Taiwan

  Well, the week has past and here's another email. Whenever I sit down to write, I completely forget everything I had to say so I'm sorry if in every email it seems like I'm just saying the same things over and over. Luckily my English hasn't gotten too bad yet so it's less painful to read haha.   Well fortunately we had a few activities last week that added some spice to the missionary life. Our English party went well and our pinata was a fan favorite! It was so hard to make and neither me nor my companion knew what we were doing. We just got a balloon and covered it in newspaper and glue and thankfully it was strong enough to work. Actually, we were really worried that the pinata wouldn't even be strong enough to hold the candy. So we put lots of paper on it, so much that they couldn't break it with the plastic bat that we had! So we had to get out a different bat for them to finally break it with. We also made some horchata, a Spanish rice milk drin...

Hey what's up!   I have good news for everyone. I ALMOST have my packages from home! They should be here in another week or so. The mission office has been sending all of my mail to the wrong address down in Gaoxiong. One of the Elders in Gaoxiong discovered the packages and he said he would send them up soon. So hopefully I'll get them quickly! And hopefully all the food is still good!   Other good news...we've found some really nice people that are really interested in the gospel message. A guy named Steven (what a great name, we are going to get along really well) who is a student here at Donghai University. He is super cool and really outgoing so it was fun to talk with him. He has never really heard a lot about Christ before, but he has always wondered why He is so special and why people are so happy in sharing a message about Him. He's a really nice guy.   I love having a college in my area, because all the colle...

Hey Everyone! I just had an awesome week and an even better weekend! Listening to conference was, as Eric already said, the closest thing I've had to a weekend so far on my mission. It was nice to be able to relax and listen to some great inspired messages. I really liked them all, but I have a few favorites. I enjoyed the one about the doctor in Africa and trying to hear the music. Also Elder Renlund's talk about forgiveness. He said that the moment we decide to change, the Atonement will help us, no matter how many times we've failed before. There were tons of good talks in there. The story of Elder Holland was also really good. I was on the edge of my seat for that one! Earlier in the week, we saw some awesome miracles. We are slowly finding more and more people to teach. Just like Eric though, we haven't had that many lessons these past few weeks here; just about 5 to 7 each week. So most of our time is spent trying to find people too. It's been a little di...

Happy Easter!!    It sounds like everyone had some good parties in the States and in Japan! I remember all those Easter parties at the house. Man they were hectic, but there was always a lot of candy. Even though I never ate a ton of the candy, I still appreciated eating some good chocolate! I've gotten pretty bad about eating lots of sweets over here haha. There are lots of cool sweets to try here, and since I won't be here long, I'm taking advantage of it. I love going to hot pots because they always have unlimited free ice cream. We go to hot pots at least once a week. Oh and an awesome surprise...I found some Tim Tams at the Costco recently so I've been enjoying those with my milk every evening. I'm really glad that you introduced those to us Eric. They don't really have them here in Taiwan much, and they're like 10 bucks for a box, but they're pretty good.    This week was pretty special because we got to help people with some servi...

Hey, how are y'all doing!  This week was really cool. Last Wednesday we got to go up to Taipei to the Temple! We woke up really early in the morning and biked over to the stake center, about 30 minutes away. It was pretty cool, I got to meet up with my MTC companion Elder Osbourne and another buddy Elder Lauti and rode up with them in the bus up to the Temple. It was cool to get to talk with them again. Unfortunately, it was raining the whole time so we didn't get to take any pictures. Oh well, next time I guess.   We've been meeting with a lot of the members of the ward to strengthen relationships with them, and there are a lot of wonderful members here. A few nights ago a member took us to a really fancy restaurant and ordered some pig knuckles for us! Considering all the weird foods I've eaten already, I wasn't nervous in the least to try them out. They were actually really good, but there was a lot of fat that you just had to swallow whole bec...

Hey Everyone,  Well, it's a beautiful day up in Taichung! My new area is pretty sweet and a lot smaller than my old one. I'm in an area called Donghai which on the border of Taichung so it's not too crowded but there are still a lot of people. It's actually a pretty big factory section so it's pretty smoggy and overcast most of the time. A bright side of the area is the amount of exercise I'm going to get. My whole area is on a constant hill. It just keeps going up and up, so there isn't a flat part in the whole area. I've heard that Elders get stretch marks because of how fast their muscle builds up from being here haha. Our chapel here is really unique too. It's actually a part of a buisness building. It's on the 17th floor of a pretty tall building. It's super wierd taking the elevator up to go to church. The ward is really great here and are helping the missionaries to find investigators, which is important because the ward is small. ...

Dear Everyone,     I had a big surprise recently...I'm going to be leaving Tainan!! They weren't expecting some more new missionaries to come in for a while, so I was originally supposed to be here for another transfer, but they made it and now Elder Anderson is going to train one of them. That means that it's time for me to leave! I'm pretty sad that I'm leaving. Tainan is such a cool place, especially because it's my very first area and it's where I'm use to living, so it has a special feel to it. It's also sad to leave all the cool members here and my new companion Elder Anderson. No he isn't related to me, but he's a really cool guy and we got along really well. It's too bad we're only going to be staying together for such a short time. That's cool that he gets to train again. That's pretty rare to train twice in the mission here. We're really primed up the area for his trainee when he arrives.      Lot...