better than ever

Hello.

I wanted to tell you that I'm doing fine, better still that ever, you might find the reasons than it here www site

Typos courtesy of my iPhone, Malone Massar

OMG it's true

Hi,

I've just found something really interesting and OMG ... it's amazing, just take a look http://thought.flylinebait.com/lnmdv

 

Sent from a prehistoric stone tablet, Ellyn Cardon

 

some new stuff

Hey, Don't miss up this new stuff, you're going to be delighted, read more here http://funkychode.garciamed.org/lnehi

 

Good wishes, Ellyn Cardon

So Great a Cause

Dear friends and family,

I can't believe the time is finally here! Today I have had my departing interview with my mission president, my companion has already gone back to our area with her new companion (leaving me awkwardly by myself)(good things there's lots of other missionaries around here), and now in my last two days I will be eating dinner with the Blickenstaffs, going to the Taibei temple. and leaving on a jet plane to America. I'll be back again in April, though, so that's exciting!

I've had a good last week as a missionary. It was Chinese New Year for everyone, which means that the missionaries get invited out to lunch and dinner every single day for a week. I think I paid for my own food for only one meal this entire week, and I decided to get ice cream because I was too full for anything else. The end result is that I gained like literally less than 1/2 a pound. I'm slightly disappointed. I was going for 10. ("Go big or go home," another sister said to me. "Or go big and then go home.")

I am so grateful that I could be a missionary. It has been the most uncomfortable, most difficult, most joyful, and most rewarding experience of my life. I wouldn't trade my mission for anything. Not even a bajillion dollars. I'd like to share with you what I wrote for my reflection I gave last week at zone meeting:

"I want to start my reflection, here at the end of my mission, by looking back at the reasons why I came on a mission in the first place. I want to focus on two of the phrases that have helped me throughout my time serving the Lord as a full-time missionary. The first is a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson (and he's smart so it must be a good quote). It says, "it is one of the beautiful compensations in life that no man can sincerely help another without helping himself." 

I'll admit that at first, my reasons for coming on a mission were a little bit selfish. I always thought about how everyone expects young men to go on missions. They want them to build character and grow closer to the Lord and change from a boy to a man. Well, part of me always thought, why wouldn't I want that for myself? Shouldn't I want to build character? Shouldn't I want to become more converted and stronger and build a solid foundation for my future family? And so in part the reason why I came on a mission was to help myself. But I've found, as most people do, that when I start focusing on myself is the same moment when I start regressing. I don't become a better person, I become more selfish and less charitable and more about me. But, as Mr. Emerson says, when we sincerely try to help other people is when we help ourselves. I've seen that when I spend time thinking about other people; my companion, our investigators, the ward members, then that is when I become better. I've spent hours of personal study trying to figure out questions for investigators and other missionaries, and in the process gained a wealth of spiritual knowledge. I've listened to many people tell me their life problems and in the process solidified my own testimony of gospel living. And even though I'm still prideful and probably still think about myself too much, I know what it feels like to truly care about someone else's well being. 

The second quote was told to me by someone in my first area, when I was visa waiting in Salt Lake City, Utah. He said that a missionary's job is to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." That always brings me back to why I came on a mission; what I came to do. To comfort the afflicted, to help other people feel God's love when they can't recognize it themselves. To give hugs, to listen, to share what I know in order to help them feel better. But at the same time, we are called to afflict the comfortable. To call people to repentance and to help them see that no matter how great their life is now, it can be made better through the truth of the gospel. "Remember, you will help people the most by teaching them the gospel of Jesus Christ" (PMG). Sometimes, afflicting the comfortable includes yourself. I've had lots of times when I thought I was doing great, I was all that plus the potato chips, but every time Heavenly Father would send something to kick me right off my pedestal. I can't even remember how many times I've read President's letter and thought "oh that doesn't apply to me" only to keep reading and figure out that not only does it apply directly to me, but I better repent right now and shape up. 

I am so grateful that I served a mission. I cannot even describe all it has meant to me and all I have learned. I have gained a strong testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon, the power of the Spirit, and the importance of obedience to God's commandments. When I see people smile at me on the street I think, this is why I came on a mission. When random miracles occur like running into just the person we were looking for I think, no that's why I came on a mission. When I bike through a beautiful rice field, or learn something new in Chinese, or make new friends in investigators and members. When I see someone truly change because of the gospel, not just do something because you told them to, but read all of 1 Nephi in a day because they really wanted to and they have really come to know God, that is when I know why I came on a mission. I love my Savior and I am so glad that I have had this time to represent Him. That is why I came on a mission."

I know that Christ loves us and that this is His true church. I know that this is the best and truest path to happiness. I love it! Man. I'm just so happy I could be a missionary. I honestly think I would do it all over again. It's the best thing that I've ever done. The Gospel is the happiest thing that ever happened. Sharing it with the others is the thing of most worth for us to do.

Shall we not go on in so great a cause?

Love,

Sister Cardon

Picture: all my bags are packed, I'm ready to go! No, not taking my bike with me. Gladys and I are finally parting ways.

Breaking News

This week has had quite a few surprising moments! Let me give you all the news in order of whatever order I feel like.

News #1: Elections were last weekend, and Taiwan has elected her first female president! There was a lot of hullabaloo leading up to the election and then I heard absolutely nothing afterwards. I finally had to ask someone who won (usually people just tell missionaries that sort of thing) and her name is Cai Ying Wen; the same Ying Wen as "ying1wen2" which means English. Her first name is English.

