American New Years

Merry Christmas Everyone,

I hope your all waking up to a great Christmas morning. Taiwan doesn't celebrate Christmas so this has been one of the most interesting Christmas seasons I have had for sure.

We did do some Christmas stuff this week. We had a Christmas themed Zone Conference on Thursday where we talked all about the names of Christ, had a talent show, and watched "Mr. Krugers Christmas," which is famous or something. I don't remember ever seeing it before. During the conference they had everyone run down to the basement one zone at a time to get Christmas packages, which made the elevator a little crowded. We took a good zone selfie. Featured below. 

Sunday was interesting because all three ward's that meet in our building had a combined. It was a little frustrating because we had a referral who was supposedly coming but we had never seen him before and there was no way to find him in the sea of faces.

Sunday night we had a Mission Christmas concert. Unfortunantly, it was raining really hard and none of the people we invited who were going to come actually made it. But it was pretty fun because basically the whole mission was there and there was a ton of reunions and stuff right before Christmas which was a lot of fun.

But yeah, honestly it's been a pretty normal week. A little Christmas flavor to it but nothing too out of the ordinary. It is kind of interesting to be in the minority when it comes to a religious holidays. For my entire life I have been in the cultural majority when it comes to how well known and celebrated my holidays are but now It's the opposite and everyone refers to Christmas as "American New Years" because Chinese New Year is the major holiday. Kind of an interesting experience.

It's such a small deal in Taiwan that it would honestly be easy to forget it's Christmas! We tried to do our best to make things Christmasy though. Last night we read the Christmas story as an apartment (and all realized halfway that the version you hear as a kid is a complex edit of Luke 2 and Matthew 2 not just a straight reading of Luke. Thanks wise men) I also ate some Christmas ham Flavored Lay's and egg flavored soy milk for some Christmas eve dinner (I haven't seen any real egg nogg). 😂

Wishing you all a holly and jolly Christmas,

Elder Neilson

our apartment reading the Christmas story

my entire zone jammed in the eleveator

One is of Elder Merrill carrying his even bigger than the pumpkin pie Christmas package home.

 our zone having a Christmas activity 

Breaking

With this last Thrusday I have officially put my time as a Trainee behind me and moved on to the period of the mission they call "greenie breaking" and with that comes a new companion named Elder Merrill (吳). He is from Southern California (Woodland Hills). He has been out for around 8 months and so he isnt super old by mission standards.

Its been a fun last couple of days. We have seen a ton of miracles. We tried visiting this one less active family the other day who didn't have time to say high despite asking us to come back that morning earlier. In anycase that didn't work out but because we were in the area we got to talk to a lady carrying her young son to a breakfast shop who we tried to set an appointment with for the next couple days. She randomly asked, "what about this afternoon?" and we ended up meeting with her the same day just a few hours later. She seems super prepared and it was a really cool miaracle. 

Other miracles happened at church, including another random awesome family walking into the church third hour. They live in the other elders are but its still all cool. 

We also got to take part in ward council for the first time since I arrived in Taiwan. It was super cool even though I didn't understand much when they were talking about non missionary stuff. I just think that ward councils are a great testimony of the divine organization of church leadership. Councils are just electrifying and it is so awesome to see all these people taking time out of thier own diverse lives to sit and talk about how to help those in the ward and in the area at large. Super cool.

Today for P-day we cleaned a lot and got rid of a lot of junk left by older missionaries and stuff. The Apartment is a lot nicer to be in now. Then we went to Taipei 101. Which was super cool! There is this huge really nice mall with a ton of really expensive brands so we just kind of walked around. Still a fun time. 

Hope everyone has a great week before Christmas!

Elder Neilson

my ramen for lunch on sunday. I threw in an extra Noodle patty from these weird purple noodles a member gave us. Turned into Ying Yang noodles

 Elder Merrill taking home a pumpkin pie one of the members in the English ward gave us. He tied it to his bike with a reflective vest and somehow it made it home

Elder Morgan and I rearranging the closets after Elder Bunn and Cheng left

6 months!

