Taiwan post June 29, 2014

I have already been in Gangshan for 5 weeks. It is crazy how fast it has gone. But I love it so much. I have gotten to know the ward better and they are so awesome. Our member invited us over to her house to share the gospel with her long time friend. Who is amazing? Is really willing to listen and learn more. Can’t wait to meet with her next week. The mother is from Indonesia, and she has been in Taiwan for about 20+ years. And her Chinese is really good, as well as English, taiyu and her native language. Super amazing. She has a gift of many languages.

Last week we went hiking on a mountain nearby. It was so much fun, we climbed so many stairs. It was really tall. And the trees were really pretty and covered with banana spider webs. Really dangerous spiders...but luckily they were not too close. There were people exercising on the path. They ran up and down the stairs....crazy since it was so hot and steep.

This week I learned the importance of doing hard work. When we do hard work the lord blesses you and will help you see miracles. We also have been finds former investigators. People who had previously investigated the church by stopped meeting with the missionaries. So we found many new investigators through contacting these people. God prepares people everywhere. Sometimes when they are first contacted by missionaries they are not ready, but over time God will prepare them to be ready to receive his message. If we do everything we can to find new investigators we will be blessed with finding those that are ready.

I love you all. Stay healthy and hydrated....summer is here!!!!!

Love Sister Basko

 

Stairs hiked on p-day

banana spider on hike

dragon fruit

beautiful daughter after hiking stairs

view from the top

butterfly

one of Rachel's favorite fruit - mango

Taiwan post June 22, 2014

Have you ever counted miracles? I love counting miracles. It constantly remind me know many blessings Heavenly Father gives us with in one day. When we do our very best we see so many more blessings. Being exactly obedient and willing to do the will of our Heavenly Father allows us to receive His promised blessings.

This week we had about 20 minutes before we went English power boarding. So we decided to go and tract in an area nearby. We said a prayer to help us find to people, or receive 2 numbers so that we can contact them again. And so we went and the first door a grandma let us in and we talked to her grandson for a little bit in English. Her daughter came out and started talking to us. And she asked a lot of really good questions. She had seen missionaries on the streets and so she wanted to know more. Since we didn't have much time we were able to share a little after we exchanged numbers. We have two people we can go back and talk to and we also have her and her husband’s numbers. It is amazing how when you have a goal in mind Heavenly Father will really help you obtain it. Just always keep up the faith!!!

Love you all!!!

Love Sister Basko

 

Taiwan post June 16, 2014

This week has been so amazing. My companion and I have been contacting everyone we can. It has been really hard and sometimes we don't have that much time to talk to some people. But we do our best to give them an opportunity to listen to the restored gospel. And because we are doing our best we have seen so many miracles. It has been amazing. Heaven has opened the windows and had started raining down blessings. It is unbelievable. We have been knocking on doors a lot and have only found grandmas. But they all have been supper cute and willing to listen and they have been able to speak Chinese. The older generation here is only able to speak taiyu which is like the native language. But we have found many of the grandmas are willing for us to come back and visit them again. It has been a lot of fun. And we have gotten to visit our members too. Which has been fun since I still have not met very many people.

I love seeing how the Holy Ghost guides us to find the people that we find. Sometimes I don't notice it is the Holy Ghost guiding us but after when I look back. I notice it was not us who picked where we went tracting. I love it so much. Faith is stronger than anything. You just have to believe.

Love Sister Basko

Taiwan post June 9, 2014

This week was so amazing. We got to go on exchanges with the sister training leaders, and I got to go this one of my previous companions. It was so much fun. We saw so many miracles and it was such a great experience. We went park contacting. Which I was a little nervous about since it is really hard to talk to people when they are busy doing stuff. But when you don't think about it and just go right into it, it is so much easier. And found some pretty awesome people so I hope that the missionaries will be able to get to know them and help them learn about Christ’s gospel. I love Sister Tung so much she teaches with a powerful spirit. It is so easy to feel the spirit with her I feel like I learned so much. We try to make sure that we are doing our best every day to talk to everyone and even if they will not meet with us or if they do not have interest. Just make sure that they are little happier when they leave. Patience and humility are the biggest factors in being a follower of Christ.