News #2: It SNOWED. Did you read that clearly? There was SNOW in Taiwan yesterday. Remember a month ago when I told you I was freezing and you all thought I was super lame? Well let me tell you it has been COLD the past few days. One person's phone said it was 1 C for a little while, and otherwise it has been hovering around 5 C. Let me give you an inventory of all the clothes I wore out the door this morning:

gloves

scarf

face mask

tights

shorts

two pairs of socks

a slip

a t-shirt

a dress

another skirt

button-up long sleeve

regular sweater

cardigan sweater

fleece jacket

and finally, my big sweater I bought a few weeks ago.

I'm cold.

News #3: and this is the BEST news. The Zhu family passed their baptismal interviews! WOOHOO! They have decided to be baptized together next Saturday, February 6. We are SO STOKED. Man. They are just great. 

News #4: okay this isn't really news, just that on Saturday I hit my 18-month mark on my mission! Man, a year and a half has gone by so fast! So crazy. I have learned so much and changed so much in the past 18 months, I can't even believe it. Yeah, I know everyone says that about their mission. This week I have had to reflect a lot on my mission and what it means to me (departing missionaries give a "Reflection" in the last few weeks before they leave, so I've had to get that ready for when I'll be speaking next week). I've also been thinking about my vision, goals, and plans for the future after my mission (that was an assignment from my mission president when we had interviews a few weeks ago). As I was thinking about what kind of a "vision" I want for myself in the future I wrote down that I wanted to be someone who brings others to Christ. As I wrote that I thought "really? that's the first thing on your list?" I realized that reaction was because it probably wouldn't have been the first thing on my list before my mission, but in pondering I discovered that the kinds of things I want really have changed on my mission. It's been so long that I've just had one purpose, to invite others to come unto Christ, that I can't really imagine any other kind of purpose for myself. I love being a missionary. And I hope to be able to keep the fire going even after I don't wear a tag anymore.

News #5: I bought some awesome colored contacts last P-day and I feel super cool and Asian every time I wear them.

News #6: We went to a fabric store last week and I figured out they had fabric for only 30 KUAI A METER. So, less than a dollar a yard. I may have bough 6 yards of a really pretty fabric to make a dress for myself.

News #7: We went to a world wide missionary broadcast on Friday that was way cool. It was basically apostle teaching us MTC classes so it was spiritual times 10.

love you all! Hope you have a fabulous week and you find ways to bring others to Christ.

Sister Cardon

Pictures: we went to visit an investigator who is a Taiwanese aboriginal and she let us try on some of their traditional clothing. SO COOL. Everything we are wearing is handmade and all together costs about $1000 USD. (my name tag was on my outer coat in case you were wondering)(also this is a good example of how my style has been thrown out the window)

Me on the way out the door yesterday afternoon. COLD. Also those are the other apartment buildings in our complex, if you were wondering our apartment looks like.

Great People

Hey folks!

It's been a fairly cold and rainy week up in Shalu, but we sure have seen a lot of miracles! It's been a great week.

Pretty much all I want to talk about all day every day is our AWESOME investigators Titan and Vivi. They are a couple we have been meeting with for a few weeks and they are just fantastic. Let me tell you some of the awesome things about them:

They came to church last week and someone gave Titan the Howard W. Hunter book we are using in church; he read all of it this week.

When we asked them if they had heard about tithing he said he had read all about it in the book and was totally willing to try it, sounds like a test of faith but it's great.

Last week when they came to church they were 10 minutes late because of the times of the bus they took. Yesterday we called them at 8:30 to see if they had found a ride to church and they said "Oh, we're already here, we took an even earlier bus!"

Titan set a goal for himself to be baptized in two weeks and announced it when he introduced himself in priesthood class.

Vivi was comparing the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon in her personal study in order to understand what the HWH book was talking about.

At church I overheard a member say to them, "Oh, you're investigators?! I was sure you were members who had just moved in from another ward!"

In conclusion, these are the greatest people ever. I am so grateful that I have the chance to come to Taiwan and meet people like this! The church is true.

Other things about this week... I went on exchanges to Zhongming, which is more in the middle of Taizhong. It felt like such a big city! Sometimes I forget that Shalu really doesn't have very many people. I went with Sister Gonzales, who is super cool and full of sunshine. It was a really fun exchange. The only downside to going on exchanges is that we have to ride the bus forEVER. But it's fine. I like buses. 

The saddest thing that happened this week was that my super awesome $11 watch from Target finally decided to fall off my wrist as I was stopped at a stoplight in Zhongming. I have worn that watch nearly every single day of my mission, but finally the pressure was too much. We came into this world together, but it didn't quite make it out of the world with me. RIP silver watch. 

Wow I wish I had some more exciting things to share. Ooh! I bought a really comfy sweater thing that I've worn like every day this week. It's really cold. But I have my cozy sweater and it's all good. 

Ooh here's an awesome quote I read in the Liahona the other day and LOVED: "God left the world unfinished for man to work his skill upon. He left the electricity in the cloud, the oil in the earth. He left the rivers unbridged and the forests unfelled and the cities unbuilt. God gives to man the challenge of raw materials, not the ease of finished things. He leaves the pictures unpainted and the music unsung and the problems unsolved, that man might know the glories of creation." Thomas S Monson. https://www.lds.org/ensign/1988/03/in-quest-of-the-abundant-life?lang=eng

Yep! Love you all! Have a fabulous week. 

Sister Cardon

Picture: by the National Art Museum in Taizhong where went contacting on exchanges. That's my new sweater!

It's a New Year, it's a new start

Well, it's finally come! I am officially at the start of my last 6 weeks as a missionary. AAAGGGHHH. Okay I'm good let's not mention it anymore.

