Sanchong District - Week 1

If you're wondering, I'm in love with Taiwan. It's the most interesting place I've ever been to bar none, but it's pretty phenomenal. Every day we ride our bikes along the Sanchong roads flooded with mopeds. I always hear the beeping of the car horns, inhale the different flavors and scents wafting through the air, and feel a dizzying gratitude that I am here to teach repentence and help bring these people unto Christ.

Finding is one of my favorite parts of the mission so far. Sister Clyde and I stop and talk to lots of people. My Chinese is improving at a rate where right now I can only understand the first few lines of a spark-up conversation, and I add my two cents here and there. From my experience, there are four types of people who we talk to on the streets:

1. The People Who Do Everything in Their Power to Avoid Us. Picture someone who notices us, immediately breaks eye contact, and even takes slow steps in the opposite direction.

2. The People Who Talk To Us Because We're American. I have never felt so famous as I have during this one week. Some people, especially junior high-aged girls, giggle when they see us and ask us to take pictures with them. No joke! (I hold up a Book of Mormon for every picture). Other people just tell us that we're so "piao liang" (i.e. "pretty" or "beautiful") like eight times. And then they have no desire whatsoever to learn more about our church and say "Buh-bye!"

3. The People Who Give Us the Time of Day but Don't Have Interest In Our Message. These people are genuine and friendly, are willing to carry on a nice conversation with us, but then have one reason or another why they don't care to learn more about the gospel.

4. The People Who Say Yes. These are the people that make me feel like I have wings to fly! We get to know them a bit, do our best to bridge into a gospel conversation, and invite them to meet with us another day where we can share more with them. (Well, I mostly just smile and nod and say a few words. But I'm working on it! Chinese will come!). And then they say they're willing!! This week we set up with seven people AND we got five new investigators! I'm so excited about them all. I have faith that they will accept baptism!

One of my favorite experiences this week was when we went inside a McDonald's to do language study. I picked some cards that said things like "The purpose of life is to have joy and prepare to return to God's presence," and "In order to know the Book of Mormon is true..." then I memorized them. Then I went up to some high school kids, gave them a card for reference, and asked them to quiz me on my memorization. Just casually teaching doctrine in McDonald's. I love Taiwan so far!! God loves the people who live here and He loves YOU!

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[Note from Alessia's dad: no pictures this week--for some reason Alessia is not using her camera and she says Sister Clyde's camera "is being dumb," but she is hopeful we'll have pictures next week].