General Authority, Cousin, Bone Organizer

    Sorry, I am going in about 10 or 15 minutes. I will try to email later today. Right now I am in Taipei. In about 30 minutes I will be having lunch with my long lost cousin, Brett. He's working at the  Taipei American School. I was able to get a hold of him and we are eating lunch together with another sister companionship (mission rules- can't have a sister companionship eating or being alone with another guy). Haven't seen cousin Brett in eight years or so, so excited to see how it goes. 

Things that happened this week:

     Transfers - FINALLY after three weeks of being in a trio, I finally have a companion! so my new companion is Sister Zhong, she is Taiwanese. She is one of the Ba De sisters, my first area. The area has been struggling for a while so President took out the sisters and will close it for a while, since not a lot of baptisms are going on there. I have to be honest, it was a hard area for me as well. It probably needs a break so God can prepare more people for the sisters to teach in the future. I will finish my mission here in the promised land of Taoyuan, yay!

     Yesterday, Elder Peter F. Meurs of the 70 visited us at church. He spoke in Oct. 2016 conference about the sacrament. Our building has four wards, so he attended and spoke at every one of them. He is so cool! He is from Australia, so it was harder for a brother in our ward to translate since he is used to American accents. 

     Before he spoke, the new stake president (i think) spoke and had us missionaries stand up for our ward to see. It was so cool, he encouraged the members to work more with us.  Elder Meurs pretty much spoke about having hope and happiness, because God wants us to succeed. We just need to ask his help. It was so cool, he pretty much addressed the needs of the ward. He didn't prepare a talk, just went along with the Spirit, and it was exactly what the ward and I needed to hear.         

     After sacrament, we sat down with the bishop's wife and talked about friends and family to share the gospel with. She is a cute younger mom, two kids 12 and 9. After talking about them, writing down their names, we encouraged her to do what we are doing called a 21-day prayer miracles - write down names of people and pray that they would receive the gospel.

     Sorry gotta go, love you all!

-Sister Brinkerhoff   

On Death Row/Savior, Redeemer of My Soul

     Just got the notification to start the online course My Plan, which is for missionaries getting ready to go home.  I'm now on "death row," I can't accept it, I don't want it to end. It really has been the best 18 months of my life. I learned God really takes advantage of the time He has with His missionaries. He pretty much crammed in life-long lessons for me in 18 months, which is pretty remarkable. I go home July 29th. 

     It's been a week of miracles, from baptisms to eating Doritos with chopsticks and coming up with anti-flirting combats. We are going to start off the week with reorganizing bones (yay).

     I have been with the Sisters, and they have the FUNNIEST anti-flirting comebacks.  For example, there was this Vietnamese guy we tried to offer to share the gospel. He wasn't interested, but tried to practice English by saying, "I love you." My comp then said, "You speak great English!" So we joked at BYU whenever a guy would say, "I love you," we would hit it down hard with, "You speak good English." 

     Another example, "Do you want to come on a hike with us?" Sorry, I'm getting my bones reorganized (we are heading for a kind of chiropractor; in Chinese it translates to "bone reorganizer"). We should really hold an anti-flirting class when we get back.

     Elder Jensen, who is going home this week was the joke of Ward Council. He is totally anti-trunky, which was super amazing. The members and his companion Elder Heaton kept saying he's gonna get married in June, he's gonna find a wife, all that good stuff. The best part was when they were talking about the activity they held two weeks ago showing 17 miracles and how we will show it for pioneer day, and Elder Heaton said,"If he get's married, that will be the 18th miracle." Hahaha, Jolly good show, everyone laughed and thought it was pretty funny. 

     We had a stake choir concert, where everyone performed two songs. Some of my favorites: "Come Thou Fount" in Chinese, "You Raise Me Up in English "(they did great), a traditional Chinese song, The Prayer, and Be Still and Know that I Am God. Before the concert, one elder was being funny and said, "It's like pitch perfect, everyone is trash talking each other" but in reality it's not. Gotta love drama added by the elders.

