Monsoon Season

Hello!

Thank you all for the emails!! That made me soooo happy!!

This week was fun. Much different from what I expected, missions have their own "culture". A part of that strange culture, is "move calls" and all the talk that is included with that. My last district had what's called "Move Call Madness" where everyone guesses where the missionaries in the district will move to. Then for the first time I heard the phrase "Transfer Trunky" which means exactly what it sounds like...being really anxious and lazy for the coming move call. So strange, but I find myself getting sucked into this funny, strange culture too. So much of your little experience as a missionary depends on your area and your companion. It's really interesting. Anyway, so we had our interviews with the President this week. It pretty much led to my companion and I guessing WAY too much about move calls in a couple weeks. It's interesting, this mission is getting LESS and LESS missionaries. Makes me so sad! Next transfer 8 sisters and a bunch more Elders are going home and the ONLY missionary coming in, is 1 sister! Sad! This is leading to areas being closed, or areas having less missionaries, etc. Anyway, from interviews, we know that something will change in Taoyuan next transfer...either our area will close, the Elder's area will close, we'll serve over 4 wards instead of 2 wards...it's all unnecessary to think and guess about, but the change will be interesting, that's all. Not only that, but with so many older sisters going out, us newbies will go senior sooner. NO!! My stress-free days are soon coming to an end. Fun ends when you're senior, I feel. Anyway, unimportant, unimportant.

There was a monsoon yesterday!! And apparently there will be one everyday this week. Pretty much, it gets super hot in the day then when it approaches evening, the heavens open and we are DUMPED on! Last night the water was so high in some places that we were biking through WAVES created by cars. The lakes in the intersections were almost halfway up our bike tires. SO wet!! I'll take a picture next time.

We're teaching some really cute little girls. Yu Wen is 15 and Pei Yi, her little sister, is 12. They also bring their little 6 year old sister Jia Long. SO CUTE!! They all go home and read the Book of Mormon and the 3 of them pray together. The 2 older sisters set a baptismal date but their dad said it was too quick. Which is fine, I can understand that. I'm excited. They are really sweet. Oh yeah, and I contacted a dude on a motor cycle at a stop light the other day and he's been going to church and meeting with the elders! Maybe this is an obvious dream, but I've always wanted to contact someone on the street that was eventually a super strong member. So cool.

So I never wanted to serve a visitor's center mission, but I get the opportunity a couple days a month and it's not too bad! All the sisters in the mission who live close enough to Taibei take turns giving people "temple tours". They give them little tours using paintings and videos in the chapel next to the Taibei temple, the give them a little intro to temples. I was pretty nervous at first, but they are actually kind of fun. And there's a lot of Spirit when it's a one time encounter. It has kind of a Temple Square feeling, which is pretty special.

This week I've been called to repentance a little bit. We are teaching about 6 people who ALL have concerns with the Word of Wisdom when we taught them this week. I kind of get frustrated when people "disappear" after we teach WOW and wonder why something so small as something you drink would scare someone away from the church. But then I realized one day, as I was eating a bagel, that I am a hypocrite! Haha. Why is it SO hard for me to stay gluten free for longer than a month?? I get soooo tempted by delicious bready things! Then I feel like GARBAGE and can't feel the spirit (which is why we follow the word of wisdom anyway, right?) and am treating my precious gift of a body badly. So I realized, the higher law of the word of wisdom is to protect your body and keep it healthy. But the thing with that, is that all our bodies are different. Mine gives me horrible stinky farts and a fat gut when I eat wheat...haha. So I decided that I will be better and obey my own little word of wisdom and I made a promise to Heavenly Father that I will not intentionally eat gluten the rest of my mission. I think that if I'M better about this, it will help investigators too. Haha, really funny though. We were "qing-ed chi" for lunch the other day by a member "Su Mama". She was all "Oh, you can eat just a little! Like little kids with Mango allergies will be itchy for a little bit, but if you keep forcing them to eat it, they grow out of it!" (all the while I'm feeling so sad for her children.) I insisted that I couldn't. I felt SO sick after lunch and I'm thinking she told the waiter to put a little soy sauce in the food to "ease" me into it. Then afterwards she bought me this little bread thing made mostly of rice flour but partly of wheat flour. She lectured me again then I finally just ate it to make her stop. I was way sick. Then yesterday she asked my companion at church how I felt after eating it and my companion (so Su Mama didn't feel bad) said "oh she felt fine!" and Su mama said "I knew it! Next time, I'll have her eat noodles!" Grr...I'm never eating with her again. Haha, she'll sneak poison in my food! Really, she was the funniest sweetest lady. But eating with her was dangerous. Haha.

I can't remember if I told you about our name. One time in Zhubei I told a little kid my name was sister Dowdle and he said "Doedoe?" Which means "zit". So now I have a few people calling me Sister DoeDoe. It's funny.

Anyway, I really love you all!!

Coley