This week!
Once again the computers in the mission office started an uprising. I wasnt there when it started, but apparently they kept shouting "ANDERSON, ANDERSON, ANDERSON." The Elders in the office tried to negotiate, but the computers had taken the entire mission database hostage. Not willing to budge in either direction, my week in Ping Dong started to look like a week in Kaohsiung at the Mission Office. On Tuesday night i was called and told that first thing in the morning i was to report to the mission office for a day of headaches and frustration.
I awoke the next morning and dragged my companion the 1 hour rain ride to the mission office. I switched places with an elder from the office and my companion and Elder Zhuang headed back down to Ping Dong to continue to work. Once they left to go continue back to proselyting i knew that, this was not going to be a short stay.
As i began to try and talk these electronic pieces of junk (the office computers) down from their insane little fritz that they had gone on. I soon realized that there were some serious problems going on. The hopes of me returning to Ping Dong anytime soon quickly faded, when the computers refused to recognize the chinese character scripts in our mission database. my head throbbed and i went from computer to computer, assessing and rebuilding. there were only 7 computers, but i tell you what, they were the most onnery 7 computers i have ever met. From Wednesday morning till Friday night, i tried to figure the mess out. Finally, in the wee hours of Friday night, everything started to come back together and the computers decided to stop their strike and start working again. I was so thankfully to get out of there. it was so hard. and it wont happen again. i set it up so that everything should work in harmony.
I had to backup everything on all the computers, delete everything and then reinstall everything. One of the computers was put together by some missionaries a couple years ago and i basically had to rebuild the insides of that computer which took most of thursday. On thursday night i went and got the final part for that computer and poof it started working again. whoever put it together used a dremel and a hot glue gun, i am not kidding! i will send you the pictures. after i fixed this disaster, president Hsu had me write a backup program for the entire office. that took a good chunk of friday, now to backup their computers, all they have to do is click one button and everything in the office gets backed up. finally i networked them all back together so that they can share files and databases without any hassle. it should work really well for them. hahaha. but i wasnt in my prosyleting area very much this week. I was happy though that i could help out there. i am glad that i can use one of my talents to help the lords work here in a more abstract way.
Well apart from that everything else is going good. I am excited for this next week. i will be sure to send you some pictures soon. Probably not next week, but the week after. i am really excited, i love ping dong and this will probably be my last move here.
well i love you all,
Elder Craig Anderson
o ya, i know i change my future plans almost everyday, but i am pretty sure that i am going to major in computers. it seems that it was meant to be.
i forgot to tell you. last night for some reason our district leader didnt call us and then at 11:15 he started screaming and bangin on our door. i about freaked out because i was praying and then all of the sudden there is a crazy man banging and screaming at our door. once i realized he was speaking english i knew it was our leader.
so i guess something was wrong with our phone and they couldnt get a hold of us so they rode like 20 minutes to make sure we wer okay. they were all scared that we were hurt or something. Well we came to find out later they were calling the wrong number. oopss hahah... they should trying calling the right number next time before they bike all the way acrossed town to hunt us down.
peace
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
June 25, 2008
hey everybody,
Ping Tung is stinking awesome! It is pretty big and the church members here are awesome. My companion is Elder Chen Wei Yang he is from Central Taiwan and he is awesome. We get along pretty good, occassionally we will come across some cultural differences, but for the most part its all good. He teaches me Chinese, my chinese has gotten so much better in the past 10 days its ridiculous. I feel like i can actually speak chinese now. i can't say everything, but i can always get my point across. Elder Chen has been helping me a lot with just express myself the way i want. i have pronunciation and tones down pretty good, so i will ask him how to say something and then he will tell me. its so convenient because the dictionaries dont have ways to say things they just have words. His english is really good, he has been studying it for 7 years so its way good.
i felt like i was going to get a native companion a couple weeks ago. i just knew i would get one and sure enough i did. i didn't think he would speak such good english, but i am glad he does because he can tell me how to say the chinese equivalent of what i want to say.