     So two days ago, we attended the baptism of Harry, who my companion, Sister Huang, and I contacted. The story:

     When we first came to taoyuan one day, Sister Huang was like, "Let's go to this small park." It was really random and unexpected, but we went. We were there for a bit, no success, but finally we found a young dad who wasn't happy for some reason. We talked with him, said a prayer, and he felt the spirit. He then set up for a chapel tour. 

     A few days later, gave him and his two little boys a chapel tour. They were energetic and naughty, but i think they felt the Spirit and God's love, because at the end of the tour, the dad prayed in gratitude for direction in His life. He then was taking the boys to go, but they wouldn't leave. He kept dragging them out of the church but they kept running in, and finally he had to pick them up and march out of the chapel.

     He met with our elders, and found out it was his parents, not him that lived in our area. So we gave him to some nearby elders. Fast forward two months later to a few days ago, and I'm sitting at his baptism. Yay! :)  He got up to speak after he got baptized, and said that one day he was sitting at a park by his parents' house, being angry for some reason, and we came up. He wasn't interested in the message when missionaries approached him in the past, but for some reason, we were different. We prayed with him and He felt the Spirit. He then talked about the chapel tour, then the Elders teaching about faith, and now he is baptized. I am so grateful to be a part of his path to baptism. 

     One thing that blew my mind this week was the special training meeting the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders had for the district leaders. They taught them how to do member missionary work. They asked the Zone Leader's bishop's wife to do a demonstration with the Sister Training Leaders to show how it was done. The Sister Training Leaders started talking with her, and the bishop's wife gave them about 15 referrals, who live in three different districts in Taoyuan. It was amazing! Even after the roleplay, she just kept going on and on, giving more referrals. Afterwards, she came up to the Sister Training Leaders crying and said she has been waiting two years for missionaries to teach her how to do missionary work. She really wanted to do it, she just didn't know how. I was really grateful to be a part of the training and really wished every missionary was able to see what I saw in that demonstration. It was truly miraculous and got the district leaders really pumped about member missionary work. It was pointed out that information trickles down from the head to the body- what the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders get from MLC, by giving the same information to the District Leaders, they get their District Members excited. I thought it was a great training. The missionary leaders encouraged us to start working with the bishop and other church leaders. 

     Later in the meeting, we talked about working with members. Elder Welker quoted Pres. Jergensen, saying that If something doesn't work immediately, don't give up, just keep trying even if it takes weeks. We talked about that with member work and with green key indicators. It was pointed out in the meeting that we could have green key indicators all transfer and have no baptisms (Elder Shumway then bore his solid testimony that it was true). We figured that what was best overall is working with members. Even if it hurt our key indicators for now, the numbers will definitely skyrocket after a period of time. Our stake has a goal of getting 170 people baptized this year, since in 2015 we had about 89 baptisms and in 2016 about 92 baptisms, and we agreed most of them are from street contacting. If we all just got one referral from every stake member, we definitely will hit above 170, and those people will be solid RC's, because they have family and friends in the church. I noticed that all but one of my RC's are member referrals. I testify that the members are the best source of new investigators. 

     One elder pointed out that it will be hard to change this mission culture of doing member missionary work instead of street finding, but we are just going to have to be the pioneers that get it done. We are used to street contacting, because it doesn't require as much work or thinking. But overall it's not as effective as member missionary work, because those people don't have church connections, and it makes it a lot harder to be friends with the members, so they are a lot more likely to go less active . The Sister Training Leaders mentioned yesterday that members want to do missionary work, and we missionaries want to do member work, we just don't know how. Us missionaries in Taoyuan will start to change the culture and work with members more.

