Report from Qishan

It sounds like Sister Fernley is doing really well in a pretty hard area. Here's her latest message to us--and we're pretty sure she meant peanut butter and banana sandwiches, not peanut butter and apple…but who knows? We didn't think she meant "Toilet" restaurant a couple months ago either, but she sure did!

Hello!

I hope you are all happy, healthy and enjoying everyday! I also hope your anniversary was a happy day and that you were able to have a good day together. This time we have and the relationships we have in this life are the most precious gifts Heavenly Father has given us. I am so grateful for our family and for the strength and strong family foundation it gives us. 

And I'm sure Jemma is having a great time at grandma's. I can't wait to hear about it next week! I loved the pictures of her latest adventures with friends and making Clifford cookies! So cute! It sounds like it was a pretty busy week, but that you were able to have a lot of fun. 

The pictures I put up in Dropbox are from last Monday. There is a tourist temple here in Qishan. Unfortunately a lot of the museums and tourist sites are closed on Monday so we can't go see a lot of them (since Monday is our p-day). So the pictures of the temple were taken through the holes in the outer walls. I love looking at all the Buddhist, actually I guess they are Daoist, temples here, but they often bring mixed feelings. Before I would have probably thought they were really interesting and cool to look at, but as a missionary I also have a natural dislike toward them. Basically the people go to these temples and burn incense and shake the incense at their idols inside. They also have more personal temples or alters in their homes where they have pictures of their ancestors and do the same thing. This practice is called "bai bai" here. Often when we pull up to a stop light or are tracting people will see us and before anything else is said will say, "I'm bai bai," and will shake their hands as if they were shaking their incense. A common joke among the missionaries is that we are also "bai bai" (bai can also mean white), referring to our skin. 

Anyway we biked past the steps one day and I asked Sister Yeh what it was. When she told me I asked if we could go on P-day and she was nice enough to appease me. It was beautiful and I love learning about the culture here. Sister Yeh has taught me so much already! She likes to introduce me to different foods. I'm willing to try anything at least once, but a lot of the foods I've eaten I could do without a second try. I also introduced her to peanut butter and apple sandwiches earlier this week! It was hilarious because I didn't think she would like it, but for a few days after she would suggest packing sandwiches for lunch. She's even been telling the other Taiwanese sisters about it when we meet for ZTM. 

This week we've been able to pick up the pace in Qishan a little bit! Our zone leaders gave us a talk titled "The Challenging and Testifying Missionary" during ZTM to take home and read and I absolutely love it! It was perfect and exactly what I needed at this time. I've been praying and trying to figure out where I can improve and how I can become a better missionary to best help the work here in this area. This talk helped me so much and taught me how to be a more bold missionary. So in studying this talk and trying to obey the invitations of our zone leaders I have been putting forth more effort to overcome my hesitancy and talk to as many people as I can on the street. As a result Sister Yeh and I have been able to come across several people this week who were willing to give us their numbers and possibly set up another time to meet. It may just be the lack of progress before, but each and every contact we receive seems like a tender mercy and miracle to me. I guess that is one thing nice about coming into an almost clean slate, everything seems like a bigger miracle that it might have in an already flourishing area.

I was able to go on exchanges with the Tainan Sister Training Leaders this week and it was an incredible experience! Tainan isn't in our zone, but because they are closer to us than our actual Sister Training Leaders we go on exchanges with them. Sister Anderson was trained there so I had heard a ton about that area and was really excited to go there. I went to Tainan with Sister Adams and Sister Jian came down to Qishan with Sister Yeh. I learned so much! Sister Adams has a gift of loving everyone and outwardly showing her love. She motivated me to come back to Qishan and show absolutely everyone I come in contact the joy this gospel can bring. I met with some incredible people and we had some lessons that were so full of the Spirit. It renewed my faith in myself that I actually can be a teacher by the Spirit and that my ability to feel the Spirit hasn't been dulled. Sometimes when you don't have much happening it feels like that. I know it shouldn't, but sometimes, well a lot of the time you doubt yourself.

She also told me a lot about what has been going on with Qishan lately. It helped me get more of a vision of what kind of area I am actually in and what a blessing it is to have been called here. Three move calls ago President Blickenstaff pulled the sisters out of Qishan because they were struggling and he thought it was too hard for the sisters. After one move call without sisters the Bishop here requested to have sisters back because the work slowed down a lot. So President called Sister Yeh and Sister Lee to come and white-wash the area. During their time here they didn't see a lot of success and found that the investigators and small progress the sisters had just a move call early disappeared. It was a really hard two move calls for sister Yeh. Our sister training leader told me that the zone leaders were even worried about the Qishan sisters and mentioned it to President. Then I got here. Sister Adams told me it was a big compliment that President trusts me enough to send me here, and the more I hear the more privileged I feel to be here.

