Hello from the other side...I mean MISSION.

Hello everybody, it has been an insane week filled with breaking mission records, amusement parks, leaving missions, seeing family friends, and getting a comp ready for her mission to England. 

     But first, just want to wish you a Happy Dragon Boat Festival. Since it's a four day weekend, we are going camping with the ward. We won't stay the night, just go up with them and have fun! :)

     Last week, we get a call from some members asking if we could eat breakfast with them, which was kind of unusual but we said yes. We ate with them and the elders after playing ultimate frisbee like we usually do. We found out later that night that Elder Olson, who is an elder who we share the ward with was called to be an office recorder and left a few hours after breakfast (the president asked him the day before).  He is pretty much the youngest recorder in history of the mission I think. His Chinese is sooo amazing, he has only been here for seven months. Office recorders are only for elders with amazing Chinese, which is usually later in the mission. They pretty much record baptism records, work with mission numbers and such. So Elder Olson left for Taipei with three weeks into the transfer, since it takes three weeks to train. His companion is Elder Jensen. 

     So now the new elder is none other than... ELDER HEATON! He's some distant relative from my Grandma Brinkerhoff's side, since her maiden name is Heaton. I swear, the Heaton's are taking over the church. I met him at last year's Christmas party, and he called me Relative ever since. Now he is the new elder here with us in Taoyuan.

Victoria Zhang/The fastest train in Taiwan

This is totally Gods hand in it all.  Last week, we got a call from the mission office that my companion, Sister Huang, will leave for England on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday, so we had to hurry and go to Kaoshiung, where she is from, to pack her suitcase (which means I will be the first young missionary ever to leave the mission boundaries! Needless to say, people in my district were jealous that I could go).  President wanted us to go there and back all in one day, but we were too late buying high speed train tickets on a Thursday (because it was a four-day holiday weekend). So we were able to get tickets, but it required us to leave on Friday afternoon and get back on Saturday night.

     Because we would be in Kaoshiung for two days, we were able to stop and visit Victoria Zhang, who lives in Kaoshiung. She was a friend to my Uncle Brent and Aunt Brenda. She is so cute, she gave me really nice gifts for Chinese New Year. Her family all passed away from sickness, so she's kind of lonely. She teaches English. It was

so great to see her for two hours, I love her and was glad to see her. She served a mission a long time ago when my current mission president was her assistant to the president in her mission in Taipei. She showed me a photo of him and of my Uncle Brent when they served missions. She told me she now lives in Uncle Brent's favorite area of the mission when he served in the Taichung mission many years ago. 

Staying at Huang Jm's house was really...different. Her parents are really nice. They took us to a nice restaurant, we got some shopping done for Huang jm then left the next day. We also met the Kaoshiung elders and ate shaved ice together.  Sis. Huang is leaving for England tomorrow night. The church released a new rule this year that members can't be companions with missionaries. The only exception is is there are too many appointments for a companionship to teach, then they can split with members. So I will be with the sister training Leaders for three weeks. It will be great learning from them, I am so excited. Definitely will be harder, since we will have to share area and have teaching appointments fit with our schedules, but we can do it. 

Love 

sorry, gotta go camping. love you all!

-Sister Brinkerhoff