Meg's address in Taiwan and her new name

FYI, Meg's address in Taiwan is:
Sister Megan Smedley
Taiwan Taipei Mission
4Fl, #24, Lane 183, Chin Hua Street
Taipei, TAIWAN, R.O.C.

Also, FYI, while in Taiwan, her name is Mai Jiemei.
Jiemei is Sister and Mai is her new name.  They don't have an alphabet there and
no symbol for Smedley and they cannot pronounce it so they gave her a new name.
But if you write her, you can still write Sister Smedley on her letters (or packages!)
or in her exact words:
Mom:  So you are sister Wheat?  Do people think that is odd?  I love it!  That is so cool!  Why can't you be Smedley?
No it's not odd at all! there is no translation for Smedley here. They don't have an alphabet. And they can't really say smedley very well... they all think that is a really hard name to say. haha

MIRACLES AND TYPHOON

So on Saturday I have my one month mark on Island! Yay! I am so excited. I love Taiwan!!!! So I like to name this weekend the weekend of miracles.

 

So many miracles this week. It has been such a blessing! And a lot of them have come from door knocking! I will be honest, until this week I wasn't a fan of door knocking. We never had success and no one would ever listen. But my companion said there are miracles door knocking too! And she was right! We went to knock doors Friday night. It was very rainy and windy so we knew people would be home. And there was no success all night. Then in the last 10 minutes before we went home, someone answered and we got to have a lesson! It was a man and his mother and a kid. It was really awesome and a huge miracle! Then the next day it was still windy and rainy so we decided to do door knocking again. So we have just been praying and praying for new investigators. We went to this house and these two ladies let us in! We started to tell them who we were and what we wanted to share and they went and got there daughter-in-law who was catholic. She was awesome and she spoke English (that alone was a miracle)! We got to teach them and two of them became new investigators! We are meeting with them this week and we are so excited. Then that night we got stood-up so we went knocking around that house and had another lesson! It was insane. Then on sunday we had an appointment and we went to it. We had 15 minutes afterward to contact before it was time to go home. So we said a prayer and prayed for another lesson. We then chose this house that we had a good feeling about and we had a lesson with her! It was so cool. The Lord definitely answered our prayer! It was such a miracle filled weekend. And I know that the Lord's hand was in every step. And door-knocking really does have miracles!! The Lord's hand has been there so much. He really does provide a way when he says he will.

 

This week we had a TYPHOON(:(:(: Mom send this to Gary. I don't have his email. It was pretty exciting! It actually didn't really hit our area bad but we definitely got the rain from it and the wind. Holy cow so much wind and rain. There were many times we were riding our bikes and almost got blown over! And as we were contacting we were just drenched. IT was so much fun(: I loved it so much.

 

It was the Moon Festival holiday this week. So everyone was bbqing. We got to go to one on Friday. IT was fun. They do bbq's a lot different that we do them in America. But it is fun. I had some more pig's blood. It is growing on me. I actually kind of like it.... weird right? The texture is strange but the taste is alright. 

 

God's hand is in everything we do, don't forget it. I love you all so much! Thanks for all your love and support. You are the best!(:

 

PICTURES! (P-Day in Daxi)

FOOD AND PEOPLE

 The food is interesting. I had intestines this week and pig's blood. Literally blood. Yuck. I am not in Taipei I am in Zhongli. Our area covers like 4 cities though. It's ALOT. The cities in Taipei aren't that pretty actually... but the country is! The people truly are amazing. I wish more of them would let us teach them. But it's funny because sometimes they just stare at us because we are american... It's kind of awkward. Or really awkward actually. But funny! Everyone just thinks we are beautiful... so it gets kind of weird. But yes they are ready for the gospel! I just wish they knew that...(: I love the people here though more than anything. They are so kind and friendly.

FOOD AND BIKE ACCIDENT

Mom, you asked about the food. There are definitely some interesting things here. Yes I will have to get used to that black glass drink with the weird jellies in it... yuck. But I will eventually hopefully! Daily food is like, cereal for breakfast. And then we have like sandwiches like pbandj or tuna, or dumplings or zhuabing (it's my favorite). But then for dinner we have the same thing or just grab something on the street or members feed us! That's our favorite is when the members feed us. Which they usually will feed us or send us home with some kind of something... Haha

 

So this week I just really really grew my love for the members! I love them here so much! Yesterday I was sitting in church and my love for them was just overwhelming. I just love them more than anything and am so grateful for the ward we have. They are the best and ah. I just love them so much! We have had a lot of opportunities to meet with them a lot so we can build those relationships and gain their trust. It has been so much fun getting to know them. I love them so much. But yeah they are great.

