CALLED TO SERVE: Jokes & Changes

9/18/16

Today I would just like to start out with a joke I made this week. It is in Chinese so excuse my attempts to make a dumb joke in Chinese into a hopefully less dumb joke in English. In language study I ran into a really cool idiom: 前人種樹，後人乘涼. You can plug it into Google or to save time I will give you the translation it had: 'predecessor grows a tree, the follower enjoys the shade'. Pretty good idiom. Anyways, here is my joke in Chinese: 千人種樹，後人乘涼。但如果前人沒有種樹，後人中暑 ('first person grows a tree, follower enjoys the shade. First person doesn't grow a tree, the follower gets heat stroke'). The funny part is that 'heat stroke' and 'plant a tree' are both romanized 'zhong shu', just with different tones. I told it to a Taiwanese and asked if he understood. The reply? "I understand, but it isn't funny at all." I may not be the next Jimmy Fallon, but hey, if you smiled at how dumb that was I'll consider it a success.

Found an awesome investigator named Lian Xu who set a baptismal date on the street, we will hopefully meet with him next week. Other than that, it was really hard to meet with any of our other investigators because of the Mid-Autumn Festival, where everyone gets together with family, barbecues, and eat moon cakes and pomello together. Lets just say we have been given around 25 pomellos in the last week.

During a personal study this last week, I took some time to read through some of my entries from almost exactly a year ago. Sometimes I feel like not that much has changed about me since the beginning of my mission. I've had a ton of incredible experiences and learned so much about the gospel, but I don't feel anyone talking to me would notice a change. Looking back at both pictures and journal entries, however, has told me that I'm not. While I still have more room to grow than most, I have become so much more mature in my perspective, loving in my countenance, and deeper in my understanding. I'm not here to brag, but rather to bear testimony that it works. Christ's Atonement changes us to become truly our best selves. It might be slower than we would like, but what hope there is in the promise that if we are faithful we can look back a year from now and see just how much closer we have become to Christ. I love all you guys, and hope you have a great week!

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Happy Birthday Mary!!!!!!!!! When you wake up it is your birthday right??? It is actually your birthday right now in Taiwan, so you can just already start celebrating!!! You are the best littlest sister ever!!! Keep it up with soccer and viola! I am super excited to do some duets when I get home and play soccer with you at the CJH field. I hope Junior High isn't too horrible and that you are having a lot of fun! I love you so much Mary! Hope you have such a great birthday!

-Jojo

This was our lunch for a day. Healthy I know.

typhoon flooding! Crazy high, next week will have comparison photos!

The last four are the awkward moment where I was trying to figure out what was wrong with my camera and realized it still takes pictures just without the screen working (I will get it fixed this week)