So Much to be Thankful For

I really do have a lot to be thankful for in my life.  Today's post will be dedicated to the blessings I have observed recently in my life.

1. I have the best family.  No, but really.  They are so wonderful and supportive of the choices I have made, especially the one to serve a mission. (Plus, I have an awesome sister who runs this blog for me.  Thank you, Annie.) [Editor’s note: I did not write that one, folks. It was from Sister Beer—I swear.]

2. Right now, I am full-time sharing my deepest beliefs with people and seeing the wonderful effect the gospel has on their lives.  It's awesome.

3. Not only do I get to do missionary work, but I get to do it in New York City, which is possibly one of the coolest places in the world.

4. I have a second chance to learn Mandarin.  Not many people get that.  And it's getting better!  Yesterday I translated an entire lesson for our senior couple.  We were teaching a recent convert and the Blairs came along to meet her, but since they don't speak any Mandarin, I was the bridge between them and the sister we were talking to.  It was pretty cool to be able to help them understand her needs and concerns, and to help her understand what they wanted to do to help.

5. This week I left my mission for the second time since coming here.  Now, most missionaries don't ever leave their mission boundaries while they are out, but this week we had the awesome opportunity to go to the New York South mission and help clean up and provide relief from Hurricane Sandy.  While I was there, I also got to see Elder Liston (who was one of my Bio 100 students at BYU) and Elder Steadman (who was in my district at the MTC) who were both helping with the project that day.  The South missionaries have been serving almost nonstop since the hurricane hit, and the people of Long Island are thankful for it.

6. I am part of a church that, when a disaster like Hurricane Sandy hits, organizes relief efforts quickly and quietly.  We serve where we can and hope that the people benefit from it.  I love it.

7. This week, after a long contacting drought, we got four numbers in one night, and three of them were former investigators from years ago!  It was a huge miracle for us.  We have recently had a difficult time finding people who are interested in our message, but these people seem prepared and ready to listen and learn about the gospel.

8. I am a part of the best district and zone in the New York North mission.  My fellow missionaries are obedient, diligent workers and I love it.  They set such a good example for me and for other missionaries in the mission.

9. Because I serve in Chinatown on Manhattan, I get some of the best food ever.

10.  My companion is wonderful.  She is loving, compassionate, patient, and loves what she is teaching.

The list goes on, but I'll stop there.  I am also so grateful for all of you and the support you have given me and other missionaries around the world.  I appreciate the contact that I have had with many of you over the past four months.  Thank you so much for your love and prayers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sister Beer

That one time I translated Sacrament Meeting . . .

Yeah, that happened.  And surprisingly, it wasn't all that bad.  This week Sister Liu and I were assigned to translate Sacrament Meeting (our Sunday service).  When I found out, I kind of freaked out.  Like, about a half hour of "WHY did they assign us to translate??" freaking out.  Since I am the native English speaker in the companionship, and my English is better than Sister Liu's, I was the logical choice to translate. Except for the fact that I usually can only understand other people's Mandarin when they speak really slow and say it more than once.  Luckily I have a very patient and spiritually sensitive companion.  After a few talks with Sister Liu, she reminded me of the power of faith and that if we trust the Lord, we can do anything He wants us to.  Partway through the week we found out that it was the Primary Program this week, and that a majority of the meeting would actually have to be translated from English into Mandarin for the congregation.  We decided that I would do the Chinese-->English translation, and Sister Liu would do the English-->Chinese translation with help from me if I felt comfortable.  After a few intense language studies and a LOT of praying the day came and the meeting happened, with a flawed, but passable translation on my part.  (Sister Liu did an amazing job, by the way.  Her English comprehension is awesome.)  There were a few times when I had to turn to the English speakers and say "I have no idea what they just said," but for the most part I was able to get the idea across.  That experience done, one of my new goals is to be able to translate in meetings by the end of the cycle.

In other news, Sister Liu and I have started running.  Take as much time as you need to pick your jaw up off the floor.  Despite my long-lived abhorrence of running and everything like unto it, running is one of the only options of exercise left to us now that our downstairs neighbors have objected to our morning exercise, using words like "moving furniture."  Yeah... I'd rather not have my movement compared to a sofa, thanks.  But, out of respect to them and respect for our bodies, we are now venturing out into the world for our daily exercise.

A thought before I leave you: this week we had two member present lessons.  This is a pretty big deal for us, since it is very difficult in Chinatown for people to find time in their schedules to come to investigator lessons.  Can I just say how much I love having members at our lessons?  It brings a wonderful spirit and a great resource for the investigator to have a friend they can talk to, and someone besides the missionaries testifying of truth.  I challenge any who have the opportunity to go with the missionaries and share their testimony.  You have no idea how much good you will do in helping that person as they come closer to Christ.

