Pictures 11-28-2018

MTC family reunion (minus Elders Dalton, Preston and Bataa. They were missed!)

 

Our Thanksgiving dinner!

 

 

And the amazing South zone!

 

Our Thanksgiving dinner (Bread and apples!) It was really good!

 

 

 

 

My comp and her adult English class with their turkeys

 

Then my English class!

 

 

At the temple with 魏弟兄!

 

 

 

Our Bishop's family helping us with passing out English flyers!

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

感恩節!

I hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving! I am grateful for the opportunity to be serving as the Lord's missionary, and that I can serve in Taiwan! It's almost been a month since I've been in Taiwan and time is flying by! I have learned so much and yet I have 100000X more things to learn. And I'm so excited to learn it all!

So its actually been a week and half since I last emailed because we have the amazing opportunity to go to the temple today! We haven't gone yet, but I'm so excited!

So this week and half have been crazy and just flown by. But some of the highlights from this week!

-we had the awesome opportunity to take one of our RCs to the temple this week to go do baptisms for the dead for the first time. It was such an amazing experience to go with him, he told us afterwards he felt a spirit of peace. And we got to tell him that was the Holy Ghost and he wants to go back again soo yay!!! We actually got to confirmations while waiting for him to change. It was just a really amazing experience to be in the temple. I love the temple so much and I can't wait to go again today!

- I attended my first big zone conference! We had almost everyone from the mission there (there a couple of zones that are too far away to travel up for it). It was just amazing! They really focused on gratitude and rejoicing! So this past week I've tried really hard to rejoice and be gratitude for everything the good, bad, big and small. Let me tell you it has made such a difference (not a surprise), my attitude has been better and it's been more fun! I've realized that when we have this kind of attitude we are more open to understanding why God has go through the things we do. Very grateful for that experience and knowledge. It was also super fun because we got to see almost everyone from our MTC district. It was like a little family reunion! Also our Sister Peterson is just a saint and made us all an American Thanksgiving dinner! It was so good!!

  - in our English class this week we talked about Thanksgiving, and we made the little hand turkeys that you write what your grateful for on them. It was cute and fun! Haha I also made my class practice asking/passing food around the table, everyone was laughing so hard by the end of it!

- yesterday we handed out flyers for our English class with our Bishops family and other ward members. It was so funny because two of the little boys (about 5&7) stay with me the whole time and they would pass out the papers to people and I would try to talk to them but they would very nicely but bluntly tell the person "Ta tingbudong" (which means she doesn't understand what you're saying) and point to their mom and tell them to go talk to her🤣 I just about died from laughing, because they were trying to help me and it was so sweet.

I just have loved my time in Taiwan so far and I can't believe its already almost been a month. Being a missionary is the best thing ever! I love this gospel and I love sharing it with people!

Happy Holidays! Light the world!

Love, 包姐妹

Zone Conference/Thanksgiving

The Mission President's wife posted these pictures from their Zone conference/Thanksgiving.  It made me happy to know that Jill was able to celebrate Thanksgiving since it is not a holiday that is usually celebrated in Taiwan.  Plus it is always good to see pictures of her cute face. I didn't put up all the pictures, just the ones with Jill in them.


From Sister Peterson's post:
We had a joyous Zone Conference and a Happy Thanksgiving Feast together! We are feichang ganxie for all of our wonderful Missionaries and their families!
From Taiwan to you, Gan en jie Kuaile! 🦃

 

Pictures 11-19-2018

 An amazing view that we bike past every other day!

 

Our amazing STLS!!!

 

We walked up this road to visit a less activity, it was uphill for 30 minutes 

 

 

Part of the uphill road

 

The view of the top of the uphill road

 

 

One of the roads we were biking on

 

 

Nico! She got baptized on Saturday! 

 

 

My comp and I in front of the pretty view

 

On our way up that uphill road we saw this cool little thing off to the side so we took a picture

Then of course we went and climbed up it!

 

 

 

Adventures, Adventures and more Adventures

你們好! 我愛你們!❤

I have loved being in Taiwan and being a missionary! I'm still getting the hang of everything, but it's been an adventure doing so!

