I had a lot of new experiences in general, like biking in a rainstorm. It might not be freezing here like in Utah, but it can still get pretty cold when you are soaking wet and riding on a bike. My goal today is to buy some rain boots or rain flats. No more wet socks and shoes that take days to get dry! I took a lovely picture of myself after I got home. People say I look like a construction worker. What do you think?
We had a Mission wide Christmas activity on Thursday. It was a day of very little sleep because we had to get on a train pretty early in the morning, but it was all worth it. We went to Ri Yue Tang (Sun Moon Lake) We could hardly see it because of all the fog, but I got to see all my lovely MTC sisters again. It had only been 2 weeks, but it felt like we hadn't seen each other in an eternity. So there was a lot of female squealing when everyone from the mission arrived. We took a great photo of the mission and then we got some time to go take a look around and buy some souvenirs. After that we were taken to the great All-You-Can -Eat buffet ever. They had steaks, Mongolian BBQ, sushi, sashimi, soups, noodles... it was amazing. After that we went to the Stake center for an amazing Christmas devotional. I loved it.
On Sunday (yesterday) we had our Branch Christmas party. It was so fun and the food was amazing! My goal of being no more than 10 lbs heavier than when I first arrived by the time I go home is becoming increasingly hard... The little kids sang and of course there are those few who just scream sing every word... it was so nostalgic. Us missionaries had a special musical number, and sang Savior Redeemer of my soul. After the the President prepared a little surprise and all the missionaries, returned missionaries and those wanting to go on a mission were invited up and we all sang... I don't remember what the title is in English... But it's the "we are as the army of Helaman" song. It was super powerful and left me with an amazing feeling. Right after a sister in the ward gave me a name and a number for one of her classmates that we could contact. It really was a miracle.
We have been having a really hard time getting referrals. We hadn't had a single one since I got here, and Sister Ting said she hadn't gotten a single one before I got there. We have one Investigator who has been avoiding our calls, so we were definitely becoming a bit downtrodden. But, our focus was and is to be able to get to know the members better so that they will be able to trust us enough to provide us the names of their friends. So, last night was what seemed to be a little bit of a break through. It was great.
Another Christmas miracle was seeing many of the less actives that we had been visiting, there at the activity. In many instances, members go less active because another member has offended or hurt them in some way, and they have either no desire to see them, or start to doubt a church when it's members can do such things. It's been hard trying to help them overcome and went to go to church with the purpose of coming closer to Christ. Seeing so many of them take the first first was really heartwarming and encouraging.
My trial of the week: The Chinese
I have been working on Phase 1 and made a goal to pass off one lesson a week, and this past Friday was the day of my lesson 1 evaluation. I will not lie, I was extremely stressed out and felt like because of all the special activities and meetings, I was getting my language study time cut out of the day. It was definitely becoming a rather large source of stress, feeling like I had not prepared well enough for the day of my eval. My wonderful trainer kept saying it was going to be okay, but that she understood my stress because I had never had an evaluation before and that after this first one, it would get easier. Well, I had my evaluation with my District Leader Elder Yeh. He was really nice and it was comfortable teaching him. In the end I did alright. Although, I can feel the stress starting to build again as I prepare for this Friday's evaluation of lesson 2... Why?! Hahaha. Well... it will be alright I guess. :]
Is there anything else? Hmm...Oh yea. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
As a little gift I will provide many pictures. Hahaha. YAY!
I finally got a picture of my bike.
I took a picture of the Christmas combined New Years card we made. The scriptures we put are
1 Ne 17:13 and 2 Ne 22:2 (I wrote the characters on the pink paper. :] )
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