太夸张

 you know you're an old missionary when you have departing interviews with the president in three days and your departure plans tell you that you have to get on a plane leaving the country next saturday...so if anyone is planning on sending any letters or packages to taiwan, it might be best if you DONT. i wont be here to receive it.

 as for this past week, we lost a couple of our baptismal date investigators BUT because of sister kim and i, our goal of talking to literally EVERY SINGLE PERSON WE SEE, we were able to build up our investigator pool AND meet some really awesome people. i wrote all about this week's adventures and misfortunes in my journal but i'm using a kindle fire tablet to write emails this week and typing takes a while so maybe i'll just publish a book when i get home so that you all can read about my time here in taiwan.

 ￥~古姐妹 sister goo

WEEKLY UPDATE--Have you ever replaced suitcase wheels?

 While moving from Bade to Yuli the wheels on both of my suitcases melted so now it doesn't roll. you just have to pull or drag it to move it. Wheels on suitcase are of the utmost importance, but how do you replace the wheels if you live in a small town where the closest thing to a place like Wal-Mart is a 7-11? (7-11 only sells wheels for toy cars) You just fix it yourself. I took the wheels off of my rolling chair and replaced the melted wheels with those...I know, supper ghetto, but hey, let me tell you, you learn A LOT of things on the mission. You just gotta make do with what you have, you know? Other than starting to organize my things, this week I found out that a part member family that I taught in Bade got baptized, I went on my last exchange with out Sister Training Leaders, opened up a korean language class, an origami class, an facial diagnosis class and a drawing class. We found 8 new investigators, had 4 families at church, set new baptismal dates, met ALL of our key indicators and helped get 3 Less-actives back to church! Our secret weapon? The SPIRIT! Crazy stuff...."A luminous being the spirit is...." Missions are AWESOME!! Missions are forever!

> Sister Goo

WEEKLY UPDATE--I'm dying!

Do you know what happens after being in Taiwan for 19 months?( Yes, 19, not 18.) Your mission President tells you to pack your bags and go home. Thanks President....

It has been such a blessing to be able to serve the people here in Taiwan. These past months have been TOO AMAZING. I have learned SO MUCH (my brain is going to pop) and have grown in more ways than I can even think (the numbers on the scale prove it...haha)  and I have never been happier!!! Words can not express how incredible serving a mission has been. I LOVE TAIWAN! I LOVE THE 台灣人! I have absolutely LOVED my mission and as sad as I am to say goodbye, I am also very excited to return home! I am grateful for all the love and support received  from each and everyone of you. This mission, my mission has blessed my life and i know that it will continue to bless my life and the lives of my family and those around me from. 

"And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father! And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!" (D&C 18:15-16)

It has been quite an adventure....and even that is an understatement...haha. For those who are considering the decision of a mission, my only advice for you is GO! SERVE A MISSION AND YOU WON'T REGRET IT! 

Mahalo! A Hui Hou! Sayonara! Aloha O'e! 

-Sister Goo

Just an FYI if you have a difficult time putting two and two together. This is the last email that you will get from this account. 

Last PDAY with these KOOKS!

Week 5...

Just want to say, CONGRATS TO MY BROTHER FOR GETTING HIS CALL! I'm a little jealous that you only had to wait a week for it. But Salt Lake City South Mission is going to be LIT!! You're GOING TO KILL IT!! Reporting on August 9th, I'll be home for your farewell talk! 🤘😂

Can I tell you all about this week, next week? We have to go to the post office before it closes. I Love you all!

-Sister Goo.

 P.s. If you happened to look at the pictures, yes, my hair is gone. Sister Wong chopped.

Last Transfer!

This week was hectic. It was SO GOOD! Stake Conference, Exchanges, Interviews with President, Transfers! Sister Cheng left for the MTC, Sister Wong and Sister Lee went home. I got a new Companion. Sister Kim. She is THE COOLEST person EVER! Born in Utah, Raised in Korea, Grew up in Thailand. Loves to chill and eat good food. I'm stoked to be able to spend my LAST TRANSFER with her as my companion. I'm still in Yuli, The most BEAUTIFUL PLACE EVER! And I do not plan on wasting a single moment!  I am so excited for this new transfer! Big things are going to happen and we are going to make sure they do! We are also going to baptize someone in a waterfall. The "Mormon Waterfall" that's what the people here call it. It's gonna be SICk! 
Well, I'm alive and THRIVING! 🤘Talk to you all next week!

