Jared 2-28

The language is abosolutely amazing, I love it. It's kind of weird tho, I thought that once I got to Taiwan all I would speak is Chinese. I figured my trainer would pretty much only speak chinese except in rare situations, but in reality, the majority of my time is spent in English. It's kind of a bummer, because by the end of my MTC experience I was almost completely in Chinese, and my Chinese was skyrocketing. Now it's at a little of a standstill, but I'm sure I'll go back to only Chinese when I know all the English things I need to. But yeah, the majority of lessons and what not I understand. Church is a little harder though, because they dont speak with you, and you can't make them keep repeating the same thing:P
Our ward is good. We have a ton of amazing members. Everyone here loves the missionaries, it's really quite amusing. There are quite a few inactive members, which is really too bad. We do what we can to help them, but our purpose is firstly to help people come unto to Christ, and so majority of our time is finding.
In the morning we wake up run, eat, and study until 10:30. From 10:30 to 9 we proselyte. In between teaching appointments, an meal times we consistantly contact. So on our way places we'll pull our bikes over and talk with people. Luckily the majority of people ride scooters so it's a lot easier to contact them. Car's also sometimes roll down the window. We very rarely go tracting (door to door). and 90% of the people here are fojiao (buddhist) and don't want to learn more, and 9% are "already Christian, we are the same." With little interest in the restoration of Christ's church.
Then there is the 1%. The one percent come from all backrounds, and are willing to meet with wai4 guo2 ren2 (the numbers are the tones *Natalie*) (Outsiders) for whatever reason. Willing to at leat sign up. This 1% is what we spend 85% of our time on. Out of this 1% about 1/150 will end up meeting with us, read scriptures, pray, come to church, and then enter the sacred convenant of baptism. These 1/150, is what we try to spend 70% of our time on. We are always trying to help them, they are our life.
As of right now our 1/150 are the Bai family, Duan family, and Chen dixiong
Bai family- absolutely wonderful. The husband has to get out his smoking problem, and they'll be baptised on the 19th. (only bai dixiong, and his wife)
Duan Family - They're actually new. Only met the dad, and his two kids, but they're super willing, and also super busy. The nicest thing about them is that they are reliable, when they weren't able to make an appointment, they called and changed the time. (I know that might sound pretty basic manners, but majority of people just don't come)
Chen dixiong (dixiong means brother in Chinese) - Umm... we don't know with him. We don't really know here he came from, but he loves coming to church. He comes to Church every Sunday. We meet with him about everyday, just share a little principle, and go. He has a baptismal date for the 19th, but he smokes also, and doesn't know he needs to stop (in fact he offerred me a smoke...)
We don't know what exactly happened to our vietnemese friend... Other people come and go, but for right now, that's who we are focusing on.
No we actually do not make our own food. We eat oatmeal everyday for breakfast, but besides that we eat out for every meal. Food here, like little side in the wall places are super cheap. Almost everyday we get an all you can eat meal for about 50 kuai (less than 2 dollars) and everything here is just amazing. It's actually cheaper to by food out than make it at home.
Well yeah that's the boat I'm in, it's pretty much amazing. We work, we work, we work, and we love to work. And you know what you do when you don't want to work? You repent, and get to work. I love the work, I love the food, and man... I LOVE these people
-Elder Tate
-Tang Zhanglao