ping Tung is huge compared to my last area. they have a big old night market that we go to to contact people and its just awesome.
so yesterday i was riding down the street and i looked over and i saw an indoor swimming pool. and then i saw a bunch of old men sitting around the swimming pool with fishing pools. it was an indoor fish pong. i laughed for like 5 minutes, its was so cute. all these little old men in their lawn chairs, sitting inside an air conditioned building fishing. maybe i have just lived in utah for too long so i am just used to having nature right out the front door, but that doesn't count as fishing. i want to get a picture of it.
speaking of pictures here are a couple. they are all from me and fang liao, but the last one is of my new companion elder chen. he is a goof as i am sure you can tell from the picture. he is a little immmature, but thats because he is only 18. in taiwan since they have mandatory military service, the church will let them go when they are 18, so he is here and is probably one of if not the youngest missionary in the world.
i had to speak in church last sunday. you always have to when you move to a new area. believe it or not i made the congregation laugh, who would have ever thought that i could be funny in chinese. i am not sure if they were laughing at me or with me, but who cares they laughed.
it was really funny in priesthood i got up and introduced myself and the teacher asked me what my name was. my name is Zhang (which is a last name, but their first names are last) and he said "o that is the same as me." so jokingly i told him that "maybe we have the same ancestors." the whole roomed burst into laughter, because obviously my chinese last name has no heritage it is just a name.
anyways thats been my life for the past week. i hope you like the pictures.
the first pick is me picking mangoes, the second is fang liao with the fishing boats and the mountains, the third is the stinking huge spiders we found in the mountains, that no joke were bigger than my head. and just to let you know they are extremely poisonous even the natives are scared of them. one of the members from the fang liao branch took us into the mountains to take pictures of them. and the last picture is of elder chen.
love you all
craig
i own the computers in ping tung, haha :) i can send pictures a lot now so i will try every week.
Ping Tung is stinking awesome! It is pretty big and the church members here are awesome. My companion is Elder Chen Wei Yang he is from Central Taiwan and he is awesome. We get along pretty good, occassionally we will come across some cultural differences, but for the most part its all good. He teaches me Chinese, my chinese has gotten so much better in the past 10 days its ridiculous. I feel like i can actually speak chinese now. i can't say everything, but i can always get my point across. Elder Chen has been helping me a lot with just express myself the way i want. i have pronunciation and tones down pretty good, so i will ask him how to say something and then he will tell me. its so convenient because the dictionaries dont have ways to say things they just have words. His english is really good, he has been studying it for 7 years so its way good.
i felt like i was going to get a native companion a couple weeks ago. i just knew i would get one and sure enough i did. i didn't think he would speak such good english, but i am glad he does because he can tell me how to say the chinese equivalent of what i want to say.
ping Tung is huge compared to my last area. they have a big old night market that we go to to contact people and its just awesome.
so yesterday i was riding down the street and i looked over and i saw an indoor swimming pool. and then i saw a bunch of old men sitting around the swimming pool with fishing pools. it was an indoor fish pong. i laughed for like 5 minutes, its was so cute. all these little old men in their lawn chairs, sitting inside an air conditioned building fishing. maybe i have just lived in utah for too long so i am just used to having nature right out the front door, but that doesn't count as fishing. i want to get a picture of it.
speaking of pictures here are a couple. they are all from me and fang liao, but the last one is of my new companion elder chen. he is a goof as i am sure you can tell from the picture. he is a little immmature, but thats because he is only 18. in taiwan since they have mandatory military service, the church will let them go when they are 18, so he is here and is probably one of if not the youngest missionary in the world.
i had to speak in church last sunday. you always have to when you move to a new area. believe it or not i made the congregation laugh, who would have ever thought that i could be funny in chinese. i am not sure if they were laughing at me or with me, but who cares they laughed.
it was really funny in priesthood i got up and introduced myself and the teacher asked me what my name was. my name is Zhang (which is a last name, but their first names are last) and he said "o that is the same as me." so jokingly i told him that "maybe we have the same ancestors." the whole roomed burst into laughter, because obviously my chinese last name has no heritage it is just a name.
