Chapter 29: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Buddhist Christmas

Hello!!

First of all, I know my emails the last several weeks have been lacking to say the least, so my apologies. But in my defense, I have been having significantly less time to email the past several weeks because we have been practicing for our missionary Christmas concert program thing and that takes up emailing time. So in a couple weeks, I will have a lot more time to email and hopefully my email quality will get better haha. 

This week has been a great week! We met with our friend Iris who has a baptismal date set for the 22nd, and she just really wants to get baptized on that day. She has been working really hard and doing everything she needs to do to prepare to get baptized on the 22nd. We are so excited for her! She is just the cutest, sweetest girl and I am so so happy for her! From the time we met her to now, I can see a huge change in her. She just seems so genuinely happy. This gospel is the best.

Other great news! I can't remember if I wrote about this previously, but a few weeks ago right after sacrament meeting, a member in our ward walked up to me and was like "Sister Larson, do you have time after church? I want you to teach my daughter the lessons and I want her to get baptized at the end of December." WHAT. Her daughter is 11 and she just hasn't been baptized yet because her grandmother opposes to her getting baptized. But the daughter, Jade, really wants to get baptized, so her mom said she was just going to get baptized anyway. So we have been teaching (more reviewing actually) all the lessons with Jade. She has been going to church since she was born, so she knows everything. We are basically just building her faith and helping her strengthen her testimony to feel prepared for baptism. She is going to get baptized on the 24th of December! I have the best Christmas because I get the greatest Christmas presents.

In other, less spiritual news, Christmas is really getting started here in Taiwan! All the fancy businesses have their Christmas lights up (i.e., there is a string of Christmas lights on the bush outside of the banks that we live by), and even the Miaos are getting festive! (Miao=Buddhist temple). There is a Miao (one of 9 or 10 within our 1 km bike ride to the SongShan train station, I kid you not. They are EVERYWHERE) that we bike past all the time that has Christmas lights strung up on poles around it. There is even a kind of Christmas-tree like thing with lights, and instead of a star, there is another miniature Miao on top! The reality of it all is, these lights have been up since I got here in July, and they aren't for Christmas. But I'll take what I can get and I'll just pretend that the Miao just put up lights, and it's for Christmas haha. Basically, Taiwan doesn't really celebrate Christmas, and it's not a super big deal to people here. But its okay, because if we really try our hardest, we can take the Christmas spirit with us everywhere we go!

One fun thing we have been doing this week (my family will never let me forget about this) is my comp and I have been going around delivering a note and Hi-Chews to members of our ward and then singing them a Christmas song! At home, I never really liked caroling like at all. I'm going to admit, it's kind of fun here. The members think we are a little weird because no one goes caroling here, but I think they all enjoy it. It's been super fun and easy way to spread a little Christmas cheer :)

I hope you all have a great week! Try and spread some Christmas cheer by continuing to do the Church's Light the World campaign, it's super awesome and it gives us great ideas to serve someone in easy ways everyday! 

Love you all! 

Love,
Sister Larson

Pics:

1,2. Buddhist Christmas!



3. I encountered my worst nightmare on the way to the train station


4. McDonald's does 24 hour delivery here? So when you're busy and don't have time to eat dinner, you just call McDonald's and they'll delivery it straight to you, no matter what time it is. (ordering in all Chinese was literally one of the most stressful experiences of my life hahaha)



5. The wonderful things I get to eat here! This cost like $2 American dollars



6. Duolingo thinks my English is too gaoji, advanced. MY CHINESE IS BETTER THAN YOURS DUOLINGO.   


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