Pictures

This is our district. So special, but I looove them all! :)

Bought $2.00 Kraft mac and cheese last PDay and it made us all cry. IT WAS SO GOOD.

Email from Sept. 28, 2015

This was a super long week. It was supposed to be transfer week! BUT they changed it to this Thursday! So that's kind of crazy. We'll be getting transfer calls tomorrow. But I really don''t think I'm leaving Shuang He. I've been here for 2 transfers and Sister Farr's been here for 1 now. Hopefully we'll stay together! But this upcoming Sunday they're splitting our ward, which could mean craziness for missionary work! New areas, new investigators, and possibly new missionaries! Pray for us!(;

This week's miracle? There were 2! 

First, we were finishing up our Weekly Planning on Thursday and we got a call from a member. She said, "Hey I have this friend who wants to hear about the gospel!" So then I think Oh awesome! Referral!!! Then she continues, "She's at my house right now. Can you and Sister Farr come over right now and teach her??" WAIT WHAT. It was the biggest miracle. So we went over there immediately and talked to her friend, Ye JM. Her parents are Taiwanese, but they moved the fam to Argentina when she was about 3. So her native language is Spanish, but her Chinese is super good, too. She just moved back to Taiwan about 2 years ago and is in her early 40's. She saw lots of LDS missionaries in Argentina, but never talked to them. She was always really curious though. We're so excited to meet with her again tonightand to give her a Spanish Book of Mormon! She's prepared and ready like someone from South America, but we get to teach her in Taiwan in Chinese(: YAY! hahaha

Second miracle, 5 INVESTIGATORS AT CHURCH YESTERDAY! :O First was one of our investigators who we almost dropped on Saturdaynight, Zhou JM. Amazing! We met this lady, Liu JM, about 2 weeks ago at a park. She came to church last Sunday with her Mom. They promised they'd come back the next week because they loved it so much. They hate Buddhism! haha! So they kept their promise, PLUS MORE! Liu JM brought her 9 year old son, and her Dad, too! WE'RE TEACHING A FAMILY NOW! Liu JM has had a really rough life, with divorce and other family situations. None of them have ANY christian background, so it's been really awesome to have the privilege of teaching them about their Savior for the first time. Liu JM, her son, and her mom, all set baptismal dates yesterday, too! Such a miracle!!!

Lastly... I'VE BEEN A MISSIONARY FOR A YEAR ON THURSDAY.

I've really come SO far. Last week, for fun, I read my first 2-3 emails from the MTC. WOW. I have overcome and changed so much on my mission. I've learned more about the gospel, about Heavenly Father, about Jesus Christ, about love, about myself, about people, about my family, than I EVER could've imagined I would. I have become SO much more grateful for everything my Mom and Dad have sacrificed for my family. Both big and small. Even though I'm just about as far away as I can get from them, I've never felt closer or more love for my family. I feel so proud of all of them and the things they're doing. :) I know that the MOST important thing in this life is to develop a relationship with Heavenly Father and prepare to return to His presence. I know that if I didn't learn that from my parents, I'd absolutely not be here right now. THANK YOU MOM AND DAD. :)

Another thing I've learned a lot about in the last year is our Savior, Jesus Christ, and His Atonement. I've had so many experiences in the last year where I've gained a testimony of His reality and His power. Back in April I found my favorite General Conference talk about the Atonement. "The Atonement covers all pain", by Kent F. Richards of the seventy. I think this quote, for me, sums up the power of the Atonement so well, "Perhaps His most significant work is in the ongoing labor with each of us individually to lift, to bless, to strengthen, to sustain, to guide, and to forgive us." His work is ONGOING. Just because He's gone up to heaven doesn't mean He's done performing miracles. He is ALWAYS with us. His greatest miracle is not just those that He performed in Jerusalem, He is still doing the same things as He did then. I am so privileged to be His representative.
I am looking forward to the next 6-ish months that I get to represent Him and continue to do His work, "to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man." Then I'll go home and figure out how to continue to do it(: His work is eternal.

"Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life." -3 Ne. 5:13

Thanks for the love and support over the last year, especially from my Family.

Couldn't do it without them!!!!!! <3

-歐姐妹

-Sister Oviatt

Email from Sept. 21, 2015

Sept. 25, 2015

So my year mark might be next week... it's really weird. I have 5 transfers left after this Friday's transfer meeting. I also just live in a really old apartment. One sister is going home next transfer, and my companion and the other sister are going home in mid December! Super crazy!!! I feel so different than I did a year ago. More on that in the coming weeks probably!

