Calligraphy

Hey All,

Good week. We started off with a fun pday. A recently baptized member from Hualian, who is good friends with the missionaries, came up to Taipei and we went and ate lunch with him and a bunch of other missionaries who were in Hualian before. Then we went to the National Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall, which is a cool museum type place in memory of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen who is basically the founding father of the government of Taiwan. It was super cool. The best part was this one exhibit of this Calligraphy master named Chen Ming Ching. A tour lady came over and started explaining stuff to us and with her help, and with our Hualian member as translator, we learned a lot about calligraphy and Chinese characters. Did you know there have been 7 different character sets used throughout Chinese history? I didn't! It was fascinating. Elder Brunette, Elder Keys, and I ( two other elders I served with in Hualian) could have stayed in that place learning about Chinese characters for many more hours but eventually we had to go and see other stuff. It was a great pday. Normally it's hard to go to museums because a lot of them are closed on Monday so I am glad we found an exception! 

The rest of the week was full of the same old work! 

On Tuesday we had the first district council of the transfer, and my first as district leader. It went pretty well. It's more of a challenge than I anticipated to lead a meeting in full Chinese because most of my district are native Taiwanese. I'm sure my Chinese will improve a lot in the next few transfers.

We didn't do anything special for New Years but we did have a good Sunday. Sunday night we went up to the big chapel by the temple for a fireside where one of the people I taught in my first area, Zhong He, was giving a talk. He got baptized a little while ago when I was still in Hualian but I hadn't seen him in almost a year. It was super cool to talk with him after the meeting and catch up. All the missionaries who had taught him up untill his baptism were there too and we got to have a fun little reunion. It's super cool to see how integrated he has become into the church. He hasn't just joined the church, he seems to have jumped in head first. He tells me the missionaries in Taizhong, where his college is, have him acoompany thier lessons all the time (sometimes three times a day!) and he has already been to Utah and wants to go to BYU now! He is even thinking a little about serving a mission. Its really wonderful to see how big a part of his life the church is now. It's a privilege to meet people like him and help them learn about thier Father in Heaven and the Plan He has in store for His children.

Hope you all had a great new year and are ready for an awesome year to come! Set some good goals!

Love, 

Elder Neilson

- The museum squad from p-day

- Cleaning up the churches Christmas decorations

 crazy traffic. It's good to be back in Taipei!

I switched my back gears and the chain on my bike on Saturday. After a year+ They had been through a lot. New parts feel a lot better! I can go way faster now! hahaha.

Some crazy hot instant noodles I made the other day with some Dumplings. The noodles were litterally so hot I couldn't finish the last half.

- a picture we took at the fireside with all the missionaries who have served in my current ward