大家好!
I can’t believe it’s already been another week! Taiwan is so good! I haven’t eaten anything weird yet for all of you who are wondering (knock on wood) because my trainer is not too adventurous herself. We eat lots of soup and noodles and dumplings. We had some really good Taiwanese curry though (dad you would love it) Haha but they’re good, so I can’t complain!
I’ll just give a few of the special experiences that happened this week so that these emails aren’t recounting every step of every day.
Last p-day we went to the Chiang-Kai Shek memorial and watched a changing of the guard ceremony. The architecture in Taiwan on the older buildings is so cool!
I wrote a thank you card in characters! It was so hard but so fun. My companion and I want to get to know the members of our ward better, so we have been inviting them to come to lessons or help new families hold family home evenings. Whenever we are able to do something with them we write a thank you card and give them fruit because Taiwanese people are obsessed with giving people fruit!
We taught English class! We teach English every Wednesday, and my companion and I are in charge of the little kiddos class. It’s so much fun! We have a spiritual share at the end of our English lesson, so we shared with the kids the importance of leaders and service. So we talked about King Benjamin. We built a tower out of chairs and had kids stand on top of the tower and read Mosiah 2:17: “And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God”. It was so much fun Haha they loved it!
This past week was my first real Sunday at church here, and the bishop asked me to get up and say something. So I introduced myself and bore my testimony about being a child of God and His love for us and how we can talk with Him through prayer. It was insane Haha I sat down and my companion was like, you know you just gave your first talk in Chinese, right? I was like hmmm Haha I guess I did! It just felt so natural.
We got to go to the temple in Taibei today, and it was amazing!
We went to Costco. Haha yes, Taiwan has a Costco! Our ward mission leader and his wife both are from Utah and served missions in Taiwan, and now have moved back to Taiwan for work with their two little boys, and they invited us to go get lunch at Costco. And then a crazy thing happened! We turned around, and this college-aged guy was like, I heard the sound of your voice, and I remembered your voice from when you stopped by me at the intersection a few days ago and said hello. I’ve wanted to talk with you ever since I rode away when the light turned green😱😱 holy cow!! So we shared a scripture with him, asked him if he wanted to learn more, and invited him to church. He’s from Jakarta, Indonesia and going to college in Taiwan. It was so cool! I really hope he comes to church this week!
Haha the quote of the week comes from our Zone Council meeting, “We are not a church of sad, white, teenagers on bikes. We are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now go spread that happiness like you mean it!” Haha and it’s so true! This Gospel brings me so much happiness!
Funny things that happened this week:
1. So if you are a Taiwanese person learning English, you often pick your own English name. Some of the best/most comedic that I’ve heard so far:
~ and I’ve met at least 4 different Harry Potter’s and one Ronald Weasley
2. It’s election time in Taiwan for some type of public office, not really sure which…but there’s fireworks almost every night. However we can never see them, only hear them. And they go off rapid fire for 10 minutes straight. It sounds like there’s a war going on outside. But the first time it happened, I went out on our balcony to see what was happening and there was this old grandpa yelling at all the dogs for barking. There were no dogs…only fireworks Haha
3. Remember the grandma in Mulan who believes she has a lucky cricket, closes her eyes, and walks across the street. Well I saw her in real life, in Taiwan. First off let me say that old people take their motorized wheelchairs through the middle of the road like it’s a car, even though they are so much slower. Anyways, this old lady literally in the middle of the green light just starts crossing the street in her wheelchair! Everyone was honking their horns and all the scooters were just swerving around her. It was so scary to watch! But she made it to the other side just fine haha. That’s one lucky bug.
4. Garbage trucks sing. You think it’s the ice cream truck, but it’s fake news. The garbage trucks play music as they drive around. Then everyone runs outside with their garbage. This week I watched a guy chuck his garbage out of the tenth story window of a building into the truck because he didn’t want to bring his garbage downstairs hahaha.
That’s about it for me! You can email me if you want any specific questions answered. Next week I should be back to my regular P-day.
I love you all so so so much!!!
安姐妹
Sister Kara Andersen 