We've had a whirlwind of a week- zone conference, exchanges, and two blissful days of General Conference. In Taiwan we have to wait for conference to be translated into Chinese, so we watched it a week late. Thankfully, we didn't have to watch conference in Chinese, because I still struggle to understand basic conversations, let alone lengthy discourses on Eternal Salvation. The talks were absolutely amazing. It felt like a giant firehose of spiritual knowledge was turned on, and we were all thoroughly drenched for 10 hours straight. It was awesome. I love this opportunity to hear from the leaders of our church that we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators. I think it's so amazing that we believe that God still talks to man and directs His church today, and that we can be recipients of new wisdom and insights as we follow the prophet. I especially enjoyed Donald L. Hallstrom's talk about miracles. When I was serving in Logan, a lot of people asked why bad things happen to good people if God is real. I think Elder Hallstrom helps answer this question really well, and remind us of the incredible miracles that all of us are a part of. Here's the link:
I invite all of you to listen to this talk if you haven't gotten a chance yet. It's really good!
I had my first good language mixup this week. During training we have a language study program where we study the vocab we need for the missionary lessons, then practice teaching them to our district and zone leaders. Yesterday, I was teaching Elder Moh, and he was pretending to be an investigator. Partway through the lesson, I wanted to reference a previous concern he had. What I meant to say was "Nǐ shàng cì shuō" which means 'last time you said...' but what I actually said was "Nǐ shàng cèsuǒ" which means 'you go to the toilet'. We had to stop the lesson for a bit until Elder Moh and I could regain our composure. Chinese is hard.
This week I want to introduce you to a place that Sister Smith and I spend a lot of time: Daya Park. During the day, this park is just a normal, rather empty park, equipped with basketball courts, a stage, a small playground, and various trees. At night though, the park comes alive with an amazing variety of people. We spend enough time there that we've started to get to know the regulars. I've already told you about the dancing Amas who show up in force every evening to dance to standards such as 'I love Rock and Roll', 'Casablanca', and 'Ni shi wode xiao pingguo'.
Next to the Amas are the basketball courts, which attract a large number of young men of all nationalities. We usually wave at them, but they're too far into their intense game to really talk to us. We like to practice our minimal amounts of Tagalog on the Filipino players though, so they usually wave at us now.
Further down on the other side of the Amas is the Pokemon Go group. They are extremely dedicated, and show up almost every night to stand in a silent circle, furiously poking their phones. Among our favorites are Two Phones Guy, who is so into it that he carries two phones, and Sassy Guy, who, after 5 weeks of agressive waving, we finally got him to wave in response. We figure on our 300th visit he might actually talk to us.
Other favorite people include Violin Guy, Singing Guy, and Grown Up Sokka. Violin Guy is an ancient man who shows up with an erhu and a loudspeaker, then sits on a mat, turns on traditional Chinese music, and plays along on his Erhu. He's got a very wise looking face, and his beard is in a ponytail. Singing guy is also ancient. He wanders the park singing very loudly, and likes to walk up to us and stare at us while singing emphatically. He's not very creepy though, it's more like he just really, really wants us to join in with his song or something. One time a little kid translated for us, and he's singing about rice dumplings. We usually nod along encouragingly for a bit as we walk by. Finally, our absolutely favorite person is Grown Up Sokka. According to Sister Smith, he looks very much like Sokka from the tv show Avatar. He has a long ponytail with the sides of his head shaved, and he always wears an all black outfit of a t-shirt and basketball shorts. He might be the coolest person we've ever seen. He shows up every now and then to play badminton with his daughter. It's really cute to see him hopping around, passing the birdie back and forth, and striking funny poses with each swing to make her laugh. We're more than a little in awe of him, and we're kind of afraid to talk to him because he's just so cool.
The park is probably one of my favorite places so far in Taiwan just because of the sheer variety and vitality of the people there. You never know who you'll meet, and it's always and adventure.
Anyway, hope you all have an amazing week this week
Lots of love,
Sister Hull
Pics:
1. Wednesday was the Mid-Autumn festival, so we got invited to a barbecue at a ward member's house. Barbecue is something that they take very seriously here, and they can often last from early evening until midnight. I didn't get any good pics of us, but here's a slightly blurry pic of the bishop's kid, Doubi, with a hot dog. He was very proud of his hot dog.
2. Since the missionaries were the only ones watching Conference in English on Saturday, we set up our tv in the kitchen and made cinnamon rolls while we watched. Or more accurately, Elder Councill and Sister Smith made cinnamon rolls. Here's Elder Councill with the finished product.
3. Here's an up-close image of the glorious cinnamon rolls. We gave a bunch to the members who were also here for conference, and they were very impressed.
4. On Sunday we made pizza between sessions and it was similarly delicious. Pesto pizza is definitely the best kind of pizza.
No comments:
Post a Comment