GuoNian KuaiDaole!!

Chinese new year is this coming week and I am so stoked to party it up the Chinese style!! And eat till my stomach explodes :-)

Again, I don't have much time today, sorry. Just been playing too hard lately I guess. Today it is into the mountains and to a gnarly looking waterfall that you can hike around. Super stoked. And it is a lovely day to make things all the better.

Taiwan is gorgeous. Hope you all know that.

This week I bagged the scrips for a personal study to read over a bit about what Chinese religion and thinking is all about and I discovered it is a very beautiful thing. But also very hard for us Westerners to understand because it is basically 100% different from our culture. But hopefully with my new enlightenment I can go about teaching in a different style and a different approach to things and people around me. I'll let you know how that goes.

They send us on missions to teach the people. We come home being taught by the people.

This week has been really tiring for me, maybe because my diet this past week has sucked. So that is my goal for the rest of the mission, hold off on the chocolates and weird fried stuff and stick to my guavas and oranges and eggs!!

Life is great! Love you all!!

Taiwan has these dope fisherman. And this is a cool picture. So yeah.

this is my companion. and this is my photo that will be starred on the front cover of the next vogue magazine. :-)

made it out to the coast for the first time on my mission. too bad it was dark..

coldstone tastes so much better in Taiwan..

nothing like them chinese temples!!

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.

randomly ran into this guy, apparently he is pretty famous in taiwan for fencing. which is actually a sport here...

we found a really good looking Buger place here in Taiwan I'm pretty excited to try out!!

Meiyou Kong!

Meiyou Kong is the most over-used excuse we hear out on the streets of Taiwan. It means "no space" or "no time". But I'm going to go ahead and be very Taiwanese now when I tell you my emailing the past few weeks has sucked bad because I have also had "no time". Too busy having fun. Sorry everyone hahaha.

This past week had some cool things happen. Last week, i forget what day exactly, but one of them we were walking out of a 711 right after a lesson and we were about to go finding or contacting whatever you call it, and I went and talked to the very first person I saw outside sitting on his scooter. Went through the motions and asked who he was and how he was doing like normal and then he's like "Hey! I know you! I'm a member!" bahaha so that night we found a Melchizedek Priesthood holder who hadn't been to church for like 8 years or something. But better yet, turns out he is HILARIOUS and took us out to eat sushi later in the week. I won't forget that experience, that is for sure. It went something along the lines of this:

We get to his house and I call him up to see where he's at and the first thing he says basically translates to "oh my gosh you guys are soooo slow, ok i'll be down in a second" and hangs up. So that puts me in a good mood hahah I love people like that. We get to our dinner place and sit down and suddenly he just starts grabbing all the food he can see, including like 20 packs of wasabi and squeezing it all into my soy sauce and telling me I have to eat it because he wants to see my reaction to the heat! I almost cried I'll admit. Dang it I gave him the reaction he wanted.. but it was soooo funny to watch this almost 70 yrold act like he was still our age. He's a goon. But on a very honest note now though, wasabi will clear out your nose and your brain and the air surrounding you. that stuff when you load in 5 packets becomes pretty potent.. Then to top everything off, Fan DX starts going off on how he wants my nose so badly, apparently he thinks his nose is too fat and flat. So for the first time in my life, someone (him) asked if he could squeeze my nose.. I was like "What the heck!" at the question and he just thrusts himself forward nearly over the table to hand-rape my nose. hahahahahaha i honestly have no other way to describe it!! He tells us on the way back to our bikes that I needed to thank my ancestors for being perfect in this life and not getting cursed with a bad nose... 

We'll be seeing him again soon, but I'm not sure what to expect next time I'll be honest...

Our man FanDX, funniest guy of my life

Last Monday was one of the best days of my mission. Sorry for the short email. But now I'll share with you now that I have some more time. My RC LaiJM took us down to her hometown for the day to pick strawberries. I call LaiJM my Taiwanese mother. And she has really taken it upon herself to be such. Of course she'll never replace you my beloved mother. But I'm being honest when I say my every possible need is being met. And exceeded. I have plenty of motherly care don't worry. 

She takes us down to Miaoli which is probably one of the most beautiful places on this island to be honest. Super mountainous and super green. The whole ride down I'm literally dying of laughter the whole time and enjoying her liveliness. Then we pull up to her Aunt's strawberry farm and Gugu was so happy to see us! super nice too. She got us right to picking and told us we didn't have to limit ourselves. So I had myself some fresh strawberries off the vine, oranges off the tree, and hot peppers off the bush. Then to make it all the better, we were right next to this huge bamboo forest so i realized my dreams being able to go through that and imagine i was one of those ancient Chinese ah-gongs going through the forest.

MiaoLi

dreams come true

The crew and Gugu

biggest oranges I have ever seen. hands down!

fresh off the tree

getting my basket filled up

So that about sums up our time there. Soaking up some very beautiful scenery.