- today we got lunch with some of the other sisters (shout to Sister Griffin!) And got stuff ready for the rest of the week.

- Tuesday & Wednesday we got to go on exchanges with our STLs (Sister Training Leaders)! They were absolutely amazing! It was a really cool experience because I was able to see how somebody else did missionary work and get their perspective on things.

- Thursday I taught English class by myself again, it was 100X times better! We talked about emotions, and we sang if your happy and you know it the kids and the parents were getting into it. I wish I had taken pictures! Next time I will for sure!

- Friday we taught a couple different lessons, one was with a girl named Angel. She is about 16 and is trying to find the religion that fits her best, we extended the invite for her to be baptized and she accepted! She is amazing and I'm so excited to watch her continue to grow!

- Saturday we spent almost the whole day at the Chapel because our district/zone had 3 baptisms! We had the opportunity to sing at them. Its really amazing how much love you feel for people you've never met be baptized. I'm pretty sure I teared up at all of the baptisms because I could feel how happy God is for them.

- Sunday was a good day, we were at church from 8:00am until 3:00pm because of all the meetings. We had ward council and it was amazing because the whole time we talked about missionary work! Our whole ward wants to help so much that its amazing! Almost all of them if not all of them are converts to the church, and they love to share their stories and help others! I don't know what we do without our memebers! They also are constantly making me laugh because they can't pronounce the 'r' in my name so they call me Sister Potter, or some of the men in the world call me Sister Harry Potter. They think it's pretty funny!

Throughout the whole it was a pretty good week, there were times where I hit a tad bit of a bump in the road but I was able to get over it because of my Heavenly Father. I find myself praying more and more every day because I honestly can't do it without him! My testimony of prayer has grown so much in these past couple of weeks! I testify that he is there and he listens to us! And he will give us the answers that will help us the most. We don't always understand the answers right in that moment but that's ok because we learn to Trust God!

I love this Gospel! I love being a missionary! I love the opportunity I have to grow closer to my Savior through sharing his work!

I love you all so much!

Love, Sister Porter   包姐妹

你們好! Hello everyone!

This week has been kind of crazy, but so good! Earlier this week we had a guy tell us to pull over and he bought us fruit because he thought us coming to a foreign land to share what we believe is super cool! So it was an interesting but super cool experience!

A lot has happened this week and I don't remember all of it.

Last Monday we went to a memorial sight that really cool! It's all about the guy who stood up against China. I'll be sending some pictures of that's later.

For our exercise on Tuesday we went a hike up a hill behind our apartment. We had two ways we could go back down, my trainer told me that one way was little more steep and it had rained during the night so it was slippery. But of course I still wanted to go down that way. Haha almost reached the bottom when I slipped. I cut my hand and scraped my forearm pretty good. But no worries I'm good now, its healing slowly but surely.

I taught my first English by myself on Thursday. I'm teaching the kids class which is always so much fun! The only hard part is that they don't know a lot of English, I don't know a lot of Chinese and the moms who were there don't know English either. So there was definitely a language barrier, but this week we are having someone else in there to help me translate the words I don't know. So it should be a lot better!

The really big that happened this week happened on Friday. We hadn't taught anybody all week and we also didn't find anyone new to meet with. We never were out finding and I was starting to get a little annoyed with myself and my comp. That morning I just broke, I cried and told my trainer why I was frustrated. She really didn't know what to say to me at the time and so we just went out to do our comp study. We sat down at a 7-11 where we usually do our studies. We started talking to a guy who knew who missionaries were but wasn't interested in what we had to say. Almost right after lady came up to us asking us about English class. We shared that with her, and we also asked if she would be interested in learning more about our church. She said yes but she isn't in our area so we had to pass her along to our STLs. She did set up though so that was super exciting! Sister Garner then shared with me something called "The Riciardi Letter". A man wrote a letter to I think his son about his trainer on his mission. She shared a part that talked about what a successful missionary is. It talked about how you are a successful missionary that through giving it your absolute all, trying your hardest becoming converted yourself. I was hit so hard with the spirit, I could feel the Savior's love and I knew he was proud of me for trying and being out of my comfort zone. Almost immediately after this lady sat down next to us and started talking us about church. We talked to her for about 40 minutes and we had her set up for a chapel tour for the next day. When we asked her about her religious background she told us it didn't matter because she wanted to join our church. When she came the next day we shared with her the Book of Mormon and the restoration, she really loved it!

