9, xinzhu. Again.

So transfers came, and we waited breathless, but I am still here. And so is my dear companion Sister Holm, for the 4th transfer in her first area. Thats a little unusual, but thats ok. I like her a good bit so I'm glad that she could stay. Anyway...So these transfers were bitter sweet, because some of my favorite elders, district and zone members moved to the other side of the island, but I got to stay with my dear investigators and this place that I am learning quickly to love. I really have a feeling that I will die here in xinzhu, but no one believes me when I tell them because the rest of my mission has been moves

This week we had another Baptism. Saturday a long time investigator, Chen Ya Rou got baptized. She was a long time coming, and a member of a part-member family. Her mother and step-father are members but she wasn't baptized because they became inactive. Through her investigation of the church her family became reactivated, but she has a very bad relationship with her mother so she started pushing the church away again. A long road later she realized that she wanted baptism. She is a moody 17 year old though, and so it was also a difficult process. But now that she has finally taken the action I think she will be good. We will be making great efforts to ensure she remains enveloped in the love of the ward.

This week I had a strange rash of dizzy. I would be sitting there in a lesson, or contacting or especially not my favorite riding my bike, and suddenly the world would get all wonky. I called the mission nurse finally about it, and told him that I have this strange l'il bump under my ear in the joint of my jaw and he said I needed to go see a doctor, right away, not on p-day. Then that night I was teaching a lesson and suddenly my companion looks at me and says "are you feeling ok?" and I was like "yeah, why?" then she looked a little horrified as she said "Because your face is really really white." And just like magic the world started to spin and I almost passed out. I had to grab the table before I fell out of my chair. So our ward mission leader Thomas Chen (who is a really awesome guy) came in and gave me my first blessing in Chinese. Then he took us to the hospital the next day. May I here say that I am very not fond of socialized medicine? That done, the doctor was very brief. She gave me some antibiotics and said that if that little bump there doesn't go away they might want to surgically remove it...I don't think antibiotics are going to make it go away, I've had it for a while, it just hurts sometimes now...

On that happy note...

There were a lot of missionaries I knew dying this transfer, and next. Its not too long now, next transfer, and I will be one of the oldest sisters on the island...that's a weird feeling. It gives me all kinds of power and authority! Right? Not really. Its really amusing, I was talking to one of the sisters in the transfer above me and she and I laughed about it. So many of the new missionaries look at us and say, wow, you are so old! You must no how to do all these things! (follows a list of very cool and very advanced things) and we think, what are you talking about! I don't know much more than you do kid! Its pretty amusing how that works.

Anyway, that's about all I have this week, I love you all. Have a happy Halloween! And celebrate it for me!! Thanks!

Love,

Sister Melissa Thiessen

Time warps and Translations pass off yet another transfer:

This week went by as fast as it ever does. It was packed with lessons and meetings and not too much time for finding. That's what happens when you get too many wards and too many investigators haha. But there should always be time to find new and prepared souls so we are going to focus on that a bit more this next week. I will highlight some of the bigger events of the week though.

Tuesday morning, funny thing happened: we go outside for our 30 minutes of exercise time and low and behold its raining. So instead of going back up to the apartment I suggest we run stairs. My companion surprised me by actually agreeing, so we wandered into the stairwell and ran 21 flights of stairs to the top of our building. It was great but we were then hot and sweaty so we went outside onto the roof and wandered around a bit looking at the view. When the time came we went back to the stairwell and then took the elevator from the 21 floor to the 3rd, where we live. When the doors opened I noticed that there was a really funky smell in the hallway that hadn't been there when we'd left. So we went over to our door and I had this really weird feeling, but I put the key in the lock and turned it. But it wouldn't turn. I pushed it in and pulled it out a little and jiggled it around and it just wouldn't turn. We were locked out of our own apartment?! No way. This was our key, no way. Suddenly my companion Sister Holm asks "Why does it say 16? it usually says 12" pointing up to the address plate above the door. What? What was going on here, did we get off on the wrong door, we thought? We checked, no, this was the third floor. We stood around in confusion. Then I noticed that that door across from us looked different than I remembered it. What? There was only one 3rd floor in our building right? Where the heck were we, we wondered. It was like while we were coming down in the elevator the time continuum had snapped and shuffled us to another dimension while we weren't looking. We were utterly confused for about 5 minutes before sister Holm, realized that we must be in the other side of our building. I didn't even know the building had two sides. We took the elevator down and walked around outside and sure enough, it was our lobby and our elevator and our third floor on the other side. We must have gotten turned about and taken the wrong door and stairs on the roof. We laughed about our trip to another reality for a while afterwards.