Happy New Year! Hope you all had an exciting New Year's. We... did not. We went to bed. But someone was putting off fireworks near our house last night (January 3rd?) that were nice and pretty, so we celebrated a little bit. By "celebrate" I mean "looked out the window and aahed a little".

It's been a fairly good week for us! Not much going on. It rained super hard last night, man it's been a couple of months since I've been that soaked. It was great. Had to wring out my skirt when we got home. We went and visited a less active couple who were super nice; they were just getting dinner ready when we came by so they invited us to eat with them. We had soup with potatoes and black tree ears (hmm I wonder what that is actually called in English) and she was worried about it not being flavorful enough so she brought out the most beautiful sight in the world: Montreal Steak Seasoning. I think I almost cried. oh MAN I was going to ask if I could bring some home. I guess we'll have to go back.

I also accomplished another one of my life goals this week. Let me back up though; we were visiting a member whose dad is essentially a Traditional Chinese Medicine Man. He was working with a patient (in the living room) as we were chatting with the member and I casually mentioned that my shoulder had been hurting recently so she volunteered for her father to look at it for me. yessss

So then I sit down on a stool. I kind of expected him to look at my shoulder immediately but no. He takes my hand and feels for my pulse in a few different spots, closes his eyes and breathes deeply. Other hand. Then he looks at me: "Your heart isn't very healthy. Your liver and stomach aren't doing so well either; like 50%. Your thighs are probably sore, and you get exhausted easily." me in my head: ...I just want my shoulder to feel better.

He then proceeded to prove to me that my body was not functioning correctly. I had to hold up one arm and resist while he pressed down on it, then place the other hand on whatever part of my body was ailing; over my liver, stomach, heart, etc. When I could resist with more strength it meant that body part was doing good; if I was weaker though, man it's serious. We determined that my breathing was doing okay but, as he suspected, when I had my hand on my liver I could hardly put any resistance with the other arm. Then came the solutions, which involved scratching my head (REALLY HARD) with a comb, me rubbing my sternum, him stepping on my foot with his heel, and him poking my back (also really hard) to fix my heart problems. Finally we got to the aching shoulder; he determined that my shoulder was hurting because my head right above my right ear was struggling. Arm up, hand on head: yep, I couldn't resist for even a whole second. The solution for this problem included hand massage, punching my arm, and me going "ow ow ow bu yao BU YAO" and as a result I've got a gnarly bruise on my bicep.

In conclusion, Chinese medicine is awesome.

As for how missionary work is going this week, man Shalu is awesome. We are meeting with an AWESOME couple named Titan and Vivi. They just love reading the Book of Mormon together. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and they had tons of great questions and it all totally made sense to them. They did a lot of "ohhh I see" during the lesson in unison, it's pretty cute. Seriously, it just builds my testimony so much that no matter how many times we get rejected and people don't want to meet with us, there are still people who are so prepared to listen to the gospel.

oh also don't forget to make New Year's resolutions! One of my goals is to say something in Chinese every day this year and to not get married.

Love you all! Hope you have a great week. 

Sister Cardon

Picture: There's like a Seaport Art Museum right next to our house with really pretty architecture!

Happy Christmas!

Merry merry Christmas! Oh wait, can I still say that? This morning when we were talking to the Zone Leaders they said, "We don't know how to contact people these last two days; Christmas is over and we can't say "Happy New Year" yet!" I am of the persuasion that there is no limit to when you can wish others happy Christmas greetings.

And we have had a great Christmas! Here's a list of all the Christmasy activities we did this week. Oh and keep in mind that a few weeks ago I bought a box of 280 candy canes from Costco, so pretty much all of these activities involved me pulling out candy canes from my pockets and handing them to people.

Monday: FHE where we talked about Christmas traditions and watched an old church video about the Christmas story

Tuesday: Caroling with a group from the ward; we were on exchanges and I was leading the area (which I have only been in for a week) so we did a lot of calling people and asking how to get to places. It was way fun! I found a Lindt chocolate truffle in someone's candy dish and it made me happy.

Wednesday: a member brought us a TON of food from Costco, including a real live pumpkin pie. It was the most delicious thing ever. And for our English spiritual share we sang some songs and watch a video.

Thursday: In the morning we went to an old folks' home and performed with a bunch of little kids: we shared the Christmas story, the elders both dressed up like Santa, we sang a few songs, and made little origami Santas. In the evening we went caroling again and someone gave us kind of spicy ginger tea. In the evening Sister Graham and I opened up our Christmas pajamas, read the Christmas story together, sang a few songs, and snuggled safe in our beds.

Friday: CHRISTMAS! We got up in the morning, opened our presents (we filled each others' stockings), made a delicious breakfast with French Toast and dragonfruit and hot chocolate and then headed to a member's house to SKYPE! so fun. Love my family. We ended up going to the member's daughter's school to sing again, had lunch with the family, handed out stickers at another school, did weekly planning, and went to our ward party. DUDE. So much food. There were 5 tables full of food and dessert and hot Kool-aid and cabbage and weird rice things wrapped in leaves. Haha, the whole evening there was this member who kept coming to me and telling me what I needed to try and what not to eat, and she told me how much she loved Madonna and asked me what the name on my passport said. She was hilarious.

So that was our Christmas week! It sure was fun. It made me feel really good to be able to talk to so many people and spread Christmas cheer. I am so happy that I can serve here in Shalu! It's windy and cold and big, but it's great. I'm so grateful that the Savior was born and that I get to be here and spread the message. And I get to meet so many cool people! We found some new investigators this week who are really interesting; they don't have a car because global warming, they've visited the temple in Portland, and they are way prepared to hear the gospel. Miracles!

