He that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul…

The Chinese new year has finally come and with it comes a lot of food, fireworks, and full red envelopes (at least that’s the hope…).

The field is white (green) already to harvest…

Last week we were able to help out one of the older members of our branch clean out his backyard.

Apprentice with the sickle…still have two fingers left to make it to journeyman!

Our pile of weed! lol

We’ve gone to his house before to clean the floors, but this time we were able to pull out a ton of weeds from the back. It took about an hour or so to get through all of them, but it ended up being pretty fun. He also bought us lunch when we were finished!

You can take my picture, if I can take yours!!!

For one of our English classes this week, we ended up doing everything outside… because the people who manage the building we usually have class in, never opened it. It still worked out well though! Since it’s not located in the same township as our chapel, we have to meet in some other location; we have three English classes – only one meets in the Yuli chapel.

Koala, when you can snatch the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave….

Angel, Alvis…and minion Simonson

For the last thirty minutes of it we ended up just having class in the house of one of the students who lived super close. The two younger girls (actually, it was their house) were playing with my camera, so I ended up with tons of photos from English class that day.

My new assistant…

Photo journalist in the making!

On Friday, we had to travel down to 台東 to watch the worldwide missionary broadcast. They ended up making a bunch of changes for us! They’ve simplified the key indicators (numbers that we need to send in each week for reporting what we do) and changed our schedule a lot. The new schedule allows us missionaries more freedom to choose what we want to do instead of just being told what to do for a lot of the time. It also allows Preparation Day to start at 8:30am and end at 6:30pm (30 minutes later than before).

This is what our new schedule looks like:

THE NEW SCHEDULE
7:00 AM
Arise

7:00-10:30 AM
Pray, Exercise (30 Mins)
Shower
Eat Breakfast
Prepare for the day
Plan (30 Minutes)
Personal Study (60 Minutes)

10:30 AM-9:30 PM
Proselyte
Companionship Study (30-60 Mins)
Language Study (60 Mins)
First Twelve Weeks (30 Mins)
Lunch (30 Mins)
Dinner (60 Mins)

9:30 PM
Return to Apartment (unless teaching a lesson, then return by 10pm)

9:30-10:00 PM
Write in your Journal, Prepare for Bed, Pray

10:00-11:00 PM
Retire to Bed

NEW PREPARATION DAY SCHEDULE
7:00 AM
Arise

7:00-8:30 AM
Pray
Shower
Eat Breakfast
Prepare for the day
Plan (30 Minutes)
Personal Study (30 Minutes)

8:30 AM-6:30 PM
Preparation Day activities, including:
Laundry
Grocery shopping
Cleaning of Apartment
Communicating with family
Letter to Mission President/Key Indicators
Lunch and Dinner
Study
Recreation and Exercise
Prepare to proselyte

6:30-9:30 PM
Proselyte

9:30 PM
Return to Apartment (unless teaching a lesson)

9:30-10:00 PM
Write in your Journal
Prepare for Bed
Pray

10:00-11:00 PM
Retire to Bed

Hoping to make my cup runneth over…

I also restarted a garden. There currently is garlic, spinach, and green onions growing…as well as a cactus! The grow lights keep them growing all the time, so I’m sure they’re happy about that. We’ve also tried playing Piano Guys music for them to see if that motivates them to grow. 😉

…with salad!

Fun story from this last Tuesday. We were getting on the train to come back home to 玉里 from 瑞穗, and since I pay with a card (instead of buying a ticket), I don’t have an assigned seat on the train. We went into one car, but then saw there were no seats available, so we turned and started going to the next car. As we’re passing between cars, I encounter a high school student and a woman in the walkway. The boy is standing up but has his eyes closed and sweating a lot. He looks as though he’s about to pass out so I grab him and am holding on to him for about two minutes as he is somewhat limp. Apparently this woman had just walked here and found him like this. The train staff see the boy and me holding him up, and quickly go get the conductor who calls for any doctors or nurses on the train to immediately come to car 6 for an emergency. At this point, the kid has started to become slightly more conscious but then decides to throw up. However, I guess that’s just what he needed because right after that, he started to look a lot better. The doctors and nurses had a look at him and supposedly he just had a very serious case of car (or train) sickness. Since he was traveling, he didn’t want to get off at the next stop to go to the hospital…hopefully he made it to wherever he was going safely (he was traveling alone).

Only thing we love more than the food, is the Wang’s themselves!

Today we just had another meal with the 王家庭 (Wang Family) for lunch. This was the third time that they’ve fed us this week for the new year! They’re awesome – they’re actually leaving in two days to go back to their home in 高雄 (GaoXiong).

Happy Chinese new year, everyone! 新年快樂！

– Elder Austin Simonson
文長老

(Clearly I don’t share the techie gene with Elder Simonson, but I just figured out how to enable the photos to be enlarged….just click on the photo, and it will popup full screen. I’m still the best mom he’s ever had – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)