Ping Dong Ping Dong

hello family. i am still in ping dong! i love this city and am so glad i get to stay here. my new companion is elder upshaw he is from orem, utah. and has been in taiwan for about a year and a half. so his chinese is pretty good.

i am excited to be able to stay and see these new converts get baptized. really excited. well it was sad to see elder heder go. i really liked elder heder, we got along really well. he is a lot like me, he liked the outdoors and backpacking and stuff like that. and fishing too. so we talked a lot about that stuff. but my new companion seems good too. we are going to do well here in ping dong i think.

after this move i will have spent 4 and a half months here. i know this area like its my home because it is. i will be sad when i have to leave.

this morning i had to go to a funeral for a member in the other branch. she was only about 31. anyways, it was a really sad funeral, it was held in like this warehouse of a place and it was really noisy and just not very good. her family decided to have a traditional taiwanese funeral rather than a christian funeral. it was really sad. especailly because of the environment, it just seemed so hopeless and bleak. i am so grateful for the plan that the Lord has revealed to us in these days. i am glad that we know what happens after death and therefore dont need to fear. it really got me thinking how much of a benefit this knowledge could be to the people of taiwan.

anyways, after the funeral we ran over to the other elders apartment because it was closer and we waited for my new companion to come. i jumped in the shower because i didnt have time to take one this morning. while i was in the shower my district leader i guess decided that my pants needed a washing hahaha actually he didnt realize that they were my pants. so he threw them in the washer and when i got out of the shower we were in a hurry to go get my new companion, but i couldnt find my pants, finally we realized he had put them in the washer. we didnt have any time to so i am sitting here in soaking wet pants hahaha. i feel like i am wearing a diaper or something. the missionary diaper.

well i wont get to email you for another 9 days. i will talk to you then. love ya.

elder anderson