Taiwanese Successes

Hey All,

After being in Taiwan for over a year there are a lot of things I have come to love about this place. So for today's email I would like to write a short list about a few of the things  I thing Taiwan does better than the good old USA -or that I just think are really great.

- LINE

Line is the texting / calling app in Taiwan. I think it is a Japanese creation but more or less everyone has Line in Taiwan which makes it a super convenient way to communicate with literally everyone! While I don't particularly like Line over other messaging services (I think Apple's iMessage and Facebook messenger are both nicer to use) everyone has it, so you can call or text anyone in the whole country for free! Also has a ton of fun sticker packs. 

- Motorcycle / Bike lanes

Most main roads in Taiwan have a dedicated motorcycle and biking lane on the far right which is really nice for us missionaries. Honestly, Taiwan has a lot of nice features to their roads. You'll hear about a few more in this list.

- Everything is super fast

Taiwan likes everything to be really fast. They like food to come out fast, they like things to be close together and so on. In fact if something is more than a 10 or 15 minute drive away people start to thing its a really far distance and would take too much time! Kind of funny from our American perspective but nonetheless makes life pretty efficent. In Chinese this idea is simply called convenience which is a word you use a lot when talking about Taiwan.

- Stop light timers

Another nice road feature is that on main roads (especially in cities) stop lights have timers next to them to count down until it will switch to green.

- Squatting Toilets

I won't say anything else on this one. But they are great! 

- Turning left (for motorcycles and bikes)

Since the two wheeler lane is on the far right, it can be kind of hard to make left turns. But Taiwan has solved this problem with the nifty left hand turn box that I will explain with one of the attached photos

- Getting told I am handsome by people

It is normal in Taiwanese culture to tell people they are handsome and such which is very flattering! Also nice when random people want to take pictures with you!

- Food is really cheap

This one isn't really something you could take back to the US, but I really like how cheap food is! Hahaha! 

There it is. A few great things about Taiwan I especially like! It's been a good week. Hope you all had a good one as well. Had some fun meetings and taught some good lessons to a few of our friends who are starting to progress quickly. Looking forward to another good week of trying to bring people closer to Christ! 

Love

Elder Neilson

Left hand turning box explination 

I met up with one of my MTC companions, Elder Brady when we went to Taipei for a meeting

Train station going back to Hualian

Picked up a new reflective vest at the mission office! Safety stat improved! 

Another week, Another transfer

Hey All,

This week for pday we went up to a lake and rode some four people/tandem bikes and also did a hike. It was pretty chill. Fun time with all the missionaries and a few members.

This week was transfers and the most exciting part was when one of the new elders missed his first train on transfers day which caused him to get lost for two hours! All is well that ends well but his companion was stressing pretty bad traveling to a bunch of different train stations trying to find the new Elder!

On Saturday we went to a Thanksgiving concert talent show thing at the church where a bunch of members in Hualian performed. I was pretty impressed with the amount of musical talant from the members. it's also fun being in a different country because sometimes people bring out instruments you don't see a lot of in America such as Chinese bamboo flutes and giant bass recorders. Someone even had a hybrid electric/acoustic ukulele!

Sunday was the primary program which is always a kind of weird meeting, made a little weirder because our ward only has around 5 primary kids. We brought our friend Mr. Li and I am not sure what he thought about it. I did make sure to tell him we only do this once a year. Haha. On Sunday we also started choir practice for the Christmas musical activity, because if my parents have taught me anything about the church, it is to always join the ward choir. It was a fun time but it's also kind of hard because the hymnals are all in characters and the romanized pronunciation lyrics have no notes! So I have to juggle back and fourth and sometimes I just sing sounds that sort of sound like words when I loose where we are! Good thing is I have heard all the Christmas songs enough that the parts are not too hard to sing by ear.

This week I have made a more concentrated effort to read the Book of Mormon in personal Study, in the traditional front to back manner instead of just jumping around trying to find good scriptures. I have been able to find many more verses that I like through this manner of study which is a great blessing. Always makes personal Study more exciting when you find verses to write notes about!

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Neilson

- Super four man bike on pday

Last district council before transfers

Hualian train station 

 Giant spider we found in the bathroom one night

Missionaries at the end of the hike on pday

Tri-panionship Miracles.

Hey All,

The big news this week is that Saturday morning we became a tripanionship with Elder Patterson from the Fenglin/Guangfu area down south. His old companion Elder Zhao became an office elder and had to go up to the mission office a week early so Elder Patterson has been our companion for the weekend. It's weird being in a tripanionship again. I haven't done that since the MTC!

We have had some awesome miracles too! First we let Elder Gibson take charge and be senior companion for an hour or so while we went knocking. He choose a place he has wanted to go before and the very last door we knocked that day (also a door he was in charge of opening the contact with) had two older women in it that immediately invited us in, gave us a bunch of food, asked us to share, asked us to teach them how to pray, and are now two new people we are teaching! They also have some member family members who live in the USA which might be why they were so willing to talk. In any case it was extra sweet because we hadn't found any other new friends this week.