anyways thats been my life for the past week. i hope you like the pictures.
the first pick is me picking mangoes, the second is fang liao with the fishing boats and the mountains, the third is the stinking huge spiders we found in the mountains, that no joke were bigger than my head. and just to let you know they are extremely poisonous even the natives are scared of them. one of the members from the fang liao branch took us into the mountains to take pictures of them. and the last picture is of elder chen.
love you all
craig
i own the computers in ping tung, haha :) i can send pictures a lot now so i will try every week.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
June 11, 2008 Email
well the internet cafe we are in, is kicking my butt. i cant use the usb, i get booted off the email server all the time. wow, asian computers dont like me, once i started reading these characters though i am gonna own em hahaha
well this week was a good week. good and hot. it was 39 degrees celcius a couple days ago. my arms are like black from the tan. we went 78km (48 miles) on our bikes on monday. thats pretty far. so far i have biked 1483.4km (922 miles) this transfer. not bad eh? i still am not in shape though because i eat some much of the delicious food over here.
so this week, i dog tried to bite me in the leg as we were biking, but i horsed kicked it in the face. hahaha that will teach them to chase white guys wearing business attire. the dogs hear are like rats so i didn't feel bad.
it was a hot week this week. there wasn't any rain so everything was just scorching.
well i am running out of funny stories, i needed to start taking notes through out the week of things i want to tell you all. we haven't got to teach many lessons this week, actually i think we only taught 2, that is pretty standard for taiwan. most of our time is spent just trying to find people to teach. we also spend a lot of time trying to get less active members to come back to church, so we try and find them and let them know that we still care about them and want them to come back.
i saw a centipide that was about 10 inches long! i didnt have my camera, but i almost wet my pants it was so big. scary creeping stinking thing. ewww. i am starting to get over the fear of bugs though. taiwan will do that do you in a hurry. they have some of the weirdest creepy crawlies. i am just glad that i didn't go to thailand or vietnam i hear they have even scary bugs.
chinese characters are coming good. i dont know how to type them on the computer yet, but once i figure it out, i will write you all a letter in chinese. that probably won't be for a long time though. there are about 3000 characters that you have to learn to be a fluent reader and i just finished about 700 hundred of them yesterday. once you know the characters supposedly the language gets a lot easier and things make more sense so i am looking forward to that.
i dont sweat a lot, but in taiwan my radiator has been working extra hard. my skin was raining yesterday, literally, i walked into our house for lunch and i was dripping all over the floor, my companion is worse. its so gross. we cant turn on the AC either because its to expensive, we can only turn it on at night when we got to sleep.
my next email will be more fun i promise. love you all.
well this week was a good week. good and hot. it was 39 degrees celcius a couple days ago. my arms are like black from the tan. we went 78km (48 miles) on our bikes on monday. thats pretty far. so far i have biked 1483.4km (922 miles) this transfer. not bad eh? i still am not in shape though because i eat some much of the delicious food over here.
so this week, i dog tried to bite me in the leg as we were biking, but i horsed kicked it in the face. hahaha that will teach them to chase white guys wearing business attire. the dogs hear are like rats so i didn't feel bad.
it was a hot week this week. there wasn't any rain so everything was just scorching.
well i am running out of funny stories, i needed to start taking notes through out the week of things i want to tell you all. we haven't got to teach many lessons this week, actually i think we only taught 2, that is pretty standard for taiwan. most of our time is spent just trying to find people to teach. we also spend a lot of time trying to get less active members to come back to church, so we try and find them and let them know that we still care about them and want them to come back.
i saw a centipide that was about 10 inches long! i didnt have my camera, but i almost wet my pants it was so big. scary creeping stinking thing. ewww. i am starting to get over the fear of bugs though. taiwan will do that do you in a hurry. they have some of the weirdest creepy crawlies. i am just glad that i didn't go to thailand or vietnam i hear they have even scary bugs.
