Week 9855724 on island

April 29, 2013

Greetings loved ones! This last week was great! Sister Burrows is still in lots of pain, so we spent a little more time at home, but we're going to the hospital right after this to find out if she'll get surgery or not. I'll let you know! She was feeling especially bad last week one night and our Taiwanese roommate, Sister Chen, wanted to give her a "special head massage" to help. She starts BEATING HER HEAD and hitting it like crazy. Then weirdly massaging it. Then she washed her hair in a special way to get all the bad "qi" out. It was so funny, but sadly just made Sister Burrows have a headache afterwards. Everyone here tries to help her so much...but they have very different ideas of what is helpful and have given her tons of weird concoctions to try and heal her. We'll see how it goes. 

I bought a new camera! Mine BROKE 2 weeks ago, and took lousy pictures anyways, but I went and got a nice little camera that was on sale. It was a pretty good deal and turns out is actually a really great camera! I spent most of preparation day playing with it... haha. 

Great things this week: 

We met with Chen JM and shared with her about family history! She was baptized on Christmas last year, so we are helping her get started. It was cool to show her my own family history. I feel awful I didn't do more with that before my mission, but Imma get started when I get back! She was so cute and is so excited to start. 

We also shared with another Chen JM who was baptized on Christmas about Patriachal blessings. She had heard about them, so we shared about what they were and how much they've blessed our lives. We are helping her prepare to get hers soon as well! 

I tried oyster omelets this week. It was so good!

For english I taught about american birthdays and played all the usual games. My companion even drew a girrafe so they could play "pin the tail" I know its normally a donkey, but we didn't know how to draw one and without google, its really hard to come up with it yourself. So giraffe it was! The kids loved it!

Wang JM had a suprise birthday party for her husband on Friday night! It was so much fun. I hid under the table and got to help make cake! 

We met with Vicky on Saturday and shared with her about prayer and a few scriptures on that. Her and her mom said that it was just the message they needed to hear, so we were happy about that. They also fed us really really good pasta. Right after, the bishop also took us out to all you can eat hot pot... I know exactly why I've gained so much weight on my mission! oh well.

THE SHI FAMILY CAME TO VISIT ME! In my first area, Zhanghua, we worked with the elders to help baptize the Shi family. Jenny and her mom came to see me after church on sunday! It was so happy!!! She is preparing to go to the temple in September, along with Liang Mama. I love those people so much :) 

-We met with Eva one of our english students this week! We meet with her once a week to play the ukulele. We taught her How can I be, and talked about all the cool examples of people in the Book of Mormon. She is so great and turns out has been reading the Book of Mormon for a long time now! We didn't even know she had one. She's so great! 

Weird things this week: 

-Sister Burrows tires got slashed! She's been having to ride an old sister missionary's bike that is way too tiny, but we'll get it fixed this week.

-Thursday She was ULTRA sick and slept all day. I went crazy by myself calling phones all day. I thought up music video ideas for all the EFY songs. It was a really weird day haha but I'm glad she got to rest a little bit

-We met a man named Shupanhour who comes to english now! He's so old and cute. 

-One of our mentally handicapped sisters sang hymns the WHOLE time through sacrament meeting on Sunday. It was interesting. Kinda loudly too

-We went to one of our appointments, but when we got there, a different woman answered the door and said "I am a Tibetan nun. My friend is a buddhist. We are eating lunch. Goodbye" It was all in english too!!! The woman called us a few days later apologizing for her friends behavior, so we'll go back this week. haha

-One of our investigators came out to us. We had a feeling she would though, so we have been praying about it a lot. We felt completely directed by the spirit and were able to have a great discussion. She is so great and will continue to meet with us :) 

Big miracle: Remember the family we met last week? The husband came to church!!! He has been praying all week about a certain question, and then after sacrament told me that his prayer was answered in teh first talk on Sunday. He felt the spirit so strongly and is loving all that we share with him! We hope that his changes will help his wife start having more of a desire as well! 

"Do you want to be happy? Forget yourself and get lost in this great cause. Lend your efforts to helping people... Stand higher, lift those with feeble knees, hold up the arms of those that hang down. Live the gospel of Jesus Christ."

I like that quote :) I love all of you and hope your lives are going wonderfully! I pray for you continually.