That's all I have for you this week.  I love you all!

Sister Beer

Back to normal?

大家好,

Post-hurricane life is... cold.  As with many storms, this one has left a chilly aftermath, including a Nor'easterner coming in tonight.  There is already snow falling from the sky, which I have mixed feelings about, and I am beginning to wish that Sisters could wear pants.

The work, however, is doing great.  One of our investigators is preparing for baptism, and he's fantastic!  We taught him lesson 3 yesterday, all about the Doctrine of Christ.  The Doctrine of Christ includes five steps:

1. Faith on Jesus Christ and His Atonement

2. Repentance

3. Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins

4. Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost

5. Enduring to the End

As we were teaching him about these principles, he just understood.  There is no other way to describe it.  The hardest one to teach in my opinion is the last step, about enduring to the end.  Often people look at baptism as a thing that finishes the conversion process.  On the contrary, baptism is only the beginning our discipleship to Christ and is a gateway to the path leading us back to our Heavenly Father.  When we asked our investigator his opinion about if we need to continue building faith after baptism, he looked at us and said (I'm translating) "Of course!  We need to continue to learn more."  I was SO happy to hear that.  He gets it!  As he takes these steps to grow closer to Heavenly Father, he is only going to see more blessings in his life.  That's true for all of us, by the way.  As we continuously try to better ourselves and become more like Jesus Christ, we see more blessings and experience more happiness in our lives.

Now that I have talked about that for a bit, let me inform you about how the hurricane affects my mission and our work here.

We are still waiting to hear about when we can go to help the New York, New York South and New Jersey, Morristown Missions.  At this point there is not enough of an organized effort for missionaries to go down to help right now.  There are many areas of the city that are still not open to civilians and many still without power.  Luckily we in our mission have power (the only on who doesn't right now is the mission president, and that's because of all the trees down around his house) and we have been able to return to proselyting work until we are called to serve other places.  We also have been actively looking for service opportunities in our area and have had a few chances to work distributing food and water, as well as helping people fill out forms for replenishing food stamps.  They were very grateful to have some Chinese speakers around to help!

Ah!  I almost forgot.  Today was transfers, and we lost two of our district.  Elder Huang and Sister Gao have returned home, bringing the Chinatown district down to 12 missionaries.  Because Sister Gao left, Sister Chueh has now switched over and is Sister Khong's new companion.  She will finish training Sister Khong, and Sister Liu will finish training me!  I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be trained by Sister Liu.  She is so happy and such a good missionary!  I also am hoping that my Mandarin will improve lots over the next six weeks, since SIster Liu doesn't speak much English and we need to communicate somehow!  We use her electronic dictionary a lot to translate things, and so far, it has been pretty great.

To start off our cycle, we went to the National Museum of Natural History and checked out the Dinosaur Exhibit!  It was pretty awesome.  I like dinosaurs. :)

That's all the time I have for today.  The Blairs have invited us over for dinner, so we have to get going.  I love you all!

Love,

Sister Beer

P.S.  I got to go stay for a couple days up in Harlem (while we didn't have power in Chinatown) with some sisters there, and it was super fun!  Also, I can say now that I have been to Harlem, which is pretty cool.  While I was there, I was looking at pictures on the wall and who should be smiling back but one Kirt Davis!  It makes sense, he was an Assistant to the President (AP) in this mission for a while, but I forgot that people here knew him.  Kirt, you are still remembered and loved by many here in New York!

My Date With Sandy

Hello, all. 

I am happy to inform you that we did not blow away in the storm!  And by storm, I mean hurricane.  Who knew New York got hurricanes?  (Actually, I heard they had one last year, but it's not really a place that you think of getting hurricanes!)  We did, however, lose power, so I am actually writing this post from the mission home in Scarsdale.  We have been having a good few days in our apartment in Chinatown, but since we have been without power for a couple days and there was no way to write home, they had us come up here so we could communicate with you all.  I will say that I am now very familiar with our area book, and I have learned how to light a gas stove without an automatic starter.  Good skills to know, I think.  The one thing is that since we have been in the apartment, we haven't been able to meet with many investigators this week, so that has been a little frustrating, and our plans for a hot-pot and pumpkin pie night for our departing Sister Gao have been cancelled.

