Temple!

October 26, 2013

Dearest dear ones,

Well, this is the last time you'll hear from me as a full-time missionary in Taiwan. It's a bitersweet time, I'm sure you understand. The last year and a half have been rewarding beyond measure. I feel like I am finally starting to understand a tiny piece of the gospel. I feel so blessed to have been able to serve here in Taiwan among these people I love so much. Today I get to go to the temple with Liang Mama. I dont know if you remember, but she was baptized just over a year ago. If not, let me refresh your memory :)

Liang Mama is one of my favorite people in all of Taiwan. She is the most sarcastic, funny, loving, ama you will ever meet. She makes everyone smile and always serves others. She also felt she was far too old to change her ways, however, Liang Mama was 78 years old when she was baptized last year :) It started off simply, Liang Mama would pay attention for about 1 minute before she would try to feed us more food or tell us about her neighbors, or say something sarcastic . We'd steer the conversation back to the gospel, and eventually got more and more creative, bringing pictures and making big murals to keep her attention. We would invite her to be baptized, and she'd say "Sisters sisters, I'm about to die! Don't worry about me." However, we never gave up. We kept visiting her, helping her meet people in the ward, and could see her testimony growing each day. One day we walk in and she goes, "Sisters... I would like to be baptized tomorrow. Can you arrange that? Alright, thanks." We helped her prepare instead for the week after, and she was baptized last year in September.

Now, the last week of my mission I will be going through the temple with her. I'm grateful from head to toe! This last week has been a wonderful one, visiting the people I love. Riding along the beach with Cynthia as we chuanjiao'd together, helping Pan JM, seeing Mibo, Yuli, throwing the best haunted hause ever for our english party, seeing Zhuang Bei bei, and so many more.

I love you all! I'm sad to leave but I promised Heavenly Father that I'd go where He wants me to go, say what He wants me to say, and be what He wants me to be. I can't wait to see you!

Love, Sister Smart

No email this week

October 21. 2013

Family and Friends,

Sister Smart did not write an email this week.

Hopefully, there will be one more email from Taiwan before she returns home on October 29.

The following email message was sent to us from a friend or member in her local area:

Hi. This is cynthia, the friend of Sisters smart. She says tomorrow she cannot email you. She is go to temple saturday and will write saturday. She love you a lot. Thankyou. 

Christmas songs

October 14, 2013

We've begun singing Christmas songs, and I am utterly thrilled to celebrate the Savior's birth in a few months! I'm again sorry about the lack of time to write a decent email last week. I'll do my best to quickly write about this last week as well, but again, my time is short. We don't have much time and I have to do a bunch of random things since I'm going home soon, sorry, but here's some highlights, I'll tell details in a few weeks

 

We had another baptism this week! With the help of a loving ward family, Qiu JM decided to be baptized last Thursday 10/10 on Taiwan's independence day. Yeh yeh! She was so cute and happy. She shared a really strong testimony about how she knows the Book of Mormon is true and talked about how it has blessed her life.

 

I went on exchanges to Douliu with Sister Parkinson, a great girl from Michigan. We did a lot of tracting, and found some really nice families that invited us to come over again another day. 

 

English was pretty funny... Right before it started, an elder threw up all over the place. My class was thankfully in another room, and we had a great time talking about opposites and then general conference.

 

Speaking of General conference, it was amazing!!!! I watched it in chinese this time, but the spirit was just as strong. I learned so much from every single speaker. I really loved President Monson's talk and I'm so thankful we have  living prophet to guide us now. One of our friens, Ming Zhen came to all 8 hours, and loved it all! Yuli also came for most of it. The music was also really beautiful. I saw Lanni!

 

We visited Chen JM in Yongkang again. Her 95 year old mom is a gem and speaks a mix of japanese, chinese, taiyu, and english. She's really cute and likes to hug me.

 

We had a really neat discussion with Su Jm at Pan JM's house. They are both friends, one is Mibo's mom, who joined the church a few years ago. The other is one of our new friends who really wanted to learn about the plan of salvation. Her husband passed away 5 years ago and she has raised her 7 year old all on her own since. Tears came to her eyes when she realized she will see him again. The plan of salvation is so important and brings so much comfort and hope into our lives.

 

My time is up, but I love you all! The time is far spent and there is little remaining, so I'm going to go out there and give it my all. Have a great week!

 

Love, Sister Smart

Sorry!!

October 7, 2013

Dearest dearest family! I want to write so much, but my companion threw out her back yesterday and we are going to the doctors in a second. No time! If we have time afterwards I'll write more. I'm so so sorry! Know that my last week was great, I love you all, and that Heavenly Father is really great! Have a great week!!!!

Love, Sister Smart

Photos sent with email of September 30, 2013

Yet another "Best week ever!"

September 30, 2013

But really, it was like the best week ever. It is incredible what working with the members in your ward can do to help God's work truly progress. We made a goal to work with different members every single day this week, and it brought a slew of miracles.

Monday night we had too many lessons to do on our own, so we both split up and went with members as our companions. I was with Ya lan and we met with Guo JM, one of our investigators. When we met with her, we talked about how she feels about all the things we have taught her. She said that she  believes they are all true and wanted to understand a little bit more about baptism and the Book of Mormon. We took some time to explain a little more in depth about the Book of Mormon and then how it contains all of life's answers. Afterwards, she started to ask some questions and we together found answers in the Book of Mormon! We talked about how repentance is truly changing our hearts and how it relates to baptism and she really felt the spirit. It was one of the coolest lessons and she really could feel the Holy Ghost testifying that all these things are true. She is having her baptismal interview tonight. She has changed so much over the last 2 months and it makes me so happy to see her so happy!