Wednesday we had presidential interviews and I was given the beginning of the death discussions. It is called "dying" when a missionary returns home out here. I talked with President and finalized my leave date and talked about what needed to happen between now and then for things such as school. Then Thursday I got my "Death Letter" the official letter that states you are a dying missionary and the end is near It helps you get everything organized and has information to send to your stake president at home and such. It was a weird feeling, I feel like I have just started this. It wasn't too long ago I was in TaiDong watching my companion there, Sister Collyer, receive her death letter and thinking some day in the very distant future I will be getting one of those. And then it was here, in my hands. A trippy moment to be sure, the time has all just been sucked away.

Sunday I had my first experience with translating: we were sitting in Sunday school when the Elders bring in a white guy, much to our surprise. Somehow, while sitting there talking to him, it was decided that I was going to be the one to help him translate for the class. So I sat beside him whispering English in his ear the whole class period while trying to listen to the discussion going on around us. It was a little bit of a challenge just to flip the words and the grammar and such around in my brain then spit it out in a different language fast enough to keep up with the conversation, but it was also pretty amusing. I think I did pretty ok. Then we went to sacrament meeting and I sat with this man, Karl, and another Elder, Elder Vandenbugh in the back. Elder Vandenburgh wanted to translate for him so I sat back intending to relax and just listen to sacrament meeting, and to step in if they needed help. So sitting back and relaxing worked well, until about three minutes into the first speaker when Elder Vandenbugh leaned across Karl and said "What is she even talking about??" And I had to take it from there. Sacrament meeting was much harder than Sunday school, we were sitting as far from the speaker as possible of course, and in the midst of squalling babies...It was hard to catch everything above the noise and then keep up with the speed that the speakers were moving along. The first lady I did pretty ok. But the guy after her moved about 20 times faster because he was very nervous and he used some pretty big wordage and I had no way to keep up. The lady after that shared a lot of stories which were pretty ok to translate, but I have a whole new understanding and sympathy for translators. Wow. That's a pretty intense gig. It was my first experience doing real translating for anyone, more than just a couple of sentences here or there. It is definitely a humbling experience and let me become very much uncomfortably aware of where the gaping holes are in my Chinese. But it was also something I'm glad I did. It really helped Karl (a fore mentioned white man). He expressed thanks after and also wonderment at our ability to even understand the complexities of Chinese. He said "I thought Spanish was hard enough on my mission. You guys really have the Lord with you!" haha. He wants to take us out to dinner tonight. Who are we to refuse?

Yesterday night we had a baptismal interview for a young woman. She is in a part member family but it has been a rocky road for her to baptism. Her mom and brother are both inactive members and she started coming to church without them. But then that reactivated her mom, whom she has some serious issues with, and so she stopped coming and stopped meeting with us. Of course this happened about a week before her baptismal service last time, so she stood up her own baptism. This is her second round at it, and we are pretty sure she is going to come this time :) she really wants my companion to see her get baptized and since this is the last week of the transfer and the chances are that Sister Holm will be the one moving it has to happen this week. She is ready for it. Its just a matter of it happening or not. We are doing our best to help her into the water.