Well friends, 

I have officially been on my mission for 6 months! To celebrate Elder Bunn and I went to the only 7-Eleven either of us have ever seen in Taiwan that sells Slurpees for language study! Maybe Slurpees will become a thing in many 7-Elevens by the time it gets around to the summer. That would be sweet!

Did I tell you about that guy last week who showed up to our sacrement meeting randomly and then to the fireside by the temple later Sunday night? Well we met with him twice this week. He is actually a member already but he has had some periods of falling away and spent some time going to another church. Basically he just has a ton of questions based around the Bible that we assume the other church (and possibly the Jehovahs Witnesses) drilled into him. It's kind of funny meeting with him because it's kind of like pretend Bible bashing with a member of the church just trying to play the devils advocate. He doesn't really seem to believe anything he brings up. I think he just wants us to prove them wrong so he can settle some doubts. Hopefully we can give him some tools to figure these kinds of questions out on his own, because they aren't just going to stop after our meetings!

After English Class this week we met with a long time former who was really cool. He has met with missionaries multiple times throught his life but it seems like he has really been prepared to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ again at this time. I'm hopeful that he will progress quickly!

Last notes, we had a Christmas Caroling event with our district at a Carrefour (Kind of like a Taiwanese Target?) this week. Luckily some of the 永和 (Yong He) members came because otherwise we would have been really low on numbers. Unfortunantly, they had us carol Thursday night so no one was really in the store to listen. It was still good though. 

Also the transfer ends this week and with that, my time as a Trainee will end as well. Theoretically, if everything follows typical patterns, I will stay in 中和 (Zhong He) and Elder Bunn will leave. We shall see.

Love you all,

Elder Neilson

Notes on pictures,

as part of P-day today we went to the 中正紀念堂 (Chang Kai Shek Memorial) so there are some pictures from that. Then we also were in a really nice area of Taipei and found a combo KrispyKreme and Jamba Juice. 

Picture of me getting some 冬瓜茶 at a restaurant one of our friends works at. 

Hello again

It's P-day again!

Its been a weird few days since we last talked.

At church a random guy showed up who apparently went to my English class last week and then just decided to come to church. That was pretty sweet. Even more awesome, he later showed up unexpectedly at the new member fireside that night too, which is all the way up by the temple. Seems like a really prepared guy!

Speaking of the temple, our ward mission leader got sealed the other day and invited us to come, which was super cool. Then guess what? He came out and did some missionary work that night. On his wedding night! We tried to reschedule but he insisted because his wife was at a choir practice that night anyways, so we got to spend the night riding around in a our ward mission leader's Mercedes Benz on his wedding night doing missionary work. Pretty crazy. He thought it was super fun too and wants to do it every week now! He is such a legend.

Today we went to 六福村主題遊樂園, probably the most well known theme park in Taiwan. A few weeks ago a member came up to us and was like, hey, want to go? So today we went with him and one of our Recent Converts. Seeing as theme parks are kind of my thing it's been quite a memorable pday. Some of the main rides were closed or under referbishment but I guess that's the price we have to pay for coming during the off season and having the park to ourselves. Everything was more or less walk on so it was a ton of fun. Funny thing is, the member and our Recent convert weren't always down to go on some of the bigger rides so they would wait for us while taking a bunch of pictures and videos. But now I have a bunch of cool pictures and videos of my companion and I on rides!

Taiwan is the best, loving the work. The other day, after a lesson where Elder Bunn and I straight taught the Restoration for a little over an hour, we got home and just sat a little in awe about how true this thing whole thing is, and how the blessings of the Gospel are so so real. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to teach that to others. 

Hope you have a great week,

Elder Neilson

As promised here are some cool pictures. 

One is from last P-day where I had to bike home with a ton of packages. And the others are from today at the theme park.

