你好！
This has been a truly interesting week. To begin of with, it has been a really expensive week. We have spent three time as much money on traveling than the usual amount for an entire week. My companion has a couple of leadership positions, and so we had to go up to Taipei for training and other meetings. But it was a fun experience, lots of people to talk to and had opportunities to meet other missionaries in the district, zone and then also other zones at the bigger meetings.
To begin off, I'll tell you a little more about my companion. Elder Meeks is from Ogden, Utah but his family now lives in American Fork. He has been serving for 14 months now, 7 of which he has served in Miao li. So the total he will be serving in Miao li, unless President Day keeps him in Miao li for another transfer after training, will be 9 months. He really knows the area well. He has a younger brother on a mission right now in Korea, a younger sister that is Morgans age. He also has a little brother that is 13 years old.
For my area, it is pretty fun. Knowing that Dad has looked up my area on google maps he knows the area is really pretty big. For us, we do a lot of traveling, both by bike and by train. For biking, it is pretty good. The bike is the right size and is really nice, in that it still new and hasn't aged. For the first couple of days, I was riding Elder Meek's old companion's bike, and it was definitely a little harder to ride just because the chain and gears had worn down a little. For the train, the farthest we have traveled to doing missionary work was to Tai an, which is east of Miao li, about a forty minute train ride. That is also part of the reason we have been going to our travel money pretty fast, is because our area is so large that biking to certain places would take hours. So for district meetings and zone meetings, we have to take the train which is either a 20 minute ride or 30 minute depending if it is a zone meeting or a district meeting. And to answer Mom's question about how close the next set of missionaries are, is about a 15 minute train ride going north. If it is east, it is a couple of hours. If it is south, that goes into the Tai cheng mission. If it is west, it is about a 20 minute ride I believe. So as Nicole's friend said, I really am out in the country part of Taiwan, but it is fun and I am loving it.
This week, we got to eat out with a bunch of members, and they had us try different types of food. This week, I had pi dan again (thousand year of egg) and chicken foot. The pi dan this time was a little bit different in that the middle was still a little gooey, so it had a completely different texture. It actually wasn't wasn't too bad. It kind of reminded me of deviled eggs with the flavor, but the texture was completely different. And for the chicken foot, I learned that it is just meant to be eaten as flavoring, since there is actually no meat on it. The very last thing, which was really good and not weird, was ice cream. We went to a ice cream shop for a lesson with a less active and he suggested we get a mango passion fruit ice cream for 80 NTR (2.6 USD). It was amazing. It was enough ice cream that my companion and I split it, but knowing me, if I had to, I could have eaten it all with out too much of a challenge. So, this week's food experience was so much fun and I am looking forward to see what food experiences I will have next week.
Another cool experience I had this week was on Saturday, we got to go to a baptism in zhunan. It was really a cool experience to see the investigator make the commitment and also how he has changed his life to become in tune with the gospel. And then after the baptism, we were off to Tai an to teach a lesson to an investigator. The apostles have said that you have been called to your mission because there are people waiting to hear the gospel. They have been prepared by the Lord, but are just waiting for someone to teach them. The investigator we taught in Tai an fit that statement exactly. He has been prepared and is really ready to receive the gospel. It was truly a cool experience to teach and know that what we were teaching him would really have an affect on his life. This was probably the biggest thing for me during the week, was seeing the big picture of our missionary purpose, which is to invite people to come unto Christ and be baptized. We got to see both of those aspects all in one day.
This week, we also had zone training meeting, which was really fun. Some of the training was done in Chinese, so it was a little harder to understand, but it was still good. I had to have my companion translate some words, but I was generally able to get the basics of all of it. It was also fun to see some of the missionaries that came in with me. My old companion, Elder Nixon, is one of the missionaries that is in my zone, so I got to see him at the meeting and see how things were going for him in his area.
For the rest of the week, it was pretty crazy. As I said, we were traveling quite a bit, so meeting our goals for lessons and everything, was quite the challenge, but some how it all worked out and we did. Elder Meeks told me that this has been the craziest week he has had on his mission, so I guess that things will calm down quite a bit for next week and I should have plenty of good stories to share.
Well my time is about up, I hope everything is going well back at home and can't wait to hear back from you all next week!
Love,
柯長老
Elder Okeson
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| Elder Okeson and Elder Payne |
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