Snail Tastes Like Squid.. Sorta. But Like Snail

Our elevator doesn't work this week... we live on the 13th floor haha... but my calves are killer.

I ate a snail and a chickens heart this week. So that's something. 

STORY OF THE WEEK. Here we were teaching a lesson, and the investigator gives us these things that look like juice boxes but are actually tea. I just put mine to the side and keep talking. A few minutes go by and I hear a sluuuuuuuurrrp sluuuurrrrrpp. I look over and my companion is sipping the remains of the empty carton! I totally forgot that the writing was in Chinese and that I should tell her! So week one and I have my trainee breaking the Word of Wisdom. Sorry President. 

The next day the APs called us and asked Sister Howard if she had eaten any weird foods yet. She was like, "nah just the tea." Elder Peele busted out laughing and was like, "soooo Sister Wawro?". Ya.

INVESTIGATORS. But this week was great! We were on FIRE! Like Katnis. We had ten new investigators! We added three families! Hopefully they all get baptized and sealed! Everyone had a super cool story! 

1. This woman was contacted by the Elders and she was super sad because she hadnt been to church in years and was really feeling it, so they prayed with her and then sent us over to read scriptures with her- so of course we gave her and her teenage daughters Book of Mormons! They're great. 
2. We went to a former's address because there was no phone number. She answers the door and just hugs us!!!! And welcomes us in to teach her and her two sons. She was super sad no missionaries had come for awhile!
3. We last night were contacting at the park with no luck, when a man stops us and tells us we can get free soda (its an outdoor concert) and we start talking to him. He was also a former investigator who joined a different church! We talked forever but he finally agreed to bring his whole family to church to read the Book or Mormon with us this Thursday! PRAY FOR THEM!
4. And lastly we stopped by another investigators shop to follow-up on her Book of Mormon reading (which was our second back plan btw) and her friend in the shop was like, "Oh I went to your church once and met missionaries". Long story short she is meeting with missionaries again. 

Prayer is real! We specifically prayed to teach families and wow did they come! We are so excited!

TRAINING. Also, I feel so old! I do things in Taiwan that I dont even notice, and I think it's normal. My traniee asks me all these questions and I'm like..oh ya.. this is is a learned behavior huh... oh ya... we did have that in the states.. ya no.. we dont have that there. like:

1. Doors that have seals on the perimeters
2. Trash trucks you don't have to personally take your trash out too
3. AC that we keep on all day, so its cool when we come home
4. Walmart, or anything like it. 
5. Enforced traffic laws
6. Toilet paper instead of napkins
7. Eggs cartons that reclose shut
8. Stairs for human feet (not Mayan feet)
9. Ever being barefoot
10. Milk, real  milk
11. Cheese
12. Butter for her Mac n' Cheese (its not bad with soy milk)
13. Any recollection of which artist sings what song
14. USDA certified beef. 
15. Certified meat at all (I forgot we did that actually)

It's fun to see my companions face when she tries new foods. We fed her some shaved ice! She didnt like it and I couldnt figure out why! Its dessert! And then I remembered that inside was a bunch of green beans and flour chewy Japenese ball things... and it was butterscotch and ya. She'll get used to it though. 

But my comp is great! I'm just encouraging her to do hard things and she does them herself. I'm like, "Ya I think you could call phones and talk in Chinese! Go for it! You got it!" And then she just does it! Its that easy! And after she does it I'm like.. wow ya that was brave. No way I wouldnt done that on week one haha. Shhhhhhhhhhh

So mostly one the outside I'm like this:

But on the inside is this little voice saying:

ANYWAYS I　LOVE YOU ALL! HAVE A GREAT WEEK! Thank you so much for all your prayers! We feel them and love! Remember Heavenly Father loves you and that love never changes! 

Hello 大家！

Hello 大家！

My New Companion!

I have a new companion (#13) and her name is Sister Howard! She is from Virginia, she went to BYU Hawaii and danced at the Polynesian Center, speaks French and her mom is from New Zealand! Unfortunatly for her she has to speak Chinese instead of French, but we are working on that. I think her Chinese was pretty good in the MTC, but of course the world out here is way different... Its humbling to see how far we've all come. I cant believe we can all speak this language sometimes! I still think my Chinese is really bad, but then I realized this week I  was answering all her questions! #miracles. So I guess we do improve. 

