The Final Countdown!

It's been another week my dear friends and family. Where has it gone, do you ask yourself? because I ask myself that everyday! I know we always hear people talk about how time flies in the MTC BUT, now I can say it for myself, IT REALLY DOES DISAPPEAR BEFORE YOUR EYES.

In five days, I will be flying out to the Icebox of the Nation, otherwise known as the Twin Cities, or the Northern Star State, OR MINNESOTA MINNEAPOLIS! 

You want to know the reason behind why time flies so fast? Let me tell you, it is exactly because I am using every minute and every second of the day to the best of my abilities, and no time is being wasted! I love that feeling, because naturally, I am not a very organized planner, and I believe I often waste time in my "normal" life, but because I know that I am now using the Lord's time and serving him, I am using every ounce of my might, mind, and strength to work my hardest.

Let me tell you all a little bit about the excitements of this week. But before I say so, I want you all to know how humbling my experiences here at the MTC has been, and I owe it all to my Savior who has entrusted me to serve in all these leadership roles.

To answer Sharon's questions: A Sister Training Leader is the girl equivalent version of a Zone Leader, except i mostly only oversee the Sisters. (Robby can probably explain this more to you)
But basically I make sure that each companionship in my zone are doing well, and whenever they have questions or concerns, they usually come to me to try to resolve them. If problems do arise, I am the one that reports it to our bishop.

This past week, to my own surprise, three sisters actually came to me with some concerns and problems that they had been having within their companionship. I honestly was very surprised that i was being summoned to to help, but because they did come to me, I also felt confident in myself that I have been loving and obedient to have them trust me. Thanks to the help of the Savior and my goal to strive to be like him more and more in my life and mission, I was able to help them in a way that my Savior would approve. (Honestly, if i wasn't aware of my responsibilities and my potentials, i would have definitely taken their situation in a completely different approach and the results would have definitely been harmful to both parties. This scripture has been circling around me quite a lot recently, and with that, I want to share it with all you lovelies back home.
Alma 37:36-37 "...Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good, yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep..."

Being a missionary is the best thing because we are all promised an individual angel that watches over us. There really will be no other time in this life where I will have the chance to devote 24/7 of my time to serving the Lord, and to moving his work along. 

I am glad that before I came on my mission, I was inspired with the knowledge that serving a mission will require a lot of love. and seriously, it means  A LOT AND A LOT OF LOVE! I have seen how me judging investigators' ignorance to our message has already gotten in the way of me feeling the Spirit and my purpose of INVITING them to come unto Christ.
I am not out here to force anyone, but to love and to plant seeds. I will definitely keep reminding myself about that.

This past Tuesday, we had the chance as missionaries to go listen to a member of the seventy speak to us at our devotional. Elder Clark visited us and shared an extremely powerful message directed at helping us missionaries prepare to be better teachers of the Gospel. 

He encouraged us to write home about spiritual messages and not to waste our time on talking about what we ate or what we wore, or what we drank here at the Mtc. ALTHOUGH I DO KNOW THAT SOMETIMES, THOSE FUNNY THINGS ARE THE FUN PARTS TO READING MISSIONARY EMAILS. HAHA I WILL STRIVE TO FIND BALANCE! 

During his talk, he emphasized a lot on how as missionaries, we need not worry about our families, because no matter what, they will be watched over. I have every faith that LIFECHANGING events will begin to happen among my very own family and friends. I feel it in my GUTS GUTS GUTS (get what I'm quoting Shar and Cynthia?? haha)
Read D&C 100:1-2 fam and friends if you don't believe me! Challenge taken??

Another important message from the devotional was a lesson on fishing. Learn to be good fisherman, then you will become a good missionary. Like the story from Matthew 4:19. Look in the right places, sometimes they are just in front of you, the people who are most ready for the Gospel. HINT HINT MOM: WEI WEI JIE JIE! and Cyn and Shar, I will make y'all proud and "REEL MY INVESTIGATORS IN LIKE A SEA BASS" (another quote from our favorite movie eh Cyn?)

