Wednesday, October 28, 2009 2:38 AM


Okay I'm writing you like a 2 paragraph email this week, I spent my time online reading emails this week, and it was very nice to get to spend some time looking at Gigi's pictures she sent me, i was very happy and laughed a lot, especially since the longer you are on a mission, they less people write you. But who can blame them, you've been gone a long time, and you take awhile to write back because you eventually go senior companion (well, i haven't yet, but i know I will in the next few transfers, 3 at the most) and as your Chinese gets enough to communicate in complete stories and sentences and ideas, you start to get to help your senior companion out a lot more..and thus, less letter writing time on P-days, because i.e. today we went to costco (with a NICE member who has a card, because i sure don't!) to buy watermelons to carve tonight in English class for Halloween, yes, this is why missionaries look forward to their parents packages so much, because the closest thing I have to Halloween here in Taiwan is Watermelons to carve, there are no pumpkins in season right now, not even Costco had them. We were lucky to get watermelons that stand up! Yeah! So blessed. I also spent 12 dollars of the money you guys gave me to buy brownie mix, sorry, it is the only brownie mix in all of Taiwan and I REALLY wanted it. Really bad. Taiwan doesn't have a lot of sweet things, and they are expensive for us missionaries, but you only get to go to Costco once (twice if you are a lucky missionary) on your mission, so I had to buy the brownies! haha. Bitter things I wouldn't have imagined eating when I first got here, I eat and like these days..like squid. Because there isn't a lot of sweet, you get used to not eating sweet, although you miss it! I'm quite accustomed to squid, soy bean milk, tofu, taro, weird gummy things with little taste in all kinds of things, sesame seeds...(although not stinky tofu, that stuff is gross and permeates the streets and I will never try it, no matter who wants me to, i'd rather drop dead). So yeah! Funny how you can change your body to adapt to your culture, but that doesn't mean you don't miss the old one.

I found really cute Chinese style shoes, next time you guys give me money I'll buy some for myself, for now I bought some for the baby coming any day now, they were like 3 dollars for a baby, more expensive for adults. They are red and really cute. Gen and Stuart can take a picture when they fit the baby in 5 months...after i get their address and send them that is. So I was really excited to get to buy something for my first neice of nephew.

This week has been going pretty good. Last week our numbers were like a miracle, we got more lessons than I've ever gotten my whole mission. Sister Kunzler is really a fun companion. I like her a lot, I just doubt we will be together for long since she's been in this area 6 transfers, it's the longest I've heard of! 6/7 transfers of her mission here in Jilong! She's crazy strong, because this area has killer mountains, but she gets up them crazy fast. I've noticed that with every companion I have, certain things have a lot of sucess depending on their focuses. I'm lucky to have such good senior companions. They were all very patient women, they have to be to be companions with me! ehheheheh.

I think my first companion is engaged, that's the rumor from a Brother Guo, but some people don't trust him, so it's up in the air, but that's fun everyone is getting engaged and married. My girl friends already started when I was 19, now all my old guy friends are...haha. Congrats to them :). I love life, always changing. Yay! This week will be fun. Halloween! English class tonight we are carving watermelons, like i mentioned before, and now time is out! byebye!