Elder Thomas Jensen: PingJing

Translation: Bottleneck.

Yeah I had no idea what that meant when I learned it either. Bottleneck represents the narrow part on like a flower vase, meaning trying to pass through a tight space or in other words running into a sort of roadblock.

This week has been beautiful. Freezing cold, but good. The bottleneck simply means it has been a little tough number-wise lately. ZhongLi was going so strong, then last week it kind of felt like a lot of our numbers started falling fast.. Praying that I can do something to turn that around somehow haha, that's actually a really common thing on the mission, praying for things to get better.

But that being said. I learned a valuable lesson, actually am still learning, that sometimes on the mission it is easy to be really caught up on numbers. Really concerned about your results of your efforts. Because every missionary wants to feel like they are one of those success stories that will get talked about in conference or in the Liahona or something. But those super success stories are far and few between. And even then, those missionaries and every missionary that has ever been out needs to remember that they cannot expect to hit their marks every week. Not everyone can have the success they feel they deserve everyday. If it was that way, then missions wouldn't be hard. And probably not worth it. Missions teach you how to face adversity (like legit adversity) and continue onward with your head high and your confidence up. Missions make you tough so your future life will seem easy haha. But aside from all that, when you get caught up on all the little things like "numbers" and "success", you miss out on a lot of the beauties of being on a mission or just living life in general. Taiwan is a beautiful place, Chinese culture is a beautiful thing, and life is a beautiful opportunity. I learned that I need to put those little things off to the side, yes focus on what I need to be doing when I need to be doing it, but don't be out in the streets of Taiwan looking at people and time periods as numbers. Slow down a bit, listen to the bustling city, see the cars get through traffic on Taiwan's lawless streets, watch the vendor Ama's cook their food, notice how the mom is patiently chasing her kids around the street, and watch the Taiwanese people that are sitting in the park enjoying the trees and the birds. There is much to be learned from doing such. Life is much more than just numbers. Even mission life. Your success is measured in more ways than one.

I went on exchanges this week to Bade, another area in the Taoyuan zone with Elder Wayment from my generation. And it was the time of my life. Haha. It's something that will actually probably stick in my head. Bade is much more rural than ZhongLi and is much quieter on the streets. Lots less people. It was raining that day. And very foggy. And very cold. We were riding our bikes along this street when some woman I called out to started talking to us. She was hysterical. It was semi scary at first. But just really really lively to put it nicer. She proceeded to tell us that she didn't know much about the "Amen's", that she sees ghosts, and how the crop of the land was doing. This is pretty typical of Taiwan. I finally realized that image of being in a foreign, very superstitious and semi spooky land. Almost like being in a novel..

Bade

me, Wayment and this hundred year old Ama!

We had a speaker in church yesterday get up to the pulpit and start speaking at the top of his lungs, to the point that bishop got up and told him to quiet down and then our 2nd counselor turned the volume down as low as it would go. ZhouDX was just so excited to tell us that we can feel the Spirit when we keep God's commandments. It was honestly hilarious!

That sums up my week. Not too eventful. Just very average.

Love you all. Miss everyone, keep smiling.