Before I was excited to be here and wanted to do all I could to help this area, but now I feel more and more that this is an incredible blessing. I was a little confused about what the Lord wanted to teach me in sending me once again to a very rural area. So far I have been sent to two areas missionaries here refer to as xingku (basically really hard). But I have realized what a great opportunity Heavenly Father is giving me to grow. I may not see a ton of success, I hope to, but I have already seen myself change and come closer to my Father and Savior. I have already learned so much about how to be a better missionary and what being a successful missionary really means. I may have been sent here to change myself, to help my companion, or there may be people here prepared for me to teach. Whatever the reason is, I'm extremely grateful to be here and know the Lord sent me here for a reason. If not anything else He is definitely teaching me humility and patience. 

Anyway those have been my thoughts recently. Not much else has happened yet. We have several potential investigators and are going to try and track down some formers this week. And of course we are going to hit the streets and knock on as many doors as we can. 

As always I love you all dearly! I'm so grateful to have your support. I wouldn't give this opportunity to serve up for anything. It's been hard but beautiful at the same time. The Lord is helping me become who He wants me to be. In our weekly letter from President this week he shared with us something Elder Holland shared with them a few weeks ago when he came to Taiwan. He said, "Elder Holland taught us, as mission presidents and wives, to have a vision for each missionary, that includes what you can become. He said, “God has not called them for what they are, He has called them for what they can become.”

 

I believe that with all my heart. My mission is changing my life for the better. Love you all! Give Jemma a giant hug for me (I have a letter in the mail for her so it should come in about two weeks). Stay happy and know that I think and pray for you all every day.

With all my love,

Sister Fernley

Getting to Know Qishan

Sister Fernley is doing well and working hard. It sounds like she has an excellent opportunity to improve her Chinese skills with her new Taiwanese companion who doesn't speak much English. She must be doing really well if they can stay up too late talking!

Also, I've updated some of her recent blog posts with the pictures she just sent us, so you might want to scroll through and see pictures of the temple trip and the lantern festival.


Dear Family,

Again thank you for your letters! Aside from baptismal services emailing on P-Day is my favorite time of the week. It lifts me up and strengthens me every time. Even when not much happens I just love hearing what is going on back home and that you are all happy and healthy! I think of you all often. You're always in my heart and gives me more motivation to go out and preach this gospel.

I wasn't able to see the videos you sent me, I would have to download a program onto the computer and I'm not allowed to go to that website. Dang...I'm sure it is a really fun video. I can't wait to see Jemma's incredible hula-hoop and jump roping skills when I get home. We'll have to go on a bike ride and go to a Taiwanese resturant too so I can show her the biking and chopsticks skills I am developing. It is really funny when we go to a family's house to eat and they are amazed that I can use chopsticks. I always tell them that I have to eat so I had to learn fast.

As far as the new area and my new companion things are going really well. Sister Yeh doesn't speak english so I have spoken very little english this past week. I want to make this opportunity of having a Taiwanese companion a good one and one I can learn from, so I am constantly writing down words she says that I don't know, correct grammar, or asking her how to say something. She is being incredibly patient with me and is helping me a ton. I asked her to correct me when I say something wrong so I have had to develop more humility to accept correction. It actually isn't as hard to communicate as I thought. We get by alright. After planning is over and we have some time to just talk I often have to reach for my dictionary to look something up or my pen to write something down. I used to keep my dictionary in my desk drawer, but now it has a permanent spot on top of the desk within arms reach. 

I think we get along well. Lately we have been talking so much at night that we look at the time and find its past time to go to bed (we need to repent for that). The past two move calls for Sister Yeh were really hard. She was white-washing (both companions coming in new to an area where sisters were pulled out for a while) the area with another Taiwanese sister and had a hard time with her companion. White-washing is stressful enough I can't imagine what it would be like without a good companionship. Qishan is also incredibly rural (even more so than Nantou) so that makes it even harder.

So Qishan....is very rural (it almost feels like Idaho except there are a ton of rice fields instead of potatoes), is a very big area, and is incredibly beautiful. I haven't gotten to take a lot of pictures yet, but I'm uploading a ton onto my dropbox so I hope you can see them. The last few are the view out of our back window, that's about the feel of Qishan. And there are also a couple of me and Sister Yeh.

Its such a different feel from Nantou. Before we were able to plan a lot of different people we could go visit, but because we don't really have many investigators and everyone lives so far away from each other that's not possible. Our back up plan, and our front plan for that matter, mostly consists of tracting. Sister Yeh and her companion before (who were white-washing) mostly tracted and got no new investigators, so a ton of the streets have been tracted recently. But we keep moving forward and doing the best we can. I'm going to try and go through the formers from when sisters were here before and see if we can set up with any of them. Part of the problem is that a lot of them live one to three hours away by bike. But we are still willing to go! Every soul is great in the sight of God!

