Fun Stories from the Mission Field

Last week we had our temple day. But! The temple is so beautiful! And it's totally Asian! Its actually really hilarious but amazing at the same time. It's also one of the smallest temples I have ever been in, in my life! But it was wonderful!

Afterwards, We decided to have some lunch with Sister Thiessen and Sister Daye and it was so delicioius! We went to this Japanese restaurant and they grilled our food right in front of us! But it was it not as expensive as you would think. It's expensive for Taiwan but for America it's stinkin cheap! Like stinkin, stinkin cheap. We only spent about 8 dollars a piece and got so much food!

Then we decided to head to a gondola next to the Taipei zoo! 1) I really dont do well with heights...especially since I was in something that was only attatched to a wire! and 2)...I went anyways and the scenery was beautiful!!! It's kind of a silly thing for missionaries to do because it ends at  a bunch on tea plantations... But it was so fun!!! Then we headed back home and that was really the end of our p-day! So much fun!! But, my companion and I really realized that we are so blessed to have each other. We are really one of the only new companionships that really really get along. Which is crazy to think about but so true. She is seriously like one of my best friends in the whole wide world and my Taiwan experience would be really different without her. Lastly, every wednesday night we teach an english class and they always put the youngest missionary in charge of the most advanced class. I realized that my spelling is getting SO bad! AHHH! I dont know if I can live with myself! Just kidding! But seriously, I haven't been this bad since like the 4th grade! Gah! My students were correcting me! But they say it's a sign that means I'm learning the language..So I guess I can sacrifice my spelling abilities for a little bit!

Thursday wasn't too exciting because it was WPS (weekly planning session) and that with studies means we dont leave the house until about 4 in the afternoon. Crazy!!! But we were out contacting that night and I saw this old lady who was walking past me and said hi. She promptly looked the other way and continued to walk faster to get past me. My companion and I just laughed. The people out here scared really easily, especially to foreigners because they think you dont know the language and they can't speak english and they don't want to feel dumb. haha. but nonetheless it was really funny!
Friday and saturday were kind of a blurr but really really cool!

I went on exchanges for the first time with one of the temple tour sisters. Her name is Sister Austin and she is from Talahassee! I know! Great right! But the temple sisters calling is so awesome! The best part is that we taught lessons to their investigators that day! But while in companionship study Sister Austin really helped me realize a lot of things and gave me a huge boost of confidence. She actually reminds me a lot of my friend Hilary. It was like being on splits with her again only being able to really ask her questions about mission life. What a boost to my confidence! I always feel like I'm doing everything wrong and I hardly ever have the courage to speak to people. But she really gave me a lot of good tips and I've learned the past week that not relying on English is the only way I'm going to ever get this language. So in lessons if I pause when trying to talk to someone they know it's because I'm really trying to find the words to communicate and it makes our lessons so much better! But I also learned that there is absolutely no point in bringing your journal on exchanges because you don't have time to write in it anyways.

But I have a few really cool/hilarious experiences while out this weekend. We went running that morning in the same place I went when I first got here and we able to get there early enough that we saw the Taiwanese gaurd play the anthem and hoist their flag into the air! It was so cool. Then later that day we taught a lesson to an investigator and I was really able to talk to her and it really helped both of us out (the investigator and i) At one point Sister Austin gave me this look of like wow! Who are you?! Hahaha! It was really hilarious. And the last funny story. Her companions bike nearly killed me! The breaks seriously don't work and I nearly crashed into Sister Austin while turning a corner. When I told her that the breaks really don't work she said...and I quote" yeah, you just kind of have to prepare yourself" hahaha! So funny! It was a probably one of the best days of my life!

Lastly, sunday we had a miracle!!! We invited 8 of our investigators to church and 8 came!!!!!!!!!! GAH!!!!!! So wonderful! Then after church we had our studies and then headed over to wu mama's for dinner and then headed back to downtown Taibei for the fireside we have every month.Which they have all the missionaries sing in. Which they made me and my companion do a little solo in the beginning. Good thing we can both sing. Did I mention that we have to take a bus and it's the lantern festival today so the ride back and there was seriously so crammed! it's actually quite hilarious. just when you think you can't fit anymore people 10 more get on the bus!!! haha!
Overall it's been a wonderful week and I'm so stinking excited to tell you all about it!
I love you all bunches and I keep you in my prayers!!

Love,
Tiffany!

MeiMei Burton Celebrates Chinese New Year

To all my Facebook friends, I want to let you know that I can recieve emails, I just can't send them back. So, I will be sending out a few letters today.

