Yuli is history….

I’ve made it back to Taipei! On Thursday, I unfortunately had to leave 玉里 to move up here to 板橋. Although I didn’t want to move because Yuli is so nice, Banqiao is also quite a nice place as well…just different.

Dido…he doesn’t mind going out in the rain!

We’ve got a pretty good amount of investigators already, and our goal for these next six weeks is to get at least six baptisms. With the number of people we’ve already met, we definitely think it is doable. The hardest part is just getting people to find time in their schedules to go to church…especially when it’s raining – they don’t like to go outside then.

Our investigator, 陳平.

Before I left Yuli, we were able to do some more fun things. On Monday, we ate dinner with an investigator we have. Whenever we teach English on Tuesday, we always go to the Japanese restaurant he works at to eat dinner.

陳平 and nephew (I think) – such a cute little guy!

When we’re there, we usually help him translate the menu into English so he can present it more easily to any foreigner customers. He invited us to his house to eat dinner and it was really good. The fun thing was that his house was on top of a mountain pretty much in the middle of a forest. There was also no way to bike there since the ride up is too steep, so we had to take a taxi.

We also had an opportunity to have a meal with 沈家銘 before leaving Yuli. As usual, the food was delicious, the presentation spectacular, and the company unsurpassed!

Gonna miss ya, 沈家銘!

Ready to “lose my appetite”

Another “Miracle” in Taiwan….沈家銘 (aka Mr. Miracle)

Sweet ending to the perfect evening!

Box full of Taiwanese goodness!

This week I also got some homemade snacks and cookies from a friend! Yay Taiwanese desserts! They’re a lot different than what you would expect to get in America, but they were still good!

The postal worker – 許芝瑋

In Yuli, we had an awesome worker at the post office! She was always super nice and kept making jokes about me. We had to take a picture with her before leaving…and then she took a picture with her cell phone too! It’s always nice to have someone who actually goes above and beyond what they have to do for their job!

Andy

I had my last English class in Yuli on Wednesday. It was nice that both Andy and Richard came! Actually Andy ended up being willing to wake up super early Thursday morning to drive us and our luggage from our house to the train station. Our train left the station at 5:47am and arrived in Taipei at around 9am.

Richard

At church with Brother Ye.

Yesterday, I also had an awesome member from my previous ward in 中和 come visit me in my new ward! He’s super cool and his English is pretty much perfect. It’s actually the best English I’ve heard from almost any other Taiwanese person that lives here in Taiwan. Plus he knows like all the slang too!

Looking for a way out, Elder Simonson?

Anyway, this transfer should be pretty fun. I’m now back in an area that has a Costco nearby, so I’m pretty happy about that too! We’ll be heading over there next week to buy most of our food for the next month…yum!

– Elder Austin Simonson
文長老