October 11, 2010

Hello again...but not from Donggang

Yes, that's right. I am not in Donggang anymore. Elder Bickmore is staying there for his FOURTH move call, and I have moved to Taizhong City! I'm out west in an area called DongHai, which means East Sea. And I'm in the west part of Taiwan. Go figure. Donggang means East Harbor, and that was in the west too. But yeah, here I am in a new internet cafe with my new companion, Elder Gardener. I meant to send you some pictures, but I forgot my cable, so next week will have to do. :) Never mind, Elder Gardener has a card reader he'll let me use. The pictures of the huge statue are at a Buddhist temple (miao) I took last preparation day. The big white statue is Mazu, and the happy fat Buddah is Mi-Le-Fo.

Well, my last week in Donggang was a good one. We continued to work hard and actually got a few of our investigators to come to conference. One lady didn't really like it. She made a beeline for the door right after the closing prayer. I thought it was absolutely amazing. I loved every second of it. Yes, there were bold words spoken against sin, but I loved what President Monson told us on Sunday morning: be grateful for the good in the world! It's a bad place, but there is still a lot of good going on. I realized I sometimes focus too much on what's wrong with the world and society than on what is good and praiseworthy.

And now I'm here in Donghai. See, the funny thing is that I didn't know I'd be moving until Saturday night at around 10pm. Up to that point, we thought for sure it would be Elder Bickmore moving, but the zone leaders called and said I'd be going to Taizhong City on Monday. So far it seems like a great place. There are a lot of good places to eat ( :D ) but more importantly, lots and lots of people who need the gospel. And here's another plus -- I'll get to go to the Taibei Temple this move call! I think it's sometime in November; we'll move our preparation day to Wednesday and go do a session at the temple. I'm excited for that. Excuse me while I go write my letter to President Bishop.

Well, I have about 8 minutes left. What fun things about Taiwan can I tell you? I'm drawing a blank. Here's something: my church building in Donggang was on the 2nd-4th floors of a high-rise that was 5 floors tall. Here in Donghai, our church is on the 19th floor of a big old high-rise. And apparently this area has a famous university, so it's somewhat of a college town.

Well, that's all my time for this week. I love you all so much, and I know Heavenly Father loves you even more! Have another great and fun week, and I'll talk to you again next Monday!

Love,

Carter