chinese characters are coming good. i dont know how to type them on the computer yet, but once i figure it out, i will write you all a letter in chinese. that probably won't be for a long time though. there are about 3000 characters that you have to learn to be a fluent reader and i just finished about 700 hundred of them yesterday. once you know the characters supposedly the language gets a lot easier and things make more sense so i am looking forward to that.
i dont sweat a lot, but in taiwan my radiator has been working extra hard. my skin was raining yesterday, literally, i walked into our house for lunch and i was dripping all over the floor, my companion is worse. its so gross. we cant turn on the AC either because its to expensive, we can only turn it on at night when we got to sleep.
my next email will be more fun i promise. love you all.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
May 20, 2008 Email
holy smokes! i can't believe it has already been another week. it was a pretty standard week here. We had exchanges twice, though which was kind of cool. Two older Elders came to my area and so i was the senoir companion which was fun. I got to decide what we did. Plus it was fun showing someone around our area. I didn't feel like such a newbie.
Chinese is coming great! I feel like i improve a little everyday, i can basically get any point acrossed that i want. And i almost always understand what is going on in a conversation. Except yesterday when this guy started talking about water wells, i sure as heck didn't know the word for that, but i learned it yesterday after i asked him what it was.
My chinese is still pretty bad, but i can get by. Last Wednesday was pretty funny. We were getting ready to teach our english class, so we were setting up and everything. I realized that we only had 1 chair so we walked over to the front desk of this city hall building. I went to ask the secretary if we could use this spare chair. so i said "Women ke bu keyi jie yong nage yezi?" She looked at me really strange and was like "What?" So the word for chair and coconut are very close. So what i actually asked the lady is "whether or not i could use her coconut", we all had a good laugh about that one. It is so easy to make a mistake in chinese when you speak. All the words are so similar, and then you have tones which is even more intense. I hate tones :)
Well the young man that we have been teaching that is preparing to go into the army, leaves in about 2 weeks. we are really working hard to try and get him studying the scriptures everyday. we figure if we can help him get a testimony of jesus christ before he leaves, he will make it through the army and still be interested when he comes out. I am glad that America doesn't force all young men to go into the army for a year, i wouldn't wanna do that. There army is pretty sissy though. Seriously, though they work in like Retirement Centers for their army service. Very few of them actually do combat stuff, and the ones that do it is so weak. We always see them on the roads and we cheer them on, and they cheer us on. The soldiers usually have backpacks and are hiking and then we pass them on our bikes. We yell to them "Jia you," which i guess if you had to translate it means "hang in there." Kinda doesn't translate but ya.
No pictures today! i have the same old mean lady. she is lazy. if these computers weren't all in chinese i would, fix it myself, but i can't read the characters yet. I just started studying them, so i only recognize about 400. There are 3000 i have to learn before you can read fluently.
Mangoes are still spilling out our ears! People will give us mangoes, boxes of mangoes. We were cleaning up the street doing service work 4 days ago and this guy basically pulled us into his shop and made us sit and eat ice cream with him. Then he gave us a big old bag full of mangoes and told us that we work to hard. Thats a compliment over here. Anyways, he is our friend now.
Funny story, people here like to yell out random English phrases that they know. Sometimes good phrases sometimes bad. Anyways, we theorized that if you yell out anything to a Taiwanese person and smile and wave they will yell it back at you and smile and wave. in order to apply the scientific method to this hypothesis of ours, i gave it a try. On my bike the other day i saw this old man that we often see. I got my smile ready, waved my hand and said "Alabama," he looked right back at me smiled and yelled "Alabaamma." It made me laugh. Now we often yell out randon states and stuff just to see if people will yell them back. I am going to give mississippi a shot. ;)
Taiwan is awesome! You just got to do the work, but have fun while you do it. Missionary work is hard. People are mean, its hot, and it smells. But with the right attitude it is the most fun thing i have ever done. Some days are tough and i just want to sleep for 10 hours. It is weird, i never thought of sleeping as a temptation hahaha. I know that what i am doing is the more important than anything i could be doing. It is amazing hearing the conversion stories of the members here. Some of them were the skum of the earth before, but now they are converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and their entire lifes and their families lifes have been changed.