Well, this winds down yet another transfer. Transfer 8 on island. Its crazy to think that next week will open up number 9. That means there are only three left. Just over 4 months. Its an odd feeling to be looking back and finding out that now the time has shifted so the bulk of my mission is already behind me and I'm beginning the end. I remember looking forward and seeing an eternity before me. I guess eternity doesn't last very long huh? Mind your time people. Mind your time. It slips by so silently, and then it lurks behind you and gloats. I've got so many goals to accomplish in the time I have left out here. I'm gonna have to kick it up a notch.

Well that's all for now. I will write y'all from the side of another transfer!
Love Sister Melissa Thiessen

Come and Listen to a prophets voice!

This week went by faster than I could comprehend almost. It just flew. On Thursday we had weekly planning like we do every week and I looked at Sister Holm and said, "didn't we just do this?" Well we sort of did, a week earlier, I just didn't know where the time went. The days are just so filled here that they go by without much time to think about it. Probably because we have to balance so many wards that we always are having meetings. It seems like we have a ward correlation meeting every night. That is ok though. It means that we don't get bored with our area, because we have three in one! Ha.

We saw several miracles this week. We had a lot of new investigators. Several of these people just walked into the church this weekend and we sat down with them. It goes to show that the lord is mindful of his people. When I got to xinxhu it was sort of in a hole, it was not doing well. Sister Holm says she hasn't seen numbers like these in a while. We are just doing what we can here. We definitely have a lot to improve on, and any success we have is all the work of the Lord. But we are seeing the slow revival of this place. We hope to have another Baptism this month.

Yang Jia Ru, the one that was scheduled for baptism but then didn't get baptized is sort of flat lining a little. She came to general conference this week but she didn't seem too impressed. We are trying our best to figure out how to help her. Maybe time is just the thing she needs more of.

This week had a beautiful culmination. Conference. We get to watch it a week later with the rest of Taiwan. The delay is due to the translation that must go on. We gathered in the kitchen of our chapel with some members looking to polish up their English skills and were grateful to listen to the word of God in English. It was a good conference. As a missionary we really are blessed to be able to wring out every last drop of goodness from these talks. I remember before my mission falling asleep during conference, or just not really getting the point. Now I listen to these enlightened men speak and scramble to scribble down every word and inspiration. I don't know where the 2 hours of each session go before they abruptly just end. When the Sunday afternoon session ended with finality I was a little disappointed. I wished they could go on a bit longer. But that's ok, the Lord said what he wanted said. We just gotta wait on his time. It was interesting that this conference not too much at all was directed at marriage or the family. It seemed like so much was directed at the Book of Mormon and Missionary work. Maybe that's just me though.

I had sort of an interesting experience after conference on Saturday, the Elders and the Men were all gathered for priesthood and we were waiting for a lesson. I stood outside of the chapel and listened to a part of Elder Holland's talk and then realized that it was dubbed in Chinese and I was understanding it. It was a startling moment of clarity on the miracle the Lord has wrought on my tongue. My ability with the language is not perfect, and it may never be perfect, but it is getting better and better. I find that I have seen changes in the fluency of the lessons that I am called to direct and such now as well. I am to the point where it is not a struggle to carry a conversation, even so far as almost natural to speak to someone in this foreign and difficult language. I can also read and write a fair amount of characters, though I'm not by any means amazing. I will no doubt be focusing on the written part of Chinese much more post mission. There just isn't time to study it as in depth as I would like to now.

In other news, well, there really isn't too much for other news besides that. Time is going swiftly. I'm down to 20 weeks left out. Time to push harder than ever.

I hope you all are well, and happy. I pray for you all. Study those conference talks when they come out in the ensign people. They are your guidance and direction from God for the next 6 months! And don't forget to remember your missionaries out here! :)

Love,

Sister Melissa Thiessen

The Wind and the Rain , Typhoon Season is here.