Tuesday proved to be extremely busy as well, so again, we split up with members to go and work. I went with Hong Chen, we met with Cynthia, Pan JM, Zheng Jm, and the Xu family. There is something special about having a church member be able to testify of how the gospel has changed and blessed their lives. We are missionaries, this is what we do all day every day. They expect us to share these things. However, when a mom of 3 kids shares about how the gospel has helped her family have more peace in the home with a mom who wants her children to be happy, it helps them so much.

You guessed it, wednesday was also busy and so we worked with the Xu family to visit some families! The Ke family came to church yesterday and loved it! Their 3 little kids are ridiculously cute. I can't wait to see my own nieces and nephews :) That night for english spiritual share, after teahing about nature, I taught about the creation. It was really fun as my students drew it out on the whiteboard. We then talked about what a great gift Sunday is as a day of rest and service to the Lord. I love sunday!

Thursday, Sister Shen and I went up north to Taizhong for a meeting. We talked about how the mission is going after some changes implemented with the new president. We also got fed an incredible homemade lunch... it was a chicken something. I'm not sure but it was the best food I've had since the last time I went to this meeting last month... haha. That night we came home and went out with Guo Jm, a sister who is about to go on a mission to Australia! She came with us to visit 2 friends. She really loves the feeling of sharing her testimony and I know she'll be a great missionary.

Friday we had another day of meetings, zone conference, but this time in Jiayi and with our Tainan zone and the Jiayi zone. That just means we met with about 40 other missionaries to receive training from our president. We talked a lot about the blessing of repentance and converstion. I really learned a lot and am excited to keep trying some new things we learned. The only bad part of the meeting was towards the end... Every new missionary gets introduced by their trainers at these meetings. I remember previous meetings when I was introduced by my trainer, and then later when I introduced my new missionaries. This is fun and entertaining... However I was unprepared for the second part, where missionaries about to go home give their reflections. And yes, I had to give a 2-3 minute reflection about what I learned on my mission. I had to sum up 18 months in just 3 minutes. I rambled about love and converstion. To me, converstion is  truly knowing that God loves us, and being willing to show Him that we love Him too. Once we feel His love and His mercy, the desire to obey will naturally come. It's a pretty neat thing. That night we all raced home because we had a baptism! Our cute little 12 year old Xue Qing got baptized, along with Cai DX, one of the elders friends. It turned out great and helped Guo JM (the one listed above) get excited about her own baptism. Everything went wonderfully.

Saturday was great, Sunday was great, last night's missionary fireside was great, the lesson the 3rd ward bishop asked us to teach to relief society and priesthood combined went great (talked about member missionary work), Sister shen's talk in the 4th ward went great, to put it simply, life is just great. I know this work is true. I know God loves us. I pray for each and every one of you every single day!!!

Love, Sister Smart

Surviving typhoons and eating lots of meat

September 23, 2013

As the subject foretells, this last week we had a typhoon and I ate a lot of meat. I think the latter was more fearsome.

The whole week in general was pretty rainy, but nothing out of the ordinary. The wind got pretty bad the last few days but it really wasn't near as bad as other typhoons I've experienced here. I've heard it was worse in other cities though, so I hope they are okay. Monday night we ate dinner with a family here. It was pretty crazy when I mentioned my brother in law served here 10 years ago, of course they ask who, I say his name, and they go crazy and ask if he is the one with the crazy blonde hair. They said "he showed me a picture" and I knew it was Davido immediately :) They love him so much and still remember him. It makes me happy to think that the time we spend here really does make a difference. Thanks Davido for being a great missionary many moons ago!

Cai JM, a sister in our ward, has had it pretty rough lately. She's gone through a bad divorce and can't see her 2 kids as often as she'd like. She's been a champ through it all but we wanted to do something special for her. We both thought of tons of quotes and scriptures, wrote them down on tiny pieces of paper, and put them into little already-made pills, and then into a glass jar. She was prescribed to take daily or as needed. Hope it helps her!

We also started meeting with a new friend, Li JM. She is one of the most prepared people I've ever seen. First, we met her in a 7, and she walked up to us and asked if she could learn more. She then came to church, loved it. Then she met with us again, asking why there are so many different churches, so we shared with her about the Restoration. She really feels that God is really helping her to find truth, and that's why she wanted to talk and meet with us. God really does help us meet the right people at the right time.

Mibo is doing great! We taught her about prophets and general conference coming up. I'm so excited!!! When you think about it, it really is pretty dang cool that we have a living prophet who can guide us in these days. We had them in bible times, why wouldnt we have them now? Watching them speak helps my testimony grow each and every time, I know they are men called of God.

We also had "Clean the Earth" day with 3 & 4 ward. We had it pretty good because we went to beautiful Anping Harbor, the beach, and cleaned up trash. The beach is only about 15 minutes from my house. I am a lucky girl. It was really great, and we had some friends come with us to help clean it up. Everyone had a great time serving together. The funniest part was at the end when we ran into a group of students. They freaked out when they saw americans, and begged to talk with us, take pictures etc. When I was about to leave, I gave one of the girls a hug. As I let go, she turned and screamed to her friends, "IM NEVER SHOWERING AGAIN!!! My life is complete!" I felt pretty awkward at that time and told her that she definitely needed to shower because I smell really bad. It was pretty funny in general, and we enjoyed our service that day.

This last weekend was Zhong Qiu Jie! Mid autumn festival. We got to go to 3 different BBQ's asian style. They are pretty different, but we were able to get our hands on some marshmallows! It was a great time. One of them was on someones roof, overlooking anping harbor, nighttime with a full moon, and fireworks overlooking the water. Talk about a beautiful site! It was a really great week and I love living here.

Funny:

I met a lady named White Lily Jesus. She gave me bananas.

Well I love you all dearly :) Have a great week!!!

Sister Smart