Love you all! Hope you all have fun with your Christmas presents, but don't shoot your eye outov

Sister Cardon

Mission Tour!

I feel like the past few weeks have given me an opportunity to do a lot of reflecting, and the reason is that I am coming up on a year of being in Taiwan. What? This week we had our once-a-year mission tour, where we have an opportunity to hear from our mission president and a special guest, a member of the Seventy. The reason this is so weird is because when I first came to Taiwan LAST year we had mission tour with Elder Gong, who was just called to be in the Presidency of the Seventy but right now is the Asia Area President. So for me to attend Round 2 of misison tour with Elder Sam Wong was just, like, super weird. Aah! I'm old! Okay no more of that.

And mission tour was so great! We were lucky enough to be in the Jiayi chapel, 3 minutes from our house, so that was nice that we didn't have to travel far. The tour was over three days, so on Wednesday they met with missionaries in Taizhong, Thursday with us including missionaries from Zhongxing, Tainan, and Jiayi, and then on Thursday they went down to Gaoxiong. It was pretty neat! It was so cool to hear from our leaders. Elder Wong is hilarious with his Cantonese accent and funny comments. He's also a leader who just kind of wings it with the program, but I'll talk about that in a minute. President Blickenstaff talked about D&C 6 and how we need to repent and not be cumbered with things. Sister Blickenstaff talked about John 6 and believing in Christ. We had Costco pizza for lunch and I had plenty of time to get really nervous for the part after lunch, when I was singing in a musical number.

The time came and we went up to sing our number, "I Believe in Christ." We had a quartet with me, Sister Ashby, Elder Smith, and Elder Johnson, and the very talented Elder Crockett who just made up his own arrangement on the piano. It was kind of funny like the day before we were performing he was like, "hey do you think we should do the last verse in a different key?" (keep in mind this is after we had already added an a capella part and made up our own stuff to split parts on the fourth verse, etc) and even though changing the keys always works I just had to be like NO TOO MUCH. It was a really great musical number though, and it really brought the Spirit to the meeting. The coolest part though, was at the end when Elder Wong was wrapping up. We were about to have testimonies from missionaries who are going home soon and then the meeting usually ends with the president authority (Elder Wong) giving a testimony as well. But this time he was like, "You know, usually I would be the last speaker of the meeting but the missionaries who sang the musical number did so well that I'm just going to have them come up here and sing the last verse of their song again instead. They're just going to give my testimony for me. And that will be the closing song as well." OKAy I guess we're singing again! it was a pretty neat experience. And then afterwards Elder Wong asked us to sing the last two verses again so he could get a recording of it. So now there's a member of the Seventy with a recording of me singing on his phone. That's pretty sweet.

So it's been a pretty good week! We have seen lots of miracles and we have lots of investigators who are progressing. One cute girl named Cindy said, "I'm not entirely sure why I want to be baptized, but I know that it feels good and I want to do it." 

OH I totally forgot to talk about the other awesome thing that happened this week: we got to go to a wedding! A member in our ward was getting married this weekend but her new husband is not a member, so they had the wedding at the chapel. It was really interesting. It was kind of a mix of a wedding, a sacrament meeting (this lady gave a talk and started going off on how her kids went on missions), and a wedding reception. It was pretty fun though and the food was tasty and now I've been to a Taiwanese wedding. Sort of.

So yeah! good week. I'm happy and loving Taiwan, my companion is great, and we see miracles every day.

Love you all!

Sister Cardon

November Has Come

And here we are, already halfway through Sister Thao's last transfer in Taiwan! It's a little crazy how fast time goes by. How on earth is it already November?! Last November was the month I came to Taiwan in the first place. What the heck?

Life is good in Jiayi. We are seeing a lot of success in finding new investigators, setting dates for baptismal goals, getting lessons, etc. Seriously, I can't even believe how great this area is. The only problem is getting people to come to church, but that's the thing that is really hard for missionaries to control so I don't feel too bad about it. We'll just keep on keeping on!

We have a really awesome investigator named Rebecca. Well, she's sort of an investigator? Before I came here Sister Thao and her companion would just go out to lunch with her sometimes because she (Rebecca) recently became Buddhist and just wanted to have friends but was not interested in the gospel. Recently, though, she has been asking a lot more question about God and prophets and the commandments we follow (which are like, everything that devout Buddhists do)(except being vegetarian)(Buddhists can stick with that). Rebecca is really funny and speaks English most of the time and is super spontaneous. Yesterday after we chatted for a long time and then went home she texted us and was like, "Hey if I want to get baptized can I do it before Sister Thao leaves?" What? we hadn't ever even talked to her about baptism. It's pretty awesome to see how the gospel can change people in just a short time. We are going to keep working with her and help her to have a desire to be baptized (for the right reasons haha, not as a goodbye present to Sister Thao). Miracles!

Other things that happened this week:

I went to Mission Leadership Council last week in Taizhong and it was super exhausting. We took the train up to Taizhong and then sat there and did missionary meeting stuff for like 6 hours and took the train home. But we had a delicious lunch! And it was cool to see all of the mission leaders in one place trying to figure out how to help our mission improve. I felt very inspired. And I asked Elder Stevenson how his dad is doing. He said he is stressed out. 

Halloween! We celebrated by having a birthday party at a member's house, because Elder Robinson's birthday is in November. They had a cake with a picture of Elder Robinson's face printed on it in frosting. It was pretty hilarious.