Pictures- 1)Blanket that Melissa Loves. 2) Melissa knocking on a Taiwanese door. Notice the height of the roof. 3) Clean up the World Day-work crew. 4) Homeless man writing on Melissa's leg. 5)Halloween in a Bakery.

Well its starting to cool off in Taiwan. Fall is getting here, slowly. Mostly that just means that its going to be raining. And that typhoon season has arrived. Currently the weather outside is dismal, and a tad chilly, but that might just be because of the storms a brewin' off the coast. It doesn't usually get cold here until November. But here in my area of xinzhu it sure does get windy! Its a little hazardous to ride our bikes. We'll be battling the wind beating at us from the front, pushing hard, then a sudden side gust will come and sweep us across 2 lanes of traffic...Oh the adventures of being a missionary. Its all fun.

This week we were leaving the chapel to head home when our ward mission leader comes out and tells us that one of the Elders in the district, Elder Zhong, had just lost his mother to cancer. She'd passed that night. None of us even knew that she'd been sick, Thomas (our WM leader) had just told us earlier that day that he'd found out she had cancer then only a few hours later President was calling. Elder Thatcher (E. Zhong's companion) answered the phone because they were on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. E. Thatcher told Thomas who told us. But we were not allowed to tell anyone else. Poor Elder Zhong took it as well as he could. He could have gone home for the funeral because he is from Taiwan, but he chose to stay out here against some of his families wishes. He didn't talk about it with anyone, but Thomas. Thomas is from his home ward, so they know each other. They had a couple of private meetings about it. My heart went out to poor elder Zhong. He looked such a mess for a while. He seems to be coping ok now, but its a scary thing. It really highlights how very fragile our little human existence really is.

We had a baptism this week! But only one when we were hoping for two. Xu WeiJun was baptized, it had taken her a while and she had failed one Baptismal interview in the past. But she was so ready. I didn't know her very very well, because I'm newer to the area but I know she is a great woman. She was pretty touched by her service. All the missionaries sang a song for her and such. She told me later that she was really touched when she went into the water, it was very emotional for her. Our other investigator, Yang JiaRu, the one who had had an abortion did not get baptized. She had an interview with the mission presidents counselor (when you have an abortion or a serious crime you have to have two interviews) but she canceled it on us. She said she just didn't have the desire for baptism anymore. She loves church, and she loves the scriptures and all of our activities, but she said on Sunday, in Sunday school, that she needs a lot more time. She doesn't feel she has received an answer yet. She is such a good woman, I know she will get baptized, and I hope that I am here to see it. We are raking our brains trying to figure out how to help her.

Oh, we were also molested by two homeless people this week. We stopped to talk to one at the train stations and he was unable to speak mostly so he was signing to us. Of course Chinese signs are as obscure to me as the Chinese spoken language can be so we had no idea what he said. He took one of my pens, one of our pamphlets, and my knee then started writing. I could read some of it but it was very nonsensical. But my companion took the opportunity to take a picture, which I will include. It was very amusing. The other homeless man was more handsy. He was talking to the Elders when we came up to do a finding activity with them. He was all over us, handsy. He kept trying to pull us over to somewhere, telling us he was going to buy us drinks. Finally after he wouldn't leave I got up in his face and told him, hands off. We were working. Then he left. Haha.

We also go to Dan Jones for the first time this week. We were taking the youth of the stake out to be missionaries for a day and we went to a bridge with a lot of people, got up on the curb and started preaching. I got to be the first one to break in the crowd, shouting at the top of my lungs to the nearby shoppers, waving about my moermenjing (book of Mormon). It was fun.

Its already week four of the transfer. I don't know where the time is going. I think there is a leak somewhere in the time-space-continue-um. Someone should look into that.

Well I love you all, I hope you have a good week and that you are all healthy and happy. Its only 5 months I have left here in the mission field. So quick. But I'm still praying for all of you, and I'm still appreciative for the love that you all send me. Until next Monday, you have my love.

Sister Melissa Thiessen