So that's my goal for now. Go completely through the formers and determine if they still have interest, call through dead stack completely (its not very big) and continue tracting and hopefully we will find those who are prepared for us to teach. 

We do have two investigators that Sister Yeh and her companion before tracted into the week before I came. They are both Amahs (grandmas). Zhang amah I have met with once and we talked a little about the Plan of Salvation because she has a friend who recently passed away. We still aren't sure how deep her interest lies, but we will keep trying. The other is Hong amah. I have also only met with  her once and we taught the first lesson about the Restoration. She told us that she doesn't want us going over very often because it is inconvenient so the next day we stopped by to give her a Book of Mormon and are giving her a break until later this week. We will see what happens with her. The rest of our lessons are with the eight RC's they have here and the LAs.

Yesterday we actually went and visited one of our LAs (an older woman) who came to sacrament meeting that morning. I'm not sure how long ago it was but before there were a few elders that got an enormous copy of the Book of Mormon made for her so she could read it. She still has to wear glasses to read it, but is happy that she can still read the scriptures. The book is probably at least a foot wide. She told us a story about sharing the gospel with her son (who isn't a member). She said there was a time where he was having a lot of bad dreams every night and couldn't get a lot of sleep. She told him to take the Book of Mormon (which he's never read before) and every night open up to a random page and read a little bit. Then put the book under his pillow while he was sleeping and his dreams would go away. And...you guessed it...they did! Such an incredible story! And her faith is so strong! I loved hearing about her experiences in sharing the gospel with her friends. No one has accepted yet, but she's not letting that get her down. 

That's about all that has happened. I had my first Sunday here in Qishan. The ward is smaller than Nantou, but surprisingly has a a few people who speak english (return missionaries). It was really weird to have them come up to me and start talking in Chinese then shift to English. I'm excited to get to know them better and already love them. There are so many incredible people here. I was sad to leave Nantou, but am so excited to have a new adventure and get to know more amazing people. (On my dropbox account I also attached all the pictures I took on my last day in Nantou. I will remember those people forever.)

Its interesting to hear that Qishan is a popular tourist site. I've been wondering that this week because we have actually run into a lot of foreigners. The funny thing is rather than making me excited it scares me a little. I always think to myself, "what are they doing here? they're not supposed to be here." I find myself more comfortable being a missionary toward the Taiwanese people rather than the foreigners we come across. (I guess that shows I was called to the right place right?)

I love what Nicole was saying in her email to me about putting family first. That has also been on my mind a lot and is one thing I think my mission has changed my perspective on. Before I loved you (my family) and wanted a family of my own, but I don't think I put as much importance on it as I should. So since coming out here I have realized more and more how much I want to be there for my family and to raise them so they know the gospel is the most important thing. So suffice it to say I'm rethinking my career choice. But I still have a while before I need and even should think about that, so we are leaving it there for now. 

Family is so important, and is an incredible gift we have been given. I know that as we put our family and the gospel first before anything else our lives will be happier, we will be better fulfilling our purpose on earth, and the Lord will bless us in ways we couldn't imagine. I love you all and am so grateful for the blessing I have of being raise in a family with the gospel.

To answer dad's question the area has a lot more giant mountains, but I haven't had to ride up any massive hills yet. I was suprised because my first sight of Qishan was mountains and I was expecting more hills. But I've had a break for a little bit. I do hear if we want to go farther out in our area we go up the mountain (the elders and Sister Yeh have all told me horror stories). 

Also Sister Yeh has been on her mission just a month longer than me, but has been serving in Taiwan for about three more months than I have. She didn't have to stay in the MTC for over two months.

That's about all I can think of for now, I'm sure I will remember more as soon as we walk out the door. But we always have next week. I love you all and am so glad Jemma feels better and is her happy, silly self. You are in my prayers as always!

With all my love,

Sister Fernley

Farewell to Nantou

Big news from Sister Fernley this week:

Dear Family,

I'm sorry, this week I don't have much time either. I only have about twenty more minutes of email time. I promise next week will be better!

Well another move call has come an gone and I have been called to leave Nantou! I am now serving in Gaoxiong in the city of Qishan with Sister Yeh. My new companion is Taiwanese and I don't think she can speak english...so I'm terrified, but am also excited to learn a lot. This will give my Chinese an opportunity to grow a lot! Qishan has a lot of the same feel as Nantou, it is actually a little more rural I think. We are right next to the mountains (just like Nantou, maybe a little closer) and it is beautiful here! Sister Yeh says they haven't had many investigators recently and the work here is really hard, but I can't wait to get to work and see miracles in Qishan!

Honestly I have no idea what happened in Nantou the past few days, since I emailed you on Thursday. I forgot my planner from last move call and without that I can't remember anything! 