     This next transfer I will dedicate the time to working with members, and whatever free time I have I will dedicate it for finding. It's interesting, what I learned from being away from my area is that green key indicators don't matter as long as our actions will result in baptisms. I think if we changed that mission culture from wanting to get green numbers to working with members for baptisms despite temporary bad numbers (but keeping in mind our actions will result in baptisms and future green numbers), our baptismal numbers will skyrocket.

     So the elders showed the movie, "17 miracles." I haven't seen it since last year. I wasn't able to see it with them, but lately I've been thinking of the song from that movie because it sums up my mission:

1.  Savior, Redeemer of my soul 

     Whose mighty hand hath made me whole,

     Whose wondrous pow'r hath raised me up

     And filled with sweet my bitter cup!

     What tongue my gratitude can tell,

     Oh gracious God of Israel.

2.  Never can I repay thee, Lord

     But I can love thee.  

     Thy pure word, 

     Hath it not been my one delight,

     My joy by day, my dream by night?

     Then let my lips proclaim it still,

     And all my life reflect thy will.

3.  O'er rule mine acts to serve thine ends.

     Change frowning foes to smiling friends.

     Chasten my soul till I shall be

     In perfect harmony with thee.

     Make me more worthy of they love,

     And fit me for the life above.

     It's interesting, the beginning of the movie the main character leaves for his mission to Thailand, and at the end, he comes home from his mission in Thailand and helping the pioneers in the handcart company. I liked one part after they sang this song, where he stated his only two desires were to be with his son and do God's will.

     I am so grateful to serve my mission. I love it with all my heart. I love the people in Taiwan, and will enjoy every second of it. It is indeed an island of miracles. 

     I love Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and I grow closer to them every day. Please pray that my last transfer I can be a pioneer and start establishing a culture of member missionary work. 

     I love my mission in Taiwan!

     Love you all, have a great week!

-Sister Brinkerhoff

Companion in England, The 3 Peach Sisters, Storm troopers, Tale of two areas

Howdy cowpokes!

     I just asked my two awesome companions Sister Bernhardt and Sister Weaver if anything crazy went on this week while I was gone. They just stopped, looked and me and started laughing. Guess my mission has been so crazy, this week has been a tamer one compared to the other weeks I've had.  So here's an outline of what happened:

- Dragon boat festival: camping in paradise/sand sculptures

- Companion left for England  

- Interviews with President 

- Trio party for 3 weeks! :)-taking care of 2 areas

  exchanges in a trio

- Stormtroopers and a hot air balloon

- lots of rain, lots of cancels

- dinner with members-crazy stories

- more rain

- teaching kids class in the other church

- rained a lot

- painting the other sister's apartment

- Did i mentioned it rained?

- church- all by myself... and bishop's wife :)

     Crazy things on my mission-adventures galore: 

- me and comp who just got done with training being companions (me: senior comp for life)

- companion being sick-endless trips to hospitals, even one to taipei (3hr train ride away)

- a week with a member as a companion (got off her mission from washington dc a few months before)

- comp going home-served in Taipei with temple tour sisters for six days on Christmas week

- training a comp who is visa waiting to go to England.  Has been bapt for only two years and has not been at the mtc yet. Thankfully, she is from Taiwan and her English is great.

- ambulance ride with her (she's ok)

- being the first missionary (other than the seniors) to leave our mission to go to Gaoxiong to get her suitcase 

- comp in England, trio with sisters for three weeks

     Yep, it's been a pretty crazy week, to the point where other's crazy weeks are a normal for me 

   

      Monday, I got up early, emailed, got on a train with all of Taiwan and went from the west to the east coast. It's Dragon Boat Festival weekend, so everyone has the weekend off. Our and the Guishan (Turtle Mountain) wards went camping in beautiful area that was kind of foresty and open. It also was near a beach. And it was also, unfortunately, where all of Taiwan was as well. Super crowded when all of Taiwan is in a tiny, sleepy beach town. So we went to the beach and saw the International Sand Sculpture Festival. They had some pretty amazing ones. We went there, played in the water for a bit (below knee height of course), then went back and played ultimate frisbee. Talked to members and the Elder's Investigators, then went home. On the train, met a cool Filipino who is now the Zone Leader's investigator.

