Amy - Jilong, Taiwan March 6, 2011

Qin ai de jiating,

March is here!!! crazy!! I can't believe we are already hitting March! Not much happened this week. The same old investigators with the same problems. We did see a miracle yesterday though. One of our investigators Jiang shu hua has been struggling for weeks. She keeps tell us that she isn't happy and we tell her that she needs to come to church. She hasn't come yet expect yesterday she finally came!!! One of our amazing new converts Chen si yu talked to her on the phone for a while and worked some kind of magic because she came to church!! Jiang shu hua said afterward that she felt really really happy. I am so grateful for the members in our ward who are so willing to help us. On a sad note Huang Jiemei didn't come to church even though she said she would. With Hao yi nothing has changed, he still hasn't come to sacrament meeting. So he won't be able to get baptized on his 3rd baptismal goal of the 26th. Blast! If ya'll have any tips on how to wake up a 10 year old and get him to church it would be much appreciated. On a super happy note, GREEN IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON SAUTRDAY!!! I am so excited!!! I couldn't ask for a better birthday gift. He is amazing! I am so excited for him to get baptized so that he can bless his family. His mother in law said that if when he joins the church and he makes big changes she will accept the church and get baptized.

On Wednesday we had the wonderful oppourtunity to attend the temple. I love the temple! Sister Howell and I woke up early to e-mail and we headed to Taipei early. When we got to the temple all of the stress about our investigators and other things melted away. I felt so much peace. It was so wonderful to serve in the temple. Afterward we hung out with the Sisters in our zone. I don't know if I told ya'll but Sister Bready is in my district this transfer!! She is in Neihu which is 20 minutes away by bus. I get to see her twice a week which is amazing!! And Sister Tanner who was in my district last transfer moved to Shilin which is still in our zone so I get to see her too!! Its just like old times in the MTC. I love those two sisters. They are amazing missionaries and great examples to me. Anways, we went shopping at the MRT mall.

This week Elder Perkins of the Seventy is coming to take a tour of our mission! On Thursday we are having a meeting with him and his wife. Our zone will sing a special musical number. We also will have the opportunity to teach him a 10 minute lesson on any Gospel topic. yikes! It will be so much fun. I am so excited for him to come and to learn so much from him. He used to be the mission president of the Taipei mission and lived in Beijing for a while. I will write you next week about it.

Well I hope that you all have a great week. I miss you and pray for you everyday.

All my love,

Yang Jiemei

Autumn MTC March 1 , 2011

Csodalatos nap ma baratak es csaladot! Szeretem elet! (wonderful day today friends and family, I love life!)

hello!

Well, this week was my first full week in the MTC as the gimp. I said all week while limping around "bocsi nani vagyok!" (sorry, I'm a grandma) and "Turtle vagyok, bocsi en nagyon lassu" (I'm a turtle, sorry I'm very slow). haha... this week everything was feeling pretty good. I wasn't like running or anything, but I was definitely getting around...and then all the sudden on monday BOOM. nagyon fajdalom! (lots of pain!) ... it hurt worse than BEFORE surgery! so i was kind of out of commision the rest of monday, and went to the doctor on tuesday and there is a HUGE hematoma on the bottom of my foot, a bruise the size of a plum that is draining and nasty...and well... it definitely wasn't the "progress" I was hoping for. The doctor doesn't know how it got there, but it stinkin hurts. So it looks like my little foot bought me an extra week in the MTC! all of the doctors are thinking its best I wait it out a little longer, cause I'm not even back into normal shoes...so who knows how that will go.

but I feel really good about that decision. I mean in the ICU we always said you'd WAAAAAAY rather spend an extra day in the ICU then get transfered out too early... so I think it's the same thing, I don't want to get transfered out of the MTC too early. I especially don't want to get to Hungary and have my trainer see me limping off the plane and think "Great, I get the Gimpy sister. oh, AND her hungarian sounds like a 5 year old"...haha... so... I would way rather have my trainer never even realize I had foot surgery. I want to get off the plane and hit the ground running and not have to say "hey can we take it easier this first week, my foot hurts" blah... no thanks. I'm gonna get there 100%....and still speak like a 5 year old!! it will be awesome! So all in all i think it's a good decision. I'm ok with it, I know the Lord has got my back (And my foot) and it's the best.

