Hittin' the beach, talkin' on the phone in my sleep, and teaching a Filipina

Hello!

It's nice to hear about the stuff going on back home. Home seems really weird to me now. I'll probably have massive panic attacks when I get back. I've been talking to some Elders that have gone home and they all say that they don't know how to fit into American culture anymore. One of them stays inside all day and doesn't really talk to anyone besides people from Taiwan over Facebook... I worry that's going to be me.

This week was good... I'm not sure where to begin.. I'll start off with a weird experience that happened this week. I fell asleep in our apartment and my companion fell asleep too. (oops.) And then I remember the phone ringing and it was a member that was going to help us teach a lesson. I just remember the phone ringing and answering it and saying some Chinese... I guess I did the entire call in my sleep and responded fine to everything. I don't remember the call. I just knew that the lesson was cancelled... Some things never change with me.. I'm super weird with sleep.

We've been eating healthier this week. It's very common in Taiwan to be given massive amounts of fruit all the time from members and stuff. So I've been making an effort to eat healthier with my companion. It didn't go well as we immediately were taken to a steak place this week with some greasy American food.

We also got our apartment inspected this week by the senior couple. They surprised us and said they were coming down THAT morning to tour our chapel and inspect our house. So me and companion spent the entire morning cleaning. My companion kept making jokes about dust being on horizontal surfaces and checking my mirrors from all angles. They didn't say anything about our apartment mostly because it was literally military standards clean.

We've also reached out in love and are eating with the neighboring Elders once a week. I enjoy talking to them, one has some really interesting ideas about missionary work and me and Elder Miller just laugh. The other is really cool, he was an Air Force ROTC cadet up at USU and so me and him were talking a ton. He's fun to talk to.

Nothing really new is going on missionary work wise. Just kind of the same old same old. We don't really have anyone in particular that's especially progressing. We're teaching a girl from the Philippines. Right now she's basically working like a slave and her family lives in the Philippines. She has 5 kids. She's really cool and we teach her in English. She's really enjoying the Book of Mormon. The only problem is, she can't really get to church due to obvious reasons...

I'm doing really well and Kending was super pretty. It was like a movie tropical island scene. It was really pretty. Don't worry I took some cool pictures. It reminded me of Hawaii. At least what I think Hawaii is. I love you all so very much. Today we're going to another Island, 旗津海岸公園. It should be pretty.

I almost got raped kissed, but we had a cool little miracle...

Hello!

We had a really fun week. This week started out really slow, and so it was a lot of finding and contacting, but I don't really mind contacting anymore. On top of this, our mission changed some ways we contact. Before, we had contact cards just like business cards that people can write their information on, and we also had these pass along tracts that had short gospel messages that we give out like candy. At our zone conference, we were told that we were not allowed to use these things anymore, so it's been weird to go out and contact and not have these things. I actually like it more, because I don't feel like a business man. Although, many missionaries across the mission are really upset about this change.

One of my fun stories this week was while we were contacting at the MRT station (Speaking of which, I got some pictures of us on the MRT going to zone conference, and it was really fun, because it's a subway and it's really clean and cheap.) we came across a guy that looked a little funny. He was acting weird right from the start. So he starts rubbing me and Elder Millers hands right off the bat. So we're weirded out, and then he just goes for it and just hugs me. I instantly pull away and stare at him weird. Then he goes in for another surprise hug and I pull away. He's not letting go, so I start to push harder, and then at the last second I pushed him really hard. I'm glad I did, because he was going in for a kiss. I almost got raped kissed. Elder Miller was entertained for many days.

We also had a cool little miracle. We were eating our lunch at the church, and it was time for us to go back out get back to work. But, me and Elder Miller were feeling a little lazy, so we both said, "5 more minutes." During that 5 minutes I started to feel a little bad about being in the church longer than we should have. Then all of the sudden, a woman walks up to the church and starts asking us if she could meet with us and attend church. She was super nice and friendly.... I don't know, just a cool experience I guess haha...

On Sunday, we had a ward member bring her friend. He's from Vietnam and doesn't speak Chinese very well. So..... I had to translate most of the church meetings from Chinese to English.. On Sunday I realized how awful I am at translating. I have this weird thing where it makes sense to me, but I have no idea how to say it in English. Plus, Chinese is sometimes weird like that and I can't really explain it well. But, I asked him how I did and he said it was fine. There was only a couple times where I had no idea what they were saying in church, which is pretty usual for me. But yeah, I learned I really suck at translating.

Sorry to hear things at home are a little bit crazy but that's nothing new... I love you all so very much!

Today we're going to one of the beautiful places in Taiwan, Kending. It should be fun.

Don't expect meat at a Buddhist Buffet

Hello!