We weren't ever able to get a hold of Jia Zhen (our baptismal date). So her baptism will have to be moved again because she hasn't done an interview yet. We have no idea what happened and are a little nervous. She didn't answer any of our calls, texts, and was sleeping when we stopped by her house. I'm sure she just got busy, but we are praying nothing happened to change her mind. 

That is something that happens a lot here, at least lately with all my investigators. They will be incredibly golden when we meet with them and then along the road someone will tell them to stop investigating the church and we will lose them. I continue to have hopes for them someday, maybe in the Spirit world.

Oh also....drum roll please.... the Hong family (my RCs) are going to have a baby!!! I don't know why they didn't tell me before, but we found out this week and I freaked out! Hong Jiemei has been really sick lately, but still has to work. Her husband has even been fasting for her (which makes me a really happy missionary). I'm so excited for them and it has been a privilege to know them! 

I also felt the love of the Nantou ward so much this weekend. I have always considered myself an easy person to miss and feel pretty unnoticeable, but after they announced I was leaving I had so many sisters come up to me and hug me. I had a few say they felt like I was their daughter and one sister even started crying! Yu Mei of course gave me a perfect sending off by calling me this morning at 6:30 saying I was forever Nantouren. She told me after my mission I need to bring my whole family (especially Jemma) to Nantou. I figured you wouldn't have a problem with that.

Well that's about all my time, but I loved your emails and it sounds like Spring is coming soon! It seems strange that I missed all of winter. Enjoy the snow, I never appreciated it until I didn't have it. Also tell Mandy she can't get married until I get home....it seems like as soon as I left everyone got engaged and married. I want to be there for at least one, haha. Anyway tell her I'm happy for her and that I love her! Well tell everyone!

I think of you often and love you more and more every day. Thank you for your prayers and your support. I couldn't do this without you.

As always, all my love,

Sister Fernley

ps. I don't know what's wrong with my new camera, but all the pictures I take with it don't show up on the computer, but the ones from my other camera will. I will try to figure it out, I have a lot of pictures :)

Give Jemma a giant hug for me and tell her I love her 80 80 80 90 80 90!

Another temple trip

Sister Fernley's email came late this week because p-day got shifted to Wednesday so the missionaries could go on a temple trip. I think it's great that the missionaries get to go the temple! There wasn't a temple close enough in my mission, so I never had that opportunity. Troy had a temple in his mission, but his mission president felt that missionaries were there to serve the living, not the dead, so he was never allowed to go. I'm glad Tasha's mission president sees the wisdom in providing missionaries with the spiritual strength the temple brings! (And when we didn't get a message Sunday night, Troy sent an email to the mission president's wife to make sure everything was okay.)

Here is her message:

Sorry this is so late! I completely forgot to tell you that this week was our temple trip so our P-day was moved to Wednesday. Apparently we were supposed to get an hour to email on Monday, but our zone didn't get that message. Then yesterday our bus was late taking us home from the temple so we had just enough time to grab some groceries and dinner and head over to english class.

We got permission to email for an hour today, so sorry if it is shorter than normal, but I will be emailing you again in a few days as well. I hope you got the emails from Sister Blickenstaff and Sister Darrington. Monday night as we were getting ready for bed Sister Blickenstaff called. Whenever I see her or President's name on the phone I get really nervous and wonder what we have done wrong or what they are going to ask us to do that I'm not prepared to do. It was a bit of a relief when she was just calling about the email dad sent her. Sorry about that again dad!

This week (or last week) was power week for our mission. For each day we were given tracting, contacting, or teaching goals to try and hit. One day was tract all night and get let into two houses, give out 13 Books of Mormon and get their information, get 20 adds in two hours, confirm 15 people for church etc. If we hit the goal that day we could call President that night and say "mission accomplished." I really wanted to call President just once, but we didn't hit any of the goals. We tried really hard and got a lot of contacting practice. I feel like it also  introduced me to ways that I haven't used for contacting before, or even just helping me see how I can be a better missionary and inviting others to come closer to Christ.

We have been able to sit with a few people that could potentially become new investigators. We contacted a lady on the street almost a month ago and were able to meet with her. She had a lot of questions about Christianity and if all the churches are different, so today we are actually teaching her the first lesson. I love that she has so many questions! It makes it so much easier to know what she is thinking and I love that we have an answer to all of them. We also have a lot of potential investigators that we just haven't been able to get a hold of yet, so we are hoping!

Jia Zhen's baptismal date is coming up quickly! She came to church again for the full three hours, but after that we haven't been able to contact her. I'm getting a little nervous about getting her baptismal interview done in time before we have to move her date again, but we are going to try our best. She really has such a strong desire to be baptized! And the ward has been incredible in fellow-shipping her at church!