CONFERENCE IS COMING! <3 My first weekend as a missionary was last October General Conference. So the fact that it's coming again in 3 weeks (for us in Taiwan) is SO CRAZY! I'm probably more excited for General Conference than basically anything. Such a privilege we have to hear the words of our living Prophet and apostles. My first trainer, Sister Mao, got me addicted to reading conference talks. Sometimes, not tooo often, I'll just read Conference talks for dinner. It's a spiritual feast! (; SO everyone go enjoy conference in a few weeks! Invite your friends to watch a session with you! It'll be so great!

Our ward is splitting in 2 weeks!! We currently have Shuang He 1st and 2nd ward, but in 2 weeks on Oct 4th we'll have a special meeting and we'll have 3 wards in the Shuang He area! A Yong He ward, and then Zhong He 1st and 2nd wards. We thought they'd wait until the end of the year when we have stake conference, but they want to get it done now! So crazy! I never thought about this at home, but ward splitting means headaches for missionaries! Our areas are all gonna get divided up and we'll have to switch around our investigators, rc's and la's! Not to mention just getting to know a new area. The next month or so will be super busy!!!

Miracle for the week! Last night after dinner we went finding. Needless to say it was Sunday night after a long weird week. I was so tired and I didn't want to do anything. BIG props to Sister Farr for getting me out the door. She's the best. Anyways. We saw this family at the park. So we gave them an invite to English Class. Then we asked their 4 year old son if he had an English name yet. He said he's been going to an English class but they still haven't given him a name. So we thought for a second and thought that Zack would be a really suitable name. He and His parents LOOVED it! He yelled out, "I have an english name!!" Super cute! Then the mom was holding a little girl. We decided even though she was only 1 1/2 she still needed a name. So we said "Hello Lilly!" Then she started crying! :( So then we're like oh! new name! We thought for a second then said, "Hello Olivia!". She got the BIGGEST smile on her face and started laughing. Every time we said Olivia she just laughed and laughed! It was literally the cutest thing we've seen since coming to Taiwan. Then she has a twin brother who we named Oliver. The parents LOVED all 3 of the names and called them their English names the rest of the contact! :) They wouldn't give us their number or pray with us, but hopefully in the future they'll remember the 2 foreigners who gave them their English names! :) Planting seeds in Shuang He!

Well. Time's up. I'm going to the mission office to take the Phase 2 language test!! AAAH!

Thanks for the love!

-Sister Oviatt

Pictures

Georgia licence plate at a burger restaurant in Taipei! (:

DELICIOUS Peanut butter, bacon, banana burger in Taipei! Yay America! :)

Cool night picture of the temple a few weeks ago!

This is my scripture case(: made out of a granola box from costco. San Antonio temple, Family(A YEAR AGO!), SLC temple, lighthouse (cool analogy,, maybe next week), and an Elder Uchtdorf conference talk title, "The hope of God's light". :)

And the lovely Taibei 101. :) Top one's from my area, bottom one is from near the mission office. We were supposed to go to the top today, but it's too cloudy. :(

Krispy Kreme last week on Pday! :P Not as good as Round Rock and my comp doesn't believe me. Sad day for her!

Annie's email from Sept. 14, 2015

Sept. 14, 2015

What a week. Outdoor Zone Conference was so great! (Pictures to come next week!!!) I was reminded about being positive and LOVING MY MISSION IN TAIWAN. I was also re-motivated to pass off Phase 2. (Memorizing 2,000 vocabulary words) My goal now is to pass it off onOctober 1st, which is my 1 year as a missionary mark! :) In order to do that I figured out that I have to memorize 77 words a day with 5 review days. Previously I had been doing just BARELY 40 words a day. I was a little overwhelmed and freaked out at the 77. Sister Farr encouraged me and helped me find a new way to study Phase 2. But I still knew I needed some heavenly help to accomplish this. So Friday morning before Language study I said a really earnest humble prayer. I asked for the gift of tongues and the ability to get through and retain the 77 words of the day. I would do my best, and Heavenly Father would help me do the rest. So I worked all through Language study to get through the seemingly unconquerable stack of 77 cards. I got through them all!! Then I looked at the clock and I still had 10 minutes left of language study left! SO not only did I get through all 77 cards, but I had 10 minutes leftover to review them all! Such a miracle! The next day I had about 10 cards from that day that weren't super solid, but I was able to review and memorize those 10 PLUS that day's 77 cards! The gift of tongues is REAL. I know because I had faith in the Lord and I went and did my best, I was blessed. I really think I'll be able to reach my final goal!