Life in Taiwan is going really really good. We are teaching a lot of people and they are all super prepared to learn the gospel. That's somethings I'm very grateful for. Even though my Chinese is really bad I think they all know that I'm trying and they appreciate it.

I feel super blessed to have such a wonderful companion. If I had anyone else I'm sure I would be a lot worse off. This week we started riding bikes and guess what color I painted it! Bright ORANGE!!! It's actually quite hilarious ot see. My companion and I still laugh everytime we come around the corner and see it. But anyways, the first day was really good but the next day was a challenge. My bum was so stinkin sore! But now I'm all good. We actually had to bike in the rain last night. It was super cold and super wet and my hands haven't been that cold in well over 8 months. Haha It seriously reminded me of Rexburg. But there are so many cars and scooters here you have to be pretty careful or you could get doored (this is the act of running into an open door) but thankfully that has yet to happen.

This week started with not understanding the language. I ting bu donged (didn't understand) anything going on around me and then it only got worse as the days followed. But I'm pretty ok now. I'm pretty sure Heavenly Father was just telling me to be humble.

Last p-day we all went out to this moutain in our area and went hiking. Now in America, hiking is litteraly following a trail and walking up a hill. I was stupid to think that it meant the same thing in Taiwan. Here it means steps....lots and lots of steps! I was shocked! I have included pictures of the this! But also the view at the tope of the hike was beautiful. It just overlooks the city and you can really see how big it is.   Here's a fun little side note about Taiwan. back in the old day they used to bury their dead on the side of hills. Hint why I included a picture that looks like their are houses on the side of a hill..nope! those are graves!

Now, on to the main dish of everything that is going on. Literally there is so much food! It acutally makes me a little sick just thinking about it. You name it, people eat it. I have included pictures. It's pretty crazy! But Chinese new year out here is like Thanksgiving for us. Only everyday for a week and for lunch and dinner they prepare these HUGE meals and the missionaries are kind of expected to eat most of it. I love that the people are so caring but my stomach is in no shape to be able to down all of this food. Now your question may be...Tiffany, what have you eaten so far? Oh! Let me tell you! Last night I had octopus and some really big shrimp (which I actually hate with a passion) and You guessed it! A fish eye! The culture out here thinks that the fish eye is the healthiest part of the fish so they give it to their guests. Yep! Me and another Elder got one but the guy chickened out! I ate mine though. Dad would be so proud! But yes, they love their crazy food out here. One night my companion was sitting next to me and ate duck feet. I had chicken feet the day before and it wasn't too bad. A bit to boney for my taste but it actually isn't too bad!

Last thing for you today! Saturday we did temple tours and It was so much fun. We spent all day on the temple grounds and then tracting and getting people to come and take tours and it was a really great experice. Most people don't realize how awesome the temple ground is for giving tours. But it works wonders. Best part is while teaching I almost got the words death and hope mixed up. Two very different words...but in Chinese they are really similar. One is siwang and the is xiwang. Yeah, if you could hear it you would know how crazy it is. Anyways, thats all I have now from the life of this missionary. Love you all!

Love, Tiffany

First Impressions of Taiwan

Oh my word! Words cannot describe how amazing Taiwan is. I fell in love the first night and continue falling in love even more with this country and this people every single day. You would love it here so much! There are so many people and it's so rainy and the buildings are so tall. I have yet to go through a culture shock. This place just feels like home. Like I'm meant to be here. It's a wonderful feeling!

Well, the time difference is about 14 hours...I'm ahead. The flight was actually not too bad. It was about 15 hours and the one headed back home will probably be just as long if not shorter. But that's just from L.A. It was funny because every time I would fall asleep, I would wake up to find that some part of my body had fallen asleep too! It was either my legs or one of my arms. So funny!

My new p-day is Mondays. My mission president is by far one of the bext men I have ever met! The first morning we were here he took us out running in this park called Jiang something. I forget the name of it but it's a really famous park in Taiwan so it won't be too hard to find on google. Then afterwards President Grimley took us out to breakfast and it was so stinkin delicious!!! Afterwards we just had a bunch of orientation and then they made us go on this scavenger hunt...HA! They basically let us loose around Taiwan for about 20 min and we were to talk to as many people as we possibly could. Which is interesting because I really don't speak the language. After dinner they have this babysitting activity. We got paired up with a senior missionary (who actually spoke the language) and we just went out tracting for a solid 2 hours. The one thing we had to do that was my favorite is called don jioaing...which turns out that when the light turns red and all the people pull up (most on scooters because that what they ride here) you just scream your testimony to them about the book of mormon..they best part is people don't really know how to react to that so they just sit there and try their best to ignore you. But it's they best feeling afterwards and you just feel so pumped!