Love, Ally

Year down, 6 months to go!

April 22, 2013

I will hit my year mark in 3 days. That is absolutely unreal. Last week was crazy and I have so much to tell you, so I'm just going to dive in!

Monday we spent a large portion of preparation day at that hospital for my dear companion. She has been in a  lot of pain so we decided to go get it checked out. Navigating around Taizhong (2 million people live there) and the hospital in Chinese was a new experience for sure. The doctor ordered some tests, drew blood, and then we headed back to Fengyuan and held FHE with a less active family. We played hangman with "It is always better to look up" and then shared that talk. It was great! Tuesday was Zone conference, which was so amazing! We talked a lot about obedience and were given a new extra rulebook with clarifications etc. At first I was a little hesitant, but it's okay. I know that obedience brings blessings and that this time belongs to the Lord. I'm okay with sacrificing a little more. My companion also played the piano as a special musical number and it was beautiful! She is so talented and even though she was in so much pain, she stuck it out. She's so great! We headed over to the hospital after that for some more tests. Here's where you REALLY know we have the gift of tongues... The english translator was busy, so I translated for her ultrasound. The directions, the results, the everything, I had to listen and then translate... It was crazy. I've never studied any medicine words, but the Lord helps us when we are trying our best. They said to come back wednesday for some more results and to discuss with the doctor. We then went home. Wednesday we headed back and found out she's got some stuff going on internally, so they gave her some medicine. If that doesn't help by next monday, we'll go back in and get the darn thing taken out. She's been in so much pain but is always so strong and pushes through it. I think that is one of the reasons we saw so many miracles in the next few days!

That night I taught the childrens class for english and we had a blast! We went over some letters, played ltos of games, talked about time, and then sang "Jesus Said love everyone" They loved it! Thusrday through saturday we had lots of great lessons with some new friends. We took them on tours of the chapel and helped them come to know their Heavenly Father. I love meeting people for the first time. There is something special and exciting about it! One special one was with a girl named Karris. When she said her first prayer she started off, Heavenly Father. Hi! My name is Karris, so nice to meet you today!" and then continued. It was the cutest thing ever! We also started meeting with a new Chen family! The wife comes to engilsh and the husband really felt the spirit in the first lesson. I love teaching the gospel, it makes me so happy. I want to tell more, but am out of time. I love you all so much!!! Praying for you all! 

Love, Sister Smart

Happy Group

HIIIII - Short letter this week (computer died)

April 15, 2013

​I'm sorry this is going be short, but computer died on me and didn't save my work :/ This last week has been great but a little bit more slow for some reason. However, this last weekend we were able to watch GENERAL CONFERENCE! It was the greatest thing ever and boosted me up!!! I took some questions and concerns that I wanted answers to, and my prayers were answered with ways and solutions to help me become a better person and missionary. I love the fact that we have a living prophet who can guide and direct us. I know he is truly a man of God and that he is inspired to lift and inspire us. I felt like one major theme of conference was obedience. When we are obedient, we receive blessings! It is such a simple pattern, but one that most of us forget sometimes. As long as we trust in Him and do His will, we will never go astray. Sometimes we can feel too far off the path to even know what to do, but we can ALWAYS find our way back with the light of Christ. That light will lead us to a life filled with peace, no, not a life without trials or burdens, but peace of conscience knowing that we have a loving Father in heaven who would do anything for us. I know He loves each and every one of us and knows exactly what we need in order to help us reach our potential. He sent me here to Taiwan to help others come to know that truth and find out for themselves of their worth and divine nature. I testify that He lives and loves us each and every day. I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has truly been restored, and how precious that knowledge is to me. I know the Book of Mormon has the answers we are looking for if we will but just turn its pages and seek them out. I know that the life is a missionary is a wonderful one that I get to live everyday. I could not be more grateful for you all and your wonderful examples to me. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!! I'll write more next week :)

Love, Sister Smart

Gravesweeping and Baptism of Huang DX

April 8, 2013

Hola familia!!! How are you all doing? I hope this email finds you happy as a bumblebee. Mom, Happy birthday tomorrow!!! I hope it is the best EVER. This last week was great, of course. I did kind of a horrible job with my journal though so I'll do my best to tell you all about it. This will probably be more like random bits from my week.

