transfer 1 week 2

this week has gone by so fast! i can't believe it's up. i kind of wish things would slow down. this transfer period is shorter than most and the thought of possibly leaving my trainer and this area is stressing me out. sister ipson and i get along so well. we laugh all the time and she teaches me a lot. the ward we serve in is great and we have the best investigators in the world.

this week i ate at a member's house for the first time. gao jiemei, the lady that was into touching her dead husband's body invited us over for lunch when we asked if we could visit her. we asked her to teach us how to make taiwanese food. oh my gosh! it was all so delicious and simple. i'll make all of it for you as soon as i get home. (i've decided i'll probably spend ample amounts of time in chinatown on spring mountain. i'm going to be bff with the employs of tea planet and i'll buy all of my groceries at 99 ranch market.) and we'll all eat taiwanese style... everyone has a small bowl that they fill with rice. all of the dishes are placed in the middle of the table (think family style at your favorite chinese restaurant). rather than having a plate to put your food on, you use your chopsticks and put food on the rice in the bowl. it's really cool i think. remember the bowls you gave me for christmas a while ago, those are perfect. i think i'll never eat a savory meal without rice again. i'm going to be taiwanese when i get home. there really aren't any rules for manners. everyone talks with their mouths disgustingly full. people burp without a second thought. you can use your hands if necessary. when eating a large piece of meat you hold it to your mouth with your chopsticks, bite off of it then set it back on your rice. the first week i was kind of disturbed by it, i mean, i'm jade ozawa i'm ALL lady, not one part heathen. but now i kind of like it. i kind of like almost all of taiwan. this is one of my favorite parts: you eat until you're full then eat fruit. so, when we prepared our lunch gao jiemei chopped up pineapple. i tried to put it on the table and she said, "this is for when we're full" (but in chinese). she put it in the fridge and then just when we thought we couldn't eat any more she brought it out and we ate it all. the meal included: fish balls, steamed fish, crab and vegetables, lots of different veggies, shrimp, chicken soup and rice. so good!

last week we were kind of discouraged. we figured out that we were really low on investigators, a lot were dying out. so we decided this week our focus would be finding efforts. and then we experienced small miracles. saturday was our first formal contacting effort since i got here. i mean, every stoplight we contact people of scooters, but saturday evening we went to a park to contact. i was so scared. my mandarin has improved a lot but i'm still kind of hesitant. pretty much the first person we saw approached us and started asking us questions. we talked to her for more than 40 minutes and set up an appointment. how does that happen? she contacted us! it was great. then on sunday we knocked doors for my first time. again, so nervous. we got rejected over and over then talked with some nice but uninterested people. we were about to head home but knocked one more door and met "julie" and "elsa". they are so cute! we taught them about prayer and prayed with them. they gave us a bag of garlic. then we set up and met with them on monday. they're both so good. they seemed to really like our lesson. julie is my favorite but she doesn't live in gaoxiong. she said missionaries in her town could contact her but also said, "i want you to teach me." it was the best feeling. we told her that when she visits we'll teach her. i want to stay in contact with her. i'm going to get her information from elsa so that i can write her. i think they're both going to develop into good investigators. we're meeting with elsa again tonight!

so, that was just a bit of monday, the greatest day ever. i want to tell you all about it. in the morning we taught xie jiemei. i think i told you about her. she owns a cute shop. we had lu jiemei, a cute ward sister teach with us. it went so so so well. we're going to try to set a baptismal goal with xie. she's really progressing and making strides. she says she already sees changes in her life for the better. she's coming to conference this weekend (we have it a week late). i'm excited. after teaching her a crazy investigator, julie, brought us lunch. it was so good. they have this yummy cold green bean soup. i loved it. she also brought really great bian dang with shrimp. she's nuts. i don't think she's going to go far. i think she likes our american accents more than our message. she told us all about a vision she had when she was eleven. the clouds parted as she left school and she saw mary with a staff, a tree and two children. she explained it in so much detail it was nuts. my comp says it's not rare to hear those types of things from people. they have no problem accepting the joseph smith story because they see visions all the time. after lunch with julie, we taught monica. we had been really worried about her. jia zheng, our recent convert came. monica was great, she had read the book of mormon for two hours the night before and told us more about church history than we knew. i swear she has read every bit of lds.org and mormon.org. she's coming to g.c. and i think she could have a baptismal date soon. she's so cute. the smallest person i have ever met. after that we went and got the most interesting drinks with jia zheng. she didn't come to church on sunday, the first sunday after her confirmation so we were kind of worried. but we takled to her and sorted it. in the evening we met with qiu jiemei. i think i told you about her. really cute but low self-esteem. we worked to get to the bottom of her lacking fiath. she's so great. i feel really close to her. she has had an experience kind of like me kyle one and now questions prayer. she doens't understand why she's get a yes if she shouldn't have. we talked a lot and she felt the spirit. we commited her to pray with a question in mind then attend general conference. i know that i'll stay in touch with her. we're really similar (we're both really cute and stuff. just kidding! i'm not cute here.). we think similarly and have similar experiences. i wish i could give her my testimony. i tell her that all the time. i can't wait to see her on sunday and talk to her more.


oh, funny story from last night. we visited a member's mom. she's an old lady, 83, and not a member. she fed us hard boiled egg then told us about how she had cooked them in tea and other stuff. (they're really good, you can buy them anywhere for like no money at all.) she said "don't worry about the word of wisdom, you didn't put the tea in it, i did." so funny. we don't know if the eggs are not okay for us to eat. we don't know if the tea goes through the shell. funny though.

with the time i have left... the houses here. they are so different than ours. SO DIFFERENT. a lot of people, like us missionaries, live in really tall apartment buildings. ours is pink tile. the two nicest homes we've been in were in apartment buildings. every apartment building (almost) has a guard that sits at the entrance. before visiting anyone you have to check in with him. to use the elevators you need a special electronic key. ours is a little round thing that we wave in front of a sensor before pressing the button to get to our floor (#12). the homes that aren't in apartments are really different. a lot smaller than what we're used to. rather than building out, they build up. in the city, there is a metal thing that touches the sidewalk, kind of like a garage door without a drive way. for a lot of people, they lift it and their business is right there, on the first level of their house. sometimes you go up stairs to get to the rest of the house, sometimes you step through a door at the back of the business. when we visit hong jiating (the ones i called fat), for example, we sit in middle of their motorcycle shop and teach. the houses all touch and are side by side. some people that don't live on a busy street have the same type of garage thing but have cars and things inside. on a lot of streets, like near our home, you walk down the street and can see right into the living room. the doors are big and mostly glass or are screen. the kitchens are tiny and so are the living rooms. most just have two burners on their stove and pretty much no counter space. a lot of parts of homes are kind of multifunctional, a person may sleep on the couch, or a hot plate will be in the living room or business part. i'll try to think of how i can better descibe it all. i feel like this made little sense. i guess, phoebe, you and i will just have to come here together one day. deal?

i'm out of time. we're going to an awesome street market this p-day. i'm going to try to get some mission clothes and some good fruit. i love you all and miss you. i love love love you guys. i hope all is well. everything is great in taiwan. i love it. muah!

zeng jiemei!