On Sunday we were able to go up to Taizhong for a mission fireside with Bishop Stevenson from the Presiding church bishopric. He was in Taibei with Elder Holland for a mission council and was assigned to come talk to our mission. Unfortunately Elder Holland wasn't able to come down. Anyway, Bishop Stevenson's son is serving in our mission, he just got on island a few weeks ago. It was really motivating and now that I think about it more of an answer to my prayers than I thought. 

I've been praying constantly for Heavenly Father to help us with the work in Nantou. I've been praying to know how I can be better, how I can be more consecrated, or what we can do to find those people who are being prepared to hear the gospel, but it still seems that nothing much is happening. Then lately (starting with Bishop Stevenson's talk) I've been running into a lot of scriptures or parts in Preach My Gospel that talk about patience in long-suffering. Bishop Stevenson talked about that as well, that all of our experiences are for our benefit. He reminded us that our mission call was not by chance and that there are people here prepared for US to teach. He also talked about having joy. "Men are that they might have joy." He told us the Lord is on our side and his closing statement was, "You can do it!"

After we heard all the speakers we sang our mission song which makes me cry every time. I'm so grateful to be called as a missionary! I have already learned and grown so much and hope that I can continue to help others come unto Christ. This move-call has been really hard as far as having people to teach or visible success, but I think the Lord has been teaching me patience. He has been teaching me humility and to rely on Him and remember that He knows best. I continue to try my best and look for the miracle just around the corner.

Anyway i'm almost out of time, but I love you all and miss you all. But I know this is the most important work in the world. Give Jemma a giant hug and tell her I love her! I will email you in a few days!

With all my love,

Sister Fernley

Dreaming in Chinese

Hurrah! Sister Fernley got a new camera! I hope this means we'll be seeing more pictures from her. 

Here is her message from tonight:

Dear Family,

Thank you as always for your emails, they always lift me up and are a great start to the new week. Honestly not a lot has happened this week on my end either. We go out every day to tract, contact or to possibly visit people and teach them about the gospel, but lately it seems that none of that has been working out very well. Well as far as outward manifestations go...I know there are often influences that we don't see. And honestly we probably don't see most of the influence our efforts have. 

We haven't been able to meet with John and his wife again. They are technically the Nantou elders' investigators, so we only go over when we are invited, but we do hope that we can help in any way that we can. Her husband is so prepared! He just won't come to church until his wife will come too. I can't remember if I told you, but he has already read the Book of Mormon once and is about half way through it a second time. He believes and often talks about how missionary work is the best work there is! We hope someday he will be able to realize he can be an example for his wife and act on his faith.

Chen Zhen Zhen, the lady we taught once with her son (the one who asked "can I?") has been dropped for a little while. I firmly believe that someday she will be ready to accept the gospel. She has already been tracted into and taught by two sets of missionaries, but now is not her time. The first week of this move call we set up with her and went over to go finish teaching her about the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we went over she said she hadn't read the Book of Mormon (still) and then started bringing up a lot of different concerns that showed up out of nowhere. Basically she has read other books from different religions and thinks they are all good and that one specifically isn't true, but they all are (a common way of thinking here). She also said she doesn't think a family shouldn't have members from many different religions so she is more inclined to accept one of the churches her family members go to. She brought up a lot of different things which we answered, but she didn't want to really listen and basically dismissed us. I remember while she was talking and bringing up so many different concerns I just started testifying. I told her I knew this gospel was true, and that she could as well if she would do her part, which she hadn't. I told her the only way to know was to read and to ask God, and if she wasn't willing to do that she wouldn't be able to receive an answer. I then told her we were representatives of Jesus Christ and that His church has been restored and that our message is the most important message on the earth today and that it could help her with all the problems she had told us about.

After that she brought up more excuses and tried to counter everything with other religious practices, but we were way past time to leave so we had to go. (We almost had to call President Blickenstaff because we were almost home after ten.) Nothing much we said made much of an impact that I could see, she did get a little uncomfortable, but we just invited her to read and told her if she would she could receive answers to her questions. Ever since then we have been giving her a break. 

That was the first time I have ever done that though, and it made me feel like a missionary. That might sound silly, but even though she wasn't really accepting I felt like I was delivering this message with all my heart and testifying like the prophets in the scriptures.

Anyway that was a long explanation, but for now she's not very willing to listen to much more. It was hard and I couldn't stop thinking about it for several days, but now I just hope someday she will pick up the Book of Mormon she has and sincerely read and pray about it. It could help her (and everybody) so much! We just first have to read and then ask God.

Dad asked about what church is like here and its pretty much the same, just smaller. And even then it depends on where you go. Nantou is one of the most rural areas, so its a lot smaller. But other than that and the language it is pretty much the same. (Dad I actually didn't hear that story in Church yesterday. We only have the gospel principles books in English  so all other book they just have the Chinese versions. So most of the time I'm not to sure what is going on, especially because most of the lessons consist of the teachers telling everyone to read the chapter.)

