Taichung Time
We've had quite the week over here in the
land of Betel Nut and sun! Basically, we haven't stopped eating all
week. Last P-day, we went to a place like Tucanos and I ate until I was
so uncomfortable that I couldn't even walk, so we slept for the rest of
our P-day! It was totally worth it.
We had the chance to go up to Taichung City for a
big leadership meeting with President and Sister Blickenstaff on Tuesday
and we spent the entire day there! We left our door at 7:45 in the
morning and didn't get off our returning bus until 6:00 at night! That
was the first night that we had people taking us out to eat, so we went
straight to our appointment and had some delicious Thai food! Wow, Thai
curry is so delicious!! Dad, you would love the amount of curry that
they have here! It's really weird that I like to eat this kind of food
now... it's all veggies and rice and fish and stuff! I'm poppin' octopus
in my mouth like it's nothin'!!
Wednesday was pretty busy! We had another couple
eating appointments (where I ate dacang bao xiaocang... it's a hollowed
out pig intestine with rice stuffed inside, and then a piece of sausage
stuffed inside of the rice...) throughout the day, and then had a
totally empty English Class! Ha, no one really wanted to come to English
during the New Year preparations!
Thursday is when the New Year actually started! We
had an absolute blast as we rode through the pretty much EMPTY streets
and screamed "Happy New Year" and "Merry Christmas" to everyone that
looked outside of their house... then we'd run up and try to get them to
let us in! We never actually got in to anyone's house, we were too
不好意思... but we did find some cool people on the streets! I wish I could
explain how alien it feels to be in a big city during the Chinese New
Year... the best example I can give you is the opening scene of "I Am
Legend" when he's driving through the empty streets of New York! It's
pretty similar!
That night, we had an incredible dinner with many
Taiwanese delicacies! Some funky meatballs wrapped in lettuce, some
bamboo with mayo on top, some fried fish, mini shrimp, and some kind of
yummy egg doinker! Then the host brought out her own home made MASHED
POTATOES!!! We all thought that we'd died and gone to heaven! It was a
really fun dinner!
They're doing this "light festival" thing this year
in my area, and apparently it's only done once a year in different
places throughout Taiwan, so we have people from all over the island
coming into our area to see this HUGE set up of lights and statues and
such! We've already ridden our bikes through it many times on our way to
and from visits and it's really beautiful! They haven't even finished
it yet and it's already totally awesome. We're pretty stoked to see it
all lit up and ready to go (some time around the 14th I guess...).
So we had a very busy week full of lot's of Dinner and Lunch appointments... highlights would be:
-Lasagna
-lemon tarts
-KFC
-pig feet (just fat... I'll never be able to play the whole "little piggy went..." game with my kids.)
-PIZZA
-and
basically non stop eating! And it's not even over! We've still got
about 5 or 6 meal appointments throughout this next week! pray for me
guys.
I want to share today about the love that I feel for
my family! I've probably shared too many times to count and you've all
probably read those emails, but as I read the emails from my family this
week and saw the pictures of Jessi and Alec doing Mr. Springville, my
heart just exploded with love and pride! I think back to all the family
vacations and outings we've done over the many years, and I'm bursting
at the seams with joy knowing that those never have to end. We have all
of eternity to be together, and that is all I'll ever need to be happy. I
testify that through the blessings of living a worthy life and doing
what God expects of us, we will be with our family for eternity. That is
worth all the wealth or praise in the world, isn't it?
love, elder noll
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