"Good job, it stinks to be you"

Hey!!

FINE, FINE!! SORRY!! Haha, Yes, I completely space sending my address every time! But here it is:

4/F #24 Lane 183
Chin Hua Street
Da An District
Taiwan, Taibei, 106
TAIWAN

Hope to hear from you all soon. :D

Well, life is good in Taiwan. Full of lots of ups and downs. The ups being beautiful bike-rides, people who accept meeting with us, having a moment when my Chinese sounds good, having someone accept a pamphlet; the downs being overwhelmed with the language, lonely when everyone knows what's going on but me, and being occasionally petrified to talk to people on the street. But all these things are part of the process I suppose. I really enjoy it. We had zone conference last week which focused on having a "vision". Having a vision for ourselves, for our areas, for our missions, for our lives. When you have a vision, you have a drive, and goals that keep progressing. So we visited Wu Zhujiao (Bishop Wu) and asked him what his vision for the ward is. Satan is hitting families hard here too, from what he says. So his vision for the ward is for the members to "return to the basics" of the gospel and to let it strengthen their families, THEN for the spirit of the gospel to give them a passion for sharing the gospel. So we're going to visit the member families this transfer and strengthen them and look for referrals. It should be great! My companion is Sister Kunzler (Sister Scott was transfered to YongHe). She is on her last transfer so she has high goals and alot of drive to go out with a bang. And I'm fresh and clueless so we're ready to do big things. We just need to have faith and optimism and things will work out. Really, I'm clueless and frustrated often, but the Lord makes up for our weaknesses and we really do see miracles happening often. We got 13 referrals last week from sheer miracle, for instance. Our goal as a companionship is to baptize a family before she leaves.

Hmmm...anything happen this week? It rained cats and dogs (I explained that term to a fluent English speaker the other day and was so proud of the random knowledge I learned from Pioneer Village) for a few days. We showed up to church with soaking skirts and squishing shoes. I think people are used to missionaries looking like rats. They have this phrase: "oh, hen xinku" which pretty much means "oh, good job, it stinks to be you," in essence.

Thursday was alot of fun. It was the beginning of a new transfer and since I never got arrival training, I got to go to Taibei and have that training with Sister Collyer who just came from the MTC that day. Sister Collyer is the BEST! She reminds me alot of Brewy and Cousin Carolyn, so she is amazing and fun and really a GREAT missionary. We always joke and say we're related because once we went to the Provo temple and an old worker said, "oh, Dowdle, my ancestors were Dowdles in Cache valley." Then Sister Collyer talked to him and he said "Oh, Collyer, my ancestors were Collyers in Cache valley. They married the Dowdles." Haha. So we say we're related by marriage. Anyway, we had our training in Taibai, which was nice. The President is AWESOME! He's SO laid back. Not as laid back as President Laney, but pretty darn close. We are allowed to watch Disney movies on PDay! When we went to pick up Sis Collyer at the airport, we watched a Lakers game. The whole training was so laidback and nice. We got to buy some dictionaries. Oh yeah, and he took us to the dedication site of Taiwan where we all (president and sister Grimley, the Wrides who are a new Sr. Couple, the APs, Sis Collyer and I) bore our testimonies and had private prayers where we dedicated ourselves to the preaching of the gospel in Taiwan. It was cool. Then we saw the Grand Hotel which was AMAZING. It's HUGE and intricate and gorgeous. I will stay there before I die.

So I don't know...not alot of things different happen in a week, so I can't remember what I've already said about Taiwan. Hmmm...everything molds. My closet, food, etc. I had a cough drop MELT. Weird! We have to keep our scrap food garbage in the freezer. We have the biggest chapel in Taiwan. Hmmm...We went to the Temple and it was 2000 degrees in there. We email in a internet cafe full of smoke and the sound of machine guns. Teenagers stay here for HOURS and have their food delivered to their computers. Sick. I'm trying to walk flat-footed...tell that to Heather. We'll both have a goal of walking flat by the time I get home. No one can read my Chinese character. They stare at it forever before they figure it out.

Well, I love you all!
The Church is True!
Sister Poohface/ Dent Jiemei