So this week I had an awesome dream. Well I love dreams, and so this week in the midst of the foot stuff, I dreamed that I got a new mission call, I was getting reassigned to a new mission cause I couldn't walk. So in my dream I opened my new call and it said (well my real call says: your primary assignment is the mission nurse)...so my dream call said: "you have been called to the california spanish speaking mission. Your primary assignment is: The mission Birthday Party Clown!"....bahahaha...what?!?! ... so then in my dream, I was at the MTC dressed as a clown, in clown training, speaking spanish. The thing is I wasn't even disheartened I was a birthday party clown, I was just mad in my dream that I was having to spend 8 more weeks in the MTC. (i think i was secretly pumped to be a birthday party clown)......so maybe my dream will partly come true, maybe in Hungary they will be in desperate need of some party entertainment. I'll tell them "Don't worry, I got this"..the kids will love me.

OH I don't know if I mentioned last week. But when I was coming out of anesthesia from surgery, waking up from surgery, the anesthesiologist said I WAS SPEAKING HUNGARIAN!!!!!!!!... he said "i couldn't understand her, but it was definitely hungarian".... booyah!!! That means it must be sticking right? I meant if i wake up from a deeply sedated state and the first thing I do is speak Hungarian, that's a good sign! so... I might be able to survive this language after all.

Well this week in the MTC for us is what we call "consecration week". It's where we dedicate the whole week to being the best missionary ever, and we also give up english for a week. So this entire week I will ONLY speak hungarian. ONLY...HUNGARIAN... so I am no longer an english speaker, I am hungarian. It's a tidge bit intimidating, but luckily sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven. So i'm really excited to see how this week goes, feel the blessings of sacrifice and consecration and really get in gear for Hungary. Even if I'm getting delayed a week... it is coming soon. pray that I don't get delayed, but life is life..and if it happens it will be awesome.

Well I love you all!!

I got lots of letters and emails this week, i'm gonna work my little heart out to reply to them all. Love you all!!!

Love,

Papritz Nover

Amy - Jilong, Taiwan March 1, 2011

Qinai de jiating,

Zao an! Sister Howell and I decided to get up really early today since we are going to the temple today at 10am. We woke up at 5 and ran to the e-mail shop that is open 24 hours. I am so excited to go to the temple today! So this week we had a good week. We had quite a few appointments fall through so we had a lot of opportunities to go tracting. One evening we tracted up by our house and found a truly golden family. Her name is Huang and she said that she has been looking to join a church but doesn't know which to join. We shared about the Restoration and invited her to pray about it. The next time we met with her we talked about the Book of Mormon a little more in depth. She said that she already knew it was true because 1. of Joseph Smith and 2. Because it talked about Jesus. WOW!! She has one absolutely adorable daughter who has the most hair I have ever seen on a baby. The baby was sick this last week so she wasn't able to go to church. But next week she said she would. She is set to get baptized on March 26.

The rest of our investigators are doing good. Our problem is still getting them to church. On Sunday we were suppose to have 7 investigators to church and Sister Howell and I were so excited. We only had 3 come. 3 of them slept in and said that church is too early and the other ended up having some family thing come up. Its so frustrating!!! Church is at 9 which is not that early! Whats hard too is that they say that they will come and then they don't. Its ok though we will just have to bike to their houses and wake them up and get them to church!!! I don't mind knocking on their doors and waking them up.

On Monday our ward had a ward activity. We went up to this waterfall and had a kaorou (BBQ) It was great! The area was so beautiful and the weather was gorgeous! We had about 4 days of sunny warm weather. Right now its raining though. haha Anyways, so we had 5 of our investigators come. It was a wonderful time to get to know the ward. Even Green came with his son. He ended up not getting baptized last Saturday. During his baptismal interview he said something that will make him have to delay it for a week. Its not a big deal though because he is still getting baptized. His new date is March 12 my birthday!!! I couldn't ask for a better birthday gift! Anywhoo, he was there just having a great time with the ward. He was talking with all the ward members and even helped cook some of the food. It made me so excited to see him as part of the ward. He totally fits in! I will have to send you pictures next week of the kaorou.

