Run Forest Run!

More like Bike Henry Bike! 

This week we had a lot of hills. Whether it was biking up the biggest mountain in Taiwan to meet with a less active family or a day where no one would meet with us and all our lessons were cancelled. (Those are more of the downhill kinds of days). Uphill days are pretty hard but they get better and better and are very satisfying at the end, whereas, downhill days can be fun but you don't feel success because anyone can ride downhill right? 

This week we had two days that fit specifically into each of those two categories. We will start with the good day. 

10-17-14 - I wrote in my journal: "WOAH! Today was an awesome day!" But that doesn't do it justice. We saw so many miracles and too many blessings to count. We started out the proselyting day by riding up a hill that was at the base of a mountain to meet with a man named George. George was originally from Taiwan but when he was young, he made it to American. There, he built a family and for 40 years he worked in America. When his business got successful he decided to take it to China, but in China he got very sick and traveled to Taiwan for health care. When he recovered and tried to leave they would not let him. So his family is back in the U.S.A. in Arcadia California, and he is still trying to return. But until he can return he is living in the most ghetto part of our area. 

this is a little alleyway in the back of the most populated street of our city

It is pretty low down and pretty much free. It houses a lot of people with disabilities and troubles. But he is an awesome and hopeful guy. He hopes to be baptized before he leaves and has already sent his family as a referral across the seas. His date is for the 8th of November and he is so prepared. We are teaching two lessons a week and really just trying to get him to church. The church is the hard part because he lives so far away from the building and can't walk too well because he is about 60. 

Plus the members mostly don't have cars so it is really hard to get him there. But he has a few friends that have sat in on our lessons and they want to come too. Anyways, we taught the Plan of Salvation and it was awesome!! 

Then we biked around trying to find more people to teach and we met Seth. He is 15 or so, and he gave us his number to meet again and he even said his own prayer with us! So that was another miracle right there. The lesson itself was short and sweet because it was a street contact. 

Then we met with Liu Jeimei at McD's. She is about 16 but she lies about her age every time haha. She ranges from 15-18 mostly. The lesson went well and she is awesome. She can't drive though and her family kind of opposes, so getting her to church is also a problem. But she is going against her parents a little because she believes our message! It is awesome haha. 

these are baozi's they are boiled bread filled with meat.
For two of them and a drink (preferably wintermelon tea) it is about $1 dollar

When our lesson was over we went and grabbed some Baozi's which are boiled bread with meat or red bean paste in them. And they are soo good!! 

Then we rode up the mountain and met with the Jiang Jiating who is a less active family and we committed them to get to the temple to be sealed as a family and the lesson went well. They had been inactive for 7 years and don't remember a thing. We taught them about Joseph Smith and it was awesome! By that time we had about a half hour left and so we dropped by Pan Dixion's work, which is a lottery ticket shop, and helped him better understand the beauty of the Holy ghost and it's many shapes and forms in which it communicates with us.

That concluded our amazing day, and the next day went as follows. 

We biked around for the entire day and prayed and prayed and were just not seeing any luck. I was getting pretty down after just having been so high up the day before. But then we saw a guy across the street. We went over. He gave us water and sat us down in his office. There we shared with him about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. His name was Jiang and he invited us to come back! So we have a lesson with him coming up, but even though he didn't really understand a lot of what we said about Joseph or the Book of Mormon, he was very interested. 

we found a cougar sweatshirt in the middle of taiwan

So the moral is even during times where you feel as low as possible, pray and have hope. God answers prayers and will bless you. The hardest days sometimes have the most powerful rewards. Tell Emma and her whole family to write me!! 

Tell adel to wait for two more years for marriage

Thank you and I LOVE YOU TO DEATH

Elder Christensen

dry tofu which is real good

korn dorf is like porridge but with spices and stuff

that's a giant golden lion we found

p.s. ok.. I have a few minutes left of computer time.

I am about to bike up to this memorial place. 

Apparently there was this president guy who made tons of statues of himself and the people hated him so when he died they just threw them statues up into the mountains so they are all up at this place and we are going to check it out. But first we have to eat lunch at McD's. I haven't eaten at a Taiwanese one yet so wish me luck. haha I have heard it is better just like everything else here. More and more I want to open up a Chinese food restaurant. They have some dang good food here.