WEEKLY
LETTER #10 FROM ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON
JULY
21, 2013
Well
it's been a whirlwind of a few days since arriving here in Taiwan. For the most
part, it's been somewhat surreal. It's hard to believe that I'm actually out
here being a missionary! It was a little weird talking to people at first, but
now it's becoming more normal.
I
have an awesome trainer! His name is Elder Pratt. He's been out about a year,
he's got fantastic Chinese, and he just finished training another elder, so he
already knows what he's doing. We are already good friends, and we joke around
a lot.
We
are in a beautiful part of Taibei called 内湖 NeiHu (nay-who)
which means "Inner Lake." Also in our area is DaHu (Big lake), DongHu
(East Lake), and XiHu (West Lake). Doesn't Chinese have creative names? There's
a big lake in the middle of our area, about 5 minutes bike ride from our
apartment, and it's a really beautiful area - I'll have pictures next week! We
are on the Northeast tip of Taibei, just close enough to still be considered
part of Taibei. It's a fantastic area, and is really good for my first one!
NeiHu
is probably considered a "richer" part of Taibai, and because of that
quite a few people know English or want to learn English. We've run into like 5
people on the street already who have perfect English, and one of our more
successful contacting methods is talking about our free English classes on
Wednesday nights. We don't do it a whole lot, because we would rather focus on
the gospel, but tonight we are going "English Boarding" where we just
handout flyers about our English class.
I
really love being on a mission! It was a little strange at first, but I'm
getting more used to it and it's both fun and really fulfilling to teach people
about the gospel.
We've
got a great pool of investigators right now, and over the past few days we've
gotten a few more. Investigator #1 is progressing really well, and on Friday we
gave him a baptismal challenge, which he accepted! We always go visit him in
his shop, which is kinda distracting, so our goal this week is to have a lesson
with him in his home. We also gave a baptismal challenge to Investigator #2 who
we taught Saturday about the ten commandments and baptism. I haven't met all of
the investigators we are teaching yet, just because I haven't been here very
long, but hopefuly I'll meet them all soon!
Chinese
is going pretty well. It's frustrating because I can speak alright, but I can't
understand very much that they say! They all speak super fast and some have a
really thick Taiwanese accent. (for those that know chinese, a Taiwanese accent
says all of the "shi" sounds as "si" sounds, which is
terribly confusing.) Hopefully, as I'm here longer, I'll learn how to pick up
what they are saying, even when it's fast!
The
food is as good as I expected. We generally eat out for lunch and dinner
because it's cheaper than cooking, and every meal that we've had has been
amazing. For lunch on Sundays, because we can't buy food, the members cook for
us in the church building after our meetings. The jiaozi they cooked yesterday
were AMAZING. Seriously, they were so good.
I'm
getting better at eating with chopsticks. I didn't really ever forget, but
there's still a bit of a learning curve when you start again. I'm going to come
home being a master of the chopsticks.
I
love being a missionary! It's hard work every day, but it's already so
rewarding! We only have an hour this week, but I'll be able to write more next
week!
直到下個禮拜，
田長老
Elder
Richardson
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