Moving

Hey Everyone,

This week from Tuesday to Wednesday we went on exchanges with the elders in Zhudong, which is the farthest area from the rest of the district. About a 30 minute train ride away. I got to head out their with Elder Harmon who is actually only 6 weeks younger than me in terms of mission age so that was kind of weird. I realized I am an old missionary (my year mark is only a few weeks away on June 6th). It was a really fun time. Zhu Dong is much more remote and has less people then Xinzhu so it was a fun place to be for a little while.

On Thursday we had to head back up to Zhudong so Elder Ransbottom could do a baptismal interview and then we had lunch with a returning member in our ward who is actually an American living in Taiwan. He took us to a really nice steak house which was honestly one of the best meals I have had in Taiwan so far. Crazy good! He is a really cool guy too. Pretty sure we can get him back to church.

I also bought a huge rice farmer hat that night which is super epic. I have always wanted one.

On Friday we actually got two new friends because we met with someone who came to English class (who is fun to teach because his English is really good and we can teach mostly in english) and a dad who is friends with a member in Zhudong. He is really stressed out about being a dad and the Gospel could really do him good. Also his friend from Zhudong is trying really hard to help him and is great member missionary and so sometimes it feels like we are just there as the member present. But that's okay. Honestly that's more or less how missionary work should be done! Member focused efforts with the missionaries as the on call teachers. So we will see how that goes.

We also tried a crazy 40元 all you can eat vegetarian restaurant which is basically eating as much food as you want for a little over a dollar. It is insane how cheap it is. I think it's basically just some Buddists living thier faith to the max. But nice for us!

On Saturday we had to go back out to Zhudong to sign the baptismal form that we didn't have time to do earlier in the week so yeah, we spent a lot of time in Zhudong. 

Finally, we moved this week so Sunday night we did a ton of packing and today we spent most of the P-day moving some stuff to the the Zone Leaders apartment. It will be a big change but the new apartment is a lot nicer and a lot closer to the part of our area we want to spend the most time in. So it will be a good situation. 

Happy Mothers Day to all the awesome women out there! Especially my mom the most awesome woman I know!

Have a great week!

Elder Neilson

 Elder Harmon and I at a Hot Pot on exchagnes

 An English class advertisement we made. It's pretty funny

Elder Ransbottom and I with our giant hat salesman

Elder Ransbottom and I getting a mid-move Pepsi from the vending machine across from the new apartment. (It also has Mountain Dew which is a huge win!)

Me carrying some moving stuff with my rice farmer hat. One of the members helping us out literally saw it and said "you look like a farmer!"