Week 26: A Few Good Stories

Well, not too much exciting stuff happened this week, but I have a few good stories for you all!

 

#1: Last Monday, Sis. Wilson and I were going to look for less-actives. We have about 20 sisters that we aren't sure who they are, so we wanted to go meet them. We had 3 that all lived right by our house, so we decided to visit them. One moved, one there wasn't a way to get into her apartment building, and the third we were struggling to find. We knew exactly where it should be, but couldn't find it. Normally after about 10 minutes, I'm like, OK, lets move on, we'll go find a Family Mart and look it up, but this one particular building, I was like, we have to find it! It was so weird. So we eventually found it and pressed the button for the house. We told the lady who we were and who we were looking for. She said she was her and asked if we wanted to come up. You bet we did! So we met this super nice grandmother and her husband. She was baptized a few years ago, but her husband isn't baptized. We started talking to her and getting to know her, and we found of that they have three daughters who are all members and all live in Utah. They began showing us pictures of their family and grandkids and all of a sudden I see a picture of my friend! I was like, is she your granddaughter, and grandma said, yes! I was like, no way! She was in my freshman ward at BYU!!! I couldn't believe it, and it was then that I realized why I had such a desire to find their house! I am so stoaked! We are going to go back tonight and visit them =]

 

#2: Saturday was "Clean up the World" Day and we got to participate! We and about 30 other missionaries all went to the Taizhong Train station and helped clean it up! It was so much fun! We even got to wear normal clothes, which was super weird. I don't like wearing jeans. It was super uncomfortable riding a bike in jeans! Too funny! We helped sweep, scrape gum off the ground and clean up trash. And I got to take pictures which is always fun =] So that was something fun and different.

 

Our investigators are all doing well. Well, our one we were hoping was going to get baptized this Saturday decided she doesn't want to get baptized. We are so sad, but we hope she will let us keep meeting with her. We have two other solid investigators and we hope they will continue to progress as well! We did get one new investigator this week! She is so stinking cute! Met met her through English class, and she wants to be baptized! She came to a movie night we had on Friday and was going to come to church but didn't end up coming. We hope things go well with her as well!!

 

So pictures!

#3217: Sis. Wilson and I at Clean up the World day

#3154: When people die, they have this huge long parade of cars and drums and such to the burial place. This is one of those cars.

#3156: They also have black cars with golden Budda's on top.

#3157: A typical stoplight in our area.

#3172: All the missionaries who helped with "Clean up the World" day!

 

Sorry nothing much more exciting happened this week. Tomorrow is Sister Exchanges and I'll be going to Tanzi again, with the same sister, so apparently whatever I was supposed to learn from her/the area the first time, I didn't learn, so I'm excited to go back again and find out what it is!

 

Hope you all are doing well! Thank you for all your love, prayers and support!

Week 25: Who Gave September Permission to Come?

Who gave September permission to come?! I can't believe we are into September!

 

Since its only been 4 days since I emailed, there isn't too much that has happened. We have gotten 2 new investigators though! On Thursday we were going to find former investigators and saw one was the daughter of a less-active, so we decided to go see her. She happened to be home and let us in. We sat down with her and talked for a bit, and went back again on Saturday to see her and her mom. She's pretty good, though she's worried about not being able to bai bai if she gets baptized. She's actually almost finished reading the Book of Mormon, so we'll see. She and her mom didn't come to church yesterday which was kind of sad =[ And then last week, the Elders had given us a referral, but we kind of forgot about it...Sis. Wilson was out calling people to come to church and saw her card. She called her and was like, do you want to come to church right now? She was like, oh yeah! I will be there in a minute! So she came and stayed for all three hours. We aren't 100% sure she lives in our area, but we are praying she is =] She seems really great and we are excited to see her on Wednesday! Our other investigators are doing well. Our self-contact from last week came to church again yesterday, and though she still doesn't know if she believes God exists, she's still willing to come to church and keep meeting with us. We hope this week we can help her come to know that He exists. Our other new investigator, who is completely golden, is moving to another area this week for school. We are so sad! But, we already gave her to the sisters there, and we are so excited for them to be able to meet with her and help her get baptized =]

 

So that's about it on the missionary work side.

 

So now for a Taiwan culture lesson. The main religion here in Taiwan is Buddhism. Everyone is bai-bai, which is where they worship their ancestors and burn paper money and pray to their ancestors. So the month of August was Ghost Month, kind of like our Halloween, but a whole month, and not just a day. On the last day of the month, they believe Hell opens and all the bad ghosts come out for 6 hours, looking for food. They believe if they don't bai-bai and give the ghosts food, they will come and take all their money and make their businesses really bad. In a lot of areas, especially the more country side, it is normal to see people bai-bai out front their house on a regular basis, but in the area I'm in, its so city, that you don't see it very often. Well, last Friday was August 31, the last day of the month, and EVERYONE was bai-bai-ing to keep the ghosts happy! It was so crazy! I had never seen so many people out bai-bai-ing. They set up a table with lots of food, the stick incense sticks in the food, and then they have this cauldren that the burn paper money in as they pray and, well, I don't know what else. We walked out of our apartment after weekly planning to 9 tables set up, full of food and a big cauldren ready for paper money. We couldn't resist, we had to take pictures! Especially because this was going to be my only full Ghost month on my mission. It was so crazy funny! The whole city smelt like a campfire. I came home that night smelling like a camp fire, and I didn't even participate! When I say everyone, I mean, quite literally every since store/house/company/restaurant/EVERYONE was bai-bai-ing, and all at the same time. The mall had a huge bai-bai tent set up with food, the hospital had a huge tent and tables of food set up, it was so crazy! So I've included a few pictures for you guys to see =]

 

Well, other than that, there isn't much else going on right now =] We are doing good and the work is moving along here in Taiwan! I love being here and I love being a missionary more and more each day! I hope you all are doing well! I love you all! Thank you for your love and support and prayers. They are felt every day!

 

 

Love you!

 

Pictures:

#1: Everyone in Taiwan is really "pa sai hai" meaning, they are all afraid to get tan...they wear jackets and pants when riding their scooters, even when its 100 degrees outside. I'm not "pa sai hai" I'm really tan...see my watch? 

Oh wait...thats just my watch tan.

#2: My watch tan even extends to the underside of my wrist...

#3: Immediately outside my apartment building. Our apartment, the second hand store next door, and the bank on the otherside of us all celebrated together.

#4: The lady in the pink owns the second hand store next door and we see her every day. I've seen her and our guan li (the gaurd at our apartment) making these red and yellow things for weeks now (yes, they made them...). They were promptly burned...You can also kind of see how much food and stuff they had set out.

#5: The little red cauldreon next to the cone is normally what they burn the money in, but since they had so many people, they got a big wire cage and some sand and made their own firepit. That is daytime guan li. He has a stack of paper money in his hand, and he is getting reading to start putting it, one by one, into the fire pit.

#6: You can see the money beginning to pile up.

#7: And then they burn it. And continue to throw more and more in. We had to leave, since it wasn't our preparation day, so I don't know how big any of it got, and we didn't see they throw in the red and yellow flower things. But we saw plenty of other people bai-bai throughout the rest of the day!