2/21/16
Sorry this email is coming in on a weird day, this week we get to go to the temple! That means we have our preparation day on Wednesday instead of Monday, and we don't have studies. So, here I am at four in the morning in a creepy and dirty internet cafe with a surprising amount of college students playing the famous Taiwan computer game--League of Legends.
First off, I don't have much to write about. It's only been five days since my last email, and nothing has really happened in that time. Funny enough, because I am in a different time zone (almost a half day earlier than Utah) all the missionary emails I get are the week after. Ya, I guess you could say I'm pretty much out of date in every sense of the term. Not only that, but because last week we emailed on Wednesday, I had two weeks worth of emails in my inbox then and no weeks worth of emails now. Confusing, but either way I don't have much to talk about.
Cultural thing: everyone in Taiwan has crash cams. The majority wear go-pros on the top of their helmets or have other cameras clipped to the dashboard of their cars. The cameras are set to 'record everything while I'm driving mode' so that if they are involved in a crash they have evidence. This has quite an interesting side-effect: news footage in Taiwan is pretty epic. Us missionaries aren't allowed to watch TV, but one can't help occasionally noticing people get hit by cars, doing front flips, and then walking away from it. They catch everything on film.
Sorry this email is coming in on a weird day, this week we get to go to the temple! That means we have our preparation day on Wednesday instead of Monday, and we don't have studies. So, here I am at four in the morning in a creepy and dirty internet cafe with a surprising amount of college students playing the famous Taiwan computer game--League of Legends.
Last week was Guo Nian. Wow. How to describe it. So, in ancient China, a huge monster would come out at the beginning of each new year (according to the lunar calendar) and eat tons of people. To defend themselves, people would light firecrackers, make lots of noise, and hang red paper on the three sides of their front door. In addition, they would dress all fancy and eat lots of food every night because, you know, it might be your last meal on earth. If someone ever congratulates you during the New Years and you don't know why, it is because you survived the monster through the night. Yep. Imagine a whole week of that and that was pretty much it. Firecrackers start around 6 in the morning and you hear them all through the day every day of the week. Hey, someone even tried to throw one at me while I was biking, but I think he was very drunk so he missed.
One thing I have been thinking about this last week is the faith of the people here in Taiwan. Sometimes I find myself questioning the members here: "why can't you just drop everything and do missionary work? why can't you all just come to sacrament meeting every week? you didn't know our church was different from the Catholic church?" If everyone had perfect faith, none of those questions would be a problem. Those three questions are rather easy for me to do, seeing that I am a missionary and grew up in the church. The members here in Taiwan though, have a kind of faith that I don't have. They are pioneers. Many of them are the only members in their work, in their school, among their friends, even among their family. I really thought about what great faith that takes alone, setting aside the fact that most members here can fulfill those three questions better than I can. These people are laying a foundation of faith for future generations to build off of, just like those brave pioneers who crossed the plains. This led me to examine my own faith and how I could step up to be as brave as these people in Taiwan. A line came to mind, quoted by our dear prophet Thomas S Monson in that army mormon message, "Dare to be a Mormon, dare to stand alone. Dare to have a purpose firm, dare to make it known." I love you all!!!
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First off, I don't have much to write about. It's only been five days since my last email, and nothing has really happened in that time. Funny enough, because I am in a different time zone (almost a half day earlier than Utah) all the missionary emails I get are the week after. Ya, I guess you could say I'm pretty much out of date in every sense of the term. Not only that, but because last week we emailed on Wednesday, I had two weeks worth of emails in my inbox then and no weeks worth of emails now. Confusing, but either way I don't have much to talk about.
Cultural thing: everyone in Taiwan has crash cams. The majority wear go-pros on the top of their helmets or have other cameras clipped to the dashboard of their cars. The cameras are set to 'record everything while I'm driving mode' so that if they are involved in a crash they have evidence. This has quite an interesting side-effect: news footage in Taiwan is pretty epic. Us missionaries aren't allowed to watch TV, but one can't help occasionally noticing people get hit by cars, doing front flips, and then walking away from it. They catch everything on film.
The temple was, as usual, amazing. I don't know if there is anywhere in the world where I feel more peace and contentment. The hours right before were completely action packed: waking up at 4 to do emails, literally running onto the train just in time, enduring a splitting headache, etc. The time that I had in the temple was really the opposite. It let me just catch my breath for a moment. It is one of the few times that us as missionaries can just sit and not worry about a thing in the world. What a blessing to have a temple just an hour away, and what a blessing to be able to help people prepare to go there for themselves. This work is incredible and I am so happy I get to be a part of it. I love you all!
the reflection of the Taipei Temple in the marble of JinHua Jie Chapel. So cool!
The boy in the blue is christian, the boy in the red asked us if we wanted to do something that is definitely against mission rules and then sat down with us and heard a lesson, and the little little boy ducking his head (you can see his arm on the left) is just this random kid that came up and sat with us while we were talking and kept throwing leaves at my head (during the prayer as well).
One of my first guo nian dinners. I don't know if you can see the food, but it was pretty crazy
These are all Green World. I went halfway across the world to see cacti (It's a zoo)
The infamous hill
views from the top of our apartment building. Beautiful, although most days you can't see half of that due to smog.
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