[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-149859-en":3,"doc-seo-149859-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":11,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":11,"is_downloadable":11,"audit_status":11,"page_count":20,"language":21,"language_code":22,"site_id":23,"html_lang":22,"table_of_contents":24,"faqs":25,"seo_title":26,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},149859,2336475104042,"Tawan","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/22000c4c32af1715be0?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1786537525561427321",1,"Story & Novel","Junior Companion - Mormon Missionaries in Tatwan","A firsthand narrative follows Holly Welker’s arrival in Tainan, Taiwan in August 1985 as a missionary companion and trainer, detailing early culture shock, conversations with her mission president, and the practical realities of teaching. It describes how missionary demographics, language difficulty, and an investigator pool shaped baptisms, retention, and church needs. The story also explores gender roles through a discussion of companionship and marriage, contrasting doctrine with personal views and emotional reactions.","# Junior Companion\n\nHolly Welker  \nMORMON MISSIONARIES IN TATWAN weren’t hard to spot,not only becauseof those white shirts and name tags.First of all,they were usually of Eu-ropean descent,and those white faces became luridly conspicuousamong a group of brown people.Secondly,two thirds of the missionariesin our mission were male,and American men often towered over Chi-nese men.My first area as a missionary was in Tainan,a small city insouthern Taiwan,and I arrived there in August of 1985.When I got offthe train that first day,my welcoming committee was the most obvioussight at the station:a group of young,clean-cut,white men surroundingthe single solitary sister who was to be my first on-island companion andtrainer,Sister Bingley.  \nAt the end of a week occupied with adjusting to a foreign countryand settling into life as a proselyting missionary,I got a visit from mymission president,who wanted to check on me.\"I′m OK,\"I told Presi-dent Gardiner.\"I′m finally starting to believe that I live here,that I′m notjust visiting,since I keep waking up in the same bed and sitting at thesame desk.And I like being here so much better than the MTC.I feel likeyou trust us here.I never felt that way in the MTC.\"  \n\"I trust people as long as they give me no reason not to,\"he said.\"It's easier.I don't have time to be suspicious of people.\"  \n\"That makes sense to me,\"I said.\"I'm not very suspicious myself.\"  \n\"What about the language?\"he asked.\"How are you getting alongwith Chinese?”  \n\"Oh,Chinese,\"I said.\"It's the bane of my existence.I don't knowhow I′m ever going to learn enough to teach in that language.It's sohard.\"  \nPresident Gardiner laughed.\"Yes,it is.But you'll do fine.I have tosay,if that's your biggest problem,then you're doing very well.To behonest,you’re getting along better than I expected.\"  \nI wrinkled my nose.\"I don't know whether to be flattered that I′madjusting so well,or disappointed that you thought I wouldn't cope.\"  \n\"It's not that,\"he said.\"It's hard.It's a very different culture,and  \nculture shock can be tough,even for people who are glad to be here.Andbeing a missionary isn't easy,either.\"  \nBut many things facilitated my adjustment to missionary life andTaiwan.For one thing,Sister Bingley and her previous companion hadbuilt a solid investigator pool;the work was going well.Bingley and Iwere lucky because we had a family in our investigator pool—it was al-ways better to teach families because they could be socialized into thechurch as a unit and encourage one another to stay active,so their reten-tion rate was higher.There was also the fact that families provided po-tential priesthood holders,something the church desperately needed inTaiwan.Most of the people joining the church in Taiwan at that timewere women,who couldn't hold the priesthood and often didn't earnmuch money and so didn't pay as much tithing as men,all of whichmade them less desirable as members.Sisters could not teach singlemen,and elders could not teach single women,but because womenjoined the church more readily than men,sisters usually had more workand more baptisms.There might have been a little resentment over thatbehind the fact that a young woman who joined the church was known,somewhat dismissively,as a\"syaujye baptism.\"(Syaujye means Miss.)Still,it was at least a baptism,and sisters'higher success rate might havebeen why both of my mission presidents wanted Salt Lake to send ahigher percentage of sister missionaries.  \nAnother element helping my adjustment to missionary life was thefact that I liked not only Sister Bingley,but the elders in my district.Theywere good-natured,decent young men,even if they weren't the most en-lightened guys I'd met.Sister Bingley felt fairly maternal towards them;she was always insisting we make cookies for them if they had a bad day.Occasionally the elders would reciprocate.One Sunday they served usdinner.Since we weren't allowed to go into their apartment,we sat out-side their house and ate the teriyaki mea","cbCaicDgIxxETxf8","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaicDgIxxETxf8","pdf",1349740,7,"English","en",105,"# Junior Companion\n## Arrival and adjustment in Tainan\n## Meeting with mission president\n## Building an investigator pool\n## Companionship and gender roles","[{\"question\":\"What challenges does Holly Welker face when she begins her mission in Tainan?\",\"answer\":\"She struggles with adjusting to a foreign environment and learning Chinese, and she also deals with the broader difficulty of cultural shock and missionary life.\"},{\"question\":\"How does Holly’s mission president respond to her concerns about language and adjustment?\",\"answer\":\"He reassures her that learning Chinese will be hard but manageable, and he explains that being suspicious is unnecessary because there is limited time to second-guess people.\"},{\"question\":\"What debate does Holly have about junior-senior roles and marriage?\",\"answer\":\"She argues that marriage should be a partnership where decisions are shared, while the elders insist someone must be in charge as the priesthood holder; Holly criticizes the sexism implied by the system.\"}]","Junior Companion - Mormon Missionaries in Tatwan | 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