        She is progressing really fast! She is really dedicated. Its humbling to see your companion do things like you because that's the only way she knows how to do it. I study Chinese every night and every morning during personal time, and then she started doing it. Yay! But then I would like take a break to get water, and when she did it I was like, "No we cant do that!", and then I realized I had taken a break I didnt really need like an hour before. Ya. Its humbling. She's gunna help me a lot. lol. 

This Week

1. We had a musical concert with the ward! It was so fun and we got to meet some great new investigators!
2. We are all Facebook missionaries in 屏東 now! All of our district. We're gunna rock it. 
3. We had to stand on the four hour train ride from the mission office to home Friday. My poor companion. 
4. And she already got one of her skirts ripped up because I wasn't thoughtful enough to tell her how to ride. Oops. 
5. My last little taiwanese compaion is moving on to greenie breaking! I am so proud of her!

Picking on My District

A moment from this week. I was picking on my district, because Elder Teasdale let it slip that his dad baptized his mom... and then he came back and married her. So then I kept making jokes about that (real mature Sister Wawro) so I was having a lot of fun. Then, his companion had a similar story, so I　got to pick on him too. THEN I found out my new companion's parents met on her dads mission, and then her went back and married her mom. Well its turns out they dont even remember meeting on his mission, they really starting dating when he went back to New Zealand to finish his mission, but of course I still had to make jokes! So finally someone asked me how many parents met, and I was like HA! It wasnt one a mission! My dads mission president offered him a job in Texas and soo...

And then I realized I was just like them. Missions bring people together, darn it. So then I got an earful. haha 

Picture Update

Rain Rain Go Away

My mission companion just emailed me and said, "So is it raining down there?"

I said, "My bike is rusting."

So this week it has rained.

and rained. 

and rained. 

I thought Texas could rain, but Taiwan can rain more. We are like the pioneers, every day we are cold and wet, and our skirts are muddy and dripping. I could tell some people didnt want to let us in because our legs and feet were so dirty lol. We had rain coats and everything, but when you ride a bike, it just doesnt matter. As I told Carina, "our muddy skirts are kinda weeding out those with true intent. Only those with truely open hearts would still let us in". We scream NOOO everytime we see a semi coming ebcause we know the splash is coming. Elder Teasdale said the rain is here to try out faith. I personally think its here because its monsoon season, but I like the optimism from the peanut gallery. 

On the other hand, our skin is really moisturized. 

So it turns out we have the best elders in the whole mission though. First of all, I was having a hard day, and we walked into church, and there was a motivating talk all printed out for me waiting on the table. It said at the top, "Sister Wawro, we are not counseling you. We repeat. We are not counseling you. President Eyering is." haha. Then my companion had a flat tire on Sunday, and we know they had a pump, so we called them. 40 minutes later we were wondering what in the wolrd happened, because they are like ten minutes away. So we went downstairs to check, only to find that they were inspecting all our bikes, including the spare, and were now working on bike #3. 

This week was also the week of service. Or should I say attempted service. We went to two members houses for service projects in the rain. One told us it would take 20 minutes to get to her house. Over an hour later, when we got to a feild that she wanted us to pull weeds at, we had to turn around because we had to head back for a lesson lol. Another member asked us to come at 7am to pick weeds in her garden. So we start down this little street, which slowly turns into a mountain path, which turns into a path that I would be scared to go up on a four-wheeler, much less a bike haha. It is a MIRACLE we did not crash, we were boucing so much. Then we get to the told... and its a locked gate. And no one is there haha. So next week we will try again. Then, an LA called and told us she wanted us to walk her dogs. We werent sure if we could really do that, but it turns out we got permission to. So we walked her dogs twice a day for two days. Who knew as a missionary. 

This week, unfortualty, we had to give all but one of our investigators to a nieghboring area :( :'(. I'm not sad. They'll be fine. They'll get baptized anyways :'',(  !!! 

It's fine.. :(

Love you all :)

ａ　ｄａｙ　ｉｎ　ｔｈｅ　ｌｉｆｅ

Ｉ　ＨＡＴＥ　ｔｈｅｓｅ　ｂｕｇｓ。　Ｉcan love many things, but not these bugs

"All I do is SWEAT SWEAT SWEAT no matter what"

Its humbling. What is it like to look decent? I dont even remember. 

