New Transfer And New Companion

WEEK 22:

I just finished at the trampoline park and am barely able to walk. In this disabled position, I will give you a brief overview of my week.

New transfer, new area, new companion. I'm serving in Jilong. Taiwanese people spell it Keelung. They pronounce it Qilong. Confused? So am I. Traveling to Jilong was scary because I wasn't able to read any of the signs. I got on a train to Keelung, which I soon found out was the wrong train I was supposed to take, and was scared I was going the wrong way. Once I arrived I scrambled around looking for free wifi (no service on my phone) so I could text my companion. I survived. Then a random stranger helped me find the north station where I meet my new companion, Elder Cline.

I'm in a four man apartment, rare to see in Taiwan. The apartment is OK. I forgot to take pics of inside the house, but here are a couple pics of the buildings right outside. Not the cleanest or nicest place I've ever been to.

Its very rainy here. So that will be fun. I don't know much else about jilong, but I've heard that this is were missionaries have funny experiences. It was weird saying goodbye to my friends in ankang. 

Here are some random pics:

One of them we are at a birthday/FHE. We sang some songs.

The other is a hot pot 吃到飽。I ate so much!

Until next week

Elder Andersen

Happy Chinese New Year, The Year of the Dog

WEEK 21: 

This week was filled with member visits, celebrating Chinese new year. We haven't been able to meet with any of our investigators because they are all with there families, but we have been preparing spiritual lessons for all our meals. Its nice being able to strengthen relationships with members.

This week was also different because we did almost no street finding. There are a lot less people on the streets, and the people that are outside won't be willing to set up or listen to us. Instead, we have been doing a deep clean of our apartment, something I haven't done since I left home. It's nice coming into a clean home. 

Today we don't have many plans other than more meals with members. Tonight we are going to another BBQ all you can eat! Defiantly my favorite type of restaurant and one that needs to be brought to America. 2 hours to order everything. Every single meat you can think of. Not to mention the all you can eat ice cream. It's a meal that will keep you full for 2 days, or on the toilet for 2 hours. I can't wait.

Pigs Blood Cake. We were at yang's family for dinner and they had what looked like typical Chinese food, until they brought our these black squares, similar to a plate of extra dark Brownies. They said it was there favorite and insisted I tried one. I whispered under my breath to my companion asking him what I was about to eat. He said simply 'rice cake', and made sure not to say anything about Pigs Blood. It was tasty, but not anything that I would go out of my way to eat. 

Quick shout out to my friend Alan settles! He is turning in his mission papers and he is hoping to serve in Salt Lake, Utah mission! Please keep him in your prayers.

Some fun facts about this week

I ate a whole rotisserie Chicken

I'm probably moving areas

Random pics with member families and investigators that provided us food!

Earthquake Week

WEEK 20:


There were so many earthquakes this week. Luckily, me and my companion were safe as the earthquake was only 4.3, strong enough to make you lose your balance.  I was asleep when it happened and woke up to my bed shaking. Nothing was damaged in our apartment. The earthquake knocked a water bottle off our table and that's about it.  Unfortunately Hualian was hit pretty bad with a 6.4. Some areas had the movements of a 7.0 earthquake. I don't know much about the damage but I know there have been a couple large buildings with major structural failures. No damage (that I know of) in Ankang. All the missionaries were able to email home and none of them were hurt.

Random apartment area looked cool. Smelled really bad.

It rained everyday of this week, and I was able to wear my Crocs proselyting. That was a cool experience. While we were street finding we found a basketball court right next to our house, one we've never seen before. There was one person playing in the rain. We started shooting with him and he wanted to play us one on one. We played a little more and it was so fun but my Crocs started to hurt my feet. He set up with us in the end. So far we have had a 100% success rate basketball finding in Crocs. We may try this again if we continue to have the same luck.

Sassy!

Pics of the play for our English Class

Our English class had a Valentines day party and we had a couple cheesy games and a play all planed out. I played a random kid and a sassy girl. The skit ended up being super funny even though we had no time to rehearse.

Today we plan on playing more board games and making Brownies yay. One of our members also bought us some pizza at this nice pizza shop. We know the owner who is really nice to us and gave us free Brownies previously. We saw her husband who is from the USA and it was so weird seeing another white person who spoke perfect English.

Quick shout out to Trever convincing me to smile in pictures again, even though its only a half smile, always supporting me,  and giving me advice on being happy. 

I finish my training in 2 weeks! It's so crazy because I still need about another year of training. Most likely, I'll be sent to another area while my trainer stays in Ankang. 

Until next week,

Elder  Andersen

Random Pic:

With our investigator who bought us all you can eat BBQ.  So yummy!

Adjusting To Life In Taiwan

WEEK 19: 

Hello everyone

This week was great. I feel like I'm starting to get used to Taiwan now, with all the crazy drivers while I'm biking, getting less weird looks when I speak in Chinese, and so little free time. We had a couple district dinners and here are some pics of our p day playing board games and eating pizza.