Mini Move Call... And Christmas Party!!

Hey everyone! 

Well after just being here in Xihu with Elder Williams for only three weeks, we had another move. Elder Williams in transferring to an even more rural place called Huwei and I will have a new companion named Elder Cole. I'm really sad that Elder Williams is leaving after I just barely arrived here. He was a really great companion and missionary. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot together. It's not everyday that I get to have a Samoan companion! I will miss him a lot. My new companion Elder Cole seems really nice though. Before the mission, he was really good friends with Elder Pearce from my MTC district. He just got down with training about three weeks ago so he's still fairly new.

  Last week Elder Williams and I had a great week though. It was out mission Christmas party. You probably already know though from seeing all the mission pictures on the blog. It was pretty fun, especially because we got a chance to talk with a lot of the missionaries that I'd served with before or I really like. I got to see everyone from my original district back in the MTC and we got some pictures. Hopefully I'll be able to send them next week when I get them. We went up to a place called Puli to visit a place that I'm sure you've all heard of, Sun Moon Lake. It was actually a lot bigger of a lake than I thought it would be. I envisioned it as a lot smaller with temples and stuff all leading out into the lake, but it was still really pretty and I enjoyed going there. Actually most of the time was spent taking the picture with every missionary by that tower. It was up on the top of the hill by the lake, and we spending an hour or two just standing there taking it and making sure that it was a perfect picture. Dad it was even worse than taking all that time with the pictures taken by you haha. It was alright though. We also went to a chidaobao (all you can eat place) with a lot of good food.

  Other than the Christmas party, it was a pretty normal week. Elder Williams and I went to visit lots of less active members and to do a lot of tracking. Actually the very first house that we knocked on this week turned out to be fun. The guy instantly opened up and let us really quick. I was super pumped and expecting a miracle and this guy to be super awesome and willing to listen.  But when we sat down together, he just kept watching the TV and didn't really say anything to us. He just would nod his head to anything we said to him and watch the TV haha. Eventually he said that we had to go before his wife came back so we just got up and left. it was quite bizarre.

  We just spent a lot of time tracking, but we didn't really see much results yet. Maybe we need to go a little further from the main town. The people we talked to this week didn't quite seem that excited to talk with us. I'm excited to see what things that Elder Cole and I can do together.

   Thanks so much for preparing those packages for me! I'm excited to get them! I don't know if I should save them for Christmas or if I should just open them right when I get them. It's really hard to wait for these type of things haha. I'll keep you updated on what we're going to do for skyping. We could probably do it Christmas morning our time here. But I'll let you know. Well, I love you all lots! Have  a great week!
Love,

Elder Stevens 


Puli, Taiwan, Sun Moon Lake










I Caught A Fish This Big!

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