On the bright side, I can be certain the people listening to our message have true desire, because no one else would meet with us sweatballs. 

I ate somewhere this week with roaches, beattles, and lizards on the wall... just hoping it wasnt in the soup. Who knows really. I bit into one meatball and turns out it was intestines... with stuff still in them. Gag me. #refinersfire

Guess what! The referrals are just coming out of the walls from members and from investigators! I don't know why or how, but suddenly we have piles of potential investigators. The future looks brihgt. 

Last night we went to find a former family and they werent there. There grandpa wwas, and he yelled at us, but the others werent. Anyways, we decided to knock on one last door before leaving the street- a random one a few houses down- and a man let us it! Aha, not so random, now was it? So, we taught him and his wife and one little boy. He had so many questions about God. Everytime I asked him for a committment he started to laugh... and then he would realize I was serious and saying , "Damn," in English lol. He said, okay, here's the deal- I will go to this mormon.org website tonight. And then I will starting reading that Book of Mormon. . . and you can try to come back and answer my questions about life before and after death.... if you have those answers. 

If I have those answers. Please. We live for these answers. 

On Talks. This week I was reading a talk. My companion looked over and was like, oh you have a lot of notes! It was Beware of Pride and I had marked all the places I need to improve. Truth hurts. 

I was also listening to something by Elder Bednar this week- and he was talking about how every dispensation of the world has looked forward to this era of the church. It wasnt better when Jospen Smith was a prophet. It wasnt better when Christ walked. This is the best time to be a member in the history of this church. How cool is that???? 

Lastly, I found Batman on a teaching record this week. Not sure what that was all about. 

Anyways, time is short today, got to go! Love you all! 

I Do Not Eat Spleen, Thank You

Matthew got married. Congratulations. Moving on. 

(hehe). 

So today is a big day! Beeeeeecause Jasmine is getting married! So Sister Xie and I are going all the way to GangShan to see her baptisms! WHHOOOOO They told us last night that we would performing at the baptistism (Sister Xie and I) so we have to whip something up this afternoon. No problem. But yayyy president gave me permission to go! I am so stocked. 

Someone tried to feed me a heart in a soup this week.. Ya no, there was no way. The second she turned around I plopped that heart and that spleen back in the pot. Who eats boiling soup when its 100 degrees outside anyways?

IM A FACEBOOK MISSIONARY! Okay so I thought I would hate it. Seriously, I mean so distracting right？ Like some kind of missionary torture. But! Turns out I actually love it. President is inspired. It is so so so useful for following up with people and teaching them lessons while they are abroad! And I can chat with family and my baptized investigators!? President sure trusts his missionaries. :)All of my PR knowledge is starting to slowly come back to me... lets go social media! 

This morning I made my companion sing all the American songs in the English hymnbook and explained to her why the American Revolution was divinely inspired and why it was the greatest nation on the earth. She agreed with me :)　And then was rather upset that Taiwan was not the promised land... But God's always had a covennant people, what can I say ;)。

 Three things about PingDong:

1. Its so so hott. Omgsh its hard to breathe it is so hot. And its barely May.
2. Apparently this town in known for fireworks- there is a Disney quality show about every other night.. for no reason really. 
3. We finally have a toilet handle and running water!!! Yay now at least one of two toilets work. 

Funny Note* This week I could not figure out how to explain Olmpics to my companion. No explanation of sports of competition were working. So, I starting drawing five big circles in the air with my finger. That didnt work. So, I started belting, "BUMMMＢＵＭＭBUMBUMBUMBUMBUM!"The Olympic song! In which case my companion burst out laughting, along with all the little bystanders... what can I say, I get the laughs in Chinese. 

Thats about all except, oh wait. JASMINE GETTING BAPTIZED　TODAY!　Dont worry, pictures are coming to facebook tomorrow. 

Love you all! 

Sister Wawro

hey give you rolls and tea at the hosptials here.. dont know why. But Sister Geddes was loving it.

Also, the view from my apartment. There are mountians you can that day!Ｍｏｓｔ　ｄａｙｓ　ｙｏｕ　ｃａｎｔ。　Ｓｍｏｇ。 

My Taiwanese Companion & Other Adventures

May 3, 2015

So it turns out Italian is the language my companion and I can communicate in. 