So, I'll start with P-Day. On P-Day we went to FoGuanShan. It was really cool. I sent lots of pictures. Sorry I got a cold sore this week so I look like a gross Taiwanese witch. It was really fun we went with YiZhong, a man in our ward that sells essential oils and loves missionaries. It was really fun. We went to a Buddhist Buffet that they had inside. It was all vegetables because they don't eat meat. It was alright. Me and Elder Miller just kept joking around that there was meat somewhere in the monastery for the evil Buddhists. I took a lot of pictures.

This week was really fun. I love the ward here. They're very funny and friendly. Church is like a freak show. Hahaha! There's a ton of weird things that go on in the ward, but I love them all very much. Still haven't met the bishop. His name is Light Dragon. Freaking Light Dragon.

This week I had the opportunity to meet one of the recent converts. His name is Chapel. He is so funny. He reminds me a of a mix of Nathan Fox and Conan. He's just the most interesting guy to talk to. He does insurance and it's funny because he'll make jokes randomly like, "Oh what we do at my work used to be illegal, I'm so rich now but now we don't do illegal stuff anymore. I'm still rich though." Yeah he's pretty funny. Currently we're working on trying to get his son and his daughter baptized. His daughter is significantly less receptive. His son on the other hand is a little more. He just is really lazy and won't come to church. Chapel says, "He's fatigued. I fear Arty is fatigued. " It makes me laugh.

Other than that, me and Elder Miller have just been working away. Our baptism girl cancelled her baptism because her friends keeping telling her we're super evil. She has a testimony of most everything we're teaching her she just doubts a ton.

I love you all so very much!

It's really fun down here...our apartment building caught on fire...Me and Elder Miller just laugh

Hello hello!

This is my first week in Gaoxiong. It's been really really....interesting to say the least. My first days in Daliao have been really good but really weird. The south of Taiwan is really different in my aspects. The people on the streets here are very nice and willing to talk usually. Which has been a little hard for me to get used too. We have tons of stuff going on in our area. We have tons of investigators and potentials. One of our potentials is an Army Sniper. We run across a ton of military guys because we live close to a military academy. It's been really fun down here. Everything is more ghetto but it's hilarious. There's tons of crazy people. On my second day we got followed by a weird guy for like 30 minutes. Then the next day we had a 70 year old man walk into the church, shake my hand and then without speaking just left....? It was weird. Me and Elder Miller just laugh though.

I love Elder Miller. He's super dope. We just instantly got along right when we met and then from there we've already been joking around and laughing basically every 30 minutes. Apparently, he thinks I'm hilarious so he just laughs and laughs and laughs. I thought it was fake pity laughs initially but it's actually legit. We usually stay up laughing and talking about the military until 1:00 AM every night. He's been telling me all of his Air For ce Academy stories. He's got some good ones. Air Force Academy sounds super awful sometimes though.

Our Ward Mission Leader is a guy from Utah. He's pretty interesting. He's an English teacher with his wife. He's been living in Taiwan for a little while. He doesn't speak any Chinese. So it's kind of hard for him to work with the ward. Our first meet he told me about some stories and then proceeded to start swearing... So that was interesting.

This week our apartment complex caught on fire. There's a small breakfast shop we eat at every morning and I guess at 2:00 AM it caught on fire. I guess a message came over the intercoms telling us to be careful and stuff. Hilariously, me and Elder Miller slept through the whole thing. We woke up and a white girl who's crazy/LA/weird that lives in our apartment complex told us about it the next morning. Unfortunately before we could get our cameras they were already cleaning it up.

English class is really weird here. I'm not a fan of the new English program. It kind of sucks, but whatever. Me and Elder Miller have to manage the whole class on Wednesday. So it's a little bit of a struggle. But something hilarious happened. So we have this guy named Yogi in our English class who's really weird. We ran out of material to teach so we started to play hang man. The word was like registered mail or something. So we picked on Yogi to give us a letter. After maybe 10 minutes of thinking about it and us just saying over and over, "Give. Us. A letter." He just comes up to the board. Grabs the marker and starts to write Discriminate..... The lessons was about the Post Office... But since Discriminate doesn't fit he wrote the first couple of letters and then ADDED a space. It was so funny. Me and Elder Miller could not get it together. We laughed for like an hour.

We might be getting a baptism this week. We're teaching a Lin Jie Mie. She's pretty cool and she sells houses in Gaoxiong. She's had all of the lessons but she just doubts that's shes received an answer... So she has a 50 % chance of getting baptized on Saturday.. She's passed the baptismal interview and everything she's..... just really frustrating... Anyway that's my week! Glad you're all still alive. When's spring break?

I love you!

P.S., Today for P-Day we're going to a giant Buddha. Fo Guan Shan.

P.P.S., I got my new bike on Saturday! It's good! Way better than my other one.