April 30, 2012

Helllooo family! News from Taiwan. All is well! This week was full of adventures and amazing experiences.

 

Last preparation day we woke up early and to the elders' apartment nearby ours. They actually live in our area but their assigned area is the one next to ours. In their apartment they have an excersize room with a ping pong table in it! So for our preparation day excersize we played some sweet games of ping pong. It has been a long time since i have played ping pong, it was nice. Afterwards we had a yummy breakfast of pancakes and buttermilk syrup.  Elder Bentley and I needed to get haircuts so we went to a nearby place and we walked in, sat down, and i realized i have no idea how to get a haircut in chinese. I asked Elder Bentley what he usually does and  he said to just tell them shorter, so i did. They cut it a little....weird. She only thinned out one side and would use her little buzzer all over my head and then randomly scizzor cut other places. It was kind of interesting and it turned out a little un even in places, but hey my hair is shorter!

 

The next day we had district training meeting, Our district consists of the elders we played ping pong with, and two sisters that serve in both our area and the other elders area next to ours. It was a great meeting, we just talked about how the work is going in our area and how we are going to get better! One thing we talked about is consistancy. I think it was Dallin H. Oaks that once said the difference between all of us and the prophet is consistancy. That is not to belittle the prophet, but to show us that the amazing faith, testimony, and knowledge that our dear prophet, Thomas S. Monson has is attained through consistancy. Consistantly living our covenants, consistantly keeping God's commandments, consistantly being true to what we know. After district training meeting my companion and I had companionship exchanges! I went with Elder Bailey to his area and Elder Bentley went with Elder Miller back to our area (they are the Elders we played ping pong with). One of their investigators took Elder Bailey and I out for dinner, and it was expensive but delicious. Apparantely he is pretty well off and likes to take them out to eat, so elder miller was pretty jealous i got to go instead of him. He got us a noodle and beef soup with a pidan (one thousand year egg) and some other treats. Pidan is pretty much an egg fermented in something for a really long time and i thought it was going to be terrible but he put some sauce on it and it was actually not bad! Afterwards we had a lesson with a shuai ge (handsome man, it is not weird to randomly walk up to people and call them handsome here it is pretty sweet, it is actually super common) named brother Bai. We reviewed the restoration and watched the restoration video, it was weird for me to watch it in chinese!

 

The next morning we woke up and Elder Bailey told me we were going to do his ultimate cardio workout..so we did. We ran up 26 flights of stairs! That was an adventure, and my legs were dying the next day, but the view from the top of their apartment is amazing! We could see all the way to fengyuan, which is a city where brother Smith served in! WE actually went to their ward building to watch conference a few weeks ago too, you will have to tell brother Smith I have been there! I had the opportunity to go visit the Chen family, who were taught by Brooke! (Sister Smith) They said i kind of look like her heh. They are super funny and are doing so great. They tried to give us their whole house pretty much. They just kept bringing out more and more food! We had a great lesson with them about the sabbath day and the amazing blessings that come from keeping the sabbath day holy! Growing faith and understanding of the gospel, and renewing our covenants with God are just a few! After that we switched back to our normal companions and headed to Daya to teach our english classes! Of course our friend Karen brought us snacks again, this time cream filled wafers! On our way home from Daya it rained..again..i don't know what it is about wednesday nights but pretty much every ride home from Daya it rains! It is fun though, because people are always so surprised when two white people out in the rain pull up next to them on bikes and start talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We get to talk to someone at pretty much every red light, because almost everyone drives scooter so you can just pull right up next to them and start talking. Sometimes if you catch people off guard by pulling up and enthusiastically saying hello to them they get startled and jump and sometimes even quickly drive away.

 

The weather lately has been fantastic lately because of all of the rain! Elder Bentley lost his rain clothes on saturday though, and he says boy i hope it doesn't rain tomorrow, so of course..it rains! Hard too! It was sunday night around 6 and it started pouring, and i didn't want Elder Bentley to be wet and miserable alone so we did it together haha. We were pretty much as wet as you could possibly get. It was probably the best ever, we just tried to find as many people as we could but there wasn't very many people out so we went tracting and then went to visit a  young man who's mother and little sister are very active, but he is not. He is 17 and a very smart, awesome kid. I think that his mother has wanted to talk to him about going to church and about the gospel, and last night was the night. She bore an amazing testimony on how she feels the spirit in her life and then right after the lesson asked us to help her talk to her son about the importance of church. We taught about the sabbath day and the blessings of it and right after she told her son how important it is to her. It was such an awesome experience to get to be there for the teaching moment she had with her son. The spirit was strong. They are such a sweet family, the mother brought out a blow dryer to dry us off because of the rain.

 

Well time is up and i feel like i can never quite express what i want but it is time to go! Thanks for all of your love and support family, i love you all very much! Please thank Brother Smith, Sister Law, The Ferris's, Dena Sterling lexi ashton, and cyndi, and the feddocks for the things they have sent me! Thank you all so much!

 

Things to send:4 generation pedigree chart if we have one.

-Music! Ask celeste to make me a CD :D Just put at least john schmidt (all of me and waterfall) and a song of off youtube-if you could hie to kolob instrumental arrangement by lex de alv-something(not sure on the name) They rest is up to her, but basically just make sure it directs your thoughts to the savior! Thanks very much!