"Go Baptize the Queen of England!"

     My companion, Sister Huang, then had to get ready for her trip to England on Tuesday night. I also had to pack, since I would be in a trio with sisters for three weeks until transfers came and I got a new companion. We just packed, ate dinner with the Zone Leader's English class student/investigator (who bought us missionaries a fancy dinner). Sister Huang finished packing, then the taxi driver picked her up and I was with the sisters. It was funny, in her bye-bye shu (bye bye book, where we write goodbye notes and pics) someone was like, "Go baptize the queen!" even though she is serving in Leeds.

I said goodbye to her, she got in the taxi and left. The other sisters were there ready to whisk me off on their exchanges.  I am in Tao (Peach) 1, and the Tao 2 and Tao 4 (Sister Training Leaders) are on comp exchanges, so I was with one Tao 2 and one Tao 4 Sister for the rest of the night and part of the next day. We taught some lessons, then went home. The sister training leaders moved again, finally in a nice apartment. It's actually fancy, sooo pretty. Stayed with them, then continued with the exchanges then, went with the Tao 2 sisters.

     Tuesday, we had interviews with President Jergensen. I went last, which I was happy about, because his wife does an amazing job. While President took us out one by one for interviews, his wife showed us a clip from this years Broadcast video for the Youth or Single Adults with Elder Kim B. Clark, former BYU-I president and now a member of the 70. He talked about Joseph Smith and faith, repentance, and the Book of Mormon. It was amazing, I invite you all to look it up.   Worldwide Devotional for YA's - Elder Kim B. Clark

     After watching the video and receiving training from his amazing wife, I was called in and sat down with Mr. President. The first thing he said was, "Wow, Sister Brinkerhoff, you are the first missionary ever to leave this mission! Even I haven't been to Gaoxiong!" We then talked about High speed rails (180 miles per hour), and other stuff.

     He's the world's best mission president, such love and high expectations, the best combination in any leader. Christ leads that way, with high expectations as well as a lot of love. There was a talk we read last year that took place at a mission president's conference. I really liked how it said that to be a great leader, you need high expectations but also love. By doing so, you achieve loyalty, respect, reverence and love in return. By any other way, people either (high expectations, low love = no respect for leader, high love, low expectations = buddy, buddy relationship, nothing gets done or progresses, low love and low expectations = rebellion). 

Wednesday, kids class was awesome. Let me tell you, the mission really prepares you for church callings, I have so much more respect for primary and sunday school teachers, and teachers in general. Other than Yuli, I have taught kids classes my whole mission. It's been great, with God's help, I'm getting the hang of it. Lots of visuals and games, prayers and preparation, then everything works out great!

     One day, we played ultimate frisbee at a park next to a big art museum like we usually do, except for that morning there was a hot air balloon on the edge of the park next to where we were playing frisbee. It wasn't flying, it was just parked while some lady on the microphone was yakking away. To top it off, there were people dressed up as storm troopers from Star Wars posing next to it.  Then in the next photo shoot, the photographers gave them leashes so each held an australian shepherd of different colors, all with tails (my family dog buddy is an australian shepherd without a tail).  It was so random. 

     We were eating Dinner with a Cai family one night. Both parents were converts and served missions. It's amazing, here in Taiwan, a ton of women now in their 40's or 50's have served missions before, I am amazed at the members here. Brother Cai was telling me how when he served a mission, he helped two 18-year-olds get baptized. Right now, those two 18 year olds are stake presidents. The church lately has been telling us missionaries to focus on the younger generation, about 16 or 18-25, since its the time when people are most ready to receive the gospel and making the most life changes. People in that group are making big life changes like starting school, getting an education, getting married, having families. It seems like most recent converts have been baptized in that age group. Plus it makes sense, the time in our lives when we have the most friends is when we are young and at school with lots of classmates. That's why the church has been telling us lately to go hard with the youth since we are young and relate to them as well.

