Hello Everyone!
We had a good week here in Taiwan, complete with monkey attacks and earthquakes and sister exchanges! Where shall we start?
So last Monday I went to Monkey Mountain with a few other sisters, and it was so fun! I hadn't eaten before we left, so I took some McDonald's with me. We were walking through a few shops that lead up to the mountain and one of the sisters notices a monkey that is following us on a roof. I had two bags, one with my drink and one with my food. All of a sudden the monkey jumps down and grabs the bag with my drink! I was going to fight him for it, but decided he could have it. He takes it and jumps back up to the roof. A man throws a stick at him, but I'm like, its ok, he can have it! And then another man is like, you have to put that food in your bag or he's going to come back for it! So I hurriedly put it in my bag, and we keep on going. Later on, another sister has her water bottle under her arm, and all of a sudden, there is a monkey on her leg! He grabs her water bottle with his mouth jumps down, but he drops the bottle and runs off. We pick it up and its got a huge bite in the bottom of it. Meanwhile we are all watching this other monkey that is just sitting on a bench (see pictures) and we see him eyeing this sister...we are like, uh, he wants your water bottle. So she sets it down and he gets down but the next thing we know, he is running to her and he jumps on her, and is getting into her bag! She remembers she has a bag of pretzels, and he saw them and wanted them. He didn't get the whole bag though, and all of a sudden all these monkeys come running and we are like, throw the bag, throw the bag! She throws the bag and probably 20 or so monkeys come running and fighting with each other and we are like, oh no! What have we done!!! This lady is getting mad at us for bringing food, but then, a dog comes to our rescue! He comes and scares all the monkeys away =] So, anyway, we are all fine, and it was so fun and I want to go back and spend more time there! But next time I won't bring food with me =]
Then on Tuesday we had sister exchanges! I stayed in my area and had a wonderful sister come to my area. We had a lot of fun! While all of our lessons and back up plans fell through, we found a great mom who we hope we can start meeting with! We talked to lots of people and had a few great lessons and did some great English Powerboarding (we went to a big intersection and just started passing out English flyers to everyone).
Thursday, we went to eat dumplings for dinner and right as we were finishing, everything starts shaking. I'm like, is this an earthquake, and then it gets a little bigger! I'm like, uh, yes, this is an earthquake! I've felt a few small earthquakes, and while this really wasn't all that big, it was possibly the biggest I've ever been in! Everyone else in the restaurant was like, no big deal, because Taiwan has earthquakes all the time, but it was my first one in Taiwan! So crazy!
As for investigators, they are doing well. We are dropping two this week that aren't progressing, but we hope this will allows us to focus on those who are! We have one really great investigator, Liu JM, who is progressing really well. I love her! And we have another, Zhang JM, who is doing well as well. We hope that we can give Zhang JM a baptismal goal this week!
This week is the last week of the move call, so we will find out on Saturday if I move or if my companion moves or if we both stay, so I'll let you all know next week!
I hope everyone has a great week this week! Happy Halloween! We will be having a Halloween party in English this week, and we are hoping we can get a lot of people to come! Yay!!! We really want to start really putting a lot of effort into our English program because we know it is a great way to find investigators!!!
Pictures:
#1: There were a whole bunch of monkeys who were laying on the ground, and the babies were picking bugs (I'm assuming) off of them. It was so funny, because a mom monkey came and pulled one of the babies away from this mom =]
#2: This is the monkey that attacked the other sister. He was just sitting there peacefully, but then he attacked. The sister who was attacked has a picture of my monkey drinking my McDonald's drink, but I haven't been able to get it from her her...
#3: The 5 sisters who went to Monkey Mountain: Back - Sis. Smith (attacked), Sis. Watterson, Me, Front - Sis. Wainright (she was the sister who was my Dan Jones companion my first night on island, she left to go home to American this morning) and Sis. Shen (she came on sister exchanges with me!)
#4: My McDonalds bag that the monkey took. He threw it off the roof after he was done and I couldn't just leave it. You can sort of see the tears he made in the bag.
I hope everyone is doing well! Thank you all for your love and support! Time is going by fast, but I am loving being a missionary here in Taiwan!