Weekly Howdy-do

Well, this week was a little less eventful than usual. Not because we weren't working. Just because a lot of our investigators have had some situation or another prevent them from meeting with us this week. On Tuesday I did get to attend a leadership training meeting, which was really awesome. The topic was on establishing the church, and there were several smaller training segments on how we can do that. We learned how to find families to teach, how to obtain member referrals, how to rescue less-actives, and a couple other things. It was really great, and I learned a lot of things I could start doing immediately to improve my proselyting. President Bishop has made a couple of big changes in the last couple weeks, all of which are geared toward helping us focus more on our purpose and on being consecrated missionaries. For instance, he basically got rid of the Taichung Mission Rules because he wants us to govern ourselves based on the principles in the Missionary Handbook. He's turning the mission more toward really establishing the church, helping it become a strong and permanent thing here in Taiwan. He's gearing us to seek more referrals from members rather than spending all day every day contacting. I really like what he's doing. I know he's an inspired servant of the Lord and that the changes he's making will help strengthen the church and the members in Taiwan.

Elder Larson and I have actually had some troubles finding new investigators this week, so we've been working hard in that area. We spent one day this last week in a secondary area of ours, called ShenGang. I really didn't get lost (you'd be proud of me, Dad, not to mention that all the road signs were in Chinese), but we couldn't find a place to eat dinner when 5:30 rolled around. It was kind of ridiculous...I thought we were going to have to resort to buying cupcakes from the convenience store, but we finally found a noodle place. Speaking of convenience stores, there are 7-eleven stores all around Taiwan. There's also another chain called FamilyMart. Do they have those in America? I don't remember ever seeing them before.

So I ate a new food this week. Bamboo. I bet you didn't know anything besides pandas could eat bamboo, huh? But humans can too. Actually, I think what it was was the root of a bamboo sprout. It was actually really tasty--kinda juicy and potato-like. Elder Larson is actually really good about trying new kinds of food, and he got used to the food really fast. But he absolutely refuses to do stinky tofu. Every time we smell it on the road he yells in pain and cries for mercy. I keep warning him that if a member serves it to us we're both going to eat it and like it. He's a really funny guy and a hard-working Elder. I really enjoy serving with him.

Are you all excited for conference? We sure are. And you get to watch it a week before we do. Elder Larson is so excited for conference that he steals all the past conference issues of the Liahona and reads them.

Well, that's about it from me this week. I sure love you all! Talk to you next week.

Love,
Carter