Friday I got my trainer!!! Her name is Sister Wu and she is a bendiren (pronouced bundeeren)..which is Chinese for native. She is from southern Taiwan and I will be killing her after 2 transfers. I love her so much! She speaks English really well so it's nice because I basically have a walking dictionary with me who can really help me perfect my chinese. She is litterally a lot like me and if I were Chinese I probably would be just like her! I also have my "dad" (the other sister in our tri-panionship) in the mission field with me too. Her name is Sister Burrell  and I love her so! She is super helpful and always has like the best advice. I'm serving in an area called Sungshan. Google it! It's so pretty and I have Taipei 101 in my  area! The people here are so stinkin nice and super helpful to missionaries. It's a really big blessing.

But anyways, back to the story. We went and taugh like 4 lessons after I got back and dropped off my stuff. But one of the lessons after dinner fell through and so we went chaomening...knocking on doors..or in taiwan..ringing a lot of doorbells because there are so many floors in each building. I rang one doorbell and the lady litterally closed the door in my face. I saw quite a few miracles that night though. We walked down this street and said a prayer and then my companions asked me which way to go. So I lead the way and we had no luck for about 4 doors. We were standing at this door and I was ringing the doorbells and no one was answering, but I leaned up against the door and it opened! So, we walked up the stairs and ended up teaching a full lesson to somone! It was so cool!

Saturday  we got qinged! Which means a member took us out for dinner. This member is called sister trouble (I dont know her Chinese name but that it what she goes by!) I learned though that when you get qinged you have to eat every single peice of food they put in front of you.. otherwise it's super disrespectful! Do you know how much food they give you?!?!!? Oh my word it's like Thanksgiving dinner only you don't get to pick how much you want to eat. You just eat whatever is put in front of you! Hahaha! Needless to say I took a lot of food home with me that night! That and this city is like the bread capitol of taiwan. Oh my gosh!!! I might die! Hahaha! But thankfully my bike showed up! Today I'm headed out to go and buy a helmet so I can ride it. But anyways, Saturday I was so stinkin tired that I was struggling with one of our last lessons of the night. It was so hard to stay awake and the worst park is my companions noticed! Haha! But they weren't offended. Most chinese people know that my first week here is going to be long. But the lesson right after this one was so amazing and spiritual. We were meeting with a recent convert who got really really offended at church and was having a hard time with forgiving them. She wasn't sure if God really loved her and we really struggling. They only thing we could do was comfort her and let her know that we love her. I bore my testimony and totally cried. I love her so stinkin much and I didn't realize it would only take me one meeting to feel that way. So good!

Sunday!!!! Was so much fun! Our ward starts at 9am and we had 3 investigators show up..i'm not sure if that is good or not but i thought it was! Then afterwards we had stuides and then we had dinner at Wu Mama's house! Love her! She is one of the coolest members in the ward and pretty much the missionaries mom. Did I mention at church they gave us more food? Oh my goodness! But we sat down and ate dinner and one of the investigators sitting next to me was Zang DX(brother Zang) and he was like here try this! and keept putting stuf fin my bowl!!!!!! ahhh!!! It was so funny but the food was so good. The best part was they brought a big plate of fruit(best fruit i have ever tasted btw) and then he proceeded to sit next to me and keep showveling food in my mouth! Hahaha! Good thing I really like fruit because he just kept coming with it. ahhaha! Ok! Last story! Last night my companions thought it was funny to feed me pidan...which litterally means 2000 year old duck egg. I didn't know that and I have a motto for my mission...try everything....yep! I definately took a bit of this rotten egg...It was so gross! I cannot even tell you! I took a video of it that I might send you at one point. haha But it can't go on facebook! But yeah, thats life in the mission field so far! I'm loving every minute of it! If you have any questions just let me know! Love you!

Sister Burton

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Missions are intense!

 S0 I was thinking about it the other day and holy cow... missions are intense. Even if you are English speaking and I just have the biggest respect for all the return missionaries I know and love. Thank you for all that you do!

Love, Tiffany!

I Set Fire....To The Rain

So, first off I just have to say that I'm so stinkin excited to talk to my family next tuesday!!!!!!!!! Yep!! I got my travel plans this week and I leave Tuesday morning at about 6 from the MTC but I fly out of Salt lake at about 10 and land in LA at about 11 their time. Then I have a 5 hour layover in LA!!! So that is when I will be calling the fam. My flight is so stinkin long. 14 HOURS!!! But I'm super stoked and I'm so excited to finally leave this place and get to work!