And I can't really think of anything else to share for this week. I went on exchanges with Sister Ashby from my MTC district! That was fun.

Have a good week!

Sister Cardon

Pictures: We went on exchanges to Xinying this week and I don't know why but they have statues of deer, like, everywhere.

I decided to wear an elephant dress today. It is green.

This Email is Mildly Mediocre

It'd be great if I could tell you all the cool stories that happened this week, but I can't. If I told you, I'd have to kill you. And I can't, because my license to kill was revoked. So that's too bad.

Okay, not really. But, I can't really tell you any cool stories because I legitimately cannot think of anything cool that happened this week.

So I'll tell you some of the mundane things that happened this week!

Sister Thao and I are both almost out of money for the month so we have been eating $35 (that's Taiwanese money) bowls of turkey rice for, like, every other meal.

We spent a lot of time calling people last-minute to come to lessons with our investigators and we had some success, but also some unsuccess. We will plan better this week.

This morning we went to the hospital because Sister Thao has a wart on her foot and on the way there we had to wait for the train for 40 minutes but on the way back we had to run to make it.

I'm mildly addicted to the Butter Milk Bread they sell at 7-11. It's delicious and full of white flour.

We biked to our secondary area on Saturday, but we didn't really have a good map of the area, so we did a lot of "Do you know where this neighborhood is?" and people pointed us in vague directions. Finally after about an hour and a half of biking we found the neighborhood, but the house numbers didn't make any sense. Then we finally found the house, but when we got there a grumpy man told us that the lady we were trying to find hadn't lived there for ten years. We then went to 7-11 and had microwave dinners.

Yesterday at FHE we played a game kind of like "Big Booty" but with animal signs instead and it was really fun. Got a little rowdy. No one was hurt.

We are going to go shopping in Xinying today.

I am in charge of putting together a musical number for zone conference next week! So that is fun. We are having a quartet sing "I Believe in Christ." It should go well. 

And that concludes the mundane for this week.

Something that has been great about this week, though, is that we have some really great investigators who have a desire to learn. We met with Angela and Rainy last week and set baptismal goals with them, and this week when we met with them again and asked, "How do you feel about your baptism?" they both were really excited. Angela was worried that the baptismal interview would be a test about the Book of Mormon haha. it's really great to see them start to progress and build their testimonies and come closer to God. And I've noticed about myself that I have become much better at really listening to people and trying to figure out what they need and ask questions. Like, I always have tried to be friends with my investigators, but now I feel I can connect with them a lot more (Chinese helps) and really be on the same page. It's so important to really understand people and listen them. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care! True facts.

Love you all! Have a great week.

Sister Cardon

Pictures: from our long bike ride on Saturday

...I don't really have any more pictures. Man, I was really bad at taking pictures this week! I will do better next week.

Anyone for Turkey Rice?

You know, I've decided I'm just going to stop trying to predict where I am going to be and who my companion is going to be and stuff, but recently it's usually just ended up being wrong. I was all settled and ready to spend another six weeks in Shizhong with my cute Korean Sister Eo, and then at 10:28 on Saturday night I got a phone call. "Sister Cardon," President Blickenstaff said. "I would like you to serve as a Sister Training Leader in Jiayi with Sister Thao. Is that okay?" "No, that's not okay," I responded. haha I'm just kidding I didn't say that. I think I kind of sputtered and mumbled and said umm yes at some point. Wait but I'm not kidding that I've been called to serve as an STL, which is pretty exciting! For those of you unfamiliar with the organization of a mission, we have various leadership positions such as zone leaders and district leaders, who both lead and help other missionaries and report numbers and stuff. But there's also Sister Training Leaders, who are called to help the sisters in their zone. The difference that it makes to me now is that I will be going on exchanges a lot more often, I get to make a lot more phone calls, and I will definitely be striving to increase my humility and faith. I've had several very good STLs on my mission so far and I hope that I will be able to help the sisters in my zone as those ones have helped me.

New area! Jiayi is more in the middle of Taiwan, between Taizhong and Tainan. They are famous for eating Turkey Rice and having nice people. I already love it here; the city has a great small-town feel and the streets are small. Wow, I really did miss having just two-lane roads while I was in Shizhong. I am so excited to be here for the next while. I will likely be here for 3 months at least; this is Sister Thao's last move call so she wil be going home in six weeks, so I will be probably be here for at least a transfer after that. And then I only have one more transfer left myself, so this very well might be the last time I move until I go to America. But we don't talk about that. 

Fun facts about Sister Thao: her family has 8 people and they are Hmong! She grew up in Wisconsin and speaks three languages (English, Chinese, Hmong). She is great. 

As for this past week in Shizhong, it was pretty good! We had an English party that was... fairly successful. Lots of people came. It was Halloween-themed. Note to all: don't try to make toilet paper mummies at a Taiwanese Halloween party unless you want it to end up like snow in the cultural hall.

The best part of this week, of course, was listening to General Conference! I love Conference. It was so neat to hear the testimonies of our inspired leaders, especially the three new apostles. Did anyone catch that Elder Stevenson's son is serving in Taiwan? Did anyone think to ask me if maybe that son is serving as a zone leader in Taizhong right now? Yeah that's right. Our mission has an apostle's son. No I haven't ever actually met him. But I probably will at the next mission leadership conference! So that's cool.