Oh and here is a funny video of Elder Bunn and I at the park doing a sort of Egyptian themed spy laser game. you can't really see any of the Lazers in the video so it's pretty funny.

Questions and Answers

Tustins responses to questions from his Dad about the mission..

1. What is the weather like? Humid? Cool at night?
During the day, hot and humid (although I think it has been pretty dry recently). This winter has been unusually warm and it rains less which is nice because winter rain at night can get pretty cold to bike in. The last couple days have been really really nice. If you check the weather in Taipei right now you'll see it's a pretty great day. Pretty much any day with out rain is nice. It can get pretty cool when the sun is not out though and sometimes it gets kind of windy. That might just be the city though.

2. How are the people? Mostly friendly? What has surprised you most about the Taiwanese?
The people are really nice and friendly. Probably the meanest people we find are the middle aged women/moms. Kind of glad President told us (sort of) not to talk to them! I was really surprised at first how well the people can speak English. It seems like most of the people in my area can speak basic English (that's not true outside the city though). The old people are super funny too. It's not out of the question to see some random old guy peeing in the street or rolling around in a field. Also all the old people are very worried about health so they are always getting up early to go hike up mountains or do funny exercises (sometimes on top of mountians). The old lady's especially will gather at parks and do group exercise routines just slapping their arms or legs and doing funny stretches to music.

3. How does church compare? Same carpet? Same hymns? Do they have a favorite? (In Chile, we sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic and Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy every week!!!) 
Church is pretty similar, there just isnt as many people. My ward only has 60ish active members. Our chapel is too small for a basket ball court in the cultural hall but we do have two ping Pong tables. Perhaps the weirdest thing was during election season when the stake put out a bunch of notices and had bishops anounce in sacrament (sort of quote) "the church has no policical stance but we do have doctrine on all the LGBT stuff..." and then basically they went on to announce all the people not to vote for! Probably bending the rules a little there. I haven't noticed too much in terms of favorite hymns. I have heard it's very much a thing but since I don't really understand anything we are singing its a little hard to catch patterns. Maybe ask again in a year? 😂

4. Do you ever play the piano? Practice hymns?
No. Sometimes I try to sit and play something but Elder Bunn isn't too down. 😔

5. What do you like best about the language? What is the most frustrating?
I think characters and how the language is built around them is super cool. Chinese can be really simple in some ways. There isn't really such thing as a crazy big hard to pronounce word in Chinese since you just build big words out of a few characters to express the meaning of the big concept. For example, the other day I learned suicide which is "Zi Sha" or "self kill." there is also this really cool Grammer called resultatative verbs. I probably can't explain it super well in an email but it's super cool and let's you express concepts in a cool way. For example, the idea of not being able to handle something can be expressed simply as, "Shou Bu Liao," or to take upon oneself but not be able to complete. Kind of complicated to explain but trust me it is cool. The Language is still really hard though because Chinese has weird sounds that are hard to pronounce and understand. The romanization (Pinyin) can also be frustratingly inadequate.

6. Any Taiwanese customs you enjoy? Taking shoes off? Holidays? Crafts? Games? (In Chile there was lots of kite flying and battles and lots of tops and ping pong) 
The garbage trucks travel around the city and blast ice cream truck music to announce when you should come down and throw your trash in. That's pretty fun.

7. Where do you do most of your shopping? Laundry? 
Shopping is mostly at convinience stores like 7-Eleven or Family Mart, and sometimes grocery/department stores. Taiwan also has these stores called "dongxi dian" or "things store" that sell basically everything. We do laundry in our apartment. We have a washer and dryer

8. Do you have a favorite native dessert or candy? 
Pretty much anything with red beans is good. Red or green bean soup are both pretty good. The best dessert is probably the shaved ice though.

9. Do you mostly ride bikes or take buses/subways? Is there a subway?
Mostly bikes. There is a subway called the MRT. We take that pretty often to get up to the mission office / temple or just to go to cool places on pday. Buses are less common but on pday we use them sometimes.