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
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