In other news, we have new missionaries in our district!  The Blairs are a senior missionary couple (that's just what it sounds like, an older couple who chose to go on a mission) that have been assigned to our little branch.  Neither of them speak Mandarin, but Elder Blair spent ten months of his mission in the South East Asia mission in Hong Kong.  They live in our building, right next to one of the companionships of elders downstairs.  We love them already and know that they will be an excellent contribution to our district and our branch.  One good about this hurricane is it has given us more of an opportunity to get to know them.  On Monday they and the elders came up to our apartment to help us put up our blinds.  Afterwards, since we couldn't leave our apartments, we ordered a couple of pizzas, went to the Blairs' apartment, and had a little family night. 

This whole hurricane deal has really reminded me how wonderful it is to be prepared.  The Church encourages all of its members to prepare food and water in case of emergencies, as well as any other supplies they may need.  The same goes for missionaries, and before the storm hit we were reminded to get everything we need.  We then were given the excellent opportunity to serve our ward, especially our recent converts and less active members.  We called all of them to remind them to prepare themselves, and to tell them how much we and the Branch Presidency loved them.  Many of them were grateful for the information and to hear that we wanted them to be safe.  We will follow up with them soon (once cell phones are working a little better) and see how they weathered the storm.

I am grateful for a mission home that still has power and internet, a mission president that thinks to send updates to my family, and for an awesome district that is so willing to serve each other.  it has been a pretty great couple of days, all things considering.

We'll see how this next week goes - I have a feeling we are going to be helping out a bit with cleanup.  I'll let you know.

Love you!

Sister Beer

Week Four: In Which an Apostle Visits and the Missionaries Go to a Farm

Yep, you read that right. D. Todd Christofferson came to visit our mission on Saturday!  Having an Apostle come to speak is pretty much like Christmas for missionaries.  It was awesome to feel the spirit that accompanies an Apostle and to feel how much he loved us and our mission.  He told us about how the Lord asks us to call people to repentance, and that repentance will bring them joy.  When we sin, we are separated from our Heavenly Father, and that separation brings sadness.  I know from experience that when we truly repent we have joy.  The Lord wants to bless us and wants us to be happy.

In other news, we went to a farm this week!  

Our ward went on a special trip to a farm outside the city.  It was awesome!  Once you leave the metro area, it's easy to see that fall has come to the Northeast.  

We bought apples, I ate a cinnamon sugar donut, and we looked at pumpkins. All around a great trip, I think.

Afterwards we went to West Point Military Academy, an Army school located in New York.  It's pretty old and pretty famous, and I actually had a friend in the MTC who was enrolled there.  They have a museum there dedicated to military history in America that was interesting.  Our ward is great.  The members are wonderful, and so humble.  I am blessed to be working with them.

Also, I would like you all to know that coming on my mission has not stopped me from baking!  I was a little scared that I wouldn't have time to bake, but as of yet I have made banana bread twice, so it's all good. 

I'm looking forward to other cooking adventures soon... :)

I have the opportunity today to go to the temple, which is great.  We get to go once every transfer, and this time around this is the week our District chose.  

The Manhattan temple is unique, however, in the fact that half of the building is temple and half is a meetinghouse.  As of yet I have only gone to the meetinghouse portion, so I am super excited to go to the temple today!

Because we are downtown for P-Day, I was able to fulfill a life dream.  For lunch Sister Gao, Sister Khong and I (I am on splits right now) went and bought some soup at a local supermarket and sat in the plaza in front of the temple to eat. 

 Growing up, that's kind of what I imagined New York City was like, sitting outside, cars driving by, sipping your hot chocolate or soup, and thinking about whatever people in New York think about.  Now I can check that off my bucket list.

That's all I have time for today.  Thank you for your prayers and your missionary efforts at home.  I had a friend tell me once that miracles happen every day, and if we don't see them, we aren't looking hard enough.  Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Beer

Resolving to be Happy, and Other Wonderful Things (Or: In Which Sister Beer Learns a Lesson)

Okay, everyone, this week has been amazing.

Let me just start by saying I LOVE General Conference.  Every six months I look forward to listening to the words of the Prophet and figuring out how I can apply them in my life.  This time was no different, only that I had the wonderful added bonus of being a missionary on top of the usual spiritual feast.  To start off, we had five of our investigators attend at least (note, at LEAST) one session of General Conference.  They got to benefit from hearing the awesome talks given and feel the Spirit that is at conference.  Also, the content of this particular conference was pretty much amazing.  Let me explain:

1. The age at which young men and women can go on missions has been lowered.  I am so excited for all of the 18 year old Elders and now 19 year old Sisters that have the opportunity to go serve.  I know that if that had been announced when I was 19, I would have filled out my application papers that afternoon!  I am predicting an influx of missionaries over the next year, which is exciting to everyone who participates in missionary work. (Which when you think about it, should be every member of the Church.... "Every member a missionary," anyone?)