Fam bam, recently, I have setting goals and working extra hard on memorizing scriptures. I have the worst memory for these type of things, but I have seen how knowing scriptures by heart can be a true blessing to not only the mission world, but for my future. I invite you all to study with me this week the blessings of 1 Nephi 13 and 14. (cyn or mom, invite grandma to do so as well. tell her it's my deathbed wish...haha jokes, i'm not dying, but really, tell her that i am not messing around, and that it won't hurt her. also, i pray for her, so she WILL DO IT!)

Be insightful, dive deeper into the messages contained in those chapters because from reading and studying the words of those chapters, my heart has been filled with joy and gratitude for how lucky we really are to have our very OWN, TANGIBLE COPY OF THE BOOK OF MORMON. it truly contains plain and precious gospel that go hand in hand with the bible. it doesn't deny the bible in any way, but instead, it gives you greater knowledge of the Bible. 

And MOM AND CYNTHIA! i have truly found the answer to that question you had for me back when you were pretending to be my investigators. Why wasn't the Gospel spread to China, why don't we have a BOOK OF JACKIE CHAN, OR A BOOK OF JET LEE? ( JUST KIDDING, HOPE THAT WASN'T CROSSING THE LINES.) HAHA BUT read 2 Nephi 29:6-7 and let me know what you find! I invite you all to study with me!

This is a ridiculously long email, but each day here in the MTC is simply filled with so much new knowledge and I there is no other joy than sharing it with my own family and loved ones. 

Mom: let Songshan ward know that I love them very much. Tell Bishop that I often think back to the advices he gave me before leaving on my mission. I use it often here and share my new found knowledge with my peers. It will be so important for us to get to know the Bishop of any new district or ward we attend when we are out in the field. Members are soooo important in our success as missionaries. I will definitely be putting his advice into practice and I will report back on my results. haha (PLEASE TRANSLATE THESE THINGS FOR THEM)

My prayers go out to them always and I can't wait for the day when we are reunited. 

But for now, I have lots more to learn and do.

God be with you all and until next week...when I'll be in Minnesota!!!

Love love lovesss to all you poppets!

Sister Pao

Sister Carone from Brazil drew me haha.   

Sister Parra, sweet Spanish sister also a Sister Training Leader

More zone photos, i love my zone! Sunday Temple Walks

Sister Soleta has the most beautiful hair ever!

Where everyone's from and going!

I'm in LOOOOVE SHAR! THIS WAS THE BEST DAY EVER! PACKAGES ARE THE BEST!

THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!

Twice in One Week!

Hello once again!

Sister Pao here! Aren't you all feeling so lucky that you get to hear from me twice in a week? Its P-day here for me already. P-days are on Fridays so expect to hear from me on Friday next week as well.

It is official that I will be staying here in the MTC for another 12 days. I will be leaving on the 2nd of October and I am beyond excited.

Let me tell you now about one of my favorite things in the MTC...and that is my district and zone! We are the most diverse and international district ever. We have missionaries here from Dominican Republic, Brazil, Spain, Colombia, Korea, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, Singapore, Taiwan (me), Ukraine, and Virginia! It is the greatest thing, because we really are one big happy family in here. Since we have P-day today, we were also very fortunate to get to go to the temple as well. Early this morning we got to go to the Provo Temple for an endowment session. Oh how glorious that moment was! The Provo Temple, although not very large looking from the outside, was ENORMOUS to me when comparing to the familiar Taipei Temple that I had been going to. Provo Temple is HUGE and I was blown away by how beautiful it was inside. Adding to the already perfect experience I had from being in the Provo Temple, we also got to watch the NEW movie for the endowment session. (YUP MOM, THE NEW MOVIE, IT WAS AWESOMEEEE! You will love it) A lot better directed and filmed for sure. (Shar and Robby, have you two seen it yet) haha.

I've been running into so many people that I know here, and it is really the most wonderful thing to see familiar faces here in the MTC. It reminds me of how diligent and hardworking my friends are and it overjoys me to know that they are hard at work serving a mission of the Lord. Seeing familiar faces really are tender mercies given to me by my Savior, and I am sooo grateful for it. (Mom: I even ran into one of Elder Wu's friends from England, serving here in the MTC!!) crazy small world huh?

