>Subject: New email address, new companion, new country, new world

>Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 09:18:32 +0000

>

>Hello Family!

>I'm in Taiwan - Hualien to be precise - aparently the most beautiful part of the mission. My new companion is Elder Stephen Elliot Fairbanks, or Fu zhang lao. He is from Buffalo, NY, he is the second of nine children (4 boys). His parents are divorced and both remaried - they both served missions in Taiwan, but apparently didn't teach their children any chinese. He is 27, which makes us the oldest companionship in the mission. He is really good at Chinese - but everyone who's been here longer than me seems to be good at Chinese - it's so hard! I just have to be patient - but not too patient - I need to work hard as well. I'm glad to be out the MTC. This is seriously hard work though...I thought the MTC was rough. Everyone here, besides the missionaries, is Chinese - can you believe that?! Our group of about 16 missionaries left from SLC, flew to SF,CA, then to Tokyo Japan, and then to Taipei. The mission president along with all the office elders met us at the airport. We didn't get to our hotel until after 12pm, so we were all allowed to sleep in until 7pm. I think only now (almost a week later) after a nice nap today, am I finally caught up on sleep. We are always doing something - my companion is not lazy, if we don't have appointments we are working the streets. It's so hard right now...he does pretty much all the talking...the people are really nice, even when they reject you (which is just about all the time). I really need to get better at this language, because you only have a few seconds usually to spark interest, and I'm so slow...but with street contacting I've done well...people actually stop and talk when I approach them. Out of the first 5 people I approached, three of them stopped, listened and then agreed to write down their names and numbers so that we could call them to set up an appointment. Now, I know it won't always be that way. Maybe they just stopped to listen because they wanted to hear some really awful Chinese, or out of pity - but, whatever works I guess. Really, of the people we attempt to contact on the street, probably less than 10% will stop to listen to us, and then of those, only a few will give us their info. I hope when I am better able to communicate, they will still stop and listen to me 50% of the time...but I need to start understanding what they're saying back to me. At this point, I can get a point or a message across to them, but if they say something back to me, I'm pretty much clueless. I understand many words that are being said, but the meaning escapes me...apparently this is normal for new missionaries...it's rough though.

>We've got to go now, but a few quick notes...

>It's ghetto here. There are stray dogs everywhere, some of which bark and chase us. The food is good, but there's usually hair in it. Everyone is a horrible driver and there are thousands of people on scooters all over the place. You serve your own soup in restaurants, and in one I scooped out a paw, I nearly jumped. It was good soup though. I bought a brand new, nice bike and then painted it an ugly color...it's just what you have to do. There's a lot more I'd like to say, but "I don't have time" --- you know, that's a phrase that I've learned to understand the chinese say in a lot of different ways.