-Sister Goo

WEEKLY UPDATE-- I suppose it is time.

  6:19:59 PM HST

Time to write an email about my week. First thing's first. I feel like they should change the way they do the Earthquake drills in elementary schools. The reason I bring this up being, this past tuesday morning we had an earthquake. It was not that violent but it was big enough to shake up my companion real well. While our apartment was shaking and things were falling she came running out of our room and shouted, "What do we do?! Do we get under the desks?!" All i could say was, "Welcome to Taiwan!"🤗 Sister Watson is a sweetheart. I love her a lot.

Fun things about being in YuLi, we teach english class twice a week in two different towns. Tuesday Nights in RuiSui, Wednesday nights in YuLi and hopefully Saturday afternoons in ChiShang (we are looking to open up a third class). 

We had exchanges this week. Took an hour train ride to HuaLian city and spent the day as Sister Austad's companion. During an exchange we met; a extremely hyperactive dog named honey who could not, for the life of her, stand still for 2 seconds, grace, a Taiwanese lady who grew up in Vietnam and then moved to America for school and now is back in Taiwan because God told her to come here. She is a very devout Buddhist and Jehova's Witness. We walked into a McDonalds to find that the first and second floor (except for one table) was reserved for a group of high schooler's on their "Graduation trip". I don't know why you would go to McDonald's to celebrate graduation...anyway, at this McDonald's we met  El Jose Maria this dude from Spain who spoke un poco de inglés so we tried talking to him using the best high school spanish that we could remember. We asked him "¿qué estás haciendo aquí?" (What are you doing here?) El Jose Maria said, "El Jose is free man. Alone boy, alone girl, NO PROBLEM! Go and see beautiful, No problem." 😂Gracias, El Jose!

The GREATEST thing about this week was that we were able to take a 5 hour train ride to Taipei to attend MISSION CONFERENCE! WOOT! Every missionary in our mission was in attendance. Why the special Mission Confernce? Well, Elder Quentin L. Cook,Elder Ulisses Soares,  Randy D. Funk, and a few others really amazing leaders of our church came to share a message. It was the most powerful meeting I have ever attended. I wrote a lot about what was said in my journal so when I get home (In 9 weeks....😱😱) I can tell you all about it. 

Well, don't want to bore you all with my words. Shout out to my friends who have officialy finished their time in the MTC and are now heading into the FIELD!! 🤘I LOVE YOU! 

-Sister GOo

Sister Watson

New companion in Yuli.

WEEKLY UPDATE--It's about time.

 4:41:00 PM HST

I know, it's been a while, but I've got time so let me tell you about all the new, crazy, and exciting things that have happened. My last companion Sister Cheng got her VISA! She leaves for the MTC in June. 😀 I GOT TRANSFERRED. Yes, after being in my last area (BaDe) for a good 7 1/2 months, President finally decided it was time for me to leave. We had to take a 5 hour train ride from Taipei down to Hualian and then another train from Hualian down to YuLi. It's a long way. I got moved down south, to a little place called YuLi in the HuaLian area. Surrounded by moutains and by the ocean side. We get to bike along the coast, pick coconuts off the ground, talk to people on pig farms and be chased through rice fields by all the stray dogs running around here. This place is the spitting image of Hawaii.  He's a funny guy. He is preparing me very well for when I go home in 11 weeks.  YuLi is a very intimate place. Everybody is on a first name basis with everybody. You can bike around the entire thing in 60 minutes(that's if you bike really slow). Moving from TaoYuan to YuLi is like jumping off a horse and onto a sloth. The pace of life is just so slow here. Im still trying to adjust to it. Everything is so chill. YuLi is very chill. Everything closes at 8:00. Like Kauai. So street finding at night can be a struggle sometimes BUT it IS a very special place. Why put emphasis on the special? Because YuLi unlike any other place in Taiwan....YuLi is home to 3 of Taiwan's largest Psychiatric Hospitals. Just like how the U.S. sends their homeless to Hawaii, Taiwan dumps all their crazies down in YuLi...We are fortunate enough to come across people that don't seem to be all there. We've met people named; apple, fish, box, pig... It makes things very interesting here.