Okay its not true, but when we are working on music pieces she doesnt know how to describe how to do it in English, and I dont know music words in Chinese yet, so we use the old Italian words on written music to describe how we want to perform pieces, haha. 

Guess what, President said he originally thought I liked the heat and thought I would like PingDong. Darn it. Haha. 

Anyway, this week. Was an adventure. We had nothing to go off. No investigators, nada. It was kinda a hard week. Here are some of the excuses I heard over intercom: 

1. "Sorry I cannot talk, I am still sleeping"
2. "I'm sorry, the person you are looking for is not home"“I'm sorry there are no people home."
3. I'm sorry, but the TV is still on. 
4. And one mom told her son to tell us that she was not home. She was standing next to her son in the doorway… 

       5.  I’m sorry there are no people home

Basically here is the letter I sent to president about it: 

So, this week we only had one investigator, which meant we had nothing but all day, every day to contact. President, I have never worked so hard to contact my whole mission. We were just talking to people at the stop light, we were biking to catch up to people at the stop light before it turned green. But we still had no success. People would tell us "no" before we opened our mouth, they screamed at us more than once, and one motorcyclist dumped trash on me. I started to wonder if I was in Taiwan or if I was back in Seattle. 

Then a miracle started to happen. Sister Xie said we needed to be grateful, so we just kept saying prayers of gratitude. Then Saturday I just had this overwhelming sense of peace about me, that Heavenly Father was really mindful of us, and that he was really proud of the work we were doing. It was such a peaceful feeling to know he really was satisfied. And after, we both just felt this overwhelming love for the people we were talking to, like everyone really was so loved by Heavenly Father. We couldnt stop smiling.

Anyways, by Saturday night we had no new investigators and no one coming to church, but Sunday came and six people we had invited in the week came! We were stunned. Sometimes we just can’t see the fruit until awhile after our efforts. It was such a great week. 

Sister Xie's English is actually pretty cute. She keeps saying applesauce instead of the apostasy, and her translations are so funny. See if you can guess what she's talking about from her words: 

1. Watered Melon
2. Cockboaroach
3. Sofa Potato
4. Swoppy
5. Letter Man

Those words would be watermelon, cockroach, coach potato, sloppy, and mail man. Hehehehe. 

One thing I havent gotten used to is being talked to in the morning in Chinese. She says things within the first few minutes of the alarm going off and I’m just like... what? What are you saying? I know its like three words but it just.. doesn’t.. make ... sense. Why are we even talking right now? 

A Mission is Humbling

As much as I made jokes about how, "English missionaries come back scriptorians, Spanish speaking missionaries come back linguists, and Chinese speaking missionaries come back humble,"-- as much as I joke about it, I really do think its true. Before I a mission, I was pretty prideful. I mean ya I liked some correction and all still focused on the gospel, but I just didn’t know how prideful I was. Most of my life, I've been pretty capable. And I worked hard to be capable- get good grades, be independently minded, make my point clearly— and then I got here and realized all my "work" and all those things really werent enough, and weren't gunna save me. Heavenly Father was. And he's got it all under control. And the only way Im going to do it is 100% completely on his help. It’s really humbling, and really good. 

Sweating My Sins Out

“Shocker, you’re moving" was the first thing Michala said to me in my inbox today- haha. It is true though. I moved to the hottest part of the island... just in time for summer.  This is where I sweat all my sins out. 

A NEW STAKE IN TAICHUNG! So yes there is a new stake in Taichung!  Where I just left!  I am so sad that I wasnt there to see it with Elder Gong and the Temple Presidency. It would have been great. But, that's okay! The work of the Lord cannot be stopped. It’s so exciting!  Asia has most of the worlds population, and there’s so much work here to do. 

NEW COMPANION I have a Taiwanese companion (#12) and I'm her breaker, and this is so much better than training haha.  First of all, it is a lot less stress because she obviously speaks the language.  Second, my Chinese will improve like crazy, and third, she's like super duper sweet.  All she really wants to do is work hard and she's like, "Sister Wei, how do I baptize??" So dang cute and humble.  Wish I had some answers to give her.  All of the sudden I'm a "more experinced missionary"... are you kidding me?  No one should trust me with responsibility yet. 