While in the MTC, we have been emphasizing a lot so far on the purpose of us being a missionary. Why are we serving?- And that is because we want to invite all people to come unto Christ. He is our Savior and Redeemer and it really is a wonderful thing to know that for yourself. I can't wait to help people TRULY know that for themselves. We have been teaching "pretend" investigators here in the MTC. Funny thing: two of my teachers here in the MTC our guys who were in my ward last year at BYU. Its hilarious to see that they're here teaching me, when last year, I mostly saw their crazy silly side. We joked about how he might end up teaching me one day and that I would show him no respect, but it was truly amazing to see how the Spirit works and how the Spirit can work through a person. And lo and behold, now they are teaching me and it was amazing to see them in your zone, to see them loving and tutoring us. They truly are worthy priesthood holders, and just from one lesson, I hold every respect and love for them. I am grateful for their worthiness and for their love of the Gospel, and their diligence. 

Ahhh where else can I go from here! Members are soooo important in helping missionaries find people to teach. MOM: IT REMINDED ME OF YOU AND YOUR WONDERFUL CHOICE AND COURAGE OF BRINGING LAWRENCE AND HIS FAMILY TO CHURCH. YOU ARE AN EXAMPLE OF A HARDWORKING MEMBER IN SERVICE OF THE MISSIONARIES. THANKS FOR ALLOWING ME THAT CHANCE TO EXPERIENCE A CHANCE OF BRING INVESTIGATORS AND FRIENDS TO CHURCH BEFORE MY MISSION. NOW I HAVE A TRUE TESTIMONY OF THE IMPORTANCE OF FELLOWSHIPPING  THE MEMBERS.
speaking of which ROBBY!: KEEP UP WITH MISSIONARY WORK. LIKE THE EXPERIENCE YOU HAD LAST WEEK, KEEP UP WITH IT! YOU ARE NO MORE A NAMETAG MISSIONARY BUT, ALL MEMBERS ARE MISSIONARIES. WE NEED YOUR HELP, AND THE MISSIONARIES IN HAWAII NEED YOUR HELP AS WELL! 

Funny things that happened these past few days: We did laundry just now. Although I've done laundry before, I was still soo surprised at how things can go out of hand so easily when surrounded by thousands of other missionaries who need to do laundry as well. First trouble: one of the sisters in our district had all her garments taken from the washing machine. how tragic is that? then following that, one of the sisters garments all turned YELLOW because her yellow skirt bled. Then following THAT, (thinking that I was safe)...MY GARMENTS ALL TURNED YELLOW....just kidding, well not really, because honestly, I THOUGHT THEY DID. however, we finally figured out that none of it had turned yellow and that it was only the glass of the dryer door that made all the white clothing look yellow. Whew! Dodged a bullet there! I still know what I'm doing, I know how to do laundry...hahha

umm...what else! oh right! Crazy thing how fast things are moving here in the MTC. I just got here two days ago, and now two days later, I have been called to be the Sister Training Leader for my District! Ah crazy responsibilities thrown at me already. I am glad that the Lord has this trust in me, and it truly is an honor and blessing to be so relied upon. However, I really hope that I will be able to do exactly what He wants me to do, and that I will be in tuned with the Spirit to be able to help out the Sisters in my district. I love them all so very much already and I wished you all could be here to meet each one of them. Although I'll only have two short weeks here with them, I can tell that I will be eternal friends with a lot of the sisters and elders I have met here. 

So with this new calling, I will be a complete newbie for the rest of this week, but when next Wednesday hits, with the new batch of missionaries coming, I will no longer be a newbie, but instead, I will have to lead and teach all of THEM that comes in. YUP! one week, and I will have to learn everything. The Lord really is wasting no time in moving his Church ahead. I am so glad and happy that I can be a part of the Lords Army at this time and in this dispensation. It truly is a special work and will be the two most cherished years of my life. We only have 18 months to be called "Sister/Elder" something, and I will use it to the best of my ability in representing Christ.