This week was super exciting! We started off with an amazing DTM where we discussed how to be both effecient and effective. I really enjoyed it and the practice role plays.We were also able to contact over 400 people while English Proselyting! So amazing when you can just smile at people, tell them about English Class and Church, and they are soooo happy and willing to listen to you, just because they think you look happy :) LOVE IT!

On Thursday we were able to go Gravesweeping as a service project! IT WAS AMAZING!!!!  We were able to wear jeans and t-shirts (with the helping hands vests) and clean up graves and weed for about 4 hours. It was so great to be able to serve! I love being outside working in the dirt! I hadn't realized just how much i missed it! We were also able to talk with so many families when they would come up to us and ask why we were interested in helping and serving. I was able to share about families and the church with incredible people all while weeding! It was great!!!

Okay.....Absolute highlight of the week....We had a baptism!!! I was sooooooo happy! I still am SO happy. His name is Huang DX and he is an awesome guy! He is 22 yrs old, and he just moved to Fengyuan with his new wife (Wang Jiemei) about a month an a half ago. They came and self contacted me while we were English Proselyting and we were able to invite them to Church that Sunday! We also started meeting with them, because his wife it turns out is a LA from a different area. They haven't missed a single Sunday of church since they started coming! The Elders took over meeting with him and teaching him the lessons after he expressed interest after meeting with us sisters and going to church, and now last Saturday night April 6 2013 he was baptized!!! We are sooo beyond excited for him! Yesterday at church, he was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and wore his new church clothes for the first time. I'm seriously SO HAPPY FOR THEM! Love that family so much.Cute side note....on Friday morning, Wang Jiemei, his wife, called us and and asked if Sister Burrows would help her do her makeup for the baptism. She had never worn makeup before and she wanted to know if she could teach her. It was the cutest thing ever!! Especially since she wanted to look pretty for him and his baptism. So tender!

We have another woman whom we visit who ALSO has schizophrenia....she's the one who thinks a wire is attacking her constantly....she asked us to please help her make foreign friends and learn how to talk with foreigners. She thinks that Taiwanese men are all horrible so she thinks that maybe she can get a foreign boyfriend that, even if he lives somewhere else, he can probably protect her and keep her safe.We'll see what we can do.......

I'm sorry I don't have much time, but I do love you all! I'll write more details next week and send pictures one of these days!

Love, Sister Smart

IM ALIVE!!! - I did indeed survive the 6.1 earthquake

April 1, 2013

Greetings one and all! I did indeed survive the 6.1 earthquake, so have no fear, more on that later! LAST WEEK WAS SO GREAT! And I took a pretty decent journal, one of the best journaling weeks of my mission. Turns out, all I need to do is write in crayon! Makes it way more fun and then I write in it every day. Let me give ya'll a few highlights. Monday was just normal p-day where we write our families, buy food, mail stuff, write a letter or two and then time is up haha, but its always nice. TUESDAY! Went to a great DTM from Elder James where we talked about asking good questions in order to help people. We then practiced teaching in ENGLISH and it was so awkward. I said the word "moreover" because I had to translate "erqie" back to the literal english... It was WEIRD. Another random fact: I was helping someone with their english and I spelled of "o-v" ........... I think I will fail school when I get back. Oh well! Anyways. Then we boiled 5 dozen eggs for our english party wednesday night... more on that in a moment. 

Later we met with Zoey again! She'll be getting baptized here in a few weeks. She is the cutest girl and really loves what she's been learning. She lives at home by herself (some relatives live in the same apartment building) but is really lonely. Her mom lives in china and her dad lives in Heping a few hours away deep in the mountains. She only sees him once a month or so, so the knowledge of a perfect loving father in Heaven really has helped her. I LOVE HER SO MUCH!!! It's great. Wednesday we had the EARTHQUAKE!!! We live in a 4-man apartment with the Tanzi sisters. Sister Newman (tanzi sister) had just boiled her eggs for over an hour on accident, so the place smelled terrible. It was really funny. I had just gone into the kitchen to take a look at the exploded eggs when I saw the washer and dryer start to move. My companion yells in the most monotone voice ever "earthquake" and I look around to see everything start to move. I start to laugh and dance around cause the floor is shaking and its way bigger than the earthquake we had last week. After a few seconds, it was still going and we could feel the building swaying a bit, so I smartened up and stood under a doorframe, don't worry mom. Then it was over and life was just fine! I then wrote about it in my journal. We finished up studies as normal and then headed out the door to go to Houli! We took the train there and then rented free bikes to go around and visit folks! Lots of people ended up not being home, but we left them little love notes. After several hours, we headed back home to prepare for the worlds greatest easter english class PARTY.

