I Love Kung Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

this is my photoshoot on a rock in neiwan

companionship nerdiness. 

can you see the size of these ants??? I couldn't put my hand any closer for fear of getting eaten

this is a buddhist temple right by our house. They fire a cannon off all the time. super annoying

 what is up with the turtle with the head of a sea lion???

Elder Wang and Mother's Day

1/8/16

Happy Mothers' Day! 
  Talking to my Mom today and the rest of my family was definitely the highlight of the week. I gotta say though, pushing the big red button in the US President's office that launches our nuclear weapons and starts WWIII is probably a lot easier than pushing that little red one on the ipad screen that ends the Skype call. Fortunately I will never have to go through the former, but I can't say the same for the latter.

     This last week we had Elder Wang of the 1st Quorum of the Seventy visit our mission. It was such a cool zone conference. Other than getting to see the majority of my previous companions, we learned a ton. The best part was he had us roleplay teaching a less active family and asking them an inspired question. We had about seven or eight companionships try it until we finally got it to the standard Elder Wang wanted. It was super tough. My companion and I had the lovely privilege of going first. Doing a roleplay in front of three zones of missionaries is not exactly my cup of tea, but it shocked me when like the perfect inspired question came directly to my mind. Obviously the delivery wasn't there (because six other companionships improved off of it), but what struck me was how clear it came to my mind. It was so obvious to me that it had come from the Spirit. Those opportunities are rare, and I just sat back after we muddled through our roleplay and enjoyed the success rather than the failure.

     Mother's Day is seriously one of my favorite holidays. I mean, I love Christmas and I love the Fourth of July, but Mother's Day is just something special. I love seeing all the Mom's everywhere just acting so spoiled. I think mothers should get a few more opportunities to have the spotlight. Mothers pretty much keep the world sane. That's a pretty big feat in today's world. I just think that if there wasn't someone to nag us to be home by midnight and someone to chew us out for leaving our clothes on the floor, there would be a lot more teenagers out past midnight and a lot more clothes on the floor. In all seriousness, I am very grateful for the loving mother that I have. You might laugh, but one of my favorite stories in nature is that of the octopus. I can't remember exactly what species it is, but I have always remembered that clip from Planet Earth. There is an octopus that lays its eggs and spends all day every day protecting and caring them until it eventually starves to death because it can't leave to find food. I've always been touched by that. I think our mothers are incredible. Maybe they don't starve to death taking care of us, but, speaking straight, is there anything they wouldn't do for us? I love my Mom!

This kid is so awesome. He is Sarah's age, 17, and living with his girlfriend in her parent's house. He had the sweetest heart ever. He isn't in school right now because he is trying to provide money for him and his girlfriend by fixing cars. Meanwhile, his girlfriend is going to school so she can make the primary income later on. We met him on a busy street, but he asked if we could go to a quieter place because he said he didn't like lots of people. We talked with him about God, and he was really receptive to what we said. After we finished sharing with him on a dark bench outside of a Buddhist temple, he asked if he could take a picture with us and then walked us to an intersection before we biked home. 

I love this paper. This is a Taiwanese person signing up for English class, and next to the 'do you have interest in missionaries' box she writes, "Sorry!" Almost had me in tears.

The other is Zhu Jia Wei's baptism! So stinking cool! The person who helped baptize him is a less active that Elder Humpries and I brought back to church.

Can you see the size of this moth??? I couldn't put anything next to it for proportion because it was up really high. I haven't told you about the centipede huh? Next week ask me. It is a horrible story that will give me nightmares for years

Zhu Jia Wei's Baptism

5/1/16

This last week was Zhu Jia Wei's baptism! The best part is that his English name is Joe, and his baptism was on my grandpa's birthday who is also named Joe! When I told Jia Wei that, he was so excited! Despite being very stressed because the water was the temperature of lava to match the oven outside, the baptismal service was awesome. I'm not sure if I have already told the story of how we found Joe, but I will just share it again because it was so stinking cool.

     Elder Humphries and I were eating at this super cheap restaurant (50 kuai bian dang (boxed lunch with rice, fried chicken, and a few vegetables for US $1.75)) and right after we walked out of the door, Elder Humphries says, "I can't ignore the Spirit, we gotta go talk to that guy that was sitting behind us." So we turn around, go back in, and start talking to the guy behind us. He seemed really receptive, and then we asked him if we could sit down at a FamilyMart and share a message right then. As it turned out, it was one of his rare days off of work, and he was totally willing. We sat down and taught him for about an hour, and from then on he was just a perfect investigator who had already started keeping all the commandments on his own and devoured everything we taught him.

     The other cool thing that happened this week was Tepanyaki lady. Her name is actually Yi Quan, but we became friends with her and the five or six other guys that work at this one Tepanyaki restaurant. Every time we ride our bikes past their restaurant we wave and they all wave back, and when we go to eat there they all come over and say hi. Well one day, Yi Quan came over to us while we were eating, and asked if she could meet with us sometime and have us pray for her. We finally got the chance last week. It turns out that she had been in prison for a long time for drug abuse, and only recently had been let out on terms of weekly drug tests. She found a job were she could work an insane amount to stay out of drugs, but because she was working so much she got sick. She took medicine for her illness, but failed the following drug test, and now faces a big court case and heading back to prison. She cried while she told us this, and asked why when she was trying to change for the better, things just got worse. We shared some awesome scriptures about faith, hope, and taking Christ's yolk upon us, and she was very grateful afterwards. She is so awesome, and I really hope we can continue meeting with her and sharing the gospel of Christ. I love you all and hope you all have a good Mother's Day! I love you Mom!!!