I was struck by how many speakers in conference spoke on the theme of obedience, even if that wasn't necessarily their topic. I feel like we are being reminded more and more that each of us needs to develop our personal testimony and stay true to the standards and commandments we believe. It is so important for us to be strong examples of the believers and remember the covenants and promises we believe! One of my favorite talks was from Larry S Lawrence, who spoke about the Spirit and how we can ask to know what ways we can improve. I loved all the examples he gave, even such little things such as interrupting people or complaining can hinder us from spiritually progressing. I think we can all relate that we have little quirks and habits that we can try to improve. And the cool thing is, we aren't alone in trying to change ourselves! We have the Savior and the Atonement by our side to help us get through it.

Love you all! Hope you have a great week and find ways to improve.

Sister Cardon

A Korean and an American walk into a barbecue...

First of all, Happy Mid-Autumn festival! This week has been full of barbecues and moon cakes and it has been great. There's also a typhoon happening today so the ward barbecue got cancelled. But that's okay. Mid-Autumn festival is another chance for people to take the day off when people don't really know what the holiday is about and get the family together. And I love a good Taiwanese barbecue; there's a distinct lack of hamburgers and potato salad but a whole bunch of anything else you could think of to barbecue: thin pork slices, sausage, mushrooms, baby bamboo, etc. It's pretty good. Yeah. Taiwan.

I love my new area! Shizhong is great. I've been pretty lucky to have served in a wide range of areas: rural rice fields, friendly neighborhood feel, college campus, and now the downtown. Seriously, if you're ever along and life is making you lonely you can always come to Shizhong. We've got glitzy malls and expensive hot pot and giant roads and a subway system. Hey this is the first time I've really had a subway system in my area! That's cool. Shizhong is also beautiful; we got the Love River running right through our area so we get to bike over plenty of bridges and contact people sitting along the river enjoying the lights in the evening. It's pretty great. The only downside is that our apartment (a super NICE apartment reminiscent of our apartment in Beijing 4 years ago) is like 20 minutes away from everything and we have to bike over a huge bridge to get home. Get some serious thigh burn every morning. It's great.

And I love my companion! She is Korean and cute. Oh I think I never mentioned her name: Sister Eo! (you say it "oh") But her Chinese name is "Yu Jie Mei": Sister Fish. She reads and writes English pretty well but doesn't speak it much, so we just speak Chinese to each other all the time. It's pretty funny sometimes. For instance (this was all spoken in Chinese):

Me: We could now grab the thing or go church grab the thing.

Sister Eo: ...I don't understand.

Me: ...yeah me neither.

Sister Eo: Grab the thing now or at church grab?

Me: Yeah.

Sister Eo: ...the same.

Me: Yeah.

Haha it's great. We're both doing our best. Her Chinese is awesome; she lived in Harbin, China for a year and speaks and reads really well. We're both learning!

You know, it is the coolest thing how just when you are kind of down or discouraged, Heavenly Father sends you some tender mercies to lift you up. Yesterday was kind of a low-key Sunday and we both had a bit of ennui. We had a lessons with some new investigators who weren't that interested and don't live in our area, and when we called a less active member she said she didn't want to meet with us and waste both of our time. Ouch! But we decided to go out tracting and try to find some families at home. Found a street, starting going down in and realized every single house had a giant Buddhist altar in the living room. Knocked on one door and a guy kind of angrily opened the mailbox peephole thing and said a Korean missionary came a few days ago, I didn't want it then and I don't want it now, why won't you guys leave me alone? (I'm not sure who is going around Shizhong parading as my companion, but we definitely did not knock on that door recently.)

BUT then we walked a little further and ran into the cutest scene ever: a family having a barbecue. They had two cute little kids and they immediately invited us to sit down and eat with them, you two are so beautiful where are you from, have some more pork, oh you are missionaries that's so great of you! It felt so nice to sit down and be a family with them. They brought out little sparklers and there were fireworks in the distance and for all intensive purposes it could have been a 4th of July barbecue with my cousins. Except, we were all speaking Chinese. And they offered us beer. But.

In conclusion, you know, God really watches out for all of His children. He cares about each of us and He wants us all to be happy. He knew I needed to have that virtual hug, and He knew that family needed to meet the missionaries and find out how they can be happy like that forever. We are going to go back next week and I can totally see them coming to church and learning about the gospel and getting baptized one day. Woohoo! Miracles happen.

Love you all! Hope you had a wonderful Mid-Autumn Festival as well.

Sister Cardon

Super Great

Sorry guys, shorter email this week because I am almost out of time!

We've had a good 10 days since I emailed. Tracting in the hot sun. Lessons on random doctrinal things. Stake Conference! I should drink more water.

Most humbling moment: Usually when I say something wrong in Chinese it is just with my companion and is not too big of a deal, because she knew what I meant to say, etc. Well, last week we were in Sunday School talking about missionary work, so of course the missionaries were called upon to share. And elder was talking about how even though it is hot and you are getting rejected and you are really tired, you can still be happy. For some reason I decided to pipe in, "or if you are really wet!" in the middle of his share. "Shi1 shi1 de", wet. Well, after I said it I realized that no one really gave any sort of response, not even like a pity chuckle. There was just sort of an awkward silence and then I heard someone behind me whisper to their neighbor, "what does that mean?" I turned around. "Shi shi de, like when it rains." Then the chorus of understanding was let out, "ohhhh shi shi de like when it's raining and you are all wet" "oh okay she was talking about rain" "yeah like really wet." I was super confused on why everyone had reacted that way when finally someone was like "we thought you said 'or if you're dead.' "