At church, the bishop's wife was so nice to come pick me and my companion up for church. My church is at a big stake center clear on the other side of town, and the Tao 2 sisters have their church nearby at the same time as me. It was weird being at church by myself with a member as my companion. We had relief society, then went to gospel principles, then went to sacrament meeting, where people shared their testimonies.  (Funny story: Elder Heaton, in my ward, was asked to introduce himself, so he told a story of how one day he was at a member's house and he told them he liked xiong mao. Because he got the tones wrong, instead of saying "pandas," he said "chest hair." He pretty much told the members he really likes chest hair, when in he meant pandas. Haha.)

     Thank you for your love and prayers! Please pray that I can work with the sisters to balance both areas as well as for our investigators and members! 

     I am so grateful for the Lord's hand in my life. Love you all!

-Sister Brinkerhoff

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

Two Words - Elder Cook

     Well, it has been a very miracle-filled, magical weekend.  Gotta say, it was full of blue skies and sunshine. And why is that?  Because ELDER COOK VISITED TAIWAN! And I am not kidding, the two days he was in Taiwan, it was beautiful weather. Guessing it was because an apostle of the Lord came to Taiwan. Lately it's been kinda cloudy which is nice, but it was cool.

Last Pday

     Went hiking in Neihu. My companion was picking up geckos along the way, and at the end of the hike even picked up a huge frog and put it on her shoulder. Super crazy stuff. It was raining that day, and pretty much that whole hike, we were soaked. The hike was very...adventurous. We even climbed up one side of the slick mountain. Adam Jacobson who served a mission here last year came and visited Taiwan. The funny part was that he was in my 2nd and 3rd grade class in elementary school. I hadn't seen him in about 12 years. Last year, he was in my mission district. He came back last week to visit Taiwan and did fun stuff like surfing, snorkeling.

     So now I have plans for visiting Taiwan after the mission. Adam said that if people don't visit Taiwan quick after the mission (at least a year), they probably never will come back for a long time if ever because of marriage and schooling. I'm gonna make sure that I can come back next summer, there's tons of stuff I still want to do. While I was with Adam, he Snapchatted me and gave it to my trainer, Sister Bain. She replied back, that she was driving home with her boyfriend. She was saying how she loved and missed me and at one point she said she was jealous of Adam...Honestly I would be very jealous too if I was her. I love and miss her.

     

     We are going back again to...LEOFOO WORLD! Yay, the fun amusement park I went to last September. We are going with a bunch of missionaries and members. It's gonna be great, my companion is like me and doesn't like rollercoasters. It's gonna be great!

In my brother's email, Elder Wong came to a stake conference there (Thailand). I remember last year he came to our stake conference in Taoyuan, he was funny. We had a role play competition, whoever did the best roleplay in teaching a family got these special toy tops from Hong Kong (he lives there); they were super cool. One set of elders won, and one of the Elders was so excited, he was looking everywhere to buy the tops on his mission. Elder Wong then gave one to him, and an extra "for his eternal companion." Haha.

Elder Cook

     Last Saturday, we as a mission went to Taipei to listen to Elder Cook. We as a mission got a picture with him, then he shook hands with every missionary.  They had a question and answer time. One elder asked the first question, which was to talk more about Key Indicators, which got Elder Cook and the other GAs fired up. Key indicators of conversion are the numbers we missionaries try to get every week. So every week, we try to get someone baptized (our goal is one baptism a month per companionship), six people on baptismal dates, three people at church and four new investigators every week. I felt like it was a question that impressed the general authorities, that we were a hard working mission. Other missionaries asked questions such as how to know when investigators have a broken heart and contrite spirit and how to gain people's trust in Asia.

Joseph Smith, Actor

     After Elder Cook left, we were still there in the room. You know the new First Vision movie? There's one that came out two years ago where they show it at the church Heritage Museum in Salt Lake City.

