Chinese New Years and Fire Crackers

It's been a good week here in Fengyuan! Finished Chinese New Years and I can say I have never eaten so much weird food and fish in my whole life, lol.  But I made it through without gaining weight!! On Tuesday we went to the Bishop's house to eat, thinking it would be a nice little bike ride to his house turned out to be him picking us up and driving us 45 minutes through the jungle to a little village on the other side of the mountains. It was by far the prettiest part of Taiwan I have ever seen.  He drove us up with the bikes in the back of his car and then we road home and "we enjoyed the view" so I've got some good pictures of flying down a jungle mountain.

On Wednesday we went to a single adults activity for lunch and had this huge pot of I have no idea what to eat. Taiwanese people love soups with the most random stuff in it.  I thought in it were dumplings so I was kinda pumped, but after one bite I quickly realized it was a huge fish ball, which were really gross, so I choked down one of them and then snuck the other one I had into my companions bowl.  hahaha So then he took it and as this member next to him wasn't looking tossed it in to his bowl and we ended up getting off the hook. hahah sometimes you got to do it so you don't throw up😅

On Friday we had a pretty cool experience.  We hadn't been having too much success this week and so we went tracting, going door to door through this ghetto little ally we found.  We said a prayer and really felt like someone was here we needed to talk to.  As we started going, we got the door slammed in our face like the first 8 or 9 houses but just kept going.  We ended up knocking on this mid-30s, single, ladies door.  As we talked to her at the door we explained we were missionaries for our church and had a special message about the questions of the soul "Where did we come from?", "What is life's purpose?", and "where are we going after this life?" She ended up letting us in and we shared the whole plan of salvation and she loved it.  We told her about the Book of Mormon and how the only way to know this is true, is through reading this book and praying.  Super cool and spiritual experience.  The Plan of Salvation truly is familiar to everyone, because they excepted it before coming to earth!! The spirit helps the plan to ring a bell.

I have began to realize this work isn't about the numbers, It is for the love of the Lord and your personal desire and efforts to serve him.  I was reading in Mosiah and Alma this week and the Sons of Mosiah said "They cannot bare to see the children of God not have the Gospel or these blessings."  This was a powerful example to me  of what missionary work is all about.  It is serving everyone and helping them to come to the knowledge of their loving Heavenly Father and Savior!

So for Chinese New Year, you have never hear the end of Fireworks and Firecrackers! Pretty cool but kinda of sketchy cause they are so loud and you have no idea where they are coming from hahah LOTS of Buddhist traditions going on as well!

Love you all! Have a great week!

Mikey's Bishop lives in this Beautiful Mountain Village!! He still has not gotten "His" bike from his last area, so he is riding an old missionary bike. Lots of their area is in the mountains, lots of tough biking, So, he's is in great shape!!