I love counting the miracles every week and seeing how many blessing we are every day and being so grateful for this opportunity to be able to do His work and to also learn so much about His love for His children. There are people prepared everywhere and all we have to do is talk to everyone and we will find those that are ready to hear the gospel.

Love you all!!!!! It is summer and getting hot. Stay healthy and strong! :D

Love Sister Basko

With Sister Tung - now a training leader

Taiwan post June 1, 2014

I love Gangshan, it is my new area. Move calls were a week ago and Gangshan is my new area. The members are amazing. They are really involved in the work and so it is really motivating to be here. Nanzi was very hard and I was a little worried about having a Taiwanese companion but it has been so amazing. She is super awesome and is only older than me by 1 day and we started our missions at the same time. We were without a bike for a whole week. It only arrives on Saturday about 3:00, which was fortunate that we were nearby and could get my bike. My stuff was taken to Tainan with Sister Chen’s stuff, and so I would have been here about Thursday or so, but it took 2 more day to come back. But we are super grateful to have our bikes. Our feet are very sore from walking everywhere since we are not use to it. This area is really big and we were only able to visit people who were nearby but I got to meet a recent convert that I might not have met if we would have had our bikes. We have seen so many miracles and our ward members are actively working hard to invite people to church and get their friends introduced to the church. This week was really amazing; we saw so many miracles and tons of blessings. I love you all!!!

Love Sister Basko

Taiwan Post May 26, 2014

Dear Everyone,

This week is move call. I was in Nanzi with Sister Chen, but that area was closed for sisters because there are no new sisters coming in so some areas will be closed. But I’m not moving very far, I’m just going above Nanzi to Gangshan. The two areas are touching. So I am still really close to where I came from. My companion is Sister Yeh; she is Taiwanese and has been serving in Taiwan for 1 move call more than me. So excited to be here. The area is a little bigger, but not too big.

This week was crazy, we were super busy. We had 3 people wanting to feed us dinner on Tuesday night at 6:30. We had already made plans long before with Sister Joy and Sister Zeng so we went to Joy's home to eat. But we had a little snack with our member and her little sister right before. It was really great to get to know her better and her sister. They have completely opposite personalities. They are super cute. After we headed to Joys and had dinner with a less active, it was a really good environment, it was really comfortable and we are able to get to know her better. On Wednesday we had lunch with an less active out in Dashe, her food is really good. It is all homemade and very fresh. After we helped move some stuff around in her house, then had dinner with our recent convert and her son. It was really fun, we got to see our recent convert's personality outside meeting with her. She is usually very strict, but when she meets with us she is always relaxed. It was good get to know her son better.

 On Thuusday we had a big group of us eat together, our less active told us to bring people so we invited another recent convert, and the elders brought an investigator and his girlfriend. It was a lot of fun. It was a little awkward to start with, but after it was very relaxed and got to know each other and shared about how this gospel has blessed our lives.

We exchanged with the sister training leaders on Friday and Saturday. I learned a ton from Sister Graham, about how to contact on the street. It is all about how you express it, if you are excited to talk with someone they will be interested, but if you’re not, then they will not have interest either. She is really amazing. She contacts everyone and is so energetic. It really makes a big difference. If you are excited to talk to someone they will be more willing to learn more. Always think positively because if you don't all those doubts will stop you from really progressing.

Love you all. I love going out and serving the people in Taiwan. They are very friendly and willing to listen. As we look for ways we need to change, God will help us know and developed skills to overcome our weaknesses.

Love Sister Basko

Taiwan post May 19, 2014

This week was so exciting, we had a progressing investigator!!!Her husband is Buddhist but she is really interested, and her husband asked her if she would still be able to worship. And she can even when she is baptized as long as she is praying to Heavenly Father and not the Buddha statue. She is really cute and getting very interesting in how to be healthy, we are super excited to keep sharing the gospel with her.

We were outside sharing about our English class and we looked down the street and saw it down pouring. It had not yet reached us. We ran and put on rain gear and less than a minute it started down pouring. It was incredible the streets had about 2 inches of rain on it and then it was done raining. And it was really nice since it cooled off and was no long quite as humid out.

I got the opportunity to eat pig’s blood in gelatin form and to eat small intestines. It was really interesting. It didn't taste bad but it really was not that good either. It was a good experience.

Stay strong and close to Heavenly Father.

Love Sister Basko