Serving in Taiwan: Week 19

你好！

This has been another fun week. Probably the biggest thing this week was that we went to 台北 (Taipei) for the half way training meeting, which was more like three fourths, but was really fun. One of the other really good news of the week is that the 32 missionaries that were waiting for their visas, finally got them and arrived in Taiwan on Saturday. And because of that, we are having transfers again this week, so our district will be changing again.

As for going to the Taipei Temple, we haven't had the opportunity yet. President Day has told us that we get to go about every three months/two transfers. So, I should have the opportunity to be able to go here in the next month or so. Also, for General Conference, we will be at the 苗栗教堂 (Miaoli chapel) for Saturday and Sunday, watching it there. We are both pretty excited to get to listen to General Conference.

As for things that have happened this week, we went to 台北 (Taipei) for the half way meeting. It was really fun to be able to see everyone that we were with in the MTC. We did a good amount of role playing and President Day talked to us about overcoming challenges. The biggest challenge he talked to us about was with the challenge of learning Chinese. He said it multiple times that it would come with time, we just have to make sure that we are working hard and it will come.

Along with travelling to 台北 (Taipei), we did a lot of other travelling. During the week, we attended two baptisms and we visited some less actives and investigators that were outside of Miaoli, but still in our area. One of them being 李世淼 (Li Shi Miao). It was really a fun week because of that, but because of all the travel, we have yet again started the month of will spending a lot of money on travel.

Another fun thing that happened this week was that we went to 新竹 (xinzhu) to play basketball with a bunch of other elders. It was really fun, we had quite the experience. The best part was probably the crowd of people that we got watching a group of white people playing basketball. We also got asked multiple times to dunk. Two of the other elders there could, I didn't quite get it. They bounced off the back of the rim each time I tried. Guess I will need to work a little bit more on my dunking so that I get do it next time people ask us if we can dunk.

For something weird or awkward things that happened this week, I can't really say there were any. The only thing that came close was when I was calling referrals on the phone this week. Elder Meeks told me that generally my tones aren't that bad, but for some reason as soon as I pick up the phone to make a call, I just kind of throw my tones out the window. That's one thing I will be working on quite a bit over the next few weeks. As much as he may be enjoying the evening entertainment, I hope I can fix my tones so that they are half decent when I am talking on the phone.

So pretty much, that was the week. We didn't really have anything crazy happen, but we really have had a great time doing missionary work and are looking forward for this next week.

Thanks for all the prayers and letters,

Love,

柯長老

Elder Okeson