 

The language is continuing to progress and if you haven't noticed so far, my english is starting to disappear. Hahaha! 

 

Life in the mtc is slowly getting better.......mostly because I'm leaving.  Boy do I have stories for you this week! So many funny/ awesome things have been happening. I can't wait to speak Chinese to you all!

 

 So, we found out that the next generation is getting 35 new missionaries which is crazy big for the past few generations. The funny part is when our branch president was telling us this I replied with a "Shut up"..instantly after that My comp totally smacked my leg and was like sister! Don't say that...It was super funny because everyone just laughed afterwards.

 

Then at gym yesterday I kicked a ball back to the people playing four square and...totally hit another sister in the face...yeah...i knew her too...she is in my younger generation....after feeling absolutely terrible..she didn't even cry and everything was fine...it's just been an interesting week..hahaha!

 

On sunday we went on the temple walk (we just walk around the provo temple) and we ran into this CHINESE family!!! It was so cool! They were taking pictures with us and asking us questions and we were able to talk to them and everything! It was so stinkin cool! I loved so much and it made me even more excited to go!

 

Last story, so you know how everyone likes to sing in the bathroom (gotta love the MTC and it's many shower stalls)..I totally thought it was super weird that girls like to harmonize..it's normal to sing by yourself but really....harmonizing with strangers while showering is awkward in my opinion.

I wanted to share with you a couple of things that have happened to me this week. I realized that the Lord has been working on my heart a lot. In many different ways. I was in devo on sunday and I'm not sure what was being said but there was this sister who went up and her song really touched me for some reason. I think I'm starting to have more of a Christlike love towards others. I think it's my missionary self starting to come out. I really am growing here and I've only started. I also have been reading in 2 Nephi a lot lately and especially the last chapter is my favorite. Nephi is basically my hero when it comes to really having hope for his people even though he knows that eventually some might fail. I just wanted to share that experience with you. I'm so exited to leave and start my mission in Taiwan. It will be wonderful!

Make sure to fill me in on everything and let me know how life is. I love you all bunches and bunches!!

Tiffany

Still in the MTC.

Hey!!!

So this week has been soooo much better! Everything is starting to fall back into place! Life is going good. Things with my companions are so much better. We finally figured out how to teach together and everything and it's just starting to run smoothly. I thank my heavenly father for that so much! So funny story to tell you, I got a letter from that guy (who shall remain nameless) this week and he basically was like sorry i haven't written you I have been really busy. Then he proceeded to give me a bunch of excuses. I was like whatever and I asked Heavenly Father to help me move on from him. Thank heaven He answers prayers because that is exactly what happened. Yes! Haha.

 

I also asked not to be attracted to any more of these elders and that happened also. But I will tell you a fun story! So the other day I was holding my classroom door open and one of the new elders who is serving in Cambodia came over and was talking to me. Next thing  I knew he was like 8 inches from me and I felt SOOOOOO uncomfortable. The best part is my comps just watched it happen and started laughing. Hahaha. It was pretty funny but it shocked me at how frazzled I was about the whole situation. Hahaha! I guess I really am a sister missionary now!

 

So another fun story we had a bunch of new missionaries come in this week and there were only 3 sisters. They are so stinkin cool! I love them so much. One is from Canada and one is from California and the last is from Utah. All three are so stinkin smart and 2 out of the 3 have already taken a ton of Chinese so I know they will succeed! And yep thats about all that has been super interesting lately.

 

Oh I'm working on a new thing. This week I'm really trying to rely on the Lord when it comes to my language because I know my limits but I dont know my limits when I have God on my side. So I'm really trying to go all out with the language. Haha... I have a feeling it's going to be a great week.

Ni Hao Jiating!

As usual, I have a bunch to say and not much time. Overall things are going well and I'm so grateful for the package!! Biggest story of the week is that the older generation has left and our new missionaries are coming in next wednesday! I'm so excited to meet them! I went to the book store to print out pictures so I should be able to get them on friday which means you will have them next week! Other than that nothing too exciting except for the fact that we had TWO Apostles talk to us this last week!!!!!!! The first was Elder D. Todd Christofferson on Tuesday and Russel M. Nelson on Thursday for Thanksgiving! I loved it so much. It basically made my week. But because we had roughly 3 p-days Thanksgiving week it was weird and hard to get into the hang of things. But you know just the same old same old! Life will get really interesting when I get out into the field. I'm sorry i don't have much else to tell you all. But everything else wasn't too exciting. I just love you all so much! Please write to me, I miss you guys!

Love,
Bo MeiMei