Then on Sunday we had more miracles when a member brought their daughter's boyfriend to church for us to start teaching and then that night we met with a way cool family who used to be taught by the missionaries! So in total we found about 6 cool people in the last two days! 

I love finding cool people because It really feels like the Lord is putting people in your path and guiding you. And it is a great blessing to be out here as a tool in the Lord's hands to do His work!

Hope you all have a great week,

Elder Neilson

More moving wood service! This time we finished moving all the wood.

Elder Gibson eating some beef Noodle soup for the first time

The tripanionship taking a selfi to thank a friend for thier delicious home made rolls

Elder Gibsons glasses making my eyes look way big. 

Halloween

Hey All!

This was a fun week filled with two different exchanges, one in my area and one to Taidong (or Taitung, as it is sometimes rendered) which is the southernmost city in the mission. It's as far away as possible from the mission office and is also an area that our mission president served in back when he was a missionary in Taiwan. It was a really fun time where we did a lot of street contacting. Taidong has sidewalks which is something my area really lacks and it was fun to walk around and talk to people!

We also had a Halloween party with the Hualian wards and English classes Saturday night. It was a lot of fun and I pulled out my go to church party game where I tape a bunch of small paper cups on a wall or something and people have to throw ping-pong balls into them for prizes. It's way simple and easy (to put together) but actually pretty hard to do so eveyone gets addicted to it. Always a hyped game. For the party us Elders came dressed as various flavors of milk (Taiwan is really into flavored milk such as watermellon milk, papaya milk, fruit milk, apple milk, malt milk...etc.) It was a pretty funny costume. The sisters told us they were going to be Hogwarts houses, and needed ties in the colors for each of the houses, so we gave them ties and then low and behold they came as us- the Elders. They made fake name tags and everything. Tricked us way good. 

Halloween is a good example of a phenomenon in Taiwan I would like to call "American Holiday Commercialism Trying Really Hard To Plant Seeds By The Wayside." It happens with a few holidays but the most notable are probably Halloween and Christmas. This phenomenon is characterized by random Holiday themed things being sold and occasional decorations but with no true purpose behind them because no one celebrates those holidays. As a result it never really feels like a holiday and it's kind of just a check box passing when the day is over. Kind of a weird experience I wasn't anticipating before I came to Taiwan. 

Which gets me on another point, now that I am training and helping someone get to know Taiwan for the first time, it reminds me of the times I was first introduced to Taiwanese things. Especially food. Taiwanese food is delicious but sometimes it takes a while to get used to. Here are some good examples of possible first and long term reactions to Taiwanese food:

冬瓜茶 (Winter Mellon Tea) 

First - This drink kind of tastes like melted candles mixed with graham cracker essence

Long term- This drink is the elixar of life and insanely sweet

麥茶 (Barley Tea)

First - this is tasteless bitter water

Long term- this is a refreshing lightly sweet drink

珍珠 (boba?) or really any food thing in a drink

First - why do I have to chew my drink?

Long term - I want to add this to everything I ever drink for the rest of my life!

酸辣湯 (sour spicy soup) 

First - This litterally looks and tastes like vomit

Long term - This is a great soup with a really unique taste and texture (although sometimes it's actually really weird. Usually if it has some sort of blood product in in you should pass)

麻醬麵 (sesame past noodles)

First - This is just noodles with bad peanut butter on it

Long term - This is just noodles with good peanut butter on it

燙青菜 (boiled vegetables)

First - This is vegetables...

Long term - This is Vegetables!!!! (in a happy way)

紅/綠豆湯 (red or green bean soup)

First - Why are we eating slightly sweet watered down baked beans?

Long term - This is the best dessert soup ever

Taiwanese cake

First - this is the driest cake in the universe

Long term - at least its cake!

臭豆腐 (stinky toufu)

First - this food stand smells like diapers, can we leave?

Long term - Wow- that is some good coleslaw/sourkraut stuff on top of this weird toufu

Pretty much the majority of the other stuff

First - This is amazing!

Long term - This is still amazing!

That's a pretty inclusive list of many of the main staples of missionary Taiwanese food. Still need to get Elder Gibson to try 臭豆腐 (stinky tofu) though. A member told us a good place to get it at some point. I'm hyped.

Hope you all have a good week,

Elder Neilson

Elder Zhao and I eating curry on exchanges (that's one food that is good from the first time you try it)

Exchanges with Elder Peterson in Taidong where we had the one drink without coffee from Starbucks which is really expencive but all the missionaries like getting once in a while because of its amazing American milkshake-iness.  

Our milk carton costumes (apple, papaya, chocolate, and watermellon)

The sisters pretending to be us for Halloween

A Starburst miracle