 

So the other day I accidentally hit my companions bike and it fell over and scratched a car. We didn't know what to do, becauuse we couldn't just leave ya know. We have to represent Christ and own up to our actions. So we had no idea what to do because we don't have insurrance or anything.So we left a note (it had to be all in characters...). So we were looking up all the characters but had to guess on some. Well the guy ended up coming back out and he seemed a little stern so we were nervous. We told him what happened and he said, it's okay and just got in his car and drove away. So we didn't give him the note. Then we decided to take the note to our Taiwanese roommate so she could read it so we could see if we said everything right. We didn't. The note said "Hey we are really sorry. Our bike fell and we erased your car. We have pictures." And that is what it said! We were all laughing soooooo hard! Haha. It was a miracle in itself just because I think we all needed a good laugh.

 

Missionary work is great! IT is hard work in every way. But it is the best. I love it so much(: Thanks for all your prayers and support. You are the best people in the world. Thanks for your emails and advice. I love you all!

 

MEG HAS LANDED IN TAIWAN AND SPOKEN!

So, this is kind of a long post, but so much information of her first few days in Taiwan--will try to shorten things up a bit in the future--

So first for mom's questions about Taiwan.

How was my journey?? It was a loooong flight. haha So long. But I had a miracle with that which I actually wrote in the letter home to mom and dad. So you will get that soon I think... But yes. Very long. But president day and sister day and the office elders were anxiously waiting for us! We had no trouble finding them. They are so awesome!!!! I love them sooooo much. So we slept at the temple headquarters for our first two days in Taiwan. So just in bunks right across from the bu (mission home). My first impressions of Taiwan:  There are so many different smells that are so weird. I am still trying to get used to it. And it wasn't anything I thought it would be like. But we were in the big city. But each day I am here I grow to love it more and more and more.  but it is so pretty here. Everything is so green. What surprised me is how on the outside everything looks so old and run down but then on the inside it looks so nice! So it is just definitely a culture shock! haha but like I said I am just growing to love it. The food is weird though. hopefully I can get used to it soon(:

 

My trainer is sister briggs. She is really great. She is from Nevada and only has three transfers left.   She is really great though and I really love her! So we OPENED A NEW AREA. Yeah. Terrifying! We are in Zhongli 2 area. So when we got here we had one investigator. That's it. And she is an eternal investigator. So we have a lot of work to do to get investigators! It's hard because neither of us know the area or anyone here so we are sort of just starting from scratch. We went to church yesterday though, we just have one ward. And I looooooove my ward. The people in my ward were so nice and so welcoming. I feel bad because Idon't understand anything they say so I just nod and smile. They all like to practice their english on me though(: haha But they are great. The bishop invited me and my compaion to bear our testimonies in church. It was pretty much the most terrifying thing ever. Yep. Most definitely. But our cute little investigator that comes to church every week but won't get baptized told me I did so good and there was only one word I said that she didn't understand! It was super encouraging. I was really excited.

 

We had a super cool miracle yesterday. So our goal is to get one new investigator every day.  So after church and dinner we went to this park that is in our area. We were talking to a lot of people and trying to get someone to listen. People weren't really interested though. So we went somewhere else away from the park to find someone. But we weren't having any luck. So we went back to the park we were at before. We had about ten minutes until we had to leave to be home by 9:00. So we said a prayer and just asked that we would be led to someone who needed to hear our message. So then we went down this little walkway and there was nothing. So then we went down another little one and there was this girl there that we had seen earlier but she was exercising and had her earphones in so we didn't bother her. But as soon as she saw us she took her earphones out and so we started to talk to her. We asked her if she had a religion and she told us she didn't. So then we asked her if she believed in God. She said she did! So we started to talk to her about prayer and the importance of it. And we asked if she could pray with us. So I said a prayer and then we asked her if she would say a prayer and she did! She said she felt good and we asked if we could meet with her again and she said we could! So we are this saturday night meeting with her. I am so excited! It was such a huge miracle. I was praying so hard that we would be able to meet our goal yesterday and find and investigator. It was such a blessing and miracle. God's hand was definitely guiding us to find her. It was really cool.  So I am loving my area and the people. The people here are so amazing!! I love them so much. It's amazing being a missionary here.

 

Also, the rain. It's a real thing. Hahaha if any of you had doubts. It rains so much here! Today is the first day it hasn't rained. They had a typhoon a couple weeks ago so it has just been raining like crazy! But yeah today there was actual sunshine. I couldn't believe it! I woke up to blue skies. Also I will have to send you a picture of our bed sometime. We don'thave beds. We have little mat things and sleep on the floor in our front room. It rocks... Haha my back is loving it. But it's fun! We should be getting beds sometime I think! I love you all so much. Thanks for your emails and love and everything. You have no idea how much it means to me! God is working miracles!(:

 

Love sister Smedley(: