First Letter Home from Taiwan

Hey family!!! I sent like 17 pictures so hopefully you'll be able to open them all up Just a little update on the stuff that’s going on I guess. I explain each picture. [Blog readers, pictures will be posted next week but we put the descriptions here anyway so you can see what Elder Rasmussen did the first few days in Taiwan].

3657- Is just the airplane food we had coming over here, it was way good, it killed the MTC food by a billion percentage
3661,3662- This is the Taipei Temple at night, it was beautiful we stayed across the road in the mission home for the first 2 days until we found out our areas and trainers.
3663-Just me in our apartments the 2nd day
3664-We took a bus ride to a the place where an apostle dedicated Taiwan to missionary work, this is just a picture over a river.
3668- This is across the way from the place where Taiwan was dedicated, it's called the grand hotel, later in the day we went through it, it was spectacular, wow it was amazing. It’s HUGE.
3670-just a random little store on the way
3673-This is the entrance to the grand hotel
3674-this is where Taiwan was dedicated to missionary work, he told us to find a quiet spot and go prayer, and dedicate ourselves to the Lord for the next two years. It was a way cool experience. (This is a reenactment of my prayer haha)
3676- This monument represents all the souls that fought and died fighting against communism.
3677- This is the building built for the Dedication
3681-This is all the new missionaries going to Taiwan, we took this picture in front of the hotel.
3684- This is a picture of 101, the tallest building in the world
3687- This is the top of the mission home, you can see a lot of things, it's 7 floors up. it's way cool.
3691- This is my MOM, or the companion that was with my trainer before me, but just hadn't have left yet. We used a screw driver, and the stove to drive holes through the bottom of that box, to make a box for the back of my bike.
3692- This is the young girl we baptized Saturday night, it was a way cool experience, the first day into my area to experience a baptism, her name is Wu Zhi Juan. She is 22, she's sweet!!
3693- This is all of us before the Baptism.

Well there are some pictures I hope you guys can see them and like them. But, a little about my area first…

Area- My area is the heart of Taiwan City. It's way sweet, I traveled about 15 minutes by taxi and about 8 minutes by bike, away from the mission home. Our apartment is nice and cozy!! But it'll do I guess. But the city is absolutely crazy, the buses rule the road. You better get out of the way for all buses or else you’re dead. haha they just cut off all cars and everything, they don't even care, because they need to get to their stop, doesn't matter if their 4 lanes over, they're going to cut off anything in their way to get to that stop. but the main 2 rules on the road are, can't turn right at a red light, and when you want to turn lanes, you can't look back. Just change lanes, because the logic is that the person behind you will move to not hit you, because if you look back before you change, there are so many cars and scooters, that you have a better chance of running into the back of somebody. So it's pretty interesting, but really fun, especially when at night you’re tired, the second you get onto the road you’re not tired anymore. haha

Food- The food is absolutely great!!!!! I love it so far, I don't think I’ve tried anything way crazy yet, but so far everything that I’ve tried I’ve loved. The best thing is dumplings!! I absolutely love them, we had a zone conference and they fed those to everyone for lunch, I was dying over them. Put some soy sauce and grape a set of chopsticks and your set to go. But it's crazy, I don't know anything about the food or anything, so it shall be interesting to see what happens when we go shopping today.

Language- Yeah I don't even know where to start really. haha I can't understand anything, it's kinda funny, actually, I have to just laugh, cause if I didn't I would get really frustrated and wouldn't be having fun. But I would be pretty bad off without a trainer to be honest with you. At church all the meeting are obviously in Chinese, it's really hard for me not to fall asleep cause I can't understand anything, and the harder I try to understand what they are saying the more tired my brain gets, so either way I’m tired once church gets out. But at church, each hour they asked me to introduce myself which was pretty interesting. Then in sacrament they asked me in the middle of sacrament to get up and bear my testimony. So I got up there and I look down at the congregation, they are all just smiling at me, so I started and said something, I didn't know if it was correct, so I said dui bu dui which means correct or incorrect, they all smiled and said correct. It's totally way laid back it's pretty funny. But it went good, and I spoke pretty good, I wasn't like jumpy or anything which was really good. After church all the members, were like talking to each other saying, he's only been in Taiwan for 4 days, wow, they all were like telling me I had good power, and I was very good and stuff, it was pretty funny. Teaching is interesting, there have been 3 of us for the last 3 days the other elder left this morning, so in lessons, I’ve just bore my testimony about prayer and stuff, so I haven't really taught a legit lesson just me and my trainer yet, but it's fun to talk with real Chinese people. Contacting is tough, because when you stop at a red light, you have like 75 second until it turns green, so you just turn to the guy or gal next to you on a scooter and start talking to them. It's hard for me because I don't know how to speak much, so it's pretty intimidating. Haha I asked a guy Saturday night to come to church with us on Sunday, yeah I got rejected. But the funny thing is if they reject you, they just ride off and you'll never see that person again, so that takes a little of the pressure off.

Trainer- my trainer is Elder Bishop, he is one of the elders from the other mission that came over after the mission was closed. He has a lot of fire about getting baptisms, which is funny... I can tell that I’m going to learn a lot from him, and I’m way excited for my first transfer in Taiwan to be with him as my trainer. Also he's from Bountiful, so that’s cool.

The work- Well they had that young lady get baptized right when I got here, then we have 2 or 3 baptisms lined up for next week. I came here right when this mission is on fire. Haha I mean 4 baptisms in the first week or so, it's crazy. Obviously I didn’t help convert them, but it's still way cool, I think I might be baptizing one of them next week too, which shall be interesting. But, I'm loving it so far, our ward is absolutely amazing. They hadn't had a lot of baptisms, until Elder Bishop came into their ward, now they are all way excited to help, and come to lessons with us and stuff. Taiwan people I’m not even kidding are the nicest people ever. Even when they reject you, they just say thank you over and over and over. It's awesome; I really do love these people so much. But last night we had dinner at a member’s house with a couple other members, and we had 2 investigators with us. We ate, then talked, then shared a message with them. I shared a scripture about the atonement, and then talked a little about how important the atonement is. But it was funny, all 4 members, were like treating me like a baby because I was new. It was funny, but the food was way good, I don't know what it was but it was good. And then she gave us oranges, and apples, which were the best fruit I’ve ever had, especially the apples, they were amazing. It was awesome.

Well I’m just studying along, and trying to get the language down, so that it's not a barrier in my teaching and talking to the Taiwanese people. But, I’m loving it here!

I'm glad to hear that all is going good there. I love you guys so much. I'm glad the business is taking off, I knew it would, and will keep doing so, cause I believe you guys have done your part, and continue to do your part, and working hard to make it happen, and the Lord is blessing you with the rest, and letting you guys have success you guys won't even know was possible.

I Love you guys so much, but yeah I still need to get my bike. Love you guys.