2. Two new temples have been announced, bringing the total to 139 operating temples and 29 in progress.

3. There were some incredible talks given, including Dieter F. Uctdorf's talk about happiness (where the title of my post comes from) and David A. Bednar's talk about true conversion (which was a part of his Character of Christ talk that I have referenced before).  Here's the part where I learned a lesson, and my week became amazing.  The past week has been challenging.  Learning Mandarin and how to teach the Gospel to people in Mandarin is hard.  And I was complaining about it.  Not necessarily to my companions, but inside I was.  I kept thinking how sad it was that I couldn't do anything, how I was so frustrated with myself. Then Dieter F. Uctdorf spoke, and I felt like my questions I had were answered.  He talked about serving others and finding joy in the service, and how as we obey promptings of the Holy Ghost, the Lord will open pathways and talents we did not know we had.  He reminded me that we choose for ourselves to be happy, as is stated in 2 Nephi 2:27. "Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man.  And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all me might be miserable like unto himself." We are free to choose between the two, and I would prefer the first one, myself.  I am happy to say that now things are looking bright. I am finding Mandarin is still difficult, but my outlook on it has made things better and I am noticing more the resources that Heavenly Father has given me to learn. (Including two wonderful companions who know what they are talking about!)

Story time: On Sunday one of our appointments didn't show up (in China they call that catching a pigeon) and we were trying to figure out what to do next.  As we were sitting there, a woman walked in with her daughter.  She said she had come to check out our church and that her friend had told her about us.  That friend, it turned out, was a woman that Sister Chueh had contacted months ago who stopped taking lessons.  In any case, she was excited to learn about our church and agreed to come to General Conference with us.  She and her daughter ended up staying for both Sunday sessions!  They are wonderful people and I am so excited to start teaching them!

Also, I had dim sum for the first time this week.  And it was delicious.

Okay, that's all for now.  I hope you all have a great week!

Love, 

Sister Beer

P.S. One of my investigators this week told me I look like Lady Gaga... I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I want to be a part of it . . . New York!

Yes, everyone, I have arrived in the big city!  Sorry about the week off of blog posts, last Wednesday was crazy.

New York is everything I expected it to be, and nothing I expected it to be at the same time.  Chinatown especially.  When I walk down the streets here, I feel like I am back in Taiwan, but then I remember that I am in the middle of a city in America and my brain gets super confused.  Except for the odd foreigner, everyone here is Asian.  Wow... by foreigner I actually mean American.  Sorry about that.  It's like a completely different culture and country here!  The weirdest part is that if you walk a couple of blocks one way or the other, there is this transition from Chinatown to the rest of New York and suddenly you are in America again.  It is rather jarring at times.

I have eaten lots of good food this week, and tried some new stuff that was pretty good too.  We eat a lot of noodles and this interesting rice-noodle-block thing called changfen (it is Cantonese food, according to my companion) that is super delicious.  I arrived just in time for Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, so we have been eating lots of moon cakes.  I think my favorite is the lotus filled cakes.  They are super good.  My first night here we went and got potstickers at the sisters' favorite place - super good.  The weirdest things I have eaten since getting here are chicken foot (not the worst thing I've eaten) and two small whole fish.  Sister Liu had to help me debone the fish so I could eat it.  I don't have her sweet chopstick skills yet.

Speaking of Sister Liu . . . I have two native companions!  I am the only non-native sister here right now, which is exciting.  My companions' names are Sister Liu (from China) and Sister Chueh (from Taiwan).  They are fantastic and have been super good to me this first week.  They are very patient with my Mandarin and do a good job of including me in contacting and in teaching.  I have actually been able to contribute to the last few lessons we have taught, which is super awesome.  I only understand about a third of what goes on most of the time, sometimes less, so I am happy when I can actually contribute.

Sorry this is a shorter letter, I don't have much time this week.  A quick thought before I go: I got to go to the General Relief Society Broadcast this week (down at the Manhattan Chapel, which is in the temple!  Half of the building is temple, half is chapel.  It's pretty cool.) and I loved how much of the meeting was about the Atonement.  It is through the Atonement of Christ that we are able to find peace in this world.  My favorite verses describing the Atonement are found in Alma 7:11-13.  Jesus Christ descended below all things so we could be lifted up and be happy with our families forever.  I know this is true.  We can access that Atonement through diligent prayer and communication with our Heavenly Father, and it is available to everyone.

I love you all! 

Sister Beer

With my cousin Micah--er, Elder Safsten.

This is from my window, but we actually moved to a new apartment that doesn't have quite as nice a view, but it does have a washer and dryer.  I think I'll take the washer and dryer.