February 5, 2014

Hi Mom and Dad!

The temple was great today! It's been a crazy day, we woke up at about 5am to make it to our bus at 6, and then finally made it to Taipei around 8:20, then the temple until about 12! It was really good. After that we went to the mission home, and unfortunately I did not have my package. :/ But I got your letter with the stickers, so that was fun. If it just cleared customs today, I don't think it would've made it to the mission home, but that's ok. Transfers are next week, so we may or may not be going back to Taipei for that. And we're going on the 22nd for sure (I'll write about that in a minute) so I'll get it in a couple weeks at least, or the mission home might send it, I don't know. After that we went to the distribution center, then just took a bus home, and now we're here! This email might not be super long because we don't have as much time as normal, but I'll do my best :)

Before I forget, about the 22nd, I am SO excited! So, it is an entire mission conference, everyone in the mission is going to be there, and there will be a member of the Quorum of the 12 there, a member of the seventy there, and then a member of the area presidency there, with all their wives. It's going to be crazy! I'm so excited! President Day said it's a 'once in a mission' and maybe a 'once in a lifetime' opportunity, so, I'm looking forward to that a lot. We don't know for sure yet which apostle is coming, but whoever it is, it will be amazing. 

Anyways, about the rest of last week. It was good! I'm not sick anymore! I felt better by around Tuesday, so I'm grateful for that. And it has been SO WARM lately! It was literally hot one day, like, it felt like Idaho in the summer, so that was fun. I love it now, but I'm a little scared for how hot summer will be. And a super fun thing, we found a random passion fruit! Haha, I'm sure Dad will appreciate that. We were biking out in the middle of nowhere trying to find somewhere to knock doors, and there was this passion fruit randomly on the ground that we somehow managed to split open and eat right there. It was great, and delicious. I'm excited to eat more of those as it gets hotter and hotter. 

Passion fruit!  (also her Dad's absolute favorite fruit since serving in Taiwan!

Exchanges were last week too! We went with our Sister Training Leaders, who are Sister A and Sister C, and that was really fun. I went to XinZhu with Sister A, and it was so great. XinZhu is SO BIG compared to ZhuNan! Haha, I feel like I've been in ZhuNan long enough that I forget how small it is sometimes. Sister A is going home next week, so that was weird to think about, but she's such a great missionary, we had a lot of fun together. And she actually went to BYU-I too and knew my Chinese teacher pretty well, so that was fun.

And Guo Nian (Chinese New Year) is just about to wind down! It's been so crazy here! Pretty much every single day since January 30th, there have fireworks all night, and even in the morning. It's been crazy. And all the people are always at the temples here (we have the world's largest Ma Zhu in our area, just a big statue/temple) so it's been crazy busy with that too.We're going to try and see it this P-day I think. Apparently you can go in and upstairs in it and everything, so that should be interesting. I love seeing all the random temples everywhere, there are a lot more than there were in Shang Hai.  (Ma Zhu is theTaoist goddess of the sea.  There are a lot of folk religions in Taiwan, and Taoism is one.)  

Chinese New Year!

2014, the year of the horse!
A gift to Amie from our friend from Shanghai!
Thanks Vicky!  

Guo Nian is so fun! It's definitely crazy, haha, a very "re nao qi fen" (a lot of excitement going on), but I love it. I like being in the thick of it too, like still going out to contact and just really experiencing everything, it's so fun.  And so many qing ke's! (dinner invitation) They've all been so delicious too! All the member's here are so good to us, it's so nice of them. We've had a mix of traditional Taiwanese food, Italian food, and KFC, haha, so it's been a pretty well-rounded Guo Nian. Sister Peay and I have made a goal to push ourselves even harder when we go running in the morning to work off the 'guo nian weight' as all the missionaries call it, haha. We've also gotten some 'hong bao's’ too, the red envelopes they give out with money in them. We've gotten 300 kuai, which isn't too much, but it gets you about 3 days worth of food if not more, so that was really nice of them too.

So many 'qing ke's' from the wonderful church members!

 I've decided that the Taiwanese people are probably the nicest people ever. We've done so much knocking on doors lately, and people just let us in and give us tons of food, even if they don't want to hear about the gospel. They're just such a nice, friendly people, I love them! 

Zone meeting was yesterday, and that was super fun too. We did a training on being bold, and that was really fun. I've realized I really do love teaching. We did one last month too on using time effectively, and then this month as well, so I guess we do an ok job, haha. It's fun. And our zone is great. I'm attaching a picture of our zone. I took more pictures this week! A lot, you'll like them. 

Amie's Zone

As for a miracle, I actually have one from back in DanShui. Sister Edwards emailed me, and apparently the family that I contacted on the MRT around Christmas are now progressing investigators who have a baptism date for March 1! Apparently when they came to church they asked where I was too. I'm so glad I contacted them and didn't just sit there doing nothing! Apparently the Mom prayed about the church, and just knew it was true, and their entire family is getting baptized, except the kids that aren't 8 yet. I'm so happy for them. I kind of wish I was there to teach them and be more a part of it, but I'm excited they actually came to church!

Another miracle is S. I think I told you about her in another email, we started teaching her and she was amazing, but then we found out she was in the Miao Li Elders area, so we gave her over to them. Well she's getting baptized February 22, and she still calls us and we still meet with her every so often. She actually did a temple tour today in Taipei and we got to see her. It's so awesome! Both Sister Peay and I agree that we still count her as our own baptism, haha, she's such an amazing person and so ready to be baptized. I'm excited. I doubt if we'll be able to go, but we're going to tell the Elders to take pictures, so I'll forward you some. I'm attaching a picture of us with her as well :)

Thanks for the advice Dad, about not getting discouraged. I need to remember that, my patriarchal blessing says something along those lines, so I just need to keep that in mind. I'm happy being the one to plant the seed though. A lot of the people we're meeting these days have never even heard Christ's name, so it's a really cool experience to be their first impression. When exactly were you serving in Taiwan? And what areas were you in? Because we met a family who used to be in MiaoLi, and was possibly there around the same time you were serving. I think they were a Tan Jia Ting, they had 3 daughters. I don't know if you remember them at all, but I'm curious about where you were and everything.  

Well that's about it for this week! It's been good! It's flown by so fast, I can't believe it's already February! Time really is just flying by. I've been thinking a lot about consecration, and I'm planning to read a talk that the Zone Leaders gave us yesterday entitled, 'A Consecrated Missionary', so I'm excited to read that. Especially with the temple today and reading in the Bible about all the laws and everything, I want to do my best to become more of a consecrated missionary. And the Old Testament is awesome! Sometimes it's a little 'fu za' (complicated/troublesome) with all the little bits of stuff, but it's super interesting. I just finished Leviticus, which I will admit, I kind of just pushed my way through because it was all about sacrifices, but I'm excited to keep reading. I've been reading more and more in the Bible Dictionary about some of the stuff too, and it's SUPER interesting! How the Levites were the priests of the temple and not numbered with the 12 tribes, and how Moses and Aaron are from that tribe, very interesting. I definitely don't quite understand it all, but, what I do, I like.

Well I love you guys! Thank you for sending the package, I'll let you know as soon as I get it :) 

Love and miss you!!!

-Qiao Jei Mei

A bonus picture this week  :)