ELDER HYRUM RICHARDSON WEEKLY LETTER #33

JANUARY 5, 2014

It's been kind of a crazy week. One of those where you look back and say, "How did I do ALL of that in ONE week??" So I'll just start from the beginning.

Monday for P-Day, the 6 Neihu missionaries went to eat at a great Italian place that was in our area. We love this place because their all-you-can-eat soup is delicious and they have orange juice with QQs that you can drink. Then we went to the mission office where I passed off my Phase 2 test!

Tuesday we went to Jilong for district meeting, where we saw the giant rubber duck sitting in the harbor. It's really weird that everybody is getting so excited about this duck. Literally every store in Jilong was selling duck-themed stuff and there were tons of people crowded on the harbor looking at it. We were all in the chapel where we could see the duck from the window. And then we all looked back a few minutes later and the duck had popped! We don't know what happened, but suddenly the duck was flat! The next few days, it was all over the news and everybody was going crazy about it. I think I also saw that CNN did a spot on it, so Dad, you'll have to find that and share that with everybody. I was there!

For New Year's Eve, everybody goes to the GIANT party at the Taibei 101. At midnight, they shoot fireworks from off of the 101. One of our less active's went and showed us the video. It's REALLY cool; you'll have to go find it on YouTube.

I think it's interesting, for the calender new year's day, they call it 跨年 which means to step or leap over the year, and then for Chinese new year they call it 過年 which means to pass through a year.

Wednesday afternoon I ran into somebody who was wearing a KU sweatshirt! Apparently he studied aerodynamics there for 3 years. It was cool to see of piece of home!

Wednesday night was our English class party. Almost nobody came because it was a holiday (New Year's Day), but with the two members who did come, we played charades and talked about Chinese character writing.

Friday was transfer meeting! I'm now with Elder Wang in Zhonghe! Zhonghe (it might be spelled Jhonghe on Google maps) is just south of the main part of Taibei city. It's definitely way different than Neihu was. It's a lot more crowded and more ghetto than Neihu was. Somebody told me that it's one of the most densely populated areas in the world. I don't know if that is true or not.

Elder Wang is awesome. He's 27, so quite a bit older than most missionaries, and he is on his last transfer. In missionary jargon, I would say that I'm "killing" him, because I'm his last companion. So he'll go home in February, and he's already got a wedding date in March. He is a fantastic guitar player. For mornings at the beginning of companionship study, we can pick any hymn, and he can play it while the other three of us sing. He's a really experienced missionary, and I'll be able to learn a lot from him over six weeks. We both just got out of somewhat rough companionships, so we both really want to focus on companionship unity during this transfer. 

Elder Wang and I are "whitewashing" this area, which means that both of us are new. The other two missionaries both left, and neither of us have been here before. So, needless to say, we've spent quite a bit of time the past three days getting lost. We spent the first evening with a map trying to find the chapel. It's especially difficult here, because none of the roads are straight, and pretty narrow. I can say that we now know how to get to the chapel and home, but beyond that, I'm really not too sure!

It was strange, because Saturday night, we had a baptism! We had never met the guy until about an hour before he got baptized. Thanks to a good ward mission leader and excellent preparation by the previous missionaries, it all went really smoothly, and we'll work on getting to know the now recent convert over the next few weeks.

The ward here is awesome. It must have been weird for them to have two new missionaries show up to their sacrament meeting, but they were all super friendly and enthusiastic about missionary work. I tried to learn as many names as I could, but I'm sure I've forgotten them all by now! 

I'm really excited to be in a new area! Zhonghe seems to be an awesome place, and we both hope we can see a lot of miracles over the next 6 weeks.

I started reading the Book of Mormon in Chinese this week. It's really cool to read the same stories that I've always read in English, but to do it in a different language. I'm in 1st Nephi Chapter 5 so far, and I really love it!

I'm looking forward to a great week and for a lot more getting lost!

Keep adding oil!

Elder Richardson

田長老