We started off the last movecall with 16 people coming to english, its been increasing every week and we had 45 people come to the party!!! It was so much fun! We started off in our regular classes where I taught about the weather and how to pronounce R's and L's (they sound the same here) then we talked about the earthquake for a bit. Then we all went upstairs and split into 2 groups. The first went into the kitchen to DYE EASTER EGGS! We had bowls of food coloring out, spoons, and 5 dozen boiled eggs. It was hilarious! Most of them had never done it before and they got a kick out of it. We also taught them english easter words while they did it. The other group played "Do you love your neighbor" for a while and then they switched! Then we took a picture all together. I'll try to attach one for you to see. After it was over, nobody wanted to leave. Most the people all stayed and helped us clean up and we got to know everyone a lot better. So all in all, a great success.

Thursday morning we had one of the best lessons ever with Chen JM. She was baptized on Christmas and has a lot of family struggles. She's been having a really hard time lately but wasn't opening up a ton because I'm new here. Sister Burrows had found a general conference talk and printed it off for her that morning but we weren't sure whether it would really fit her or not. We've been praying that she would be able to trust and open up to us so we could better help her, and our prayers were answered. We asked how things had been and she answered with the normal "hai keyi" which means like, yeahh I can still do it. Then... we waited. A few seconds later she broke down and told us everything. Turns out that talk was exactly what she needed, and what the Lord wanted us to share with her. She was so touched. We all felt the spirit so strongly, and Sister Burrows shared the story of how her brother passed away on his mission, and how the Lord helped her and her family overcome that trial. I know that experience is extremely tender to my companion, and sharing it was not easy. However, it brought such a sweet but powerful spirit and testimony that the Lord gives us the strength we need to overcome difficult things. It was one of the most wonderful lessons I have ever had the priviledge of being a small part of. I love this work more than anything. She then gave us super sparkly rain shoes that are really cute that she bought for us a few weeks ago, which I am wearing right now since there is a huge storm outside.

That night we had our first ukulele class here in Fengyuan! A few girls asked me to teach them a little bit after I brought it to english class one night. It was so much fun. We talked about prayer, learned a few chords, helped them play some, and had a grand old time! While we were headed home, it was pouring rain. We were almost to Tianxin road when we see a scooter lying on the ground. Not a second later we see the BODY LAYING ON THE GROUND! We pull over immediately and run over there to see whats up. Everyone kept passing us, cause it was pouring rain, but we couldn't help but stop! Especially when Sister Burrows is a beast in first aid cause that's her major. We get to him and realize he is badly hurt. I start talking to him to make sure he's still awake and doesn't go into shock, while Sister Burrows looks at him. A man had stopped and called 119 (911 here) and pulled his car in front of the lane so nobody would hit us or the man. Don't worry, we know about laws and stuff so we didn't do anything risky or that could get us sued. My companion would tell me what questions to ask him (her chinese is still in the works) and then I would talk to him. The ambulance then came and took him to the hospital. We told them all we knew and then went home. We hope he's okay now, and pray for him daily. Talk about crazy!!!

Speaking of crazy, Saturday, we were at the chapel waiting for a friend to come when this crazy woman with schizophrenia walks in. She starts telling us that she's actually french on the inside and then starts writing nonsensical english letters on the board. Then she started singing and pulling sheets out of her backpack, and started tying them around her like dresses. Eventually she started yelling and freaking out. I didn't know what to do so I did the first thing that popped into my head! I started singing a hymn. Hahaha don't laugh! I know its cheesy, but it worked. She stopped, listened, attempted to sing with us, and then said she needed to go and walked home. It was really random. We had lots of other great things that happened but my time is almost up.  I'm sorry, but I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH. I'm so grateful for easter and the meaning behind it. I know that Jesus Christ lives and loves us more than we can imagine. He will always be there to strengthen us and guide us.

Love, Sister Smart