Serving in the Taiwan Taichung Mission: Week 20

What a great week last week was!

Sis. Lee and I were quite nervous because we had just baptized our only investigator, so we knew it was going to be a long week, but we planned accordingly so we would find new investigators! On Monday night, we were about to go out, and it started pouring rain! We decided to call phones for an hour and then go out. We started calling old records, and within an hour, we had added 3 people (when you add a person, it means you've set up a time to meet with them)! We were going crazy! So we ended up calling phones for 2 1/2 hours and added a total of 5 people! We were thrilled and so grateful! Well, unfortunately, one of those adds, we eventually found out, was an active member (we aren't sure why they didn't say they were a member when they called...), and the other 4 never showed up/weren't home when we went. So, that was actually kind of sad. But, thats ok. The week only kept getting better from then! We ended the week with 4 new investigators, and two of them are progressing! One is our eternal investigator that we discovered this week really has potential to get baptized soon. A second is the mother of our 10 year old recent convert. We realized she was interested for reals when she called and practically begged us to come over, and then when we were meeting with her, she said she knows the church is true. Score! A third was a former investigator from when I first got here. We aren't sure where her desire lies right now, and it will still be a while before she gets baptized, but we are still excited. And the fourth is an english student of mine. She met with the missionaries last year and loves the Book of Mormon and loves praying (she is 13) but stopped meeting the missionaries because her mom got busy (mom doesn't have as much desire). So we went by their house and they were home and let us up. We talked with my english student and asked her if she had a desire to get baptized and she said yes! So we are going to start working with her and mom and hopefully she will be able to get baptized! And her mom is an INCREDIBLE quilter!! She makes such cute things and is so talented! So neat!!!

So that is how things went proselyting last week. Overall, we were super grateful for what the Lord provided us with, and Sis. Lee and I had such a great week together and we had so much fun! It is definitely going to be weird when she goes home and I get a new companion. I'm not sure how I feel about that...

Nothing really exciting happened last week, except for today, preparation day! Well something that was cool that I learned this week was BoPoMoFo which is the Chinese way of texting characters. Its pretty cool and I'm pretty excited that I can now text characters! So on to the excitingness of today! Wednesday is my birthday and so today is my birthday preparation day, so Sis. Lee and I planned out a great day!! The day started off with cleaning the apartment, which was sevearly needed, since it had been a few weeks since we had deep cleaned. So we did that, and then I wanted to go to the breakfast truck that is outside the church. It is so stinking good!!! So we went there to grab breakfast, came home, ate and got ready for the day. While I was in the shower, Sis. Lee threw together this incredibly cute sign (which is crazy because I was only in the shower for 5 minutes) and she gave me one of the presents my family had sent me =]. Then we had personal study, a little companionship study and then were out the door at 10:30. I needed to get money and go to the post office, and then we went grocery shopping. We finished all that by 11:30, and then went to windowshop at the mall for a bit before going to our recent converts work to get our hair washed. She is a hair stylist, and I wanted to get my hair washed/ massaged for my birthday. So we went and did that for 1 1/2 hours, which was so fun and my hair turned out super cute.

Then we went to this restaurant called The Modern Toilet. I know its been featured (or a copy of the restaurant) on TV, and my friend has been before, so we wanted to go for the experience. It was a little more expensive than we would normally pay for food, but it was actually really, really good! And what I got had cheese on it!!! I haven't had cheese in 2 months! So that was super fun! After lunch we ran into some other sister missionaries who were here visiting an investigator, so we chatted with them for a few minutes and then went shopping! Sis. Lee still had a few items she needed to buy for her family, so we went and got those, and I wanted to buy a purse. But, I didn't find one I liked, so I didn't buy one today. And thats been our day! It's been super fun, and I'm so excited for the rest of the week, especially my birthday day because then I get to open the rest of the presents my family sent me =]

And Sis. Lee is so sweet! She told me at lunch that she was going to have my best friend Sis. Taylor come to lunch with us today, and she told her at zone conference a few weeks ago to ask our mission president to come to our area today so that they could come to lunch with us. She had to tell her at zone conference because they aren't in our zone, so she can't call them, so she was thinking way ahead. Sis. Lee asked the assistants yesterday if she could call them, but they said no, and sadly, Sis. Taylor didn't come today. But, I'm still grateful Sis. Lee was thinking about me and my birthday and how much I love Sis. Taylor ahead of time, even though it didn't work out. And its ok because I'll get to see Sis. Taylor tomorrow and Wednesday because of sister exchanges. So I'll actually get to see her on my birthday =]

Anyway. I hope everyone is doing well! I have a lot of pictures included for today =] (They actually are in two emails, so sorry about that!) I hope you all enjoy! Thank for all the love and support you all give to me! I love you all!

Pictures:

#1: Sis. Lee, German and I: Our weekly planning buddy =]

#2: My breakfast zhua bing (for my family, its those onion pancakes I've made before) and then egg. SOOOOOO GOOD!

#3: My breakfast danbing (its like a creape and egg and bacon, not quite as good as a zhuabing, but still good!)

#4: The card, note and gift (from my family) that Sis. Lee gave me this morning!

#5: Sis. Lee, Me and Sara, our recent convert, in the process of doing my hair!

#6: Sara and I before she put my head under the steamer. She had put some stuff in my hair and then she put it in four big curls, put cotton around my face, and suran wrapped my head.