Thanks For The Birthday Wishes!!

January 26, 2015

Hey Everyone!

We had another awesome week here in Taiwan. I had a great birthday yesterday. It seemed like it was just going to be another normal day. We had stake conference in Yong Kang, and then rode our bikes about an hour to the R... house to teach D.... Like usual we had some awesome food. They gave us an interesting kind of bacon. It was the pig skin, and it still had a lot of pig hair in it...I don't really think they were necessary. lol And they looked at me really weird when I tried to pluck some of the hairs out. I prefer normal bacon.

After dinner with them, we rode our bikes back to our chapel to have a lesson. We were sitting around in the church and D..., one of the members in our ward called me. He must have thought that I was Elder Smith because he told me about his plan for a surprise party. So I just played along and went in the room they told me to haha. They had a little party set up for me with pizza, cake, presents, and some stinky tofu. They had gotten the fried version of the tofu so it didn't taste that bad. I was lucky haha.

Later we had a dinner with another family. Somehow they had found out it was my birthday so they had a ton of food prepared and a cake for me. I was so stuffed from the meal and the meal at the R... house, the surprise party, and then this meal, all within an hour or two. I probably ate enough to feed a family for several days. I don't know how I managed to keep everything down. Why is it that every dinner appointment is that way!?

The rest of the day was good too. We taught L... Y... H... and then came home to go to sleep. We were in the middle of planning when D... called us and told us to go outside. They had even more cake and presents to give me! Wow, I've never eaten so much cake in one day. I also got to blow out birthday candles three times! My wish better come true. lol I was wearing the pants from Nepal and everyone loved them! Especially Elder Smith. He wanted to try them on so badly and get himself a pair haha. All in all, it was a great birthday!

The rest of the week was fun too. After English Class, I came out of the church to find that the other Elders had climbed up and put my bike on the roof! It was pretty funny. It took me a while before I was able to find it because it was so dark outside.

Just some Taiwan stuff, there are a lot of women (usually in their 80s or higher) who always ride their bikes around town and collect things. You'll also see them pushing these huge carts pilled high with tons of garbage. They really love to collect stuff. I have no idea how they can push the carts though. The elderly people in Taiwan are really healthy.

Usually for meals, they give us a bowl with rice in it and have a bunch of big bowl on the table with the different foods on them. We just grab what we want and put it in our rice bowl to eat it and just eat whatever we want. Usually they have a lot of fish, vegetable and meats. Unfortunately there is usually more fat than meat. They love to eat fat here. You usually can't chew the fat up. You just have to force yourself to swallow it.

Well that's about all for this week. I hope everyone has a great week! I love you lots!

Love

Andrew

ps. btw I got your package a few days ago. Thanks for everything. I love the pants! The deodorant sticks are essential too. And Elder Smith really appreciated the candy bar. Apparently dark chocolate caramel is his favorite. The sea salt caramel stuff is the best! Thanks!