"I Don't Mind The Heat Anymore!

 My question for Sister Peng this week:

Are you doing well?  I got another email regarding the seriousness of depression in the mission field from the Missionary moms site so I wanted to be sure.

I'm doing well! Really! Don't worry about me!  Yeah, I know about depression, but I think I've got myself pretty well handled.  When I start feeling a little blue, I sing or I eat chocolate... Singing and biking is one of my favorite pass times.... My companion thinks I'm weird.  If you want to help, send me lyrics to some songs that I can memorize and sing.  The ones in my head are getting a bit repetitive.  Disney songs would be great.  I have a hymn book to... I love going to 7-11s and family marts... they have English music....  Yup!  I'm very music deprived!  Church music is okay and all, but I'm going crazy.

Sister Peng and her bike

Dearest Madre and other terrestrial and extraterrestrial beings,

How are all of you?  I hope all of you are doing well, and that you are all still alive.  It’s weird being on a mission, I feel so excluded from the rest of the world.  Especially since we can't watch the news, look at news online, and I can't read the newspapers.  Of course, the Lord probably wants me to focus on the people here in Taiwan, but it's hard not knowing about what's going on in America....  I'm sure you are all fine, and that God is watching out for you.  I just miss you all!

Cool fact:  I finished my first move call here in Taiwan!!!  Yay!  Now onto my second!  My companion is on her 12th.  She's old.  Just kidding! Haha! She's not that old. :D  She's just more experienced. :D  Anyways, time is still moving quickly.  We've been so lucky with the weather! No rain (or very little rain while we are indoors) for a whole two weeks!!!  I've decided I don't mind the heat anymore.  I'm used to it.  I will go back to Utah, and I'll hopefully be grateful for all the extremes of weather we get there.  Taiwan has really flipped my perspectives about weather... Now I don't like rain.  In Utah, I loved the rain.  Here, I don't mind the heat.  In Utah, I am such a wimp about the heat.  Weird.....

Sister Peng's bike

Anyways, Last Monday was good.  Don't remember what I did... oh! I finally got a chance to send some letters!  They are more like notes... but yeah... we don't have time to ever write....  But if I don't write you, know that I still love you and care! I just don't have time!  Gah! That's one thing I wish I had more of.  Time.  But it just goes so quickly....  I need a time machine... or A Tardis... :P  Anyways, we haven't done anything really exciting on any of our p-days.  Just shopping.  Which is still okay.  Perhaps today I'll actually have an opportunity to buy a watch... My watch doesn't work anymore... and the strap broke... So I've been going through most of my day wondering what time it is, since my companion isn't very concerned with time.  You know me, I have to be on schedule for things... I always feel embarrassed if we are late to things.  My companion doesn't care.... But she's Taiwanese.  They are all laid back.

Happy Missionaries

Tired Missionaries

Tuesday was fun.  We got to go do a ZTM.  For ZTM we take our bikes by train to Feng Shan and go to their chapel.  During ZTMs we talk about our goals, we learn things that will help us be better missionaries, and then we practice the things we learned.  ZTMs always take up a lot of our day, mainly due to traveling...  But it's all good.  Oh, and while we were in Feng Shan, I had to do 2 of my Phase 1 pass offs. That was fun.  I was only a "little" stressed out.  But I'm glad I got it over with.  My companion and I bought Cold Stone after we got back to Ping Dong for a reward.  I love Cold Stone.  Especially when it is buy one get one free.  It takes me a few days to finish it, since I like savoring it.  I like ice cream in general.  Especially when in Taiwan, because it's super-duper hot here...

English Class "roller coaster' ride

On Wednesday, we had our English Party.  That was a busy, busy day.  All of it, pretty much, was spent preparing for the English party.  But it was a success!  So, our bishop wanted to do something with moon cakes since it's the Mid-Autumn festival here.  But since it's an English party, we had to figure out how to mesh moon cakes with American culture.  So we did an activity about the moon landing.  And had the people watch a clip about the moon landing.  The elders were so funny!  They taught the people who attended how to do their own roller coaster.  It doesn't make sense written down... ah well... People just pretend they are on a roller coaster, which involves a lot of waving your body to and fro with your arms above your head and a lot of saying "WHAOOO!!!"  Yup....  Anyways, the people who came also could learn how to make a type of moon cake with red bean and egg yolk in the middle.  They are so yummy! And so bad for you!  And they take forever to make...  But the activity was fun!  The missionaries were all running here and there just making sure everything was going smoothly.  So we were all exhausted at the end.

Sister Peng hard at work!

On Thursday, I got to teach Amber, so I taught in English.  English is hard to speak after not using it very often.  The lesson took forever, since Amber was distracted by her baby.  He's very... active.... very very active.  Anyways, so this week we've been so very very busy.  So on Thursday, we ate at McDonalds so we would also have a place to do our language study.  I thought it was so funny.  Liu JM ordered a Big Mac, the most American thing ever.  I ordered a curry rice fun wrap.  Which you can pretty much only find here.  It was so yummy!  Anyways, we always do things flipped.  She chooses American things, and I chose Taiwanese things.  :P

Friday and Saturday both started out with service projects, where we went to two member's gardens to "ba cao"  Which means to weed... which means to use a hoe and shovel and such to massacre weeds that have grown up to your knees in huge masses.  Everything grows like crazy here, since the soil is so rich.  But it makes "weeding" very difficult and not fun.  Everyone sweats buckets of sweat... it's gross... very gross...

Service project

Oh! On Saturday, we also had the opportunity to go to a park (we were waiting for a LA, who didn't show up).  But, the park had a pond with hundreds of huge fish.  They are huge since people feed them.  And since people feed them, they will gather together if you stand at the edge of the pond.  Since I didn't have any bread to give them, I tried sharing the message of the "Living Bread" (the gospel) but they didn't seem interested.  I hope I can be a better "fisher of men" then "fisher of fish" because those fish were not interested at all.

Sunday was good, as usual.  I love going to church!  I don't understand most of what's going on, but that's okay.  When I'm completely lost, I just read my scriptures, so I am still learning.  The people here are super nice, I love the ward.  :D

Anyways, yup.... Sorry, I got tired towards the end of this email.  I'm always tired.  But, I am pretty much always happy too, so it's all good! 

So, I guess I'll end with a spiritual thought.  As always! :D

I was reading the Liahona the other day, and I came upon a talk by President Uchdorf, that really was interesting.  It talked about the perspective of being in the "middle of things" Often in life we get caught up in the excitements of beginnings and endings.  But often times we forget about the middle.  We forget about the journey, which is perhaps the most important part.  Savor every day.  Don't live for the high points in life.  Make every moment a good moment.  Don't waste your days waiting for the next big event, holiday, etc.  Make every day count!

Sorry, I probably should go... I'm running out of time, and I still have to upload pictures!  Love you all!  See you in like 15 months! :D

Sister Peng