The ride home, everyone was tired and half sleeping except me and LaiJM in the front. I just started talking to her about my life. As if she was one of my best friends and also like she was my parent at the same time. Just kinda told her all my life goals plans and whatnot and she started giving me this motherly advice and like talking to me like i was her son. It was an hour that I legitimately felt at home, like legit home-feeling while simultaneously speaking chinese and looking out at foreign scenery. That was one of those hours that you sometimes get that you'll always look back on the rest of your life. Like one of those major moments, i don't know how to describe them. It was so nice. It ended too soon.

Since then LaiJM has brought me boxed lunches of homemade curry and bread and calls everyday its really cold to make sure I'm wearing my jacket haha. Stuff like that. She is one of my favorite people I've ever met. I'm going to be sad when I move next month. Like saying goodbye at the MTC kind of feeling I'm anticipating.

So to sum it all off. I'm doing very well. Life is very good. Thanks for all your prayers and support. I love you all!!

bringing the good word to a huge buddhist festival! haha not so successful ... but good scenery!

the cherry blossoms here .....

TaBan

So I should start off and apologize for the short email last week. And I'm going to apologize even more for today's short email again hahaha. Just been having too much fun lately I guess... :-)

This week was also super short since it was only 5 days. So nothing super special happened. 

But some updates on my situation here in Taiwan. Our investigator pool currently is a little small and a little HaiHao.. (meaning so-so). So thats a bit of a bummer as those of you who are RM's understand. But it's still moving, just slower..

Elder Miller is my new companion. Everyone says its hard to have your breaker come in. But it honestly hasn't been. Last night we were walking down this long dark road talking about our lack of alone time haha and I had this realization as I was telling him I don't mind having a companion. It's that as long as you are doing what you're supposed to be doing (aka wasting your lives away in the work, literally) then its really easy to have a companion. It's actually essential. There's just too much to do all the time and too much to remember. I would give up if I didn't have help. There's a lot on your plate all the time.. to say the least....

And lastly, and the reason for my title this week, (translation=pedals) if you thought it was funny to imagine me riding a bike all of last week on a bike with only one pedal, just think of how funny it is that this past week my other pedal fell off as well so I'm now pedal-less. But I haven't minded it too much. Exciting thing with that is now I can go join the circus when I get back or create a new Olympic event for pedal-less bike racing and go win some awards. So it isn't all bad.

if you look closely you'll notice there are no pedals :-)

I spy a panda!!

How did they get this beast from Kenya to Taiwan - I don't even know...

train life.

Love you all. Miss you like crazy. Hope you have a lot of fun this week and then tell me all about it (wink,wink)

my boy GuanYou. Left for Taizhong Mission Field this past week

DiaoDong

Transfers!!

I now have my new companion, Elder Miller with me in ZhongLi and I'm excited for what is ahead! We have already got a great start to the week and I am really optimistic for what lies ahead.

Because today was our temple day, where we go to Taipei on Wednesday instead of Monday, hence the slightly late email, so I apologize for that. But Taibei is the best thing ever so I'm not complaining.

I don't have much time to say much, however, to cap this week into one paragraph: Elder Willes and I parted ways which broke our RC's heart and so she has recently flooded our ZhongLi apartment with all this food we honestly don't have room for! She's great to us. Elder Miller came in and I've had some fun introducing him to everyone and taking over the ward for the time being. New missionaries have not come in for a long time so lots of areas have closed down recently, and so that also means that my time left in ZhongLi is 100% unpredictable. Unfortunately Elder Miller's bike has not arrived from his last area yet, so this past week I have been making it do on a bike that has no left pedal, and a right pedal that is about to fall off any time now. I've lost some weight, but I think that only means that my muscle is slowing decaying and my fat is replacing it.. I ate thousand year old egg and gagged it down, but I'm still determined to develop a taste for rotten food. I am literally on the phone for 2 straight hours every night because all the sudden the ward has decided to bombarde me with all this hecticness that I don't even know where it comes from. Chinese is coming along well, after Sunday when I went home and realized I had little to no struggles with the language that made me excited. And finally today I was able to take a kid from my ward here through the temple for his first time as his escort which was a major privilege and also awesome to do a session in Mandarin Chinese.

Here's my buddy GuanYou.  Gonna be a rockstar missionary!

Taiwan for you.  As well as Elder Miller.

My life is great out here, I'm super happy with everything. I'm going to see Panda's today at the Taipei zoo, so don't be jealous when you get a lot of dope pictures next week :-)

Life is complete. Nothing is missing. (except the left pedal on my bike...but I mean I'm just picking up on all these new skills like riding a pedalless bike. I don't even notice it anymore.)

Ai Ni!

that's definitely a pup believe it or not

Smores in Taiwan.  A first for this place!

Taiwan is pretty as it turns out.

starting to pick up on the Asian look am I?

MeiHao de ShiJie

Beautiful world.

Taiwan is gorgeous. Everything about it. (except the air quality, those of you in America need to take a couple deep breaths of some fresh crisp American air for me!)