As our branch presidency says, be the best missionary as you can be, I will strive hard to do so!

Sending prayers and love always to all you peeps back home, or friends spread out all over the world.

Love,

Sister Pao

My first day roomies

My dear Sister Naatjes who served with me in my student ward last year! (She's from Minnesota as well!) and she's going to serve in Korea. 

Minnesota Minneapolis!

What happens at dinner time. The comparison of sizes of our homeland. The biggest one North and South Korea, then Taiwan, then Samoa, then Singapore. lol

My district!

Me and my companion Sister Ang

Elder Bowie from England! Knows Elder Wu! (excuse the crazy bun on my head...its p-day, cut me some slack. haha)

Love from Sister Pao!!!

Hi family!!!! (& friends)

I'm here! Safe and sound in the Provo MTC! and it cannot get any better than this...well not really, but I am beyond excited to be here. Everything has gone beyond better than I imagined and I really have been watched over.

A quick update of my travels here. Everything went well, to Tokyo and on my flight from Tokyo to Portland, I even got two seats to myself! So plenty of room to spread out and SLEEEP tons since no music and movies were going to help me kill time with that long flight. The layover in Portland was slightly long, and just about killed me!-not really, but 5 hours with nothing to do really was something new to me. Lotsa Book of Morning and Preach My Gospel reading was done for sure, but there really is a limit to how much time you can read in one sitting. haha

After arriving in Provo, I was welcomed by Hayley, Beth and Ali Johnson! I am so blessed to have friends and family who love me so much here in Utah, so no worries, I was in good hands and taken care of.

Hayley and Beth brought me and treated me to dinner at Zupas, my last supper, then I had time to freshen up and pack a few more things at Hayley's apartment, and then they dropped me off at the curb! Didn't even get to walk me in since it was already almost 8pm when I got to the MTC.

It was nice getting in earlier, and not having to arrive with all 600 other missionaries today. I got back to my room and was free to do whatever I wanted for the rest of the evening. My roommates/the other sisters that i share a room with were out at devotional so i got to settle down and get showered and cleaned up before they headed back in.

I shared a temporary room with 3 other international sisters last night. Sis. Guillamba from Mozambique, Sister Randall from New Zealand, and Sister Brigdwater from England. Definitely wayyy surrounded by foreigners and I'm loving it! I looooove hearing their accents. They're all really sweet people. Sis. G going to Madagascar, Sis. R going to New York North Mission, and Sis. Bridgwater to France, Lyon. Sick missions! To be honest, a little jealous, but I'm set and super stoked for Minnesooooootaaa!

So right now its 9am in the morning and I feel like I've already done sooooo much. I guess thats the upside of waking up at 6:30am in the morning haha. MTC food not really settling well on my stomache. Actually overall, I think the nerves has just put messing with my stomach, so MAYBE that i'll lose a few pounds in here haha.

I love being here in the MTC, have I said that already? Tender mercies all around, I've already  seen two of my sister friends in here. It's soooo great seeing familiar faces and knowing that they're doing good.

I have always been grateful with the culture we've grown up in and here I am once again suuuuper grateful for my ability to speak multiple languages. So far, I've already been asked to translate twice! Both Chinese and French. I love being able to serve the people around me and thankssss mom and dad, for raising us the way we are. so blessed with language abilities.

Well, thats about all the update I have up to now. Since i'm international, they're going through with us with all the things we brought and our luggages, and if we're missing anything we need the MTC will provide anything we miss. FREE STUFF ALL AROUND!

Alrighty! more to do now and I think this is a long enough update from me already. I love you tons and the Church is true and pray that I won't get burned out to quickly, because it'll come inevitably. But in the meantime, God is good, I'm doing good, and I LOVE YOU ALLL SOOOOO MUCH!

Love,

Sister Pao (I have my name tag now! its official)

The Beautiful Sister Tiffany Pao

Hi family and friends!

I took some pictures of the gorgeous Tiffany while she was in Hawaii before she left on her mission and became Sister Pao. I am so proud of my little sister. Cannot believe how grown up she is now. She will without a doubt do great things on her mission and bring so much joy to those around her with her light and love. The Church is true and we are so extremely blessed to have the gospel in our lives!

