Chinese New Year! Welcome to the Year of the Pig!

Chinese New Year was this week so it was such a party!!! This week in Chinese culture has essentially the same significance to them as our week of Christmas and New Years has to us in American culture. Everyone had work off for the whole week, and since my current area is basically a vacation spot on the coast of Taiwan, everyone came down here for their vacation. Normally this area of Taiwan is pretty empty with less people than the northern city up in Taipei, but this week I felt like I was back in the center of the Taipei city with how many people there were!

It's also tradition here that on this Chinese New Year week, the members take turns feeding the missionaries HUGE meals for every meal (lunch and dinner) for a whole week. It's super bad manners to not eat all the food someone prepares for you over this holiday as well, so basically the whole week is just full of spending time with members and eating way too much food. 

This week a new member, Aubreigh, from my last area came down to visit! It was so fun to spend time with her, her husband, and little toddler.

We had really cool former (investigator) named 黃老師 Teacher Huang call this week and invite us to come to his house. Turns out he has been in contact with our missionaries on and off for several years and knows a ton about our church. We got to know him, learned some Chinese calligraphy from him, and got to share some about the restoration. My favorite part was meeting his 90 year old mom!! So adorable.

After one of our meals with a member this week, we asked them if they knew anyone nearby who could use service or a visit from us, and she took us right up to the apartment above hers and knocked on her neighbor's door! A cute couple answered the door and our member said, "These are our church missionaries. Want to meet them?". She was so bold!! They invite us in and it turns out they have their own business of making coffee beans and selling them online! We walked out of their apartment knowing a lot more about how to make coffee beans than we should, and  a return appointment. Huge miracle!

Elder Smith 施長老