Taidong! April 29, 2013

Sister Gummow was transferred this week to a beautiful spot along the coast called "Taidong" or "T'ai-tung"!  They recently split the area and will be living with two other sister missionaries.  She will be facing new challenges and adventures here!  Here is her latest email with the details!


"So... dddd I am in Taidong!  It is like the very farthest away from Taipei - in our mission.  They have been having crazy success in Taidong with baptisms so they decided to open a new sister area.  The sisters before were covering the 1st and 2nd branch, but now we have 2nd branch and they have 1st.  My new companion is Sister Tiffany Oborn from Roseville, California.  She is so wonderful.  She has so much faith!  ha ha and she is already prepared spiritually if not quite in the language.  We spent the 6 hour train ride studying and setting some goals for what we want to do in this area.  We were so filled with hope and excitement!

Sooo when we arrived we had two great members drive cars and help us all to our house... except we don't have a key... so we had to wait for the sisters at the church until they could walk us back.  When we got there... one person didn't have a bed... we only have one bathroom for 4 girls and yep pretty much our apartment is not meant for 4 girls.  Ha ha my poor trainee got a glimpse of culture shock from the first night (don't worry I let her have the bed.)  ha ha the other two in our apartment are two taiwanese sisters... and lets just say that though the area was just splitting.. we are whitewashing.  There are maybe 2 investigators right now and absolutely no information about the area.  

Well I know the Lord put us here for a reason.  We are also super super grateful that this area has seen so much success.  We have so many RC (Recent Converts) and LA (Less-Actives) that we can take care of.  So we have a good place to start at least.  Getting around has been pretty fun.  As my character reading skills have not been the greatest and we only found a character map it is like playing matching games trying to find the streets.  Luckily the elders also whitewashed and trained 2 transfers ago, so they have been super super helpful in trying to get us set up in a good place.  Oh and little surprise was that elder T........ from my last district got transferred into my district here.  I'm not sure why the lord decided to send us both out here, but our district had very good unity before and we really tried to work with the elders in strengthening Neihu... so here we go again.  I actually considered it a little tender mercy because he was always my go to in Neihu when i got lost or needed language help.... which both will be a challenge as Taidong is huge!!! and I am training so no chance I can ask my companion language questions.  ha ha it is great out here though... super beautiful and clean.  It is also very warm, has a beach close by, and monkeys :)  ha ha there are many many prepared people here and I am excited to start finding them with my companion.  

Pray for me!  When we got back to our apartment and saw what we had to work with... I must admit I was a bit discouraged.  I think everyone has much more faith in me than I have in myself.  Elder Gummow gave me some wonderful advice that I will do my best to follow though... "just have fun with it"!  Pray that no matter, what I can keep up this faith and happiness in the work.

We have a wonderful and supportive ward so I am excited to start in this area!
Here we are getting ready to climb the next mountain :)  I can't wait to see what new things I discover on the way to the top."