For all who haven't heard of the above song (Dui Mian de Nu Hai, or The Girl Across the Way), I would strongly recommend listening to it. I'm in a Taiwanese internet cafe which is hard to describe because it is so Asian. It has ads for tons of Chinese computer games with people with swords, tons of giant Dr. Dre Beats like headphones (most likely very similar to the fake ones I bought in Turkey a couple months ago), Chinese music and dubstep mixed in with a couple of T-Swizzle songs (like 22). I thought I knew how to read characters, but when I sat down at the computer to email I was like, uhhhh, what on earth does any of this mean and how can I email? Thank goodness my companion is native.
So since I last emailed (I think I was doing laundry at the time?) I packed, slept, wrote letters (the first ones since I entered the MTC! So I was pretty proud of myself. Unfortunately I only have addresses from people who send me stuff, so if you didn't get something and you wanted to, I'm sorry! I still love you.), and rode on that abominably long plane ride. Actually the planes weren't too bad. We got to the airport and all the missionaries were lined up slowly trying to figure out the self check-in when this cute old man came over and got me, took me somewhere else, got me 2 aisle seats, and one economy plus middle seat (no one sat next to me so I had two seats to myself!). Then he let my bag be 2 pounds overweight without charging me! (Granted, my other bag still had like 15 pounds until it was full, so I could have switched stuff, but still, what a nice old man.) I got to talk to my family at the airport on the payphone which made me sound like I was Morgan Freeman/God in Bruce Almighty (with a powerful, reverberating voice), and made my family sound like the mice in Cinderella. But I got to talk to them all and to little Caleb!
Two highlights of the Salt Lake City airport experience were:
We were walking through the airport to try and find our terminal and this mom and her daughter walk up to us, the mom says, "Wow, we had to come talk to you sister missionaries. My daughter just loves missionaries and she can't wait until she is old enough to serve." Her daughter stood quietly beside her, and when we asked her age she said she was 18 and that she has gone on exchanges with missionaries and was so glad for the age change. The Lord is preparing the youth to serve missions and to help bless peoples' lives. The second experience was in the security line and there was a mom with her two little girls and one of the little girls (6 years old) said, "Are those real sister missionaries?" And the way she was looking at us with awe made me determined to be the best real sister missionary I could be.
On the flights I passed out for the majority. Luckily it's a talent I have to sleep anywhere, anytime. So jetlag hasn't really been a problem for me, I'm just exhausted all the time from the hard missionary work (/missionary fun?). I talked to this family in Chinese and they were really interested why so many white people were dressed nicely and headed to Taiwan, so I taught her part of the first lesson and that we believe God is our Heavenly Father and that he loves us and wants to bless her family. I didn't have any Chinese materials or handouts to give her, but I gave her a mormon.org flier and told her that it is also in Chinese and she said she would go look! On the flights I thought we weren't allowed to watch movies so I slept a lot, now that I'm here, we can watch all animated disney movies, most animated dreamworks, and I was like -____- "That would have been nice to know...YESTERDAY!"
In Taiwan I have loved all the sights, sounds, tastes (well mostly, other than this hair-like meat we had in a breakfast sandwich), and have hated the feels. Like the feel of the bike seat slowly crushing my tailbones into dust. Just kidding, I haven't hated it. But have you ever thought how impossibly hard riding a bike in a skirt is? It is a miracle I didn't crash the first day. First of all, people kind of don't follow traffic rules here (mostly scooters) and second, I'm in XinZhu which is the windiest city in Taiwan (apparently) so skirts have been flying everywhere, and one of the bikes broke the first day. But a nice man happened to be leaving and went back into his work to get a tool to fix the bike! People here are the nicest and I remember how much I love Taiwan and Taiwanese people. People here are the best.
At church I got the chance to bear my testimony and when I said this was my first Sunday in Taiwan everyone oohed and aahhed reallly loudly, I had to try my best not to burst out laughing. After I bore my testimony people came up to me and said, "If I had my eyes closed and didn't know you were a foreigner, I would think from your pronunciation that you were native!" Heavenly Father is really helping me with the language and I am so grateful for it. I am able to understand more than half of what people say. Once we were talking to this mainlander in a park who was a really old man, and I could understand 2 words he said. I was so freaked out that I couldn't speak the language, but my native companion said she could hardly understand too. Missionaries who come here without being able to speak Chinese really have so much faith!
Another small miracle. Sister Bywater is in my zone so I get to see her this Friday for specialized training. I love it here and am so grateful to be back in Taiwan. I love the people, the food, the city, and I love being a missionary here. It's hard to believe that I lived here for 3 years and missed so much of real life in Taiwan. I'm grateful I get to be here and experience a totally different side of Taiwan!
Love,
Sister Perkins
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