Who's feeling a picnic?

Beautiful week here in the Jade Village! It was filled with long bike rides, picnics outside, talking to crazy people on the streets and more of all that. 

I'm getting to know this area a bit better now and I'm getting used a little bit more used to how missionary work is done here. Since we have a lot of time, we teach an English class every Wednesday through Friday from 7:00-8:00. A bunch of kids come with their mom's to learn. We keep teaching the kids English in hopes that we can become friends with the families and they will let us come to their house to teach them! It's a process, but we think it will be worth it. The kids are really cute too. I'll put a picture in.

We woke up one morning and Elder Chang asked me where I wanted to study. I just told him somewhere outside that was pretty! We had set up an old Grandma to go visit that day in a place called Dongli so we biked half an hour to get there and teach her. She was really funny and wanted to talk for awhile. She's Christian and loves her church! We shared the Book of Mormon with her and she was excited that she had another book to read, I hope she understands it! This summer there were no typhoons, so there was a surplus of a fruit called Youzi. There are so many that people don't know what to do with. She insisted on giving us each about 7 Youzi that were half rotten and we biked all the way home with them haha. There's no way to convince old people out of giving you stuff, they're just too nice!! On the way back we stopped by a park and ate our lunch outside. Some of my favorite times have been to be on a long bike ride and just think to yourself. If there are people on the street, you should be talking to them, but here there aren't many people on the street so you can really ponder on things. It's really peaceful out here.

One day I woke up and Elder Chang asked if I wanted to go and Kan Shu that day. Read a book of course! I didn't ask what book but I said yeah. Elder Chang's Chinese is really weird, it doesn't sound like a normal Taiwanese, and he uses weird grammar that no one else does, so when he said Kan Shu it meant to go cut a tree! It's the same words, just different tones. So that afternoon we stopped by our branch member's home and cut down most of a tree for them using a saw. We finally get service opportunities here outside of English class! It's the best. 

What else happened this week... We came up to Hualien this week cause we had Stake Conference and interviews with President. This was the first time that I had questions and stuff I needed to bring up with him. I'm already thinking about next transfer because Elder Chang will be going home in 5 weeks and this area is gonna need another good missionary to replace him. So I talked to president about that and hopefully he thinks of someone good. 

They updated our Preach My Gospel book and as I was studying I noticed that in the studying section it talks about things you can do for an effective study. One of the new things they included was Pondering. As I've had more time to do that and just think things through, it's a really effective way to feel the spirit and recieve direction on what to do next. I hope that everyone gets enough time to ponder every single day. If you do that, you will understand more clearly what you should do and how to make decisions. Enjoy the pictures! 

-Love Elder Thayne