Since then we've set up with 5 new friends and 3 of them are families.

The lord is so mindful of us, he knows when we are struggling and when we will be pushed. But I know that is the way he strengthens us! I had my first bump in the road and I'm ready for the rest to come! I'm ready to be pushed out of my comfort zone and try my best.

I love you all so much! I'm keeping you all in my prayers!
我愛你們!

Love, Sister Porter
包姐妹

Pictures 11-05-2018

Jill and the view from her apartment

 

 

Jill and her companion, Sister Garner

 

 

 

More views from their apartment

 

 

Inside their apartment

 

 At the baptism of Xiaomeng

Jill with her new bike

 

Taiwan Taipei temple in the background

 

 

 

 

At their English class

They taught the kids Halloween words and wrapped them like mummies

 

P-day at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

 

 

 

 

 

 

Changing of the guard

 

If you are interested in the Kai-shek Memorial Hall, click on the links below.

 

https://eng.taiwan.net.tw/m1.aspx?sNo=0002090&id=73

 

https://guidetotaipei.com/visit/chiang-kai-shek-memorial-hall-%E4%B8%AD%E6%AD%A3%E7%B4%80%E5%BF%B5%E5%A0%82

 

 

 

First week in Taiwan!!!

早安! (Good morning!)

Weirdly I left the MTC a week ago exactly but have only been in Taiwan for 5 days. The time difference has messed with my head a little but it's getting better!

So when we first got here the APs and Mission President and his wife took us around the area of the Temple where we got lunch. We went on splits with the STLs and ZLs from the nearby areas. It was super fun! But we were all dead by 6pm.

On Thursday we went to the grand hotel to dedicate our mission! It was such a cool experience!We then got our trainers and were sent to our areas. I'm serving in the Bitan area, it's about 30 minutes of the Taipei temple. My trainer is Sister Garner! She's been out for about 9 months, she was Visa waited for a transfer so this is her 5th transfer on the island. Her Chinese is amazing! She's originally from Texas but her family lived in Singapore the last 2 years. That night we had one of our English classes, where we taught our kids Halloween words!

Friday we had our studies in the morning and then we did weekly planning which was like 3 hours so that took up a lot of our time. That night we had a fireside, our area president and one YM general president. It was super good! They talked about finding the elect, and developing faith.

Saturday was a little crazy, we actually had a baptism that morning. His name is 小孟 (xiaomeng), it was the first time I met him but I felt so much love for him. I could feel how happy the Savior was for him, it was such ana amazing experience. After his baptism we went to lunch with him, and 2 ward members. They took us to some Korean place, which was weird but also good. That afternoon our Elders had 2 baptisms so we then went to that. We had a lesson that night with a guy named 高弟兄，it was supposed to go for 30 minutes and went for 1 hour and a half. It went to really deep doctrine and I had no idea what was going on. But that's ok! He agreed to come to church next Sunday so that's super exciting!

Sunday was a tad overwhelming because all of it was in Chinese. The Bishop invited me during Sacrament meeting to bare my testimony, I thought it was good but I don't know if they actually understood me 😂 but something that just touched me heart was a little girl from the ward named liangliang (means bright light) came and showed me her ABC book she was learning. It was such a small thing but it really made my day! That night we had a Recent Convert Fireside. It was super cool because they have some converts who were baptized that month get up and bare their testimony. I didn't understand a lot of what they said but you could feel the spirit so strong!

I'm sorry this week has been crazy and a little overwhelming so I'm sorry if this email is all over the place. Hopefully we will be more put together next week!

Love you all!

Jill's Trainer

We got this picture in an email from the Mission Home.

 

This is Jill's trainer.

 

Hopefully after we get an email from her we can put a name to the face.