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Ok, I was just planning on emailing friends only on every other week, so I would have a little bit more time to write family. If you don't want individual letters I mean fine, have it your way ;) I will try to pack in a ton into one little letter though. I can write about Elder Zhu now. He was pretty rough. I really loved having Elder Karlinsey as a companion, and I was super disappointed when he went home in the middle of the transfer. Elder Zhu came, and I knew it was going to be pretty difficult. He is a little different, and it taught me so much patience. Between Elder Humphries and Elder Zhu, I have become an incredibly patient missionary. Elder Zhu would always walk his bike up the huge hill, but through some gentle gospel principles like humility for me and perseverance for him and through a little reverse psychology (me riding my bike at an ant-like pace 50 ft behind him to think he was leaving me behind) I got him to ride his bike up the hill non-stop for the last week and a half, and would give him a high-five at the top. I love Elder Zhu, he was totally awesome. Just a lot of things that I had to be patient with, like him always following me into rooms in our apartment (including when I was changing) or yelling at me because he didn't want to get off his bike and knock doors. It was a super interesting three weeks. Lately has been pretty rough going from kind of the only companion in the companionship to a senior companion in a equal seniority companionship, and I have been under a lot of stress without any time in the week to stop and breathe (returning home at night till my head hits the pillow is the most stressful and active part of the day), but I am having an incredible time here. The people are amazing, I love the culture and the food, and I get to ask people questions about God that make them think in new ways and let them feel of the love God has for them. Elder James and I are going fossil-collecting today with a member at the place Dad told me about, so we will see if we actually come home with something or whether we will just go hiking in a beautifully secluded area just exploding in green. Oh darn, I might as well tell you about the centipede now while I've got a minute. So Elder Zhu and I bought these two huge pizzas, and brought it home to put in the fridge to eat the leftovers another time. As you might have guessed, we forgot about them. We were reminded when we woke up one morning and an unearthly smell was radiating from the corner. It was the pizzas, and they were covered in a thick layer of mold. So, we did what any missionary would do and put them on the porch until we could find a time to deal with it and sort the trash into recycling and otherwise (our apartment complex yelled at us the other day for not sorting our trash well enough). A week or so went by, and Elder James and I finally got around to it. He opened the lid, and this HUGE centipede shoots out like a rocket. It was disgusting! It was about 8 inches long or longer. We trapped it under a cup, put a plate under it like Dad likes to do with mosquito hawks, and then Elder James flung Hades noble steed flying through the air from our second story apartment and into the wild jungle of bushes on the other side of a wall. It would have made for an epic photo, but I was unable to capture it. Well, I've spent too long today emailing, so I better go. But I love you all and I can't wait to talk to you next week!!!!!!

Temples and Transfers

4/24/16

 Transfer week! My new companion is Elder James. Funny enough, he came to Taiwan the same time as me. Granted, he was six weeks behind in the MTC and didn't have visa problems, we ended up here in Taiwan only a week apart. Our new district leader is Elder Xiao, a native Taiwanese, so district meetings are now going to be half-English half-Chinese and I am super excited. Elder Xiao is the bomb.

     I got to attend the temple last week. It was amazing as usual, and the feelings I had inside were indescribable. All I can say is that I really felt special. There has been this focus on one by one in our mission lately and how the Lord knows each of us individually, and at the temple it really just sunk in. I love that feeling.

    After the temple, I got the opportunity to pass of Phase 2! Our mission has a language learning program consisting of a PMG workbook thing (Phase 1), 2000 of the most commonly used words (Phase 2), and all the Chinese characters in the Book of Mormon (Phase 3). So, with 2000 words memorized, I guess you could say I have mastered introductory Chinese. Keyword: introductory. What a hard language, but it really is a blast.

     For the rest of the day, our whole district went to the MaoKong gondola by the Taipei Zoo. It has these little gondola cars that go clear up into the mountains and you get incredible views of the Taipei valley all along the way. I absolutely loved it. At the top, we walked along this winding path leading through thick bushes and trees will all kinds of different colored butterflies flying around. Finally it opened up and we could see the skyscrapers of Taipei and could even see all the way into DanShui on the complete opposite side of the valley. On the right was Taipei 101--completely dominating the surrounding landscape.

     It was an incredible view, and just like that it was over. I'm kind of grateful it is already over though. On my mission, I've learned to just enjoy the process. If I saw that view every day, it wouldn't be nearly as spectacular. Things change, and we don't always like it, but that is really what makes life fun. I'm especially grateful for the opportunity given to us through the Atonement of Jesus Christ to change. I'm grateful that I can be here on the front lines watching people change their lives to follow Him. I hope you have all had a great week! I love you!

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i don't know if you can see the size of this wasp......