     The actor who played Joseph Smith for the video is actually in our mission.  He got up and told us the story of filming the project. He explained how he was chosen to play Joseph Smith, then we watched the video. It was interesting, in the video, it was different that the account written in the scriptures. After we watched the video, the actor explained how in the scriptures, Joseph said he sought for God because he wanted to know the true church. In the video, from a different account he gave, he said he went to God because he felt guilty for his sins and wanted to save his soul (sought for repentance), which made sense. The actor told us that at first it was hard to film, his acting seemed cheesy, but at one point when he took a break from filming, he realized he needed to follow the Spirit and act out the first vision instead of just Joseph Smith. He then had a powerful experience, and he actually felt like Joseph Smith, and it was captured on film. Like Joseph Smith, he was exhausted and slept in his trailer for three hours. Cool stuff!

Stake Conference

     Elder and Sister Soares are from Brazil. His wife has a thicker accent, and when she told everyone she was from Brazil, the crowd gasped. It was so cute, she was talking about how beautiful the music and flowers were (a bouquet of flowers on the pulpit). It was  she and her husband's first time in Taiwan.

Elder Soares kept on telling us how beautiful Taiwan is, the culture and language and everything. His accent wasn't as pronounced as his wife's, probably been spending more time with general authorities and have more of an American accent.  He talked about the Book of Mormon and how important it was to read it to be converted, which was perfect, it was what our investigator needed! she is such a miracle, she was having problems but now is back on track we are so happy! Elder Soares told how he was the youngest of four boys, and when he was little, his brothers met the missionaries and were baptized. Years later after he returned from a mission, his parents served a temple mission. While serving a few months into their mission, his dad had a heart attack and died. His mom showed faith in Heavenly Father despite trials and continued to serve by herself with other sisters for the rest of her mission. Months later, Elder Soares' second brother died, then his third brother, then two kids of his died during his wife's pregnancy. All of this happened in the space of two years. Everyone was in tears when he told us this story.  He was tearful as he was telling us. He then said we all will have trials in life, we need to have faith in Christ and be converted to Him to prepare us for trials. Ee told us over and over again he loved us, then at the end requested to shake everyone's hand.  It was awesome!

     Our phone got wet because of the rain and wasn't working, so we put it in rice for a day and then it worked! The elders kept joking that if we left it overnight, an Asian would come and fix our phone for us since the rice is there for payment. My comp thought it was funny. 

     God really lives and has blessed me a ton on my mission. We saw a huge miracles!  Gotta go have fun at an amusement park.  

Love y'all,

Sister Brinkerhoff

Pday, Mother's Day

     It has been a good week! 

     Transfers came, and I am still in Taoyuan (translates to Peach Garden, which is weird cause it is not like a garden and I don't see any peaches). Trainers and their trainees have to stay together for at least two transfers, and most of the time they stay in their area for another transfer. 

     

     Last Pday we went up by Taipei called Danshui. In Taiwan, there are a lot of old streets, kind of like boardwalks. They are so fun to go, I bought some tiny lantern souvenirs.

     Today we will try to go to Pingxi, where they have the lanterns kind of like the ones in Tangled. I'm so excited! 

     They celebrate Mother's Day here in Taiwan usually by going out to eat with moms like we do for our Mother's Day.

Father's Day in Taiwan is on August 8th, not June, because the word for August is ba yue, which means "eighth month," and ba hao which is "eighth day." Put it together, ba ba, also means dad, which is why Fathers Day is August 8th. Wa la! That's Chinese for ya! 

     My comp told me that the Taiwanese don't like going to each other's houses because they have to clean, get food ready and stuff. It's not like in America where we just invite people over. The Taiwanese usually just eat out or shop together, which explains why there are tons of places to eat.

     I gotta go I will be back later this evening to write more hopefully. Love ya!

-Sister Brinkerhoff