But the down side— is that I am in the hottest part of the mission for probably the whole summer… yup.  I am the very farthest South Sisters can go.   Fun times. President was actually really cute and called me and told me not to think he wasn’t proud of me, and that I would have plenty of time to train. I thought it was really sweet. He also emailed me this little clip: 

You will definitely have the opportunity to train. I just thought I would let your ankle heal up a bit before adding that bit of stress to your life. You are doing great and do not need to worry about being left out of anything. I am hoping to leave you put for a while in your next place. You will like Pingdong and you will love Sister Hsieh!

MIRACLES 

This week before I left GangShan our investigator decided she was going to get baptized in like a week and a half!  So we taught the Word of Wisdom, Chastity, Sabbath Day,  basically all the commandments except tithing in one week. We were kind of worried becuase she’s been taking the lessons, but the commandments are where trouble starts. But nope, she was just like, “ kay okay, simple."  “ h okay- one second while I throw away my red tea."  “ Oh okay, what's the next pamphlet."  We tried to spread them out more, or give her reading assignments in prep for the next lesson, but she just read the pamphlets/scriptures right when we gave them to her! Sometimes people are just prepared. 

WOAH HOLD THE PHONE! I just fingured out this computer is a touch screen. What?? I havent seen anything this high tech in months.  WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

Okay cool, I’m focused again. 

SO, I’m a facebook misisonary.  I am not excited about it.  I don’t want to see all the things my friends are doing.  At all.  Even a little.  Sounds like torture.  But, on the bright side I can now use Facebook chat on Mondays during email time. 

FUNNY MOMENTS FROM THE WEEK

• All of the members starting using this super thick Taiwanese accent... and Sister Geddes and I were like... what is happening. So in the middle of a lesson I stopped one of the members and was like... why are you speaking like that? She told me it was to help us understand because we were so new to Taiwan. I just busted out laughing, and assured her that that absolutley would not help. However, we couldn’t convince the other members and they all keep doing this super weird fake accent "to help us" haha. 
• so we got trapped in a car with a member for like an hour. She had to make, "a quick stop" on the way back from a lesson. We were super far from home (45 mins) and she gets totally lost. And then gets out of the car and leaves us to "take care of busness" and we were just like uhhhhhhhhhh. . . what in the world. Do we leave? We can’t. Ya she eventually came back. We asked her what she was doing and she was like "something.". Ya, strangley cryptic.  Meanwhile Sister Geddes was like, “This right here is why I can't train!  This stuff never happens with my trainer!  This would never happen with her!" haha. 
• Speaking of which, our whole ward is strangly cryptic... and I found out why.  The bishop sells tobacco, another member does advertising for all the red wine in Taiwan, another rents warehouse to sketchy people.  Then there is the woman who kept us in the car… and another new member who can’t go on a mission because his family is the Taiwanese mafia.  We are about 99.9% sure.  He would be in the mafia too, but he's kinda flamboyant and his father told him he was "too weak." lol
• Sister Geddes and I paid for a huge thing of Hy. Peroxide in pennies because it was all we had. The store owner didn’t even count it… just told us to take the bottle and go!  lol
• Every night sister Geddes and I name the stars. The names include:  junior companion, outcast,  mig mac, with friends,  big bang,  teancum, Paris, agency, and so on. 
• This week I had to borrow a grandma’s bike while my stuff was being moved. I had to sit super low, with these super high handle bars... I've never had so much fun in my life.  I now know why all the grandma’s ride these bikes;  theyre smarter than us all. 

Companion #12

So. I am moving again. No, not a joke. This is not a drill. I’ll be moving to area number seven this week and saying goodbye to my wonderful companion Sister Geddes. I really have no idea where I am going. Or who I'll be with.  haha.  Carina asked me if I liked moving.  I said I did like moving until about right now haha.  This I thought, Okay I like adventures, but this is a little excessive. 

Moving on.  (ha. literally).  This area is great.  We have two especially darling investigators who will be getting baptized, I am sure of it.  They are the kind of people who want to take the Gospel Principles book home and study it.  I hope I'm close enough to see their baptisms. 