Another special thing about this place is that our chapel is on the second floor of the  richest man in YuLi's house and our apartment is right about the chapel. On the third floor of the rich man's (whose name is Mr. Hong) house. The members in YuLi are not enough to make a ward so right now it is just a branch. The YuLi branch on a good sunday have a turnout of about 35 people in sacrament meeting (missionaries included). The members here are pretty interesting. We've actually got two Haole's in our ward. Their wives are Taiwanese and they have been living here for a while.  There is a couple called the Gunn's whose house is in the middle of a rice plantation and they have 13 really big dogs (max, grace, lucy, nina, nan, happy, QQ.....thats all i've met so far). Our members, although few in number, are so willing to help us missionaries and help this branch grow and become a ward. AND, the members here COOK REALLY GOOD FOOD!

With a new area, comes a new companion. I've got a new companion. Her name is Sister Anne Marie Watson from Salt Lake City Utah. She has been on her mission for 9 months. She is a crazy good artist, pianist, and loves to talk. She's pretty great. 

YuLi is a pretty small area but the entire area that we cover is pretty big. I am so excited to be here and I am sooo HAPPY to be serving in such a beautiful place in Taiwan. I know that these last two transfers are going to be a blast. We are going to KILL it here in YuLi! 

Mom, I hope me writting this email today makes you happy. It was good to see the fam today! I hope you all are excited for Summer Break! I know I AM! 😆😆 

Love you guys!

Sister Goo.

WEEKLY UPDATE: The Bade Sisters will FINALLY have a baptism!

Less pictures this week means I can actually write an email! Woot!

Seriously though, there is never enough time in a day to get all that I want to get done, done. Which is why recently my companion and I have been waking up extra early (and heading out the door at 6:00am) to get a head start on our day. The results are MIRACULOUS!! We are able to have more time to find new investigators, visit members and meet with our investigators AND we sleep better at night (because at the end of the day we are exhausted). We have been able to meet people that had we not gotten out early, would have never met. It's pretty cool.

We had Zone Conference with our Asia Area President Elder Funk this week. Our leaders always have wonderful counsel for us missionaries. This conference focused on making the sacrament THE MOST IMPORTANT part of your week. How exactly do we do that? I'll throw that question up in the air and let you all think about it this week.

With Sister Cheng and our lovely Summer.

 One of our investigators brought up an interesting question this week. She asked, "The American people's diet consists mainly of sugar, fat, and fried stuff. The Taiwanese people's diet consists mainly of rice, fruits and vegetables. So WHY are you American's teeth so straight and WHITE and Taiwanese aren't?" All that I could say to her was, "You have to use the right side of the toothbrush or it doesn't work." She didn't think it was funny. But I'm pretty sure the answer to this question is the toothpaste. Taiwanese toothpaste is very different...

 Yesterday was English day and to practice her English, my companion used English in our contacts with people on the street. We met and guy named Walker.  My companion is a gooofball and said, "Your name is Walker? Do you like to walk?" And then I started dying...😂

 When you say your prayers, read your scriptures, watch videos on LDS.org, who do you think about? Well, there is one investigator we have (She's kind of crazy). We met with her and followed up on how her daily prayers and scripture reading was going. She said it was going well. When she prays and reads she always thinks about Goo jie mei...She said ,"Sister Goo just makes this entire world different!" uhhhh...after that, we dropped our plan of teaching her about the Law of Chastity and taught a lesson about having faith in Christ. We'll keep trying with her......

 On the same but different note, one of our investigators, Shi Cheng You, is getting baptized this Saturday! He is 15 years old and sister Cheng and I have been meeting with him and his 13 year old sister Shi Meng Jun for about two months now. The Bade sisters will FINALLY have a baptism! But guess what? Cheng You is getting baptized in a different ward...He lives in Bade but because the only way to get to church is if someone drives him (and our Bishop does not want to inconvenience our members to pick up and drop off Cheng You every Sunday) so he will get baptized in Taoyuan (about 45 minutes away from Bade).

