Week 68

There was an Earthquake?

Happy Chinese New Year! Today is the first day of the Chinese calendar, the year of the monkey. Last night we were able to celebrate with the other elders in our district at the other elders' bishop's house. It is pretty crazy... we have been given so much food to eat! Also, everyone wants to give us red envelopes, which are usually full of money. We have a rule that we have to take these cards, because in the Chinese New Years culture you have to take red envelopes no matter what. So Elder Gasser and I are not even going shopping today because we have so much food from the members. We also have a lot of dinner appointments this week. This last week we have already been fed 3 times and I have gained 6 pounds!

And the earthquake in Tainan... I actually felt it. I was sleeping and woke up because it felt like my companion was shaking me awake.  But then I realized it was just an earthquake and went back to sleep. (There are a lot of small earthquakes that happen all the time here!) Then we woke up the next morning and everyone was telling us that it was a pretty big earthquake down south. Yesterday during fast and testimony meeting, a lot of members talked about the earthquake. It must have been a big deal, because everyone is still talking about it. Nothing really happened here where I am though. 

Oh, there is one more big thing that happened last week... President Blickenstaff called and asked if I would train a new missionary next week. I guess I know now why I moved so quick from Heng Chun.  President wanted me to get to know this new area a little before I started training. But I am still pretty worried about it... I am really new to this area and I still have investigators and members I haven't met yet. Because of Chinese New Year, most people cannot meet with us until after, so there are a lot of people who I have never met that I am going have to get a hold of after the celebrations are over.  We will see what happens. It's exciting I get to train though! The trainee is getting here this week on Wednesday fresh from the MTC and I will go up to Taichung to pick him up on Friday.

This next week will be an interesting week. Missionary work kind of shuts down for a week. Nobody really wants to listen to the gospel because they are all with family. We have meals to eat with members everyday and we are supposed to stay at each house for about 2 hours, because supposedly leaving any earlier than an hour is really disrespectful during Chinese New Year.  So, this next week will be a new experience for me!

Then we also met a really cool family this last week. They are the Yao Family. We tracted into them. It is a husband and wife who are about 50 years old. They have one son who is Japan right now. There were such a humble couple. They offered us so much food and they kept telling us how great of young people they thought we were. And when we started sharing the gospel they turned off their TV and sat in front of us ready to learn. It was a miracle!

Today we are going to a tourist trap city near the ocean. 

This week will be an exciting one for me! 

I love you guys!

Elder Quist