Greetings From The East!

Greetings from the far east everyone.

This week has been not so eventful as far as these weeks go. But it has gone by swiftly. Monday we pushed back p-day because today (Wednesday) is our temple day. All the missionaries congregate together (except those in the far south, and when I say all missionaries I mean the ones in the Taipei mission because Taichung is just not that special ;) ) and we attend the temple. So today is our p-day this week. We hope to wander the streets of Taipei after our temple experience and find many joyous things.

This week we did a lot of tracting, a lot of contacting, a lot of finding. Since our three boys last week got baptized our investigator pool has somewhat shrunk. So there was a lot of door knocking, talking to people at stop lights, and phone calls. Fortunately the stop lights here had a timer which counts down the time left until green (for the most part) so you know how much time you have to spit our your message with a huge smile. Mostly we just give out the tracting pamphlets that we have, but sometimes we get a number. Knocking doors can go a little bit better (its my personal preference) and we have covered a fair amount of area this week. On Monday we taught a lesson in a stairwell and got a new investigator. I don't know how interested she is but we have another meeting scheduled which is harder for her to avoid because it is at her house. We get a lot of avoidance maneuvers, people not answering their phones and standing us up as we wait for them at the church. We call that a pigeon pie for some reason relating to some Chinese saying that I'm not really clear on...

We also taught a girl the same day who I have a lot of hope for. She really needs the gospel. She is 21, and a student. When she was born her parents divorced so she never knew her mother. She lived with her father until she was 9, then he died in an accident, and she was an only child so she was alone in the world. Her uncle was charitable enough to take her in and now she lives with one of her cousins families but feels very much an imposition and not part of the family. She seemed very willing to talk to someone, and very friendly. When we introduced the Book Of Mormon to her and Joseph Smiths first vision she immediately became absorbed into the introduction and the testimony of the witnesses. She read in silence with us watching her for a good 3 or 4 minutes. I have hopes for this one.

Yesterday I made the mistake of eating a salad from the 7-11 down stairs next to our apartment building (7-11s are on every street corner here, they make a lot of money let me tell ya. Much more popular than in the US.) About 2 hours later I started to get sick, and by the end of the day I was dieing. We had to go home an hour early and I collapsed on my bed while Sister Li made phone calls. Today I still am feeling it. But I did manage to teach my Zone leaders for the first time. Every transfer we have to teach them once from the language learning system (called phase one, 2 and 3) to pass the lessons and the phases off. I passed off half of the first lesson. I am slowly learning and improving. Very slowly.

Well I have less time to talk to you all today because I have to get back to the temple. But I hope you are all doing well. I hope Christmas isn't sneaking up on you! Enjoy it for me.

Sister Thiessen