I hope that you all have a great week. I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve. I know that this Gospel is true. I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve the Lord here in Jilong and to share his Gospel with so many of His children here. I know that God is mindful of his children here and knows each of our needs. Wo ai nimen!!

All my love,

Yang jiemei

Austin - Madison Wisconsin - February 28, 2011

Dear family y amigos,

This was another solid week, although we got more snow dumped on us. If I learned anything on my mission it's that I'm going to live somewhere warm and where the sun never goes away. There's some pretty crazy stuff happening in the zone. Our zone leaders do something pretty cool which is that if we have a "Milwaukee Miracle" then we text in to our zone leaders then they forward it to the rest of us so that every else in the zone can be up-to-date with what is going on in the zone. This week we had a few investigators move up their baptismal date. Elder Partis and I found a couple new investigators and added another baptism seeker named Joaquin. We set a date with him as well and we're pretty excited with all the work we have had the last few weeks.

Every Wednesday we do two hours of service at a food pantry. It's at a Catholic church and we always get plenty of attention every week from all of the volunteers there who are all Catholic. We are pretty hot commodities there because probably a third of the people that go there for food are Spanish speakers. We translate all over the place there and help serve the Spanish speakers. Having been in Milwaukee for seven and a half months I know everyone there really well and I've made some pretty good relationships there. Particularly, with one of the managers of the pantry, Fred, I've developed a pretty good relationship. Last week he invited Elder Partis and I to go eat at his house after service. It was a way cool experience. Fred is such a cool guy and has a pretty sad story - he has taken a dang big hit from the economy because he works in real estate. Nonetheless, his home is huge and beautiful and his family was way cool. I asked me the day before what we wanted to eat and I told him, "I don't care. But something American!" I heard him over the fun say to his wife, "Honey, they want Mexican. Tacos, enchiladas, burritos --- the works." haha. But they made a delicious Shepherd's pie type thing with apple pie, gosh dang it, it was so good. We had a way good lesson with them, as well, after the dinner. I'm not going to say they have any plans on being baptized any time soon but I definitely learned a lot of stuff about the Catholic church that I'm glad he cleared up and I'm positive they better understand the restored gospel. Fred at one point even admitted that possibly both of the churches are true, that the Catholic church is derived from the priesthood line of the east and the mormon church from the priesthood in the west. I'm definitely hoping to get another good meal out of them later ha.

Other than that our investigators are doing decent. A lot of them had hard weeks with the snow and are seeing more and more temptations from the devil, but we're going to keep working with 'em.

Elder Partis and I have a way cool week planned out with delicious lunches at various places and a dinner appointment every day this week. We're calling it food frenzy week. Because I think I'm getting transferred at the next transfer and I've always wanted to eat at some of the restaurants around here including a couple Mexican places, a secret Peruvian restaurant (you have to be Peruvian or know a Peruvian to get in), a Polish Deli and a Brazilian churrasco. Soooo it's going to be a food frenzy. I didn't even realize we had a Polish deli half a block away! We went there one time for a lunch and it was way good. Also, apparently the southside of Milwaukee used to be FILLED with Polish people in the seventies and eighties but they've pretty much been ran over by the Mexicans coming in. I've managed to not meet a single Polish person since I've been here but last week I met my first one on the street (incidentally I thought he was Mexican when I contacted him in Spanish and he told me in broken English, "Sorry, I don't speak English" haha) and then we ran in to a bunch of them at the Polish deli. I'm pretty sure the old ladies there were talking about us being our backs. I saw them whispering and pointing at us. I think they were trying to arrange marriages for their Polish daughters. Not sure.

Much love,

Elder Papritz

Autumn MTC February 23 , 2011

Szervusz!

Well let me tell you, this week was WEIRD! It started off with a visit to the doctor about some constant foot pain I'm having, then him saying "Well it's either surgery or suffering"... uh... so I said well I guess I'll take surgery. So that was wednesday, thursday all the plans were made and friday I was off to surgery! what!? .... I had a neuroma in my foot which is a big ugly bundle of nerves in between my toes which basically kills me every time I walk. I thought maybe I could ignore it, but then I realized I don't even hardly walk in the MTC other than between class and the cafeteria..so how on earth would i walk around Hungary?! So it seemed like that logical thing to do. But then they gave me the options 1. go home and get surgery and be released as a missionary and maybe getting reassigned to another mission (uh heck no I ain't going home!) 2. going home and getting the surgery but staying a missionary but the process could take several weeks (uh.....no) ......3. get it done in Provo and recover in Utah and be back in action in a few days (ding ding ding! I'll choose that!) So i got surgery on friday and today I'm going back to class finally. I've missed 3 full days of class, which has been hard but I'm ready to hit the ground running!!!....well, maybe not running, hit the ground limping, but with the same attitude as running!