I will be updating this blog with letters and pictures from Sister Pao, so check back often!

Love,

Shar

The Trek to the Temple

I can finally say that...I am endowed! After all those years of singing, "I love to see the temple, and I'm GOING THERE someday," Thursday August 22nd, 2013, I finally stepped foot INTO the ground floor of the temple, and was not just redirected to the basement. Call that an upgrade??! haha just kidding-or because technically, the baptismal font is on the same floor as where the rest of the endowment session takes place in the Taipei Temple. Oh wellll! I still loved every moment and chance I had to be in the Taipei, Temple, and more so, to be worthy to step foot into the House of the Lord. It was indeed a very special day to have my mom there with me- along with many other members of the Songshan Ward...let me tell you all a bit of my "Trek to the Temple," because to be honest, the process was not all that easy. I would love to take what happened and blame it on the power of some actual being from the unseen world, but I'll admit, like usual, it was because I was as clumsy as ever. hah- that's all old news. 

     1st : made an appointment with the temple for the week before I left to Hawaii. Canceled it, because this time, I really didn't feel ready. It all felt really rushed, so I postponed it- which was okay, so I scheduled it for the Wednesday that I got back.


     In the meantime, brought my temple recommend to Hawaii thinking that my mom MIGHT decide to fly out so I could get endowed with Sharon there by my side as well. Sadly, that plan backfired and I returned back to Taiwan- which was alright as well...although Laie Temple, man, that would've been cool.

     2nd: canceled this appointment again because....well...here comes the clumsy-Tiff part of the story. I was foolish enough to use my temple recommend as a bookmark and ended up leaving that book in Hawaii for Sharon to read, I even thought that I was doing her a good deed. But, NOPE. Foolish and forgetful me. 

    I swear, by this point, I bet the temple workers thought that I was becoming inactive or something. 

     With all these roadblocks that came and went, I was lucky that everything turned out for the better. My dear sister Sharon came to the rescue once again- and I say again because those who know me knows that this was not the first.(thanks Shar, you da best!) Sharon was able to mail my temple recommend to me, WHICH, coincidentally arrived right in time for me to go to the temple on my ward temple day, accompanied by many other familiar faces. So! There you go, TADA! I planned it all along! I just didn't want to be alone! YUP, brilliant me! (haha, my mom would kill me if she saw this...or when she sees this...haha)

So finally, I was very lucky to have two English speaking temple workers scheduled to accompany me throughout the process- Sister You (a Taiwanese-American lady from San Jose California, and Sister Woodward-a Senior missionary). They were both very sweet ladies that made the event that much more spiritual and memorable, which helped me feel that much more comfortable in an unfamiliar setting. 

Some may think that these are my own justifications for my mistakes, but in the end, I would like to take what happened and see it as my Heavenly Father watching out for me, and helping me feel right at home on the day that I got endowed. Thank goodness He is there to watch over me...along with my mom and sister, and family members...otherwise, who knows where I'd be or where I'd end up...haha Welp, with that, I love to see the temple, and I'm definitely going there AGAIN!

This was taken on my second trip to the temple. 

I love my Mommy!

Oops, There It Is.

Welp! With 28 days left before my mission, I've been contemplating quite a bit on whether or not I should start posting on my mission blog, or leave it to when I have actually officially started my mission. Easily, my first excuse was- well, i don't want to bore people with an overload of missionary blogs. aka, oh today I had the most spiritual life changing experience of my life! Oh the MTC food was delightful…or in some cases, absolutely distasteful…(because it's not like we haven't seen enough of those already)..and plus according to my lovely sister, Sharon, mission blogs are BORING. As a matter of fact,  I strongly disagree with her at the moment. Oh, and I wonder why? Thought I'd save people the boredom for as long as possible, 'til the very last minute….but… PSYCHED, guess not! Now I'm one of them…deal with it. "Oops, There It Is!"