sorry if this hurts your head to read. I am sure my grammar is terrible, learning chinese will do that. plus i have a headache right now, from all the annoying little computer games people are playing all around me. I wish they would wear headphones.
peace
Chinese is coming great! I feel like i improve a little everyday, i can basically get any point acrossed that i want. And i almost always understand what is going on in a conversation. Except yesterday when this guy started talking about water wells, i sure as heck didn't know the word for that, but i learned it yesterday after i asked him what it was.
My chinese is still pretty bad, but i can get by. Last Wednesday was pretty funny. We were getting ready to teach our english class, so we were setting up and everything. I realized that we only had 1 chair so we walked over to the front desk of this city hall building. I went to ask the secretary if we could use this spare chair. so i said "Women ke bu keyi jie yong nage yezi?" She looked at me really strange and was like "What?" So the word for chair and coconut are very close. So what i actually asked the lady is "whether or not i could use her coconut", we all had a good laugh about that one. It is so easy to make a mistake in chinese when you speak. All the words are so similar, and then you have tones which is even more intense. I hate tones :)
Well the young man that we have been teaching that is preparing to go into the army, leaves in about 2 weeks. we are really working hard to try and get him studying the scriptures everyday. we figure if we can help him get a testimony of jesus christ before he leaves, he will make it through the army and still be interested when he comes out. I am glad that America doesn't force all young men to go into the army for a year, i wouldn't wanna do that. There army is pretty sissy though. Seriously, though they work in like Retirement Centers for their army service. Very few of them actually do combat stuff, and the ones that do it is so weak. We always see them on the roads and we cheer them on, and they cheer us on. The soldiers usually have backpacks and are hiking and then we pass them on our bikes. We yell to them "Jia you," which i guess if you had to translate it means "hang in there." Kinda doesn't translate but ya.
No pictures today! i have the same old mean lady. she is lazy. if these computers weren't all in chinese i would, fix it myself, but i can't read the characters yet. I just started studying them, so i only recognize about 400. There are 3000 i have to learn before you can read fluently.
Mangoes are still spilling out our ears! People will give us mangoes, boxes of mangoes. We were cleaning up the street doing service work 4 days ago and this guy basically pulled us into his shop and made us sit and eat ice cream with him. Then he gave us a big old bag full of mangoes and told us that we work to hard. Thats a compliment over here. Anyways, he is our friend now.
Funny story, people here like to yell out random English phrases that they know. Sometimes good phrases sometimes bad. Anyways, we theorized that if you yell out anything to a Taiwanese person and smile and wave they will yell it back at you and smile and wave. in order to apply the scientific method to this hypothesis of ours, i gave it a try. On my bike the other day i saw this old man that we often see. I got my smile ready, waved my hand and said "Alabama," he looked right back at me smiled and yelled "Alabaamma." It made me laugh. Now we often yell out randon states and stuff just to see if people will yell them back. I am going to give mississippi a shot. ;)
Taiwan is awesome! You just got to do the work, but have fun while you do it. Missionary work is hard. People are mean, its hot, and it smells. But with the right attitude it is the most fun thing i have ever done. Some days are tough and i just want to sleep for 10 hours. It is weird, i never thought of sleeping as a temptation hahaha. I know that what i am doing is the more important than anything i could be doing. It is amazing hearing the conversion stories of the members here. Some of them were the skum of the earth before, but now they are converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and their entire lifes and their families lifes have been changed.
sorry if this hurts your head to read. I am sure my grammar is terrible, learning chinese will do that. plus i have a headache right now, from all the annoying little computer games people are playing all around me. I wish they would wear headphones.