But we also went to the youth Sunday school class this week because Jia Zhen came to church! She has been the young woman who has had a baptismal date since I got here. We have a new date for March 8th and I think she might really stick with this one. She was able to move her tutor time to Saturday rather than Sunday and came to church for the full three hours! It is really hard in our ward because we only have one young woman and only two young single adult sisters. So I was really worried that she would feel really awkward and not like church, but our ward was incredible at fellow-shipping her and afterward she said she had a really good time. 

The language is going well...I think. I think I've been given a great opportunity to grow and learn a lot this move call. With Sister Hill I'm actually the companion who speaks the most and I have to remember to let her have a chance to talk. So we have been able to learn a lot and improve together. I've been forced to come out of my shell in order to get what we need to do done, so it has been really good for me. I've gained a lot more confidence and even though I don't know how to say a lot Chinese is starting to feel a lot more natural. I've even started having dreams where I'm speaking Chinese. And I have started sending texts! They take me a while, but I'm getting faster and have started learning more characters, at least the basic ones. People are really nice here and compliment me on my Chinese a lot, even though it isn't very good. Its really funny to watch people laugh at us on the street and start speaking to them in Chinese. It throws them off and sometimes they get really embarrassed because they were just talking about the foreigners on the street. They hardly ever expect us to be able to speak Chinese. So...yes...Jemma's prayers, and mine are working and the language is coming along.

Sister Hill and I get along really well. It's just different. Every person is different and has different personalities. She is more quiet and I know this sounds strange, but I'm usually the one talking the most. But we get along great. This has been her first move call as senior companion and my first move call out of training so neither of us knows exactly what we are doing. Like I said we have been learning a lot together. It has just been a little hard this move call because it seems like no matter what we do we can't find new investigators and all of our current ones (besides Jia Zhen) have stopped progressing or even setting up with us. But we keep moving forward and have been trying to strengthen each other in the work. It's probably just a phase and trial we have to go through. As we trust in the Lord and keep doing our best He will lift us up and strengthen us.

I think I answered almost all of your questions...you had a lot this week! As far as the rest of this week went we weren't really able to meet with many people. Were continuing to get our less actives to church and almost had Patricia (the lady from Costa Rica) come, but she slept in I think. I love going to go and visit her though! We also went to go try and visit one of our recent converts (the one who got back from Australia a little while ago) and ended up sitting with her parents and hearing them rant about how offended they were with our ward and how their daughter is going back to her old christian church. We were there for a long time and it was really good to hear what has actually been going on because their daughter wouldn't tell us. But because she wasn't there her mom was willing to talk to us about it. I think it will take a while for her to be willing to come back, because they are really offended, but we are going to keep trying. Mostly our ward hasn't fellow-shipped her much since she got back and all of her friends go to the other church so she would rather go there. It was hard, and I was really sensitive the rest of the day. It is hard to hear of people leaving, but we are going to try and help her as best we can. 

Something funny happened right after that encounter. We had just walked out and I just had to take a breath and started crying. Sister Hill was being a great companion and was comforting me when this homeless looking guy pulled up to us on his bike. I think he saw me crying when he passed a few minutes before and came back. At first he was really nice and gave us a bunch of oranges he had in his bike basket. I started just making small talk with him to be nice, but then he asked if I was married (which happens more than I would expect). I told him no and tried to tell him about the gospel and our purpose in coming to Taiwan. That didn't make much effect and he asked me again several times if I really wasn't married yet...it was really creepy, but we invited him to church and to hear the missionary lessons from the elders. After that he decided he didn't want to talk to us much and left. We actually ran into him on the road in Zhongxing yesterday and he called to us from across the street. There seems to be a consistent plague of creepy Taiwanese men this move call.

Speaking of plagues this move call, everyone recently for some reason has decided to call us in the middle of the night. Almost four nights in a row we have had someone call us at eleven or twelve, and most of the time they aren't even for important reasons. I guess Heavenly Father is just testing my patience.

That's pretty much it for this week. We were able to set up and meet with a couple of people we haven't been able to see in a long time. So we hope we can continue to meet with them and help them strengthen their faith and belief in Christ. Most of them have lost a lot of desire over Chinese New Year. We have also been able to find some formers and have found out that they have no interest, which helps us weed out our potential investigator pool a little bit. Not much success yet, but as we continue to do what we can we will find those prepared to hear the gospel.

Oh I almost forgot, we were able to have interviews with President and Sister Blickenstaff this week. I always love meeting with them! They are so uplifting and are incredible examples. I can always see and feel the love that they both have for us and know that they care about me personally. I really am blessed to serve with them! 

