Week 30

你好!

Well, this has been another good week.  It was not the same as previous weeks in so many ways, but it has still been a good week.  We have had a lot of stuff happen, going from ward relations to relationships outside of our companionship relationship.  It really has been an interesting week because of that.  So, I will try to include as much of it as I can in this email.

So to begin the week off, just want to say the weather has really changed.  I know I said this last week, but the cold is actually pretty cold.  We have also had to do more missionary work in the rain too, which is quite a bit different.  Probably the hardest part about it though is that we are having to change from our usual method of finding, which is contacting, to tracting because everyone is staying inside.  It really has been a bit of a change for us because we both like contacting on the street more.  With that being said though, we are both really enjoying the missionary work in 苗栗 (Miaoli).

As usual, for the past few weeks, Wednesday was another crazy day.  This week though, we actually had more lessons that we had on the Wednesday before that.  With that being said though, it was still incredibly fun.  We love the days when all we have is lessons because that keeps us out of the rain and wind.  The only hard thing about this Wednesday though, was that for English class, we only had five people attend.  I was really happy that people attended, but for the game that we had prepared, we were planning for about ten people, so we had to change the game quite a bit so that we could play it with only five people.  It was still really fun though, we were doing a bit of review for all of the stuff that we had taught over the last three weeks and also on some grammar.  It was really nice to see that they remembered a large amount of it too.  Also, as usual for Wednesday, we did the service at the handicap youth center.  Along with playing the incredibly intense version of tic tac toe, we also taught them the Jingle Bells song.  Some of them picked it up faster than others, but in they end, they all loved singing in English with us.  It really is one of the best parts of the week getting to go play games and simply just have fun with them!

One this that actually made this week a little special from the other weeks was actually preparing for Christmas by helping members out.  That was also probably one of the miracles from this week was that we were able to do a lot of service for the members as they were doing little things to prepare for Christmas, which for them isn't as big, but does give us plenty of opportunities to serve.  One of the biggest ones that we worked with members to get done was preparing a Christmas for a part member family (張家庭) and a recent convert (曹來水弟兄) in the ward that doesn't really have much.  We have not given the things that we have prepared yet to them, but we both see Christmas Eve being quite the night for us as we help the members drop the items off at their homes.

As for something that I felt was really cool this week, was actually during church.  It sounds really simple, but just the aspect of understanding almost everything that was talked about in church, was really cool.  I have had days at church were I could understand half and half, but this Sunday, I really felt like I was able to understand a large amount of what was being taught and talked about.  With that being said, it also helped that at church, the biggest thing they were discussing was the Restoration, so I had a pretty good understanding of what was being said and the vocab they were using.  They also had us teach part of the lesson too, so we got to share the Joseph Smith story with everyone in the class and share the first vision.  As a side note, it is always amazing to see how the environment changes as you share the first vision, there is just something different in the atmosphere as you share it.

As for something funny this week, Elder Ure and I had a blast from the past.  So for when there were elections going on in Taiwan, the biggest ways the candidates would share their message with everyone was with using a big sign on the back of a car and a loud speaker shout there message out for everyone to hear and see.  Well, there was one message that we truly loved, but before we were never actually able to get a photo of it because we were always biking somewhere when we saw it.  The it I am referring to is an 阿公 (OIder Man) and 阿媽 (and his wife).  We saw them twice during elections with their loud speaker and sign saying vote for this candidates, but since the election, we had never seen him again, until just the other evening, when they drove by the restaurant we were eating at.  As soon as we saw them, we quickly finished eating and raced out to our bikes to see if we could catch them.  So, as you can see in a couple of photos, we tried getting a photo with out bothering them,

but it really wasn't working out, so we just asked if we could get a photo with them.  They were both really nice, but I think the 阿媽 (his wife) couldn't actually speak 國語 (Chinese), I think she could only speak 台語 (A local dialect, Taiwanese).  Now, as you can imagine, running for office here in Taiwan is really pretty different than running for office in America.  He would drive down the street with his speak all the way up and waving to everyone on the streets.  He also always had his wife strapped to him every time we saw him.  Not sure if you can see her in the photo, but it was really quite the photo for Elder Ure and I to get.  It really made both of our nights being able to see them.  Got to miss the elections in 苗栗 (Miaoli). :)

Well, that is about it for this week.  Sorry about the letter being shorter this week, but next week I will try to do a little better.  Thanks for all the letters and prayers.

我愛你們還有聖誕節快樂!

Love you and have a Merry Christmas!

柯長老

Elder Okeson

P.S. The translation for the Chinese word I sent last week was zombies.  Thought it was an interesting thing to learn during language study, but not sure how much I will use it though. :P