Re: A Pretty Solid Week

Ellyn was for some inexplicable reason unable to send her email to the normal recipients, so I have been charged with forwarding this to all of you:

This week's interesting start to my email is a list of things I've
eaten recently.

a lot of dumplings
multiple variations on noodles and soup
super delicious mangoes
really really sour tiny plums
pink dragonfruit
super cheap steak that might not be steak
pickled cow stomach
lychees that kind of look like alien fruit and have to be peeled to be eaten
various leafy vegetables I've never seen before
and last but not least
barbecued chicken butt.

In other news, it's been a pretty regular week. We had a district
meeting on Tuesday where we talked about the importance of church
attendance and how to get our investigators to come to church. We
decided to take it to heart and work super hard to get people to come
to church. We invited like everybody, we set up rides for people, we
called them on Saturday and Sunday, we called them on Sunday
afternoon... and most people bailed out at the last minute. Donny
Osmond lady, bless her heart, told me every excuse from My Son is
Going to School Today to I Need to Do the Lunch Dishes. "He can go to
school, and you can go to church!" "We will come and do the dishes
with you and then you can come to church with us." Finally she called
back and said she really couldn't come today, but I made her promise
(...almost) to come next week. It's gonna happen. It's gonna work.

It's rained a few more times but not too badly this week, lots of
people tell me I should wear long sleeves so I don't get sunburned. A
lot of Taiwanese people wear more clothes during the summer because
they are so afraid of getting tan. The rice fields are getting taller.
We're meeting with some pretty cool investigators who need the gospel,
and a girl named Tracy finally decided to be baptized on June 19th!
We're super excited for her and her brother to be baptized together.
Woohoo!

Chinese phrase of the week: Zhen de jia de?! it literally means "true
false", and I have picked up saying it whenever something is
surprising, like "no way, man!" But you have to say it really
exaggerated, with the "zhen" really high in your voice and the "jia"
kind of low. Plus the best aghast look you can muster. Side note I
legimately have some sort of dramatic filter when I translate Chinese
now, like people say things in a normal voice but if I try to tell my
companion what they said later it comes out like a cheesy movie. It
makes life fun.

So yep, that's about it. Nex week is the end of this transfer, which
is weird. Life goes by fast! Sister Findlay and I will be staying
together for another six weeks for sure, because we are in training.
We're having a good time and looking forward to the hot, sweaty
summer.

Love you all!
Sister Cardon

On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 8:35 PM, Ellyn Cardon <ellyn.cardon@myldsmail.net> wrote:

I think I would classify this week as "pretty solid." 

We had zone conference on Tuesday, which was super awesome. All of the missionaries in Taizhong got together and were able to learn from our mission leaders, which is always a neat opportunity. I was definitely inspired to be a better missionary; this week I have been studiously studying Preach My Gospel and working on following up with our investigators, from which we have already seen a lot of success.

Other highlights from zone conference:

-Sister Blickenstaff asked me to be in charge of a musical number, so I wrangled some missionaries together and we sang "Seek This Jesus," written by my aunt and mother! It went really well and definitely brought the Spirit into the meeting. Extra cool was that we sang it at the beginning, and President Blickenstaff's closing remarks at the end were focused on the scriptures from Alma 32. Totally wrapped it all together.

-got to see a lot of the missionaries from my MTC district! It's cool to see how much the missionaries I knew at the beginning have grown, and that helps me recognize that I have learned a lot too.

-because I am training a new missionary I got to introduce my companion to the rest of the mission! I only remembered that I was doing so likie 5 minutes before the meeting so I wrote a few haikus and told everyone how awesome she is. At one point I said, "We work hard together, we laugh together, we have fun together..." and from behind me President Blickenstaff said, "You get hit by cars together..." It was pretty funny. BTW we're all good now, just a few minor bruises left.

My favorite person we've met with this week is Tracy, who has been meeting with missionaries for over a year now. There was a little bit of a mix up with where she lived and what ward she should be going to, but for now she and her brother are coming to Daya so we are teaching her. Last September she and her brother both had a dream that they would be baptized on August 1st of this year, so we are doing everything we can to make sure she does that. Satan doesn't want her to. But Satan will lose. But we had an awesome lesson with her about faith and I think we are really going to help her.

So yep, that's about this week! We are still grounded from biking so have been doing a lot of walking and bus riding this week, but it's been going fairly well and we've still managed to get to appointments on time. So life is good! Still doing the work, saving souls, etc.

Love you all, hope you have a great week!

Sister Cardon

Picture: This is a cute girl we went to visit the other day who ALSO got in a car accident a few weeks ago. Their family is really awesome and every time we go over there she tells us we are pretty.