10/11/15
Family!
Family!
My companion is Elder Boyce from Boston, but his family is currently living in Provo. He is an incredible worker and we are working so hard. Well, he does the majority of the talking but we work super hard together otherwise. Typical day involves getting up and jogging up the mountains to absolutely stunning views out into Taipei city or to Buddhist shrines or temples. Soon followed by a bowl of cereal because Elder Boyce is obsessed with cereal (man after my own heart). We do studies in the morning, and then out to eat lunch at one of the many food places around our apartment, including an awesome market. Then we start the normal day meeting with investigators, less actives, and recent converts sometimes at their homes but mostly at parks and restaurants. Eat dinner, go finding at MRT stations, go back to the apartment, do a ton of calling because my companion is district leader, finally finish up planning and everything else, and hit the bed. Normal day. Food is incredible. And the portion sizes are huge here. You just keep eating and eating but don't really get fat. Ward is great, the members love cooking at the church. There aren't too many of them, but our area isn't even that big anyway so there is more than you would expect. The majority of the people are just super busy. You go up to them to talk with them and they say, literally translated, "I have things", "No time", or "no use". They are all really nice and polite about it though, we don't get yelled at that much, except by the crazy people here. There are so many crazies! Just today there was one roaming the street tipping over motorcycles one after the other and then almost got hit by a bus (we followed his path of destruction and put the bikes back upright). Biggest challenges include language and... language. They pretty much all stem from the language. Because I don't know what is going on, I don't know if what I say actually fits in with the lesson and it is really hard to stay awake. But I absolutely love it. I love learning new words and phrases and it really is an amazing language. Sometimes I wish it would come faster (ok maybe a little more than sometimes), but I know it will come and I am really enjoying myself. Just looking up at the huge apartment buildings and saying 'hey I'm in Taiwan' is just the best. Bathrooms are weird. They use tissues fom like a box instead of toilet paper. The shower head isn't in the wall, it just comes off. There isn't a shower place to step into either, like, no tub. The bathroom is just all tile and the showerhead is right by the toilet. Still not really sure how to shower correctly. Can't drink the water too, you can see things wriggling in it after leaving it still for a few days. Apartment is small, but they all are in Taiwan. Sorry that was a lot in a short amount of time, I'm just trying to get my thoughts out because I'm out of time. Also, how do we want to do letters? I really don't think I have time on Preparation Day's to write letters to all of you even though I want to. Can I just do emails or something? Even that would be hard, but easier than writing letters. Let me know how best to do that. You all are the best and I love you!!!
-Elder Hawkes
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Finally got to watch conference (in English, yay the church is true!) and it was so awesome! I absolutely loved the messages we heard from all of the apostles. They left us with so many things to start applying into our lives: centering our lives on Christ like clay on a potter's wheel, 'ponderize' a scripture weekly, smile, etc. Totally awesome!
So missionaries in Taiwan compliment everyone. It's just a thing we do. The Taiwanese love it. The most common one is calling men 'shuai' or handsome. Even old guys. So we are street contacting at a train station, and we start talking to this guy who happens to have the same last name as me (happens a lot in Chinese). To be funny, I jokingly called him 'shuai ge ge' or 'handsome older brother'. No harm in that right? My companion and I kind of laughed, and then later in the conversation we found out that he was gay and so he wasn't really interested in the church. Awesome. I just called a gay guy handsome.
More normal cultural experiences:
-all the car mirrors fold in, or there wouldn't be any
-stray dogs are everywhere, and little old ladies go up into the mountains to feed them
-they have stackable bike racks at MRT (metro) stations! Stackable!
-the Taiwanese put on coats and jackets under 80 F degrees
-they have playgrounds for old people to work out on
-the stoplights countdown until they turn green
Coolest miracles this week ever! One less active member has had missionaries working with him for a long time because he couldn't quit smoking. He would smoke 40 cigarettes a day. We met with him last week on my birthday, and he told us that he had just stopped smoking! The day of the last typhoon, he couldn't find any cigarettes to smoke after searching the whole house and it was too windy to go get more, so he just quit. Just like that. 40 a day to 0 a day just like that. He started having a hard time sleeping because of the withdrawals, so what does he do? He reads the Book of Mormon until he falls asleep. Incredible! and get this: We had gotten the impression to bike up a huge hill in part of our area to go finding because missionaries hadn't worked there in a long time the day after the typhoon. We had talked to him and set up an appointment for the next week the day after he had quit smoking. So cool!! I love you all! Have an incredible week!
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