Getting "songed" & Mission Goal to Become a More Graceful Bike Rider

Another P-day is here :).  Life has been so great here lately. The work is hard and I am still having a little trouble biking with a skirt, but all is good :). The Taiwanese people are so amazing and generous. Every time we visit people we end up getting "songed" (given) little presents--mostly food. The other night we went by a former investigator's house to see how she was doing and her next door neighbor came over and talked to me (my companion was working the phones since no one had come to the door). She is probably mom's age and super cute. I shared the good news with her and we talked about her family. We teach an English class here every Wednesday night as our service for the week and her kids might come! She wouldn't give me her phone number because she said she isn't home much, but I know where she lives...hehehe. She said a friend of hers is of our faith and she really enjoyed singing our hymns. Sister Lew was finished with the phones so we said good bye and she went into her house. While I was unlocking my bike and getting ready to take off, she ran up to her windows (and all the outer windows are just metal bars...kind of weird...but that is how it is!) and stuck her hands through with little treats she wanted to give me. It was hilarious. The kindness of people you talk to for like two minutes...quite amazing. I really want to go back and sing hymns with her sometime this week!!!

 

Speaking of singing, Sister Lew has the most AMAZING voice--she sings beautiful soprano and alto. So she usually splits off to the alto part and lets me sing soprano (since I am not the best alto singer...yet!). We sound amazing together and it always brings the spirit so quickly! I love my companion!!! She is seriously the coolest trainer ever :). She is so encouraging and really motivates me to be better every day!! We have so much in common too. We are both pretty goofy sometimes, which makes life so much more enjoyable.

 

Remember how I don't even live in my zone? Yeah, we actually live in an area that on one side is one zone and on the other is another zone...and both aren't ours! Lol, we are also over two wards--which happen to be like forty five minutes biking distance apart. Also, we have two huge death bridges we bike over and on the way home at night we go through this tunnel of DOOM! Lol, it is this little side tunnel for motoche's (motorbikes) and bikes. It dips way down and then has a huge hill up..on both ends. So between biking through that and having motoche's try and squeeze past us--I am grateful for life!!! I know the Lord is giving me help--I am so accidents prone, but so far no bike accidents! I guess we'll just have to see about next week eh? Lol. So while biking super fast to get to our appointments on time and across our whole area, Sister Lew will always say, "Here we go!" in that little mariocart voice...I think Mario himself says that in the game (mariocart racing) and makes the sound the game makes when you get a star...it is awesome! So we just pretend like we are in a video game and we have found we have super biking powers! Like we were totally going to be late to this appointment, we were like half hour a way and she came fifteen minutes early. So we "level up-ed" and got there in like 18 minutes. It was ridiculously awesome! My bum is still sore all the time, but we are adjusting!! What with the running three times a week and the daily bikathons, it is pretty sweet. Luckily we have an elevator up to our apartment! Lol, whenever we hit the stairs we can feel allllll of our sore spots...and they are many.

 

Another funny thing having to do with biking (and this will definitely sound like me) is that my bike pedals have these screws on them to like help your feet grip better or something....but they just eat me! So my legs are pretty...no pretty.  I have gotten a lot better, but the first week I would be sitting down in a lesson and look down and see congealed blood on my leg and a new wound. Lol. One day (it was a super hot day too) I got two little wounds that just wouldn't stop bleeding. So Sister Lew whipped out the band aids and neosporine and patched me up best she could. We went into this investigators house and they were like--what happened?? I looked down and the wound right below the knee had like completely bled through my band aid...it was just like a red patch of -aid. Lol. Kind of gross. So I told them my bike likes to "chi" me (eat) and they laughed pretty hard. We went on with the lesson and I totally forgot about it. That night, during companionship prayer, I got up from kneeling and we did our planning. Then later on I looked at the floor and was like, WOW!!! Sister Lew, why is there smeared blood on the floor??? Then we both realized it was from when I had been kneeling....lol! That is my gross story for the week. I made a mission goal to become a more graceful bike rider, and I actually had the assistants call me and ask what my mission goals were (spiritual, physical, intellectual, and key indicator) and I when I told him that he just busted up laughing and said, "I know that when we set goals and make plans, the Lord will help us. He will help you accomplish that good goal." It is so true though, when we set goals and make plans to work towards them and then present those plans to the Lord, he will help us achieve them. We just have to do our part.

 

So in this mission when we contact people at red lights (we literally jump off our bikes and just go and talk to every one while the light is red...and even sometimes when it turns green--it is a good thing the traffic laws here are like NON existent. People still run red lights alllllll the time...I see accidents at least three times a week--but don't worry, we always follow the traffic laws and try and just pull people over to the side of the road so we can talk to them more) we also give them a baptismal goal right away. So the way it works is we have week A B C D  and E investigators. We give them a goal six weeks out and once they have at least heard of baptism (it helps clarify expectations from the start) they become a week E (if we add them...which means that we have set up with them, taught at least two principles, gotten their phone number and extended the invitation to be baptized). Then if they come to church that week, they "progress" and become a week D, so on and so forth until week A, which means they are being baptized that week. It is pretty great.

 

We currently have two week Bs!!!!!!! They are husband and wife too. The Cai jaiting (family) is sooo amazing. Sister Lew contacted them on her bike a few days before we became companions, and then we taught them together our first Saturday there. It has been wonderful to see them progressing in the gospel. They have two little baby tots (as Sister Lew calls children under the age of...18 :P) who are five and one. So cute! We want sooo bad for them to become an eternal family. Last night we taught them the word of wisdom--which can be a hard lesson to take since EVERYONE drinks tea here. But they actually took it soo well! It was pretty hilarious though because right when we sat down Brother Cai was telling us (not sure why) how drinking a little whiskey every once in a while is good for your health or something, and I just started giggling a little and Sister Lew was like, well, actually, we have a new commandment to tell you and he was like, "I can't drink alcohol?" It was so great and he totally accepted the invitation to live the Word of Wisdom. It was cute because he was like, well, at least I don't drink beer or cha (tea) very often anyway, even if it is good for your health! Lol, the Lord has been preparing them for a long time.

 

That morning when we had been planning for their lesson we both had the feeling it was time to teach them that commandment, and we had the faith to go forward and do and the Lord blessed us! It was soo great. The husband is still waiting to have some kind of "miracle" before he will accept baptism, but we still have a week to go and we pray for them every day soo many times. We have been teaching that the sign doesn't come until after the trial of your faith. They both read the Book of Mormon daily and have been praying individually (and maybe as a family) so I know they will receive a witness from the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true.

 

Well, I love you all so much! Today is "Power Cleaning Day" and we have to spend the whole day cleaning--it is a once a year thing. so I don't know if I will have any time to write letters at all....kind of sad since I haven't gotten any mail over here yet! It is always sad to see an empty mailbox...sigh :P.