 Today for P-day, we are taking Roxanne to Miaoli (a super pretty place an hour train ride from bade where you can go and pick strawberries). This week is transfers....I have 18 weeks left.......😕

-Sister Goo

Have a good P-day

Add caption

lots of pictures this week

WEEKLY UPDATE-- Break the code and baptize.

We had interviews with President this week. My interview was especially short this time around. President gave specific counsel to,"Change something. Break the code and baptize."  And because our area has not seen a baptism in the past year, Sister Cheng and I have been working extra hard to "Break the code and baptize." Satan is working extra hard as well. It's funny how things work... Don't you worry though, we WILL break the code!

This week was an exciting week and this month is HOPPING! On Saturday one family in our ward, the Ding family went through the temple and were sealed together as a family. Next week Saturday another ward member (and my friend) Jessica Liu is getting married (We were invited to dance at her wedding reception) and being sealed to her husband in the temple for time and all eternity.   The week after that another family in our ward, the Fu family is also being sealed together. Our ward is so excited that all of this temple work is going on! I am too! Eternal families is what we want! It's what Heavenly Father wants! 

Well, Winter has gone and Spring is here..that means it is going to get warm soon! 

-Sister Goo

Rice Fields

4:46 PM

4:46 PM

future missionaries

11:18 AM

WHEN WE STUDY AT THE PARK

11:04 AM

11:06 AM

12:47 PM

12:52 PM

12:53 PM

HIP CAFE

Ate at a super hip cafe with our friend's mom (who is on a mission in Canada) !

2:55 PM

2:56 PM

3:17 PM

6:38 PM--DOGGIE DIAPERS

6:53 PM -- US

9:54 PM-- SISTER CHEN'S FISHY FACE

MISSIONARY TREATS

Thanks fam for the goods! The missionaries here LOVE them!

10:14 PM  

10:49 PM

Sister Cheng

8:40 pm

8:46 pm

WEEKLY UPDATE: It Rained. It Poured.

This week was a very wet week. It rained, it poured, and it stayed about 10 degrees Celsius for the majority of the week. Regardless, it was a pretty awesome week. We were able to help a less active remember exactly why she joined the church in the first place and help her to find her testimony again. Her story is actually pretty cool and her son is now our Elder's investigator.

Taiwanese people do not like the rain. They believe that if you don't cover your head when it is raining then slowly your hair will fall out. (The rain here is pretty dirty)They will do anything not to get wet. So when they see us missionaries riding our bikes in the rain they willingly take us to a 7-11 and buy us a poncho or raincoat or give us their umbrella. Although most people we talk to are Buddhist and usually are not interested in talking to us, they do have a soft spot for helping us out.....

As I am sitting here in the internet cafe typing this email and half listening to the Britney Spears that they are blasting from the front counter, I can't help thinking about how grateful I am for our Heeavenly Father. He knows us. He loves us. He has a plan for each and every one of us. And although we may not know what exactly that plan for us is right now, we know that it is good. I am so thankful for this opportunity to be here serving a mission. I am grateful for all the love and support from family and friends. I am grateful for this Gospel of Jesus Christ and His atonement. It allows us to change, repent, and be better. Well….I'm sure the weather is super nice back home! (Mom, I saw the pictures from the hiking that you all did.....) Until next week!!!

-Sister Goo

A Huge turtle!

its a huge turtle, made entirely out of sticky rice, sesame seeds and chocolate. 

7:56 pm

7:57 pm

Sister Cheng's Signature Face

My companion's signature face.

9:28 pm

1:15 pm

3:06 pm

Cynthia's B-Day Party 2/22

9:31 pm

9:35 pm

9:54 PM

Cynthia's B-Day!

skating and bouncing

11:22 am

12:42 pm

12:44 pm

1:03 pm

4:03 pm

4:05 pm

4:07 pm -- with Sister Cheng and Sister Wong!

4:12 pm

4:16 pm