Super cool stake conference this week: Elder Wong of the Seventy came to visit Tainan and we had some awesome sessions on Saturday night and Sunday morning. He is super funny and was getting all involved with the audience asking question and stuff on Saturday night. The cool thing is that he is actually from Hong Kong so doesn't speak Mandarin fluently; he speaks it really well, but sometimes he would pause and say things a few times to get the tones right. It made me feel better that if a Seventy is struggling with Chinese, I can struggle a little too. The main theme on Saturday was keeping the Sabbath day holy and really appreciating it, so he had this thing where he asked everyone to tell him what sort of things are distracting during sacrament meeting and how to fix it, "so we can help those other countries that struggle with these problems." At one point he said that missionaries often worry about what the speakers in sacrament meeting will talk about in case their investigator would think it was weird, and I guess I nodded a little too emphatically because he called on me and said, "This sister is very brave, she is saying the talks in her sacrament meeting are bad! Why don't you tell us something that can help investigators and members in that case?" oops. So I stood up and started talking and said that we should remember to testify of Christ in sacrament meeting, not ourselves. Always a good thing.

On Sunday his theme was talking about going from "great" to "super great" and it was a good reminder that no matter how great we are doing, we can always take that extra step to be super great.

Love you all! Have a good week.

An American in Tainan

This has been a pretty fabulous week, if I do say so myself. I don't really know how to organize this email very well, so I'm just going to have a bunch of little paragraphs of the funny and awesome things that make up my life right now.

My companion: I love being with Sister Shen so much. Her English is FABULOUS and she loves missionary work. She's hilarious and we can easily chat for hours. It's so cool to be able to speak Chinese all the time; I'm stuck between feeling like I'm really improving and feeling like Wow I really don't know a lot of Chinese. Because, like, her Chinese is awesome. Duh. So we are having a lot of fun.

Tainan is great, though a lot different from the areas I've served in before. It is actually the second smallest area in the mission. Like, we can bike from the north to the south border in 15 minutes, and east to west in maybe 30 minutes, and it's all city. Compare that to my first area in Gangshan where if we legitimately biked from one end to the other it would probably take 3 hours. Maybe 4. So it's super tiny and often when we contact people they don't live in our ward, but in the Tainan 1st or 3rd or 4th ward. There are a whole bunch of little streets everywhere and it's kind of like a maze. I can get to the church by myself now though! So that's fun.

I also am in a bigger missionary district now, with 5 companionships (3 elders, 2 sisters) and it's a blast. I'm serving in the same ward with an elder from my MTC district, which is fun, and his companion is also Taiwanese. So sometimes we are just surrounded by Taiwanese people and I'm like Wow you are all talking really fast. I'm not sure my head can fit quite that much Chinese in it at once. But I'll get used to it. 

People here are so nice! Some people say that the further south you go in Taiwan, the more relaxed and nicer people are. I don't know how much that's true, but the first few days here I was really impressed with how nice people are. Like, in Taizhong on the street maybe 70% of people will take the flier you give them, but here it's more like 90%. So that's cool! And our first day tracting we met two people who were happy let us come back. And the ward is super nice; we actually live on the floor above some really strong members and they invite us to dinner every Sunday.

Someone told me the other day that they have a joke; when someone is taking a long time doing something the other person will say, "Come on hurry up, we don't have American time here!" So the other day I said that to the other American and everyone laughed.

There was a baptism on Saturday that we went to and a lady came up to me, pulled up her skirt to show me she was wearing purple shorts and said, "I wear these for safety. When I ride a scooter the wind blows my skirt around. But it's not for my safety; it's for everyone's safety so they don't see me and get in an accident!" Hahahaha. I love old Taiwanese ladies.

Yep, life is good. I'm excited about my area and my companion and I love Taiwan. 

Oh, I almost forgot! I officially hit my year mark on my mission last week. I think I might be an old missionary. So weird! I'm down to a little more than 6 months. Crazy.

Love you all!

Sister Cardon

PS Pathetic that this was the only picture I have of the two of us. I will strive to take more pictures next week.

Proud to Be an American

Happy Fourth of July weekend from Taiwan! No, no fireworks. No one put their American flag out. No striped bunting. Only a few people sporting red, white, and blue. Indeed, the only patriotism I felt on Saturday was the America that we brought in our hearts.

ACTUALLY that's not true because we did end up having a super awesome American Style Barbecue for a ward activity! Last month the missionaries in Daya and Tanzi got together and decided we wanted to hold a church tour and barbecue together, just like they did on the District. So we made it happen and it was super great! It was also a good example of problem solving, because we had a lot of random little problems come up that we just had to figure out, For example:

We planned a sponge-and-bucket relay game but no one bought buckets. Let's ride to the junk store and buy them right now!

Ran out of water balloons in the middle of the game. Fill up some more!

The tour was supposed to start at 10:45 and last an hour, but they actually started at 10:30 and were done by 11:15. We told everyone to go up to the chapel and just started singing hymns, and the elders made an impromptu a capella men's quartet. It was great.

Games were supposed to last until 1:30. but everyone just decided to go home by 1:15. More clean up time!

Overall, it really was a great activity. A member brought his food truck and made a bunch of hamburgers that tried SO HARD to be real American hamburgers but didn't quite make it. Also, I'm not sure why Taiwanese think a dark green drink made out of leaves with black tree fungus in it makes an appropriate beverage for a barbecue but like, whatever totes your goat. After we were done cleaning up a memeber asked all of the missionaries to come into a classroom and sing The Star-Spangled Banner for a random class that was happening. We sounded pretty stellar. And don't worry,. we sang lots of Neil Diamond in the apartment. And biking on the way to church.

