Preparing For The New Year!

February 01, 2016

Dear Everyone,

This past week was pretty good! It's been much warmer than it was last week, but still cold enough to need a jacket. Like usual, this last week we've had some ups and some downs. Mainly ups though because it's almost Chinese New Year and many of the members here already told us that they are inviting us over to eat with them! New Years is not this week, but the next one and they told us that they are going to feed us for every lunch and dinner for the entire week!! That's even better than what I had last year in Tainan for New Years. So I'm excited for that.

So today I'm emailing a little later because we just got back from going with the Wang family (they are in our Ward) to Lugang to sight see. Lugang is a little north west from Xihu and it's right next to the ocean. There are a ton of old historical sights and temples there so I made sure to take lots of pictures. We drove about 40 minutes over there and then rented some bikes and rode all over. It was really fun going with Brother Wang because he loves to read up on historical things so he told us what all of the stuff meant inside the temples and also the history behind the buildings. It started to rain for a while, but that was right when we went to eat some lunch so it was all good. We ate some good oysters that are pretty famous.

We also got a chance to go eat with another member this week and he gave us some very good food...pig ears. Yeah it was pretty interesting. It's a little crunchy and fun to eat because of the thin bones and cartilage inside of them. It wasn't as bad as I would've thought, but I still don't recommend it to anyone.

This week we rode the bus down to Erlin to meet with W... that we met with last week. But we waited for him at the same convenient store and he never showed up. We had given up and were walking back to the bus stop when we saw him on the road. We talked and he said that we could just meet tomorrow. So we came the next day....and he didn't show up again! He didn't answer our calls or text back so I guess he just wasn't interested anymore;(

Other good news though...I think I'm going to rival Eric's record for the most doors knocked while finding people. We keep track of how many hours we spend finding each day and since we don't have anyone to teach, we have the highest in the zone and probably in the whole mission haha. This last week we spent 34.5 hours tracting so I'm pretty sure we're rivaling your record Eric. It's good though because tracting is our most efficient way of finding people to teach. (obviously besides working through members). We actually found someone that said we could come back next week so we'll see what happens.

This week I finally got to do something I've always wanted to do here in Taiwan....I played Chinese Chess with an old Taiwanese guy!! We went up and sat down next to some old guys who had a chess board next to them and I asked if I could play with them and he got super excited! We set it up and we started trash talking (seriously, he was super competitive!) and then we started playing. It was not even a close match...he destroyed me, but in my defense, he played with completely different rules from what I learned so I had completely no chance! It was super fun though.

Oh I got your package in the mail dad and mom, but I still haven't gotten Alexa's yet. I'm afraid to say it, but I feel like it didn't make it. That's too bad, both times you tried to send me something special, they both got lost... Hopefully it comes though!

Well all in all, it's been a great week! We're having a good time and doing our best to get things done! It sounds like you're all having a fun time as well so I'm glad to hear it. Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Stevens