[No Subject]

Hi Everyone!

The train stations in Taiwan have started this poster campaign to stop people from doing dumb stuff. They all feature an adorable cartoon Death convincing people to do dumb things at the train station. This is my favorite one:

Underneath the English tagline, the Chinese says 'Lower your head for a moment, regret it for a lifetime'. Savage. 

The big news of this week, and the reason you didn't get an email from me last week, was we had transfers! Sister Bast moved down way South to Pingdong. Pingdong was explained to us by a member as being 'the Florida of Taiwan', or in other words, very hot. With winter coming, I'd say that's pretty perfect timing! 

My new companion is Sister DeJarnatt from Pleasantview, Utah. She is absolutely amazing. Some of my favorite things about her: She loves musical theater. She's an amazing listener. She has an impressive talent for spotting wild Geckos. She is really good at teaching, especially at asking just the right questions. She, like me, places high priority on sleep, so we've been able to get to bed on time most days this week (not an easy feat on the mission, especially when you like talking with each other). Also, we learned from one of the people we're teaching that, since our star signs are Scorpio and Libra, we are especially suited to being companions and will work really well together. So yeah, it's a companionship that was written in the stars. Here is an artist's representation of Sister DeJarnatt, as drawn by our 8 year old English student, Cherry:

Here's an actual picture of Sister DeJarnatt and I celebrating Thanksgiving with hand turkeys. I feel like I've had so much to be grateful for this week. Here's a short list:

1. We have a grandpa we're teaching who doesn't really speak Chinese, only Taiwanese, and we couldn't find anyone who could speak Taiwanese to come with us, but then someone said they could at the last second, and we had an awesome lesson. 

2. The weather is still in the 70s and 80s most days.

3. Our ward had a potluck yesterday, and there were quesadillas, and someone was playing Christmas music on the piano.

4. Honestly, just our ward.

5. Sister DeJarnatt is amazing!

6. My family

Sister DeJarnatt and I got up at 5:30 am for our bi-weekly street sweeping with a bunch of Amahs and Agongs. When we wrapped up, they took us all to a field of sweet potatoes. The corner that wasn't planted with sweet potatoes was covered in weeds a couple feet high. The old people dove in with incredible energy and we cleared about 100+ square feet of weeds in about 20 minutes. I want to be an Amah when I grow up. 

This Saturday was Taiwan's election day, which was quite a party. This year's elections were all local- mayors and stuff, so there was a ton of campaigning that went on. One of the favorite campaign methods was to drive around in a parade of jeeps. One jeep would have a drummer banging on an enormous drum, and another jeep would have the candidate standing on the back waving and smiling and yelling into a microphone about how everyone should vote for them. It was all very exciting. We also saw a couple of rallys and what might have been a rave. 

As results started coming in election night, of course some people were overjoyed and others were very disappointed. We were walking back in for the night, and saw our appartment security guard standing solemnly and staring at the TV announcing the election results. With wet eyes, he told us that his party had been ousted, and the other party was now in control. While we had no idea what either party was, it was really sad to see our guard so sad. We I wrote a card, and Sister DeJarnatt drew a smiley face on an orange, and we ran it downstairs to him right before turning in for the night. It felt good to find a simple little way to serve someone who was having a rough day.

A recent convert in Jiayi, the town right above us, contacted us to let us know that she wanted us to start teaching her boyfriend who lives in our area. We were a little worried at first that we'd end up in a lesson with a guy who had no interest in religion whatsoever, and just wanted to make his girlfriend happy, but it turned out amazing! The boyfriend, Xie Dixiong, is super friendly and thoughtful. His girlfriend had told him about eternal families, and he really wants to know how he can have his own eternal family. We met with them on Saturday, and they came to church on Sunday. Turns out, he's coworkers with our Elders' Quorum President! The Elder's Quorum President, Wang Dixiong, was super excited to see him, and immediately put his arm around him and showed him around and answered all his questions. The rest of the ward was really excited too because they all love Wang Dixiong, and Wang Dixiong was singing his praises all day. Xie Dixiong felt really welcomed, and loved the things he learned at church. It was so fun to see everyone super excited to welcome someone new at church!

Have an amazing week everyone! I love you all!

Sister Hull

冬天來了

Hi Everyone! 

So apparently according to some Chinese calendar, winter officially started on the 7th, which gave the creators of the good morning pictures a whole new theme to riff on:

(Good morning. Today is winter.)

We have definitely felt the coming of winter this week, though not in the weather. The weather has been lovely and warm, but the winter pollution has been awful. Apparently every winter the smog settles in for a good few months. There were a couple of days this week where it looked like the morning fog just never lifted. Sister Bast and I invested in some facemasks. 

For English class this week, we planned an activity that required us to bring a cardboard box from our apartment to the church. The box was already partially dismantled, and was too big to shove in our basket or bike box, so I used my reflective light gear to strap it on my body. We rode all the way to the church that way, getting quite a few stares. I couldn't resist shouting 'To infinity and beyond!' a few times on the way. 

