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.

 

Finally transferred....to Gaoxiong DaLiao!!!!

Hello!!

Hey I got transferred today. I moved to GAOXIONG, DALIAO. It's freaking sweet down here... and really hot already. Our apartment is super cool and has these cool views and a Buddhist temple next door. It's right next to Fooyin University 輔英科技大學. My new companion is Elder Miller. He's awesome. He did some time in the Air Force Academy in CO. He's super dope and I love him already. I was...."sad"...to leave Beitun after SIX long months... I was sad to say goodbye to some missionaries there and some friends. But I'm grateful that I can finally be down south. It's SUPER different. I've only been here for an hour, but it's very different. So yeah, this morning I got up and packed up all my stuff and boarded the train for Gaoxiong. The train ride was really pretty. I got to see a lot of the countryside of Taiwan. Taiwan is a really pretty place. I took some pictures on the train. It was fun because I got to ride half of the way with Elder Hatch, AKA the Hatchet. We got to talk for like 1 1/2 hours. It was really fun to catch up. I love that guy. He wants me to visit his family's farm in AR. We almost missed the train. We got on right as the door closed. Then Elder Hatch got off too late on his stop and I got off to early when I got into Gaoxiong. So I found myself in downtown Gaoxiong... So, I had to get back on a train and got to the FengShan station... Oh well. I got to see Elder Storey when I was there. That's pretty much my day. I'll get pictures next week. All of my stuff is still packed up and what not.. There's been some talk of going to KenDing in HengChun. One of the most beautiful places in Taiwan... We have a lot of cool people ready to go in Daliao. Daliao is a really super awesome area. All I've heard is good things.

Tell President Gibbons I say hello! I would love to send him an email.

I love you all so very much!!

We got one lesson and a new investigator!!!

Hello!

Here in Taiwan it was another uneventful week. On the bright side we got one lesson and a new investigator. His name is David. He's pretty cool. He served in the Army for over 30 years. His English is not bad either. He's really nice and he loves missionaries. We're set up to meet with him tomorrow. So, should be fun. But yeah, most of the week was just contacting and stuff. But, surprisingly I had a good time. It was fun just to ride around and talk to people. Me and Elder Meanea spent most the time laughing and talking about movies while we worked. I'm pretty used to things now I guess. I don't know. The weather was also really good. It was nice and sunny.

We actually had a lot of potentials and investigators drop us. This week we had an investigator who we had already dropped drive up to us and tell us that he didn't want to meet with us anymore, because he's not really looking for religion right now. I was nice to him and stuff, but he was just incredibly butt hurt about it and awkward... I didn't even really care too much, but he thought I was going to be really mad and upset... I just smiled and told him that if he ever changes his mind he knows our number and knows where the church is. I think he'll get baptized one day. Oh well.

On top of that, our sisters put together a restoration fireside. It was pretty good, but the turnout was pretty awful. 95% of the audience was all members, which was kind of awkward, because the fireside was aimed at non-members. So, we're up there inviting members to read the Book of Mormon to know it's true. It was really weird to get in front of everyone and speak in Chinese to the masses of people..Afterwards there were these really weird rice cookie things. It was fun to joke around with the members and stuff.

The other day while doing some studies, I got a surprise call from some members in 清水 QingShui. It was really funny to talk to them again. It was really weird though, because I could actually understand them and stuff. It was fun to laugh with them! They're super awesome, and I miss them a lot! They asked me when I was coming back to 清水 QingShui.

On Saturday night, we went and ate dinner with our zone leaders, Elder Wilkinson and Elder Hsu. We went to 一中街 which is like a night market. It has really good food and every time we go we get 冬梅茶 and 雞排. The JiPai is really unhealthy but it's so freaking good. Definitely has MSG on it.

For P-day today, we're going to Sun Moon Lake. We have a member named Daniel that's taking us. He's really cool, and he'll be going to BYU this spring.

Anyway, that's all I got this week! I love you all so very much!

Thanks for all the love and support

Hello family.

Yeah, on Monday we went to Fairy Lake. It was really fun and really pretty. I love hiking in Taiwan, it' s really fun to be in the jungle. There's also these huge monster spiders in the Jungle so it's kind of sketchy. Scott was really cool and was willing to take us hiking! I love Scott so much! It was also his birthday yesterday. Happy Birthday Scott!! I also have pictures.

Things are going slightly better, I guess my last email really scared everyone. Sorry. I got many calls from a lot of concerned people. So for the record, I'm okay. I'm not going home or going to die. I had my regular interview with President Teh and we talked for a very long time about things. He's really awesome and made me feel a lot better about things in my area. I even got a care package from a member in my first area. Thanks for all the love and support.

As for Chinese New Year, it's basically over but now the Lantern Festival is coming up (google pictures) I hear it's really cool so, we'll see... I finally got my debit card to work and was able to order a new bike.  My new bike still has two weeks to be shipped here.. So probably right around when I'll move (hopefully)....

Good to hear Ale passed the Learner's Permit test. That's really cool. That's cool they got another Ferret.

Sam has told me a lot about his job. It sounds like he has a role in House of Cards or something. He's been telling me all of his senator stories and such.

I love you all.

After six months in Beitun..I feel like everybody hates me..it's depressing

Hello!

Thanks for getting the bank stuff figured out..

As for my area, no one has mentioned anything to me about how long I've been here. I've just been marooned in a city. It's not that bad, but the area is definitely one of the harder areas in the mission. It actually has broken every single one of my companions. It's getting to the point with me where I literally feel like everybody hates me. My companion, the ward, other missionaries, the zone leaders, my district, people on the streets... It's really weird. Like in someways, I know that's not necessarily true but I feel that way. On top of all of this our new Zone Leader is crazy. He's previously served in the office. He had to be emergency transferred out of Taizhong because he couldn't get along with his companion. He ended up slapping his companion across the face. Yeah.. He's super crazy. Now he's my Zone Leader........

Honestly, nothing happened this week. My area is falling apart as usual. We don't have any progressing investigators or baptismal goals. We can't find anyone on the streets to talk to us. It's depressing.

This week one of our RC's in the ward met with us and told us that he's hearing voices and that they're telling him to do bad stuff. So he posted on Facebook, "Jesus wants me to kill myself." So the entire ward went crazy. What makes this worse is we've been meeting with him 1-2 times a week and he takes photos of us together every time. Well it doesn't look very good for missionaries when there's photos of us and quoting scriptures and then a couple days later, "Jesus wants me to kill myself." So now the ward probably thinks that I'm a Satanist. :)

On the bright side we got red envelopes, a Taiwanese tradition during Chinese New Year. These envelopes are a sign of great respect and love. We got a few from some members... But the thing is that we're not supposed to keep them. We have to turn them into the Equalized Missionary Fund. But, I'm not doing that, because I'm a selfish jerk...jk.

I don't know.. That's basically it... That was my week.