Chinese. is an adventure everyday. I might be senior companion, but I lean on Sister Geddes a lot. I don’t know what I'd do without her. 

Our Anniversary.  Sister Geddes and I had our five month anniversary on island last Saturday. We celebrated by eating some oreo whipped thingy and a double cheeseburger from McDonalds.  That’s right, I ate cheese.  Loved every bite. It was the one time I'll use my senior companion position to usurp power.  "McDonalds... McDonalds right now." haha.  I didnt even like it before a mission, but McDee's is quite a classy place in Taiwan. They even have a silent study section upstairs.  It was a treat.  I could hear dad in my head singing. "Sister Wawro is great.  She gives us oreo cake." 

The Best Parts of the Week. 

Because this is Taiwan, and the further south you go, the crazier it gets (like every country. Heat does things to people man. It's just not right). 

• I watched a man lick his ice cream cone, and then.. let his dog lick it.  And then... ya he went back to licking it.  And so it went on.  It was so horrible, but I couldnt look away. 
• Did you know zoo in Chinese is "animal garden?"  Learned that this week. 
• This week we went to a park to have a lesson.  The investigator wasnt there yet... but these pigeons where... and we were still on bikes...so, naturally, I rode my bike through flocks of pigeons, stirring them all up, and enjoyng every minute.  I was a little worried they would swarm me with anger for disturbing them... but it was so fun.  My companion just watched in disbelief.
• We had Elder Schweider come over and do an inspection of our apartment to make sure everything was working.  Well... everything was good, so we said goodbye and two minutes later he reshows up at our door!  Turns out he had forgotten his shoes... and it made it all the way out of the complex to the street.  We were like wait... how did you.. ??
• I forgot to tell you last week I had this nightmare that I was stuck on a train with an Elder T who would not stop talking to me for hours and hours.  When they called and told me I was moving, I said, “Oh, ELder T is going isn’t he?"  They didnt know, but the next day, there was Elder T!  We only had standing tickets so guess what, I was the person to talk to for 3.5 hours while we stood haha. Elder T really is super awesome and optimistic and great, but I just thought it was funny. 
• We just had a man come up to us at the hospital this morning (for my ankle) and starting speaking Spanish to us. Amazingly, Sister Geddes and I could understand enough to understand, but when we tried to speak.. only Chinese came  back. So then he was trying to teach us how to respond is Spanish, using Chinese. Mind-blowing. 

And speaking of learning Spanish, we had interviews this week.   One of our zone leaders speaks Spanish, so while my companion was interviewing, he taught me and the APs a bunch of gospel words.  He said, "okay basically anything over three syllabus in the same word, but with a Spanish accent." We sat there and just listed words and names. Yup, he was right, every one. 

We were so used to memorizing quickly that by then end we had most of the Spanish words down. The two APs, who didn’t really every have Spanish were like, "Wow this language is great!  I feel so accomplished!  No wonder people love Spanish!.” We all walked away feeling great about ourselves... then we went outside and had to speak Chinese. 

Anyways, I wish I could share more about the investigators or things happening in the area, but its confidential.  Rest assured that miracles are happening and that eternal progression is being made!  Missions are the best.  Hopefully I can share more after some baptisms!

I know God lives, and that he personally directs His work. His loves you. He has a plan specifically for you. You can do it! 

So much love, 

The Adventures of Two Toddlers in Taiwan

April 12, 2015

Sister Geddes and I were thinking this week- what if we had no apostles and prophets? And then we realized- we would literally be like every other church. There would be good people trying to do good things, but no leadership, no main cause, no link to authority, no tithing and finacial relief, or temples, or "mormons". There would be nothing, no even no restoration. It would have all been for naught. Nothing has strengthened my testimony more of modern prophets than general confernce. I get so excited as the first session started- I was singing so loud a little boy who has watching the chinese part asked me to be quiet haha. And I was so sad after the last session that I had to put my head down afteer sunday afternoon and take a minute. 

So News:

1. Next week Taichung is GETTING NEW STAKE! Im sad I had to miss it and leave, but Im so happy for them
2. And we had three investigators at church! Yay!