The amazing thing/huge blessing is the doctor said in surgery he realized that a ligament had completed encased this nerve bundle, which means that no medicine could have ever reached it, no injection could have ever helped it...and he said If i ignored it and went to Hungary the pain would have been so bad I would have needed to come home from my mission early! wow!. ... so GOOOOOOD THING I got it fixed now. Now there shouldn't be any delay in my departure to Hungary. Even though it's only a little less than 3 weeks away he said it should be healed by then. still tender, with weird nerve sensation, but I will be able to get to HUNGARY!!! HALLELUJAH!!! ...if worse comes to worse i might need to stay in the MTC an extra week..but heck atleast I'm getting to Hungary! Super huge blessings!

So now I have to wear a super cute walking boot and crutches sometimes..and i look like a total nerd with a hobble..but oh well. It's all fixed.

So that was basically my week. pretty exciting change of pace I'd say. But I'm glad to get back in the saddle and catch up on all the Hungarian I've missed. I love the work I'm doing and counting down the 2.4 more weeks until I'm on that big beautiful plane to HUNGARY!!

Love you all! szeretlek!

-Papritz Nover

p.s.

melissa parr - awesome email. can't wait to respond. i'm tricky like that with my Hungarian dictionary. and tell Tams I love T-rex already.

Evan Moore - YOU SERIOUSLY SKIIED THAT MOUNTAIN?!?! AND YOU LIVED TO TELL ABOUT IT?!?!....oh man you are so hardcore. I will write back to your letter soon. sounds like you are rocking NCC.

Jeanette - the world really is on fire?!? what?!?! all that stuff sounds crazy. you're the best mom ever. can't wait to see pictures of the new little one...i'm assuming her name is Autumn jr.

camilla vargas - where the heck are you?!?! did you die?!?! ... you are failing miserably at your commitment.

Austin - Madison Wisconsin - February 21, 2011

Herro,

This week we had a leadership conference for three days. That was pretty cool but very long. It was especially hard because I was taking pain killers and muscle relaxants for my back and I was soooo out of it. All the other missionaries were so confused as to why I was acting so different. I was so mellowed out and rather indifferent about most things, it was pretty funny. Then on the second night I had terrible flu-like symptoms. I was going insane with a fever and muscle aches. That night I maybe accumulated 2 hours of sleep. The next day at leadership it was a miracle that I didn't fall asleep at all but during the ten minute breaks I'd go in to a dark room and just lay on the hard, cold floor and crash for the ten minutes and then zombie in to the meeting again.

Despite that. I learned quite a bit, they went over the sort of "basics" of Preach My Gospel. It was pretty eye opening because I realized that although I had a lot of investigators interested in being baptized not many of them knew, for example, the important of prayer or scripture study in their conversion. On Thursday I was reunited with my companion and did some quality work, adding 4 new investigators and setting 4 baptismal dates. It was way tight.

One night we were visiting some potentials and I noticed the delicious smell of barbecue along with a giant plume of smoke. I told Elder Partis, "I'm just going to follow my nose." We had to awkwardly walk through a couple people's backyards to get to these two Mexicans standing around a barbecue. I could tell they were a little curious as to why a couple of Spanish speaking white guys in suits had just walked right up to them while they were barbecuing but they were so cool. I asked them what they were cooking, they told me it was sausage and steak. One of the guys then said that his wife was upstairs in the house heating tortillas and that we could head up, grab a coke and wait for the meat up there haha. We shrugged and said Okay! While walking up the stairs Elder Partis whispered under his breath, "I love Mexican hospitality." It was so funny, we walked to the little guest room and the lady was talking to another guy there. They both looked at us curiously and then in Spanish they said to each their, "Did you invite them? No. Did you invite them? ....no." Then I told them, in Spanish, "Didn't you two know that we were invited?" They laughed a bit. The lady was sooo nice. We started talking, she invited to sit down. She also spoke very good English, actually. They had two darling little daughters. Then the husband came up later with the meat and we gorged ourselves. Over the hour twenty more people joined the party (invited guests, all Mexican) the husband was way tight and showed us around his incredibly nice house. It was by far the best house I've seen a Mexican own here in the city. He is a carpenter and is even going to put a fountain in his little backyard.