So, after much thought, and needless to say much procrastination as well, I have decided to officially start today and write my first post-very much for my own reference and record keeping of the surprisingly exciting, and fulfilling days building up to my departure date- so don't feel obligated to read past this point, if any one even ever got this far in the first place.

I have constantly been reminded since the day I received my call that serving a mission is tough work and would probably consist of some of the hardest times of my life…la dee la dee laa, yes, I know, I know! ( Well of course I REALLY don't know yet until I go out to experience it for myself, but seriously, I get the picture). However, WHY HASN'T ANYONE GIVEN ME A HEADS UP OR EMPHASIZED ON THE FACT THAT PREPPING FOR A MISSION REQUIRES SO MANY HOURS OF HARD WORK AND DIFFICULTIES AS WELL??!!- not that I'm ranting or anything (that's not what capitalized letters mean), but I guess I'll save the stories of my ups and downs prepping for the logistics of the mission for another time. Today, I wanted to record the exact reasons of why I want to serve a full-time mission, and to spend the next 18-months of my life devoted to sharing my love, and what I love, to people that I have yet to meet and befriend. 

For the past few months, I have attempted to dedicate many days and hours of my life to preparing for the exciting new chapter of my life. There has been good days that I definitely can say have enlightened me and have contributed to my readiness. However, many days, I felt like I was doing busy work, without much focus and target. With so many days of waiting in between my reporting date, I felt myself dwindling, and losing focus-oh how easy it is for me to lose focus…sometimes i really think that I may have some Attention Deficit Disorder of some kind…maybe a mild type of some kind…or that I simply was losing sight of what I am supposed to be doing during this time. (Too much work can drive someone insane, but seriously, too much free time can drive someone wayy insane as well!!-- oh how we yearn for pure balance in life). Today was one of those days where i was reminded once again of why I initially started my papers to apply for a mission. The flame was re-ignited. How?- It was all through going out and talking to people, and acting, instead of sitting around waiting and doing busy work. "And see that all things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order." Mosiah 4:27 

I sat in on two different missionary discussions with a family of investigators and a single lady investigator today. Instantly, I felt right at home. No nerves, no doubt, no stress. Everything fell into place and I simply was prompted to say and share things on cue, and in accordance to what they were asking and what we were discussing. I FREAKING LOVE MISSIONARY WORK- and the SPIRIT! I felt love for the people, even when they did not understand the principles, or even when they had opinions contrary to what I believe and know to be true. All I wanted to do was to share what I hold dearly to my heart and what has blessed my life immensely to all those that were before me. i share these things not to gloat, or to become arrogant and prideful of my accomplishments, but to glorify my Heavenly Father-just like Ammon did when Aaron rebuked him. I share these things to express gratitude for what I have and for my eternal knowledge and relationship with my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I share these things hoping that during the hard times on my mission, I may be reminded of how the Spirit works in bringing all things to my remembrance. I am not alone, and I am not doing my work, but the LORD'S WORK; he will not forsake me.

AND, I share these things to keep a record and reminder to myself of my purpose and why I initially wanted to go out to serve for 18 months. It was not because everyone else was doing it, not because my best friends were doing it, not because my parents asked me to go, not because the Church encourages us to go- but because I want to help people, I want to share my blessings with them, and meanwhile, I want to LEARN FROM THE PEOPLE I MEET. I think the listening part of the mission is so valuable, it not only helps us become a better person in life, but also helps us grow to listen more promptly to the Spirit and to our Heavenly Father.

AHHH, I FREAKING LOVE THIS GOSPEL! Like Ammon, "I cannot say the smallest part which I feel", no words can even express the smallest form of joy that this Gospel brings me- because it is BEYOND that!- and that is for people to feel and find out for themselves.

Thanks to my sister Sharon's constant, kind reminders and at her request. I have finally recorded my first blog post. Hope you enjoy it sis, because there will be many more to come, and before you know it, you will be SICK of all the random things that I spurt out. haha ;) You've unleashed the crazy me, there's no holding me back now, haha.

 Here's a shout out to her for helping me take photos and for the blog layout! You ROCK!

love all you poppets out there!

xo soon-to-be, Sister PAO

Aloha from Hawaii!

Hello!!!