New Area:

• We have six secondary areas
• its the rural part of GAoXiong (the second biggest city in Taiwan)
• the pollution is like smoking everyday lol
• Our area reaches the ocean
• there are no recent converts :(
• The ward is hilarious and crazy

General Conference:

• FINALLY got to watch it. IT WAS THE BEST EVER. 
• I saw my teacher from BYU singing his little heart out in MoTab
• My favorite part was thinking about how we really are all unprofitable servants. Really, we have a horrible return rate and we are just overall a seemingly horrible investment. We will not return in this life what is put into us. We wont even come close. The financial math will always leave us at a deficit. But, we buys us back despite that. Infact, he doesnt even see that. And all he hopes is that we do very very few things, very few things than he asks. Then he'll do more than buy us back. He will give us everything he has. The grace and mercy are beyond comprehension, and the more we understand I think the more we truly stand all amazed. 

Funny Stories of the Week: 

1. Sister Geddes told me when she was in ShaLu she and her companion went jogging one morning- and completely forgot the keys. So they were locked out and it was Chines New Years, so every shop was closed. They didnt even havea phone, so, they decided they had to go to the Elders aprtment. So, they jogged 20 minutes to the Elders, who of course FREAKED out to see the sisters in at the door. Especially because one was in a towel. They quickly explained why they were there. One elder told them, "oh I was just trying to think of any reason, any reason why you would be here and all I could come up with was maybe you had brought me a new years gift.. which would be nice.. but I couldnt understand why you wouldn't just give it to us at church!" haha
2. I lost Sister Geddes for a few minutes. The traffic is really thick and we have to bike through a lot of tunnels, so, I came out of the tunnel and couldnt find her (not like you can look behind you in a tunnel). So I just decided to wait. A few minutes later she popped out and was like, "well... I just decided I needed some alone time." Then looked straight ahead an kept biking. What a clown. 
3. We had a new member who keeps refering his mom because he wants her to get baptized. He already thinks we cant speak Chinese, not because he has heard our Chinese, but because we are both 4 months on island so he assumes it is bad lol. So, he is calling us and giving us the referral and telling us her concerns and yadda yadda, and we asked, "okay, so when we call what do you think we should say?" and He starts to panic and is goes, "Well... dont you teach lessons are somthing? I mean,, didnt someone teach you? The missionaries here have pamphlets! Maybe I could give you some. Oh dear." Sister Geddes and I started laughing and wer elike great, now he not only thinks we cant speak Chinese, but he thinks we're morons haha. 

Cant win them all. 

Anyways, thats all! Here's one of my favorite quotes from conference: 

"Man cannot be content with mediacrote when we know excellence is within reach." 

Companion #11

April 5, 2015

So off on a new adventure. Im moving today. Again. To the hottest part of the island just in time for summer lol. Its like 110 in pure humidity,if you fall on the asfault you will get 3rd degree burns, and you cant wear makeup. I dont knwo how much of that is true, but I'll let you know. One thing is for sure though- iot is dang hott. 

Also, I am going to be with Sister Geddes!!! YAy my 11th companion! We were in the same MTC district! I think I am going to be loving life. Not really sure how the Chinese thing is gunna work out... but it will be okay...somehow. 

I had to say goodbye to my homeward and I cried when they all hugged me! They dont really huig here, so itrs a big deal. I love them all so much. And they all helped me so much as I struggled with this language and food here. I'm really gunna miss it all here. *sigh*

This week: I had a bad crash. I got a sprained ankle and my leg scraped up opertty bad. But that was all okay. Its still healing. We went and cleared graves! I didnt get to say good bye to my favorite investiagor beacuse she was in Japan... She is getting baptized in just a couple weeks and I have known her since we first found her... It is okay though. 

Honestly I am so scattered about moving and I've been up all night pcking, so I just cant even remember what happened this week. 

I really liked this part of the letter from President this week. He said: 

We are blessed with the privilege of serving as His special representatives for this short period of our lives. We wear His sacred name on our chest and we seek daily for opportunities to testify of Him. I testify of His life, His ministry and His mission. I testify of the reality of His atoning sacrifice and of His resurrection. Because of His Atonement, we can be freed from past mistakes and overcome current faults and weaknesses. Because of His Plan of Salvation, we too can hope of seeing our loves ones again and of having an eternal association with them. I testify that He lives and because He lives, we too shall live.