At the end of the party we told them we were going to leave and again he took himself away from his own party to walk us outside. We then started to talk some more and even got in to a gospel discussion. This guy, Fabio, is incredible. He probably has more faith in God than I do. He was saying that someone broke into his house a stole a TV and some of his wife's jewelry but he said that material things don't matter because he knew that as long as he trusted God that he would have what he needed. He also told us that he even had that guest room for the whole purpose of housing people in the hopes that they may want to come unto Christ too by seeing what he had. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he'd read it and we're going back on Tuesday.

There were so many cool things that happened this week. A lot of miracles. But one non-miracle which is that it started snowing again yesterday....it was doing sooo good, all sunny and warm and most of the snow from LAST time it snowed had just melted. Bah humbug.

Love you all. If you've sent me something, a letter or package and haven't gotten a letter back just know that I will be sending you something soon enough. I'm behind 9 people that I need to write. It's hard when I only have one day to do it, so my bad.

-Elder Papritz

Amy - Jilong, Taiwan February 21, 2011

Qin ai de jiating,

This week was kind of slow. We had a lot of lessons cancel this week or they would fang women de gezi (stand us up). Its ok though because it gave us more time to find people. Sister Howell and I had a lot of time to find former investigators. We went on all sorts of crazy biking adventrues through the hills/mountains of Jilong. It was a lot of fun. There is so much area that we have yet to explore and contact. This week also Sister Howell's voice was gone for a while but it has gotten better. With her voice being gone it has forced me to talk more which has been scary but really good. I have realized that I know more Chinese than I thought. It is still really hard but slowly I am getting over my shyness. It can be frustrating at times though because it takes me so long to get up the courage to talk to someone and then the opportunity is gone. Sister Howell has been very helpful and understanding and has helped me a lot. It will come soon enough.

On the investigator front not much has changed. We had 5 people come to church which is a record for us. Water, one of our investigators from India brought her sister's two daughters. It is the first time they have come to church. They said that they really liked it. Lin Hao yi still hasn't come to sacrament meeting. He has a hard time getting up in the morning for church at 9. His mom doesn't really help him get up either so its kind of tough. We are still working with him and set a new baptismal date for March 26. We have had many of our investigators who we have set baptismal dates from suddenly disappear. They won't answer our phone calls and wont' set up. Its really tough. We don't know how to get in contact with them and we dont' know why they suddenly disappear. Its really weird. Our investigator Green who we gave to the Elders is getting baptized NEXT SATURDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are sooo excited. Sister Howell and I still suan him as our investigator. haha I can't wait from him to get baptized so that he can help the rest of his family get baptized. He is doing so great. He comes to church every week and participates a lot in Sunday school lessons. He is pretty much an active member already. The ward is really supportive of him.

The weather has been rainy all week and probably will be the rest of the week. I feel really bad when we get to investigator's homes and we are soaked. I bought a coat here that is pretty good at keeping the rain from getting my clothes wet but if it gets too soaked it leaks onto my clothes. I have just excepted the fact that my feet are going to be forever wet. I dry them every night and my tights too in prep from the next day's soaking. We have rain pants that we slip over our skirts. We often used the cheap yellow pancho so we look like we are going to go ride Splash Mountain or something. But Sister Howell and I bought new thicker ones so this week will be better.

Today we attended the baptismal service of a girl in our ward who was getting baptized. They are a wonderful family. She reminds me so much of Alaina jumping around being so excited to get baptized. After she got baptized she shared her testimony and it was so sweet and simple. The Spirit was so strong.

Well I hope that you all have a great week. I love you all so much. Oh just to tell you, next week we have a temple day so our p-day is moved. I will e-mail you on WEDNESDAY. So don't worry mom if on monday I don't e-mail you. Wo ai nimen!!!

All my love,

Yang Jiemei