So, it was a successful weekend. Other highlights of the week include Zone Training meeting (which for some reason always includes missionaries doing a ridiculous skit that's pretty hilarious) and interviews with President and Sister Blickenstaff. Every three months we get to have a 12 minute interview with our mission president and it's really nice, you always learn a lot. I always sort of wish I could record the whole thing so I could remember all of the fabulous advice he gave me. One thing he told me was that one of the best gifts you can give to your companion is to just be happy and have a good attitude all the time. Duh! Attitude is everything. I know that when we are happy in doing the Lord's work (and just like, all the time) then life really is good. Gray skies are going to clear up! Haha gray skies would be really nice right now. It's hot.

Love you all! Hope you had a good American weekend.

Sister Cardon

Pictures: 

Water balloon toss! A Fourth of July favorite.

Impromptu missionary choir! 'Murica.

Cows and Marriage

This was one of those weeks when you are like, super tired at the end of Sunday night, and you're really ready for P-day, but that just makes it so you feel like you accomplished the things you needed to! We had a good week this week. We found some awesome new investigators, including a cool young mom from China who was super direct in the lesson. "What is it you want me to do when we are meeting?" "Am I supposed to memorize scriptures every day?" She was seriously super cool. And willing to set up for next week! Yay! 

Hmm what else. Ate some good food this week, the members are always so generous and willing to invite us over to eat. We have a new Ward Mission Leader, who is a member who works closely with the missionaries to help do missionary work in the ward, and we are helping him get settled and ready to work. Our ward really is awesome! I was thinking the other how great it is to have good relationships with the members in Daya and how we all work together and I know that they support us. And our district is working well together in helping our investigators get baptized. Tracy is still on her way to being baptized on Friday; we had a bit of a scare when we couldn't figure out a time that President Blickenstaff and her both had free to do an interview. I think I made like 12 phone calls about the same thing yesterday. Maybe that's why I was so tired.

It's still hot and sweaty, I'm realizing again that there's a lot of Chinese I don't know (and that it's super hard to understand people from Northern China), and sometimes I forget to drink water. I've got a super fabulous farmer's tan. Little 70-year-old Taiwanese grandmas are like my favorite people ever. My companion and I are pretty hilarious together.

Funny thing that happened in Chinese this week: the word for "finish" is "jieshu" and the word for "marriage" is "jiehun," which are super different to Chinese people but easily mixed up for Americans. So after we finished a game in FHE the other day one of the elders said, "alright, we're married!" He's going home next month. The other elders teased him pretty hard about it.

Last Monday we had a fun day and went to a place called Donghai to take pictures in front of a cool church. We met up with the sisters over there (SO fun, man I never get to hang out with sisters) and took cute pictures and ate Korean food and ice cream. We were walking around the college campus there where they have a college dairy and homemade ice cream. The outside of the building is painted like a cow and you can go and see the cows. It was super funny though because the Taiwanese girls we were with were like, "Hey, we can go see the cows!" "Yeah that sounds fun, let's see the cows!" and we're like, "...yes. Cows." Cows are not a super common thing here, it turns out. But chickens are! And turns out they have chickens that have black meat. Like, literally the bones and meat of the chicken are black. We ate some last night. It was a little disconcerting.

So that's about it! I've been working on improving my teaching skills and being nice and working with my companion. We are having a good time. We've figured out that it is possible to give your companion a bite of the doughnut you were eating while you are both riding in motion, so I guess you could say our bike skills are pretty serious. Except for the time I swerved to avoid a guy sticking his cigarette out the window and I accidentally bumped into her and we both went AAHH for a bit. Life is good!

Love you all!

Sister Cardon

sorry no pictures this week because this computer is struggling.

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.

A Pretty Solid Week

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.

Fire in Daya (like the fire of the GOSPEL)‏

(Ellyn was having email issues, so I am forwarding this week's letter)

I would call it a solid week this week! Well, at least a not-too-bad week. We were so happy that Jill was baptized last week, but now it suddenly seems like we don't have any investigators to work with. But that's okay, we are going to go find new people and invite them to be baptized and it's going to be great. Oh wait we do have one awesome girl named Monica who is one of our English students and is willign to try praying and reading and she is making progress. It's so cool to be able to share with someone that they can pray to their Heavenly Father and the next time you talk to them hear them say that prayer gave them a really happy feeling. Yeah it does!

Hmm other things this week. The area we live in has a lot of factories and the other day we saw a lot of smoke coming from a couple blocks away from the church. We kind of just stood there and looked for a little while but then a member who was meeting with us came in and said "We have to get out right now, that's a toxic chemical fire!" so we left and biked a little farther away (I wasn't sure if going outside was safer than staying inside or not...) and eventually got where we didn't smell smoke anymore and then it cleared up pretty fast and in conclusion I'm not dead yet.

It's pretty much 85-90 degrees like every day now but I actually don't mind very much. I'm probably going to mind a little more in July. Hey wait I just remembered there's a cake store called 85 degrees. I should get some cake on a day when it is that temperature. It's super humid and our study room does not have an air conditioner but we're surviving. You know what, I actually do love it. I'm really not much of a summer person but I really am just so happy to be here in Taiwan and speaking Chinese and helping people find the gospel that it just doesn't matter that much to me. 

Well, in all honestly I can't think of much else to say. There was a Buddhist parade the other day. We go to this one Teppanyaki place so often that the workers are our friends (and made sure we didn't drink the black tea). My companion is super awesome and willing to talk even though Chinese is hard. I was able to read three whole sentences in Chinese this morning where I only didn't know one character. Life is good!

Love you all!

Sister Cardon

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