President Blickenstaff
Mentor of Champions

PS. Here is an excerpt from one of my favorite emails last week: A great miracle we saw this week was when we taught a Sister Chen….We had taught her once before and she seemed pretty set on being Buddhist so when we went back the second time we didn't feel like there would be much more we could do. However, we decided to teach her the Restoration again and invite her to be baptized. The lesson went well, she had some great questions and comments and accepted the invitation on condition of knowing the message is true! It was incredible! She went from being what we thought was pretty hai hao to accepting the invite because we were challenging and testifying missionaries. After that we decided she was ready enough right then so we went to the canal behind her house and baptized her. Just kidding. We didn't do that...but thank you for having us read that talk again this week.

Ya so I am about to get on a train all day and go to GaoXiong. I told Sister Rolfing that I figured I would be goign soutand then slowly work my way back up towards mission headquarters through my mission. And that I would have to be senior companion soon. Well... about three hours later we got a phone call with the news. She asked me what it felt like to eat my words haha. 

well got to go the teh train station in m\ten minutes! Next time I will def throw in some great stories. Love you all!

Ohotos below!

• gravesweeping. It was so good to be near my MTC companion for such a short time. 
• THE ADVENTURE PARK! Ya the Taiwnese adventure ppark was horrifying. That roller roaster holds youat a 90 degree angle!!!!! I thought I was gunna DIE! I rode it twice of course.
• My little legs. Por legs. They're okay though. 
• Sayign goodbye to my ward! Ah!! 
• And Sis Rol. and I at the trainstation

March 29, 2015
So- everytime someone sees a picture of dad they tell me how handsome he is. And how white is teeth are and how mine aren't white like his. Or how my eyes arent as blue as the rest of my family and I'm like. "yup I know." And then they are alike, "but oh you are still pretty, like a white model, so dont worry." And I'm like, "hmh ya sure, but what you are saying is I got the 2nd rate genes." lol. 

Taiwanese people are so straight forward. They're just like, "oh hey you look thinner than last week! That is good. I was worried you'd get fat." lol. It does wonders for my self esteem. If anyone comes and picks me up from Taiwan I'm not going to translate half of what these people say to you haha. 

But actually I just think the honestly is funny and refreshing now. Real friends tell you if you're fat. 

This week: was a growing week. We dropped all but one investigator and it was sad. Then we spent the week talking and teaching to people.. and we got rejected for five days straight. Lesson after lesson. It's okay because I feel like every missionary has to go through this stage again and again, but its in the push it stage. We have the faith, we are just still waiting on the miracles. 

One awesome lady, I love her so much, came and finally brought one of her kids to church! She is progressing towards her baptism goal so well! I am so excited. 

We went to the temple and I realized I'm at the halfway point of the mission where I have to start making plan for the rest of my life and future... and thats scary because my plan used to be go one a mission.. and now... well I realized thats only an 18 month experience.. not a lifetime experience. darn it. Reality hurts. 

5 things this week

1. One of our recent converts completely changed her work schedule to help another recent convert on Sunday nights get her new member lessons! It was so cool! I'm pretty sure that they tagged me ina bunch of photos on Facebook
2. My companion is a pro at killing mosquitoes. Last night she leapt out of bed, flicked the light on, swatted on, and went back to sleep. All in a bout 5 seconds. Remind me to stay on her good side. 
3. I realized this week I never sit on my bike seat, I just ride around standing on my bike. I dont know how or why that started happening, but its been great for those obliques. 
4. We are going to an amusement park today! There is nothing more scary than a Taiwanese amusement park haha. 
5. So this sunday we had a special 3rd hour meeting and the presidents of the priesthood auxiliaries were sitting at the front of the room. Then, they called on all the deacons, teachers, and presist leaders to give reports. and then! The bishop took each one of their seats and put them up and the front of the room to sit at the heard of the room with him, as his counselors. It was actually super super cute because he regarded these young men as the wisest of all the leaders and this tiny little 12 year old is sitting up with these 60 year old men giving comments and reports as they taught from Preach My Gospel! I thought it was so so cool. Our ward is pretty sweet. Plus, they teach from Preach My Gospel! I mean what else can you ask for??? 

anyways, thats all. Expect that life is great and everyday is a party. A biking, really heavy party. 

Love you all,