Now we're really trying to apply this principle in this work in Shuang He. We're going to pray really hard over our goals every week/day and ask for God's help as we work our hardest to achieve them. I read a quote from an April 2015 conference talk this morning that said, "President Thomas S. Monson has taught us that 'men cannot really long rest content with mediocrity once they see excellence is within their reach.' How, then, could we be content with anything short of exaltation if we know that exaltation is possible?" Now that I've seen Heavenly Father's power in my language study, I don't want anything short of "exaltation". I know His power IS within my reach. I know that if we're doing our best and we're humble enough to rely on the Lord, we can do this great work. :)

Just our best is all he asks for! I'm not perfect yet and that's okay! (most days at least;))

-Sister Oviatt

Annie's email home on Sept. 7, 2015

Part of Annie's email home on Sept. 7th, 2015

Thanks for the football update! It's great to hear that it's all going pretty smoothly right now!(: LOTS has changed in 3 years!!!!! I looove showing off these pics to people hehe They're so huge and people don't ever ever believe that I'm the oldest(; So you know how Sister Farr is my "big sister" on the mission, cuz Sister Pieper trained her, too? This week I said, "Sometimes I can't tell if your my big sister or my mom!" and then she said, "They're one and the same." I laughed so hard! She's the youngest in her family so she's had like the opposite experience I've had growing up. It's so funny! She's been having fun being the big sister for once and I'm having to be the little sister. haha I thought you and the boys might get a kick out of that(;

Here's a funny story from yesterday when we were finding.. I had a language mess up! haha! We walked up to this college age girl to contact her. So we introduced ourselves, "Ni hao. Women shi zhe fujin de chuanjiaoshi jiemei. Wo xin Feng, er ma de Feng. Wo xin Ou, Ou Yang de Ou." 你好. 我們是這附近的傳教士姐妹. 我姓馮，二馬的馮。我姓歐，歐陽的歐。 (so that you can Google translate it(; ) So then after we say our names you obviously ask what their name is. BUT in Chinese there are 2 ways to ask, informal and formal. Usually we'll say the formal bc we're missionaries, but I randomly decided to say it the informal way, that my native trainer Sister Mao would say all the time... haha. So the formal way is to say, "您貴姓?"　”Nin gui xing?"　But the informal way to say it is, "你姓什麽？“ "Ni xing shen me?" So "xing" means last name right? Well if you just leave of the "g" it means beliefs, like religious beliefs. So when I asked, "What's  your last name?", she thought I meant What religion are you? then responded, "不好意思！我信佛教。“ “buhaoyisi! Wo xin fojiao!" Sorry I'm a buddhist！ I think I probably just killed the funny with all that chinese explanation, but basically I wanted to ask her last name, my companion also though I was asking her last name and then she was like sorry I believe in Buddhism! It was SUPER funny yesterday! We couldn't even continue the contact cuz we were laughing at the awkwardness. :)

Oh and then we were on our way home a few minutes later and we pass through this HUGE marketplace! It was like Aladdin, but CRAZIER! SO MANY old people! Anyways, we're just tryna get home and these college age boys selling shrimp stopped Sister Farr and tried to give her free shrimp cuz we're American. Then he's like just take some free shrimp! It's from Taidong! And then Sister Farr's like hey! me and my companion have both served in Taidong! So then I came up and was like what?! Taidong?! So we got some random free shrimp yesterday. It made our whole day! They still had their heads on and everything. SO fresh. But we were so excited to eat them we took the heads off before we remembered to take a picture. :( SO there's some craziness for the week! hahaha! Sister Farr and I have so much fun! We have our rough days for sure... but it's been a pretty great last few weeks! :)

So yeah.. there it is! This email took forever cuz I had to figure out how to tell that chinese mess up story... sorry! But overall I think Spiritually and emotionally it was a better week!... maybe not as far as the work goes, but we always have another week. One thing that's freaked me out though is the language... :/ Part of our language learning is to pass of these 3 "phases" of learning Chinese. Phase 1 is to learn PmG lesson vocabulary, grammar, phrases and such. Then Phase 2 is 2,000 common words and expressions I guess that we have to memorize then take a test with the AP's to pass it off. THEN phase 3 is learning how to read and write 3,000 characters. :P Usually sisters will have 12 transfers on island to do all 3 of those phases, and it's REALLY hard for sisters to do in that time. But I still have had the goal to get it all done before I go home. But I only had 10 transfers bc of my visa AND now I have 5.5 left. I still have about 1,500 words to memorize for Phase 2 and then I can go on to Phase 3. I really want to be able to pass it all off, but I don't think I'll have time. :( I was kinda sad about that this morning.

Anyways. Thank you for all of the prayers and love, momma! :) Keep up your great work and your prayers for me! They help!!!

<3/Annie