peace
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
April 29, 2008 Email
1st transfer is over! this morning i got up at like 5 and headed to the train station to go to a little tiny tiny tini tini tiny so small town called fang liao.
the way there i was by myself for about an hour, the first hour of the ride i was with another Elder, but the last hour i was all alone. it was kinda weird not having another missionary to talk to.
i got to fang liao about 15 minutes ago and we headed here to come email. So far i haven't got to see much of the town, but i here it is super small. i love small! its gonna be so awesome. there is just a little branch down here and i think our area spans over like 50 kilometers. i am not quite sure yet since i haven;t really seen any of it. i saw a little on the train, it is all rice fields and coconut trees.
well last week was quite a special week. Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles came and spoke to our mission. We had to take a train from Tainan (my old area) to kaohsiung (the mission headquaters) to go see him. It was an awesome talk. it wasn't actually a talk, it was more like a conversation between him and 120 missionaries. He is such an inspired man.
Anyway, of course what do you think happens to his laptop just as he goes to start? ..... It crashes! I was sitting a little towards the back and i saw it happen, but i figured i would just let them handle it. But President Hsu wouldn't stand for that. About 10 seconds after it had crashed, he jumped up and in front of Elder Scott and everybody, he was like "Elder Anderson, where ever you are can you come help us?" I was a little nervous, but i ran up to the front and fiddle with it for a minute, no luck, they had the wrong adapter so the battery wouldn't work. Anyways, long story short, they went and grabbed another computer and i helped them set that up and get Elder Scotts presentation working. How cool is that though I got to fix on of the 12 Apostles computer?!
I have done a lot of fixing of computers here so far. That was like the first thing President had me do when I got to Taiwan was help them with some computer problems they were having in the Mission office. I almost got transferred into the Mission Office this transfer. But i barely escaped, it was a close one. President Hsu called me and asked me if i wanted to do work in Microsoft Excel, and I told him i knew how to, but i wasn't like the master of Excel, so he let me off the hook. It would have been tough to be stuck in the office for the 2nd transfer.
I don't think i have told you all my full chinese name yet. It is Zhang zhi yue. Zhang is just a last name and doesn't really have a meaning, but Zhi means ambition, and Yue means Tall Mountain, so that is kind of cool.
Taiwan is so crazy. it is probably one of the most unique places in the world. it has a little of so many cultures. it is a little japanese, a lot of america, and of course chinese. Taiwan also has a special feature that comes equipped on all of the streets and roads here. I call it the 10 "foot rule." Because you can't go 10 feet without smelling something new. There are a lot of smells, some good, and some very very nasty. hahaha what can you do?
So i got an odometer for my bike about 2 weeks ago today. In my last area we didn't bike much, but in the last 2 weeks we biked 207.1 kilometers. In my new area, i will be biking A LOT more. I was in the city, but now i am in the country. It is the most rural part of the mission.
The work continues on. In Tainan we're working with this young man that was about 24 and helping him to get ready for baptism. We helped him to set a goal so that he could slowly become a little better. Changing doesn't happen over night, so we have been working with him to turn his life around, he is a good kid.
I am officially no longer a greenie. I have a new companion and i am no longer with my trainer. Sometimes i wasn't sure if i was the trainee or if he was. He was a goof, good guy though. I am excited to be with somebody new, it will be fun to work with people of all sorts of personalities.
Sorry no pictures this week, i just tried and the USB ports arent working and i don't have time to switch, i am gonna try and send a package maybe in a couple weeks and i will put my pictures in there.
Well i am loving it out here, somedays are really tough and you just want to sleep for like 20 hours, but usually it is great. I think the people will be a little nicer in this smaller town, maybe.
2 days ago i made a phone call to a member to set up a time for him to come help us visit some members, and i understood everything and he understood everythin. It felt awesome! Usually, i have a hard time understanding people on the phone, it is just really hard, but i stinking did it. So cool, people understand me usually when i talk, i don't always understand them, especially if they start talking about vocab i haven't learned yet. It is coming! I am getting more and more comfortable everyday.