It's getting harder and harder to remember what happened in the past week and what happened a month ago. Things just blur together hard core. It's kinda nuts honestly... 

Some highlights for this week:

Probably the most hilarious sight of my mission. We were out finding in the park in the middle of ZhongLi one day and we came across a Korean lady who was christian. So we were talking with her and her little meimei (daughter) for a bit. We were getting right to the important part of asking her to learn more about our church when this TERRIBLY drunk man bumps into Elder Willes. We both turn around to see who it is and it's this man who is side-shuffling with his back to us. And he continues to just slide (very slowly) past right in the middle of us and the woman and her child as we are trying to talk to them and the poor little meimei looks absolutely terrified. He passes completely by so we carry on for about 30 seconds again before he finally completely looses his balance and FACE PLANTS hard core onto the ground making the loudest thump as he bounced on the ground. So this other ancient looking spectator quickly runs to this mans help and lifts him up but to no avail as this drunk man just drops again. So the old guy leaves and the drunk man gets up on his own, only to immediately fall AGAIN but off a good 3 foot ledge onto some rock solid dirt! this time i swore he broke a bone. and to make it worse, someone else who was in the vicinity sprints up to this guy after his hardest fall and starts chewing this guy out hard core!! Yelling "BU XING!!!" repeatedly and telling this guy he needs to leave. And all the while I'm trying my hardest to maintain eye contact with this lady and pretend like I'm unaware of what's going on. But I failed at last and had to watch this mess go down. We didn't end up getting the womans phone number as you could probably imagine....

We got interviewed by this team from China Airlines curious about we would come to Taiwan, hoping to make their advertising better. Which was cool, given it was our third interview which is pretty uncommon i guess.. People just love us here. But the cool part was one of the guys in the group was the first person I have met here in Taiwan who has been to Saint George and Zion and is not a member of the church!! I was so blown away! He laughed at my speechless face i was so excited i couldn't speak haha. That was cool.

our China Airlines crew!

We tried the pick up basketball game tactic where you make the kids promise to sit and listen to you if you win them. We lost. I'm still not totally cool with that. haha

Last of all and most sad of all, we had to say goodbye to our Taiwanese buddy David Liu who going into the MTC this week and headed out for San Francisco. So we ate with his family one last time last night and it was soooooo good!!! they make Chinese food but almost somewhat American style. It is to die for. I love that family so much! They were also the ones who made us Kottbular (swedish meatballs) for Thanksgiving. Oh so good!

Our man David, off to SFO.  I'm only super jealous of him :-)

Thats my week there for you! Life is amazing. Family, go spend a few days in Zions for me and send me pictures. I'm missing the outdoors hard core haha. But high rise city life is also still pretty rad.

Love you all!

made it to heaven for a day!!

winter in Taiwan actually is a real thing as it turns out....

This picture doesn't do this temple justice.  It's huge!!

my study quarters 

look closely, I'm not half as fat as this picture makes me look bahahahaha

ChongXin de KaiShi

Well, off to a good start of 2015. Had another baptism which was fun. Elder Willes and I were just lucky I guess to find these two ladies and teach them all the way into the font together. Cool stuff. She is my Taiwanese mother I tell her. Our fridge legitimately has no room whatsoever for anything because LaiJM brings us three bags of fruit every other morning and drops it off at our apartment building. I love it :-)

best start to 2015

We also got taken out again by our crazy member friend this week to the most expensive and most delicious barbeque place in ZhongLi. It was 7 course. And all to die for. Life is good hahah. Asian style barbeque is the single greatest thing about Taiwan and life really. I'm going to miss that pretty bad I won't lie.

our crazy member friend who loves to take us to the wolfgang puck's of taiwan!!

Yesterday we got to go look around the inside of a huge Chinese temple in the middle of no where. That was fun. Although I had a lasting head ache from the friggin incense burning. But it was still fun to go look around and get a tour from this random guy that was standing outside the temple.

forgot its name sorry, inside was pretty cool though!

We have a friend from Turkey we get to see every once in a while. We took us to Japanese last, and that is where I ate the grossest thing of this week, raw shrimp. I can handle anything raw, including beef. But shrimp for some reason not my thing.. I do not recommend it.

our man Ekrem from Turkey

I got to play DaTongBan (senior comp) for a day when Elder Heaps came out to Zhongli with me for a night. It was great. Learned a lot. Including the fact that I never want to train. Nor be senior companion. It is such a headache having to handle everything.

This week was probably the biggest example of where I truly experienced just how exhausting a mission is, I think I was definitely sick, because I was helpless bahahaha good thing God has my back I guess. I looked back through my journal and noticed that everyday I included somewhere in there that "I can hardly keep my eyes open right now" haha mission life for you..

Not much else to report other than dinner last night was Kottbular!!! Miracles do happen.

All my love from Taiwan,

out preaching to the world.

there really is dirt in Taiwan, weird.

Taiwan's night time skies

Also Taiwan has one thug missionary loose on the streets.  Watch out!