Hey everyone! It has been another great week in Taiwan! I am starting to get used to the area, which is good, know a few streets here and there, which is great for a big city. One of my biggest worries is having my companion leave after this transfer (which is in 3 weeks), since she was trained here and has been here since March. Hopefully I will know the area pretty well by then.
We have about 6 new investigators; all but one are guys, which can be a problem because we can't teach lessons to them without peikes (member present) who is a female. They are usually busy, so peikes are hard to come by. Please pray that we will be able to get peikes this week, otherwise we can't teach the lessons.
I can't believe I will be 20 next Tuesday!
I got to enjoy my last week of being a teenager! Anything I should do to get it
out of my system before it's too late? :) It's funny, I am the youngest one in
my district here, but I was the oldest one in my MTC district.
My district is composed of mostly leaders,
which is super great! More to learn
from! The Zone Leaders (Elder Davidson and Elder Scovel, who I knew in Ba De)
and us share an area. The District leader (Elder Meller and his companion Elder
Zhang, his Bundi/native companion who is being trained and waiting for his visa
to go to Florida), and the Sister Training Leaders (Sister Child and Sister
Bain, my trainer) share the other half of the area. So 5 out of the 8 of us are
leaders. It's been great, getting advice like crazy! It's exactly what we need,
especially since my companion and I have been missionaries in Taiwan for only 3
months since we are breaking each other (meaning we both just got out of
training).
Miracles for the week:
So we have this Filipino woman who is taking
care of an older man 24/7. She has a 6-yr-old and an 11-yr-old in the Philippines.
Super sad to see her far away from them. Made me grateful that I was able to
grow up with both parents in the home and not have them have to go to a
different country to work. Her name is Alaina, and she is awesome! She has been
taught for the past 2 months but couldn't go to church (you need to attend 3
times before getting baptized). After
much help from God, Sister Shek and members, Alaina came yesterday for an hour!
She was so excited, she kept telling us that she didn't think she was able to
come and that she was grateful to God, Jesus and us for helping her get there.
Made me appreciate being able to go to church. It was so cute, she was wearing
a dress and getting ready and she was excited, since she usually wears a tank
top and shorts to take care of the old man. She never leaves the house because
of having to take care of him, but a member volunteered to watch him while she’s
at church, as well as take her to and from church. (The member goes to a
different ward). Appreciate church,
there are a lot of people here (especially the Filipinos and Indonesians who
take care of the older people) who can't go to church because of work but want
to go to church. Going to church is such a blessing.
We had and AWESOME ZONE CONFERENCE! One reason
was that our zone as well as two nearby zones came to our stake center a 25-min.
bike ride away in a different area. It included the missionaries in Ba De, so I
got to say hi to some familiar faces (Elder Casper and Elder Welker) and see
some new ones (the two sisters that just replaced us, one who is from the Dominican
Republic who is training someone). They are both super awesome and sweet. Ba De
is the perfect place to be trained. The Dominican
Republic family was there, so I was able to see why I was needed to leave.
Plus, half of the people in my very first district in Ba De are here in Xinzhu
(Elder Tan, Elder Scovel, and Sister Bain), which makes things easier. I also
got to say goodbye to some missionaries who are leaving after this transfer for
home (Elder Casper, Elder Rowe who is AP, and Elder Jacobson who was my
classmate in 3rd grade). There are like 30 missionaries who are going home
after this transfer, and about 20 or so replacing them. There will be a lot of
areas being closed soon. I'm so sad, I know about 8 who are going home.
Back to Zone Conference. Guess what the topic
was? You guessed it, PRIDE! We read President Benson's talk about Beware of
Pride in the Sunday School manuals. It was a really good lesson. Last fall
at BYU-Idaho, my very first Sunday of the semester, the bishop called
me and asked me to teach that Sunday, which I did. My topic was from the
very same talk about Pride as the one President Jergensen assigned us to read.
It was an amazing lesson, I was really helped by the Spirit, and I think it
humbled us all.
One roommate later said it was a good topic to
start off with, since all these girls just left high school (My roommate, one
other girl who just got off her mission, and I were the only ones out of 60
girls not just graduated from high school. I was the only one who attended
college before; my roommate did culinary school for a little bit). Later that
week, bishop asked me to be Relief Society President for 30 girls, since I was
the only one out of 60 who have been to BYU-Idaho let alone college before. The
one who just got off her mission was president of the other relief society. It
was a very humbling experience, I really had to rely on the Lord, since it was
a brand new ward and I didn't have anyone to look up to for help other than the
new bishop and God. I'm feeling inadequate as the brand new English Unit Leader
here in a new area, but I know through the Lord's help I can do it.
Anyway, because of that Relief Society Lesson,
I was reminded of how dangerous pride can be. After all, pride is the very
thing that felled Lucifer, someone who had potential. It was a subtle reminder of how dangerous
pride is. We don't realize it, but we have a lot of pride, and it is something
that needs to be checked constantly. It is rare for someone to be completely
free of pride. Even in the scriptures, pride is the one thing that occurs over
and over and over again (pride cycle). We also watched Pres. Uchtdorf’s
2010 priesthood session about pride. You should watch it; it was based on Pres. Benson’s
talk.
At conference, President mentioned that we had
68 baptisms last month in our mission (which is pretty high). We have 194
missionaries and 29 districts. It was a good conference to, as Alma 15:17 says,
to "keep our pride in check." I think I was sent to Taiwan to speak
Chinese partly to humble me and to rely on God more, since I still struggle
with Chinese. I also haven't had been able to see any baptisms yet (it's been 3
months), which is killing but humbling me. It's going to make me appreciate any
baptism all the more. Also, it has made me realize that they are the Lord's
baptisms and not mine, as well as the Lord's investigators and recent converts,
not mine (hard lesson to learn after leaving all the potentials behind in Ba
De). It made me remember how much God is in charge.
I think we had the conference to remind us on
how much we need the Lord. I invite you all to read that chapter in the Sunday School
book about President Benson from last year. He defined the heart pride as
enmity. Enmity is hatred, hostility
towards, or opposition towards anyone or anything. When we have enmity between
God and man, we have pride.
President Jergensen's wife shared the story,
"You are Special," the story about the wooden wimmick who learned to
rely on his maker Eli and only care what he thinks, not what the world thinks.
When doing so, the stickers (stars or dots) he would get would fall off. It's
like us. If we don't care what the world thinks about us - good or bad - but
only what God thinks, our dots and stars will fall off, which will make us
happier. They can come off by constantly going back to God, just like Eli told
the wimmick, Ponicello to go back and visit him often so he could remind him
how much he is loved and valued by Eli.
Antidote to pride - humility, which comes from
charity through serving others. If we
serve others and rely on God, we will be protected from pride.
Sorry!
Gotta go. Love y'all!
-Sister Brinkerhoff
Xiao Bei Jie Mei
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