January 26, 2014

Hi Mom and Dad! 

Well this week's been good! It has seriously flown by, haha. I know I say that all the time, but this week seemed to go by abnormally fast.  And it IS Chinese New Year! We've been saying 'Guo Nian Kuai Dao Le' (the new year is about to arrive) all this past week to people on the street, haha, so 'Xin Nian Kuai Le!' (Happy New Year!)  Lots of decorations and everything up, but no fireworks yet. I don't think it officially starts until the 31st, so we've got a few days still, haha. 

Well about Taiyu, generally if they speak Taiyu it's because they don't speak Chinese.  It's a lot of the old grandmas (Ama's) that speak it, and they're really nice and cute, but we can't understand them and they can't understand us. I'm picking up a few phrases, but there's not much we can do. They're all really nice though! Sometimes their family will be with them too who speak Chinese, and then they just stand there and grin at you and give you more food to eat and motion with their hands for you to sit down, haha, they're super cute. 

Interviews with President Day are actually next week I think, and he comes here. Sister Peay said he goes to TouFen, which is about a 40 minute bike ride away, so pretty close. Interviews with him are always good, so I'm excited.

I started reading the Old Testament and it is surprisingly cool!  The history is super cool. This morning I read around Genesis 40, with the story of Joseph (and the amazing technicolor dream coat) and it was so cool! I pretty much just had the soundtrack songs going through my head the entire time, but in spite of that, it was really interesting. And it's cool to read about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and then the 12 tribes. I've learned a lot about that this past week which has been really cool. 

So yeah, this week has been great! I have been a little sick, but not bad. And I'm officially getting better I think. I started feeling sick around Wednesday, then Thursday and Friday I was pretty sick. Just like runny nose and coughing, and not really anyone could understand me talking (which was really annoying, haha) but I loaded up on the cold medicine, and airborne, and lots of fruit and water, and I'm feeling a lot better! The weather has been really nice lately too, not cold at all really, so that's been a huge blessing. I still bundle up to be safe, but it's been so warm, so that's helped a lot. 

I've started Phase 2 this week! I've realized that I work a lot better with flashcards, because I can't just look at what the word means. It gets rid of that temptation, so I'm learning some new words. I feel like my background in Chinese is helping me pick up new words too, especially since I can look at a lot of the characters and figure out the meaning from that, so the word makes sense. That's one thing I love about Chinese, sometimes it just makes more sense, haha.

Apparently I have a 'special' accent though, haha. I was practice teaching Elder Liu and he said that I have more of a Taiwanese accent than a 'Wai guo ren' (foreign) accent. But it's not even for sure Taiwanese, it's just special. It's mainly when I do the 'xi' sounds, like 'xie xie' or things like that. It comes out more with an 's' then how it's actually supposed to be. He said my Chinese was great, but if I work on that, it'll be even better, so I'm focusing on that. And he basically said the same thing you did; he told me to talk slower and just be more precise and it'll help it. So a goal now is fixing my weird, individual accent, haha. 

We've seen so many miracles this week too, it's been crazy.  The first, we finally got our investigator H Jei Mei to church! This is the sole investigator we got to the keep when the area switch happened, and she hasn't been able to come to church yet, but we got a ride arranged for her yesterday, and she actually came! She really enjoyed the classes and everything too, so we're glad about that. I don't remember if I've told you about her, but she's probably around 60, and has one son who lives with her because his work isn't great, and it's really hard on her, but she's really interested and really wants to get baptized. And now that she's come to church, she's making progress! She's really funny, haha, you'd like her. She always forces us to eat, and she's just really nice, haha. 

Another miracle was that a mom and her daughter that none of us missionaries remember having met before just showed up at church and said she wanted to learn about Christ! Haha, that never happens! She just walked in, and all of us missionaries looked at each other and were all like "who is that??". Apparently, either Sister Peay or I gave her an english flyer sometime, and she said she wants to learn about our church! She's in the Elders area, but it's so cool that we were the ones to give her the flyer. It just reminds me that every little effort matters, even if it's really small like a simple english flyer. And she stayed for all of church, and she's coming to English class Wednesday, and she seems really interested! It's so cool! 

Another miracle was an investigator that Peay Jei Mei and I just found this week. We were knocking on doors (because we've been doing a lot of that lately) and a man came up to us and started talking to us, and we exchanged numbers, and we got to meet yesterday. I'm not going to lie, it was probably the coolest lesson I have ever been in. And I don't think I have met a person before with more desire to know the truth than he does. He's probably about 40, and building an apartment really close to our place, so we just met at a 7-11 super close, and we shared the first lesson. But literally, every single question he asked led perfectly in line with the next point we wanted to cover. And we had a 'peike' (a lesson with a member), the RS President, and she helped so much! He just kept asking all the right questions that we knew how to explain, and the cool thing is that he actually got it! It was so cool, I can't get over it. We set a date with him, and we're meeting with him this Thursday, so I'll tell you more next week. He has a wife and a son who's in the south, probably at school or something, so I hope we get to meet his wife too, and I hope his wife is as prepared as he is. 

Yesterday was so fun, Vicky Chang showed up at the ZhuNan ward! We hugged and talked for a little bit, and she stayed for Relief Society (apparently she knows some sisters in the ward) and it was so nice! She gave me a 'Guo Nian' present, and said that she would call me. She said that Sister Brienholt wanted to come too, but had to be at church, so we might do something on P-day sometime, if they can come here, since we're not allowed to leave the area without permission. So that was super nice of her, it was really fun!  (Both Sister Chang and Sister Brienholt are friends from our ward in Shanghai who now live in Taiwan.  Thank you Vicky!!)

We visited F Mama this past week too, and she always makes me happy. I hope I'm as active as her when I'm 87, that is all I can say, haha. She uses her entire body to express herself, and it is so funny! She said two prayers to start, and then both Sister Peay and I said a closing prayer, because it's 'Guo Nian' and she wanted us to.  We're going to keep visiting her every so often and just check up on her, she's so great. 

Another super cool thing that happened, I don't know if it counts for a miracle or not, but, we were getting drinks during lunch, and the workers were handing out free samples. And I was asking what was in it, to make sure no tea or coffee or anything, and the lady next to me, who neither of us have ever met, was all the sudden like "they're missionaries, they don't drink tea" and then just smiles at us and nods, haha, it was so cool! And then she was like "nothing with 'cha ye de cha, dui bu dui?" (tea leaves I think) and I was like "Yeah you're right!" And then she got her drink and had to leave, but it was so cool! People who we don't even know, know who missionaries are, it was so cool. I want to find her sometime and try and meet with her. 

Well that's been my week! It's been super fun! I'm excited to be officially not sick anymore, so hopefully by next email (on Wednesday, not Monday) I'll be fully recovered. We're already getting a lot of dinner setups for Guo Nian (celebrating Chinese New Year) from the ward, so that's exciting, they're so great. And we're going out to eat lunch with our district today, so that should be fun.

Sorry I don't have any pictures this week! I need to start taking more, I'll work on that. But thank you for sending me those pictures!  

Well I love you! And miss you guys!

-Sister George