High on the mountain top…
This week has been really fun!
But first – something I forgot to include about last week was that I made some flyers for our activity that we’re planning on having on September 2nd! We will be teaching people how to make Chicken Pot Pie, which is something I’ve pretty much never seen in Taiwan. The hope is that we’ll be able to have lots of members invite their friends to this activity. On that Saturday, we’ll be teaching everyone who attends how to make Chicken Pot Pie and then actually make and bake it with them!
Wuliaojian Hiking Trail
Last Monday, a bunch of us went to this mountain called Wuliaojian in Sanxia. It was pretty fun! While we were hiking, we met these two guys from the Czech Republic who were on the mountain too. To get to this mountain, we had to take a bus down to Sanxia. and then a taxi over to the base of the mountain trail.
Wise missionaries always watch for signs!
However, going back we found it difficult to get a taxi since we were in a semi-rural area – all the taxi services I called said there were no taxis with open space in the area. I ended up finding out the number of another taxi service (a non-yellow taxi) and booked 3 cars to come pick us up. The guy who drove us was awesome and actually ended up giving us a super good deal to just drive us all the back here to Taoyuan…so we didn’t have to take the bus. Taxis here in Taiwan are the best!
A view from the top!
Thankfully none of us found ourselves at the end of our rope!
Like a mission, difficult climb, but well worth it!
After we got back to Taoyuan from hiking, we were lucky enough to go over to a member’s house to eat dinner! The Qiu family invited us over to eat with them again, so that was something nice to close a Monday with! They have several kids that are fun to play with too. All the members here are really nice!
The food was great, but the family was fabulous!
Questioning is good; finding answers is better!
We also had a chance to meet with Amber to review the Plan of Salvation and go over the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Amber is actually originally from China, but married a man here in Taiwan. She has two children who are twins who are also really cute! She’s super nice and it’s always super fun to meet with her – she’s really smart. She, on her own, looked up a bunch of stuff about our church online, read all the untrue things that are out there, and still wants to meet with us to learn more; this is the best kind of person! As surprising as it may be to some, not everything on the internet is true…
It’s beginning to look a lot like….a missionary’s digs!
We decided that it was time to start preparing for Christmas. We’ve decorated our apartment a little bit with Christmas decorations and lights and have started frequently listening to Christmas music. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas? It’s never too early to start Christmas!
Another missionary family
Last night, we had the chance to visit the Xie Family. Their daughter, Teresa, left on her mission to England a couple weeks ago. It just so happened that last night was the time that Teresa was moving from the MTC to her area, so she was able to call home. We got to the Xie family’s house right at the end of the call, but her parents wanted us to talk to her. We had a chance to talk to her in England for a couple minutes, so that was cool! I didn’t actually realize that her English was so good since here in Taiwan, I never really heard her speak English!
Feeling secure…and spreading cheer!
When we came home last night, we decided to take a picture with the security guys who are in the downstairs part of our apartment complex. They’re super nice, so that’s awesome! Sometimes the security guards are grumpy, but I guess we got lucky since we have ones that like us.
Say “Cheese”!
I’ve also got some pics from a couple weeks ago that our friend Henry took and sent to me. Henry lives in America and is going to be getting baptized there next month! Some of the pictures are from English class a couple weeks ago when I lit the $1000 NTD bill on fire to talk about how the Holy Ghost can protect us in our life. There’s also some when we made pancakes together!
– Elder Austin Simonson
文浩竣長老