We were also able to get permission from President to go out and take some pictures of the Lantern Festival. It is huge! So we were only able to get a little in the fifteen minutes we had before we had to get back home. Since the lights don't turn on until it gets dark we don't really have much opportunity to take pictures on preparation day since we go back to work at six. (Which is when it really starts getting dark). But we are going out today with Yu Mei to see some of it, which should be interesting.

Anyway I'm out of time, but I love you and am so glad things are going well at home. I'm so glad you are happy and healthy! Know that I love you and that I am so grateful to be a missionary. Even when it is hard it is the best thing I could be doing with my life right now and I feel so privileged to be serving in Taiwan.

Love you, with all my heart,

Sister Fernley

Back to looking for miracles

And with this post, I think we're caught up. Here is the latest message from Sister Fernley:


Dear Family,

Well another week has gone by in Nantou and not much has changed really (watch I say that and end up writing a really long email about everything that has changed). We are getting a few more lessons, but last week everyone was still having guonian celebrations. People are starting to go back to work and school this week though, so we are hoping that will help. Its funny how once everyone gets back to their busy schedules we are more likely to be able to meet with them. We also finished up our meals with members this week. It was such a great opportunity to get to know the members better, but we can also get back to eating a normal amount of food. (Thankfully I didn't really gain anything. I've heard of missionaries gaining up to thirty pounds during guonian.) 

Nicole mentioned one thing in her email that I have actually been thinking a lot about this week. She talked about how my focus on miracles has been lacking this move call and that is definitely something I noticed as well. When I did exchanges with Sister Anderson last week I realized a lot of things: first I needed to find happiness again, second I wanted to start seeing miracles again, and third at that point if I was given the chance to leave Nantou without disgrace I probably would have taken it. 

It hurt to realize these things about myself, but I think it was also necessary for me to recognize and admit them. Because I had done so I was able to take this past week and turn myself around and look up to Christ. I'm not even sure what started helping me change or why I started getting happier, but I did and a couple of days ago I realized that I no longer wanted to leave this area. I was thinking about how this move call is already half way over and the investigators we have right now and (thinking that I have a good possibility of moving this next move call) realized that I do not want to leave. I don't want to hand over my investigators. I don't want to give up this ward, and I don't want my Nantou to change. I think I will always love this area. I've heard from other missionaries that you have a special love for the area where you were "born" in and I completely believe that. I would be content to spend the rest of my mission here, but unfortunately that's not how the Lord works. He waits until you are comfortable then moves you.

Anyway so this week I talked to Sister Hill about looking for the miracles more and every night we talk about the miracles we saw. I think that made a big impact of my change of attitude. Most of them were small things. Like we went to visit Patricia (an LA from Costa Rica) and were sitting and talking to her husband who isn't a member but is Christian. He started talking about how we have ups and downs in our lives and we should turn to God no matter if we are on an uphill or a downhill. It just so happened that the lesson I had prepared for Patricia and the theme of my personal study that morning had been about that exact same thing. I then shared parts of President Monson's conference talk to him and was able to testify of our living prophet. We were also able to serve Yu Mei a lot this week....(story as follows)

We had an appointment to go eat lunch with the Hong family (our RC's) on Tuesday at 11. They called us while we were studying around 10:30 to tell us that Yu Mei (she's the handicapped sister who follows us around all the time and calls us everyday to see if we need her to peike) had been outside their door since 9:30 and they didn't want to go down and her to follow them to the restaurant because they only had reserved seats for them and the missionaries. So we biked up to their house and went to see what Yu Mei wanted. She had copied the sign up sheet for people to feel the missionaries for guonian (so she knew where we were eating everyday) and was mad that no one was inviting or fellow-shipping her. I managed to convince her to meet us some other time at the church so we could go eat with the Hong family and we took some of her stuff so her bike wouldn't fall over while she was biking home (she had way too much).

So the next day we met her at the church and Lisa (one of our members who we had told about the matter) met us there as well to help out. Sister Hill and I got there a little earlier and found Yu Mei sitting outside the gate sobbing and trying to sing a hymn out of her hymn book. She didn't pay any attention to us as we walked up and continued singing and sobbing for another ten minutes. We managed to get her up and moved her and her stuff (again way too much for a bike) into the church.

The root of everything ended up being that her family is doing guonian cleaning and going through their stuff and trowing old stuff out. Her parents told her to go through her stuff and if she didn't by the beginning of March they would throw it away (sounds like most parents right?). So Yu Mei has been carrying around a ton of stuff (mostly church materials and scriptures) so her parents won't throw it away. She also hasn't been sleeping because she's been trying to go through her stuff, but it takes her a really long time. So she got sick because she hasn't been sleeping and all that stress has magnified everything else. So on Thursday we went over to her house with Lisa and Zhu jiemei (who are visiting teaching companions) to try and talk to her parents and help her go through her stuff. We only did a little, but over the past couple of days she has slowly been getting back to her old self. She has started calling us every morning again and showing up to every activity and following us around everywhere we go. As annoying as it was before, I'm now just glad that she's back to her old self. She now tells me all the time that I will forever bee Nantou-ren (meaning I was born in Nantou so its like my hometown).

