淡水

I moved. 

I remember my breaker Elder Miller once told me I would be going to 淡水 for sure, never did it occur to me that someone could prophesy quite like that.

Leaving 新莊 was bittersweet. I could never attempt to sum up the things I learned while being there. I could never put my experiences down into words for you to read. Perhaps simply put, my time in 新莊 was, "beautiful." I learned a lot about life. I will be forever grateful for my time there. But if I was asked about going back to 新莊, I would probably plead the 5th.

So here I am in 淡水. It is so beautiful it kills me. And so touristy. In the past two days alone, we've run into members from Mexico, San Francisco and all over Taiwan. As far as nonmembers go, name every Asian country you can and then add most of Europe and the Americas. It's fun to be amongst some diversity again.

Where we live here is sort of not in our area just like it was back in 新莊, so we have to ride our bikes about 20 min everyday just to get where everything is happening. The way to get there is a bike path along the river/bay thing that 淡水 has going on here. Last night in particular, we were riding out to a members house. Along the way, I look out over at the setting sun reflecting its deep orange light off the ocean. I see 觀音山 (GuanYin Mountain)'s silhouette lit up against the orange light. Then I look behind me into the Taipei area and surprisingly see all the way to the main mountains of Taiwan maybe 20 or so miles away with the rolling clouds surrounding them lit up pink with the sun. It was a sight. 

I'm sure all of you back home know what a sunset looks like, but I have forgotten since being surrounded by skyscrapers all day every day. Such that it was almost a spiritual experience to remember.

I am no longer a District Leader anymore. I am simply a normal missionary. I think I actually really like it! Missionary leadership just means being on the phone an extra hour at nights and then doing trainings once a week (which is actually enjoyed honestly). Now I understand that those high and mighty DL's and ZL's across the world really aren't much more important than the average missionary. LOL (I don't know much about what AP's do so I can't say anything about them.)

The ward here in 淡水 is super supportive of us missionaries from what I can gather thus far. I am looking forward to working with them.

Today we might be going to the beach. Or just people watching. I'm excited.

Love you all!

PS I will try to have some pictures of 淡水 for you next week.

PSS How could I forget? I moved into a baptism. But I feel like a chump taking any credit. Here's a picture.

already fitting right in with all the members.....