April 19, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

Nimen hao! Another Great week in Taiwan! It was really busy, but really fantastic!

Last Preparation day we met up with another set of sisters that serve in the Taipei area to eat some lunch. The two sisters we met up with were Sister Hintze, who was in the MTC with me and is amazing, and Sister Ho, who is my friend Ivan Ho's sister. Mom, if you forget who Ivan is he is the chatty one that has come over a few times and is great on the piano. Anyways, it was awesome. We went to eat at a place near the mission home called "California Grill" and it was so delicious! I swear, everything tastes better in Taiwan, even, ironically, the burgers! Wow!

Speaking of food, there is some food here that I simply cannot get enough of. For breakfast, Zhuabing and Danbing. I don't really know how to describe them - egg deliciousness. A Zhuabing is basically a kind of pizza crusty egg and cheese thing, and a Danbing is kind of a tortilla egg cheese and bacon thing. Yeah, I don't know what else to say except "Yum!" Also, noodles. How to describe this blessing I simply do not know. The noodle soup here has these thick noodles that the use this huge knife to cut right off a huge hunk of dough. They are so tasty!

And then there is the curry, and the Fried Chicken, and everything else! Wow, the food here is so good!There are, however, a couple of food items here in Taiwan I would not recommend. First off, Stinky Tofu. You can smell it cooking on the streets everywhere, and lets just say that there is a reason it is called stinky Tofu - because it is really stinky! Still, it tastes much better than is smells, but is not my favorite treat, but It was great to have the opportunity to eat one of the Taiwanese delicacies! Also, recently I had the opportunity to try some Chicken foot. It tastes about as good as it sounds like it would taste. It took me about ten minutes to have the courage to even take a bite, and afterwards I really wished I hadn't had the courage at all! Luckily, the member who gave it to me also brought the most fantastic cake to eat that day, so the foot taste was soon drowned out in yummy cake taste. Good thing the members are looking out for me!

Anyways, the week was really fantastic! On Tuesday to Wednesday I went on Exchanges to Jilong again, this time with sister Andreasen. She is from Boston and is a really great missionary. We get to ride bikes in Jilong, which is fantastic! We taught a couple really good lessons and then exchanged back. On Friday we went down to Taipei again to do Tours of the chapel near the temple, and it was pretty busy day! We had a really great family come in to do a tour and got their information to give to the missionaries in their area, so that was fantastic.

We also had a major triumph this week - we finally conquered the phone system! Because we sisters cover such a large area, we have a lot of missionaries contacting people and then sending information to us over the phone system. Our area is huge, so we get tons of these referrals every day and we always are behind in contacting them! But this week we called every single number, and I even made a couple phone calls! It was terrifying, and the first few calls were rough, but my companion helped me out so much! She is great like that. So we conquered the phone system together, and it felt really good!

Also, this Friday we get move calls! The transfer is up! I am really hoping Sister Ackerson and I both stay here in Danshui because I would hate to leave our investigators, since most of their baptismal dates are for next transfer! Still, whatever happens, I know the Lord's hand is in it, and he knows better than me what needs to happen among His children.

I love you all and hope all is well!

Love,
Ke Jiemei
Sister Collyer