Recently, we've been trying to work with the ward more, so we sent around a sign up asking for people to choose one hour in the month of November that they can come do missionary work with us. Once they've signed up, we'll try to schedule a lesson with someone we're teaching at that time, and if we can't, we'll find some other thing to do with them. On Friday, we had one of our first appointments, so we set up a lesson with a friend we're teaching who lives near the church. When we got to his house, we found out he'd forgotten and gone to another nearby town. After talking with the member who came with us, we decided to go back to the church. On the way there, we ran into another one of our friends, Ivan, who just happened to be out riding his scooter. We introduced him to our member, and she invited him to come back to the church with us. He did, and we had an impromptu lesson with him. Our member shared an experience that turned out to be very similar to something Ivan's friend has been going through. She was able to give him some advice to help his friend, while Sister Bast and I just sat there reeling from the whiplash of going to teach one lesson and ending up in another. 

Last night we taught our ward how to make pizza. No one in Taiwan bakes, so pizza is a great activity because it's new to them, easy, and everyone can participate. They had fun making wacky flavor combinations, the craziest being banana and cheese. In the photo is one of our ward missionaries, Yaping, holding the bishop's youngest daughter, whose name is Little Plum. 

After getting sick a few months ago, my stomach is still not as strong as it used to be, so I have to be a lot more conscious about what I eat (which is probably a good thing- it's really easy to eat unhealthily in Taiwan). The other day though, I wasn't as careful about my breakfast as I should have been, and as we were getting ready to go out an hour or two later, I started getting stomach cramps. I laid down for a bit until the cramps mainly subsided, but the sunny Saturday morning was too enticing, so we went out as soon as I didn't feel like I was going to throw up. I still wasn't feeling great, but I figured at the very least I could follow Sister Bast around and nod affirmatively as she talked to people. We only had a half hour, so I was just focusing on making it through. As we started talking to people, I realized something very interesting. As long as I was talking to someone and sharing the gospel, my stomachache would go away. As soon as we said goodbye, it would come back, but as long as I was focused on missionary work, I was fully functional. We had several very tender contacts. We met one old man who was looking for a new job because his current boss was mean, and we said a prayer with him. We introduced a high school kid to the idea of a Heavenly Father for the first time. It was cool to see how, when I was willing to sacrifice a bit of my comfort, Heavenly Father sustained me while I did his work. And don't worry, I went home and rested during language study after :)

Have an absolutely amazing week!!

Lots of Love,

Sister Hull

THIS IS HALLOOWEEN

Hi Everyone!

Ok, first off, the subject line is not a typo. This month, all the 7-11s had fall themed candy displays with a big 'Hallooween' emblazoned across the top, which Sister Bast and I found very funny.

(Good morning ~ peace happiness)

The highlight of this week was Halloween! Since it was on a Wednesday, we prepared a special English lesson, and showed up in costumes. I was Mary Poppins, and Sister Bast was Totoro, from the Studio Ghibli film, 'My Neighbor Totoro'. Turns out no one in Taiwan knows who Mary Poppins is. They're pretty up to date on American culture in general, so I was actually kind of surprised by that. They were all confused why we would be watching a movie that was filmed so long ago. My only pictures from this week are from Halloween, so please enjoy me and Sister Bast being cute. Here is Sister Bast as Totoro, demonstrating all the different ways Asia has come up with to make a heart with our hands: 

I learned a new favorite word this week: 悟 (pronounced as a short, sharp 'oo'). When you put it into Google Translate, it translates as 'enlightenment', which I guess is kind of right. It's the moment where something that you understand intellectually suddenly clicks, and you understand it personally, with your heart. I feel like this happens a lot in the gospel. It's pretty easy to learn the basic principles and doctrines of the gospel, and understand them intellectually. The gospel's not that complicated. Learning to 悟 the gospel, on the other hand, is a process that takes a lifetime. Slowly, baby step by baby step, Heavenly Father provides the experiences we need to truly internalize and understand, or 悟 the eternal truths necessary for salvation. It's the process of 悟ing that helps us change and become more like Christ, and prepare to live with God again. I love Chinese!

We also had a really interesting contacting moment the other day. Our plan for a part of the evening was to hit up several 7-11s on the same road and talk to the people sitting down inside. The first 7 we went to was insanely awkward. The first two people didn't want to talk to us. When we approached the third guy's table and asked if we could sit with him, he took it to mean that we just wanted to sit at THAT SPECIFIC TABLE, and moved to another table to give us space. We tried to contact a fourth lady while sitting awkwardly at our newly vacated table, and she wasn't interested either. We made a hasty retreat to our bikes. After a quick prayer, Sister Bast joked that there must be some really prepared people at the next 7, so Heavenly Father must have wanted us to get through that first one quickly and get all our awkwardness out so we could get on with things. When we got to the next 7 though, Sister Bast's words turned out to be true. We walked in and sat down next to the first guy we could find, a dad waiting for his kid to get out of cram school. We had a really touching conversation with him about parenthood and God, and he said he'd probably have interest in learning more! Then we met another girl who is up in Xinying all alone, and really needed someone to talk to. We chatted with her for a while and were able to share a bit about the Gospel and her loving Heavenly Father. She also said she might be interested in continuing to meet with us, even though she's really busy. Heavenly Father definitely guided us to where He wanted us to be that night.

That's all I've got for this week! Have a great week!

Love you all!

Sofi