We were also able to get a hold of Pan JM again and she said she was willing to come to church! This has been the hardest time I have ever had of getting an investigator to church so far. She called us Sunday morning and said she didn't really know where it was so in my broken Chinese I tried to explain things around the Church's area. She then asked if we could just meet at McDonalds then go over to the church. That would be fine except she was taking the bus and didn't have her own bike or motorcycle so we would have to walk and that is way too far. So I told her I would see and call her back and tried to call some members and see if they could help us. They said they would, but then I called Pan JM back to ask when she would get there. She told me probably 9:30 (church starts at 9:00) I tried to tell her that was too late so she said she could get there around 9:15...still too late. Then I realized that she would be passing the church on her way to McDonalds and tried to tell her there was a bus stop right next to the church. She didn't really understand me (which I don't think its my Chinese because I'm realizing she has a hard time understanding a lot of people). So I finally was able to set up for her to get to the Family Mart down the street from the church and call us when she got there (from a pay phone because she doesn't have her own cell phone...super inconvenient). She called us right after sacrament meeting and one of our members drove us down to the corner to pick her up. She then stayed for the next two hours. 

We were able to sit down with her after church and I asked her if she had a chance to read the Book of Mormon and she said she had. She showed me where her book mark was and she had read to 1 Nephi 14! I was shocked! I asked if she understood and she asked a few questions which we were able to answer (mostly about different names of Christ and analogies she didn't understand). Sister Hill then asked if she believed the Book of Mormon was true, she said yes. We asked why and couldn't really understand what she said, or hear very well, but I have high hopes for her progressing. She said she doesn't want her dad to know about her investigating the church but that's not as big of a deal as it could be because she is 27 and doesn't need parent permission is she wants to get baptized. We were supposed to meet with her this morning, but I think she forgot because she never showed up.

We were also able to catch Chen dixiong (the father of the family Sister Anderson and I started teaching) at work. It has been a really long time since we have been able to meet with them and I think they are losing interest. Their daughter is still willing to meet with us and has been reading and praying everyday, so I think we are going to focus on her and hopefully her family will follow.

On Friday the elders asked us to go meet with a husband and wife they have been meeting with again (Sister Anderson and I went once to visit them). The husband is so prepared! He kept talking about how he loves the Book of Mormon and believes it is true, but he won't come to church because his wife won't come. He wants to wait so they can go together and his wife doesn't want to listen. She doesn't want to give up tea and coffee so she won't listen to the rest of our message. She just can't let go of coffee, but that's the first thing she heard about the church (one of her friends is a member) so she hasn't gained a testimony of anything else. We hope that we can help the elders with her because her husband is ready (he's reading the Book of Mormon for the second time now.)

We moved Jia Zhen's bapismal date back again to March 9th because she didn't come to church on Sunday, but I have faith that this one will stick. This is another reason I don't want to move. Move call is on the 3rd of March, but I want to be able to be there for her baptism. If I only get moved to Taichung I could probably get permission to go, but if I go to Gaoxiong I won't be able to. 

That same night Sister Hill and I went contacting at the Denghui (Lantern Festival). It goes until the 24th and is right next to our house which is really convenient and a little annoying as well. The road is closed so we have to go around and it takes twice as long to get home, but there are a ton of people to contact. (By the way President gave me permission to take pictures of it! I'm going to try and get a camera today.) We tried for about fifteen minutes without anyone willing to talk to us (by then we had to go to Jia Zhen's) and Sister Hill said, "alright I'm not talking to anyone anymore." Two minutes later as we were walking back to our bikes we struck up a conversation with this lady and got her number. She lives in our area and knows about missionaries so we think she's met with them before. She may not become an investigator (or she might) but that testified to me to never give up. Always keep going because we never know when we are going to find those who are willing to listen. 

Well that's all I can think of. Thanks for your letters as always! I loved the pictures of Jemma on the bed, they are so cool! She's such a funny little girl! The bridal pictures look fantastic as well! Dad I hope everything at work gets figured out soon, but I'm glad you're keeping me posted. Everything will work out in the end...I know it! 

Also please tell Patsy thank you! It means so much to me! I could not imagine not having gone on a mission now. It's hard, but rewarding and I have learned so much and grown closer to my Savior because of it. I wouldn't give it up for the world. I'm glad Jemma had fun with friends and tell her I love her too! She's growing up to be such a big girl!

I love you all and pray for you always. And can't wait to tell you about the new miracles that roll through Nantou this week!

There's another miracle just around the corner.

With all my love,

Sister Fernley