Well i love you all. hope everyone is doing great!
Peace
the way there i was by myself for about an hour, the first hour of the ride i was with another Elder, but the last hour i was all alone. it was kinda weird not having another missionary to talk to.
i got to fang liao about 15 minutes ago and we headed here to come email. So far i haven't got to see much of the town, but i here it is super small. i love small! its gonna be so awesome. there is just a little branch down here and i think our area spans over like 50 kilometers. i am not quite sure yet since i haven;t really seen any of it. i saw a little on the train, it is all rice fields and coconut trees.
well last week was quite a special week. Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles came and spoke to our mission. We had to take a train from Tainan (my old area) to kaohsiung (the mission headquaters) to go see him. It was an awesome talk. it wasn't actually a talk, it was more like a conversation between him and 120 missionaries. He is such an inspired man.
Anyway, of course what do you think happens to his laptop just as he goes to start? ..... It crashes! I was sitting a little towards the back and i saw it happen, but i figured i would just let them handle it. But President Hsu wouldn't stand for that. About 10 seconds after it had crashed, he jumped up and in front of Elder Scott and everybody, he was like "Elder Anderson, where ever you are can you come help us?" I was a little nervous, but i ran up to the front and fiddle with it for a minute, no luck, they had the wrong adapter so the battery wouldn't work. Anyways, long story short, they went and grabbed another computer and i helped them set that up and get Elder Scotts presentation working. How cool is that though I got to fix on of the 12 Apostles computer?!
I have done a lot of fixing of computers here so far. That was like the first thing President had me do when I got to Taiwan was help them with some computer problems they were having in the Mission office. I almost got transferred into the Mission Office this transfer. But i barely escaped, it was a close one. President Hsu called me and asked me if i wanted to do work in Microsoft Excel, and I told him i knew how to, but i wasn't like the master of Excel, so he let me off the hook. It would have been tough to be stuck in the office for the 2nd transfer.
I don't think i have told you all my full chinese name yet. It is Zhang zhi yue. Zhang is just a last name and doesn't really have a meaning, but Zhi means ambition, and Yue means Tall Mountain, so that is kind of cool.
Taiwan is so crazy. it is probably one of the most unique places in the world. it has a little of so many cultures. it is a little japanese, a lot of america, and of course chinese. Taiwan also has a special feature that comes equipped on all of the streets and roads here. I call it the 10 "foot rule." Because you can't go 10 feet without smelling something new. There are a lot of smells, some good, and some very very nasty. hahaha what can you do?
So i got an odometer for my bike about 2 weeks ago today. In my last area we didn't bike much, but in the last 2 weeks we biked 207.1 kilometers. In my new area, i will be biking A LOT more. I was in the city, but now i am in the country. It is the most rural part of the mission.
The work continues on. In Tainan we're working with this young man that was about 24 and helping him to get ready for baptism. We helped him to set a goal so that he could slowly become a little better. Changing doesn't happen over night, so we have been working with him to turn his life around, he is a good kid.
I am officially no longer a greenie. I have a new companion and i am no longer with my trainer. Sometimes i wasn't sure if i was the trainee or if he was. He was a goof, good guy though. I am excited to be with somebody new, it will be fun to work with people of all sorts of personalities.
Sorry no pictures this week, i just tried and the USB ports arent working and i don't have time to switch, i am gonna try and send a package maybe in a couple weeks and i will put my pictures in there.
Well i am loving it out here, somedays are really tough and you just want to sleep for like 20 hours, but usually it is great. I think the people will be a little nicer in this smaller town, maybe.
2 days ago i made a phone call to a member to set up a time for him to come help us visit some members, and i understood everything and he understood everythin. It felt awesome! Usually, i have a hard time understanding people on the phone, it is just really hard, but i stinking did it. So cool, people understand me usually when i talk, i don't always understand them, especially if they start talking about vocab i haven't learned yet. It is coming! I am getting more and more comfortable everyday.
Well i love you all. hope everyone is doing great!
Peace
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