Rainy Days

Dear Everyone,

 

This was a very rainy, wet, but wonderful week. I think I have seen more rain in Taiwan already than I have in Utah my whole life. And by the way, if you ever get called on a mission to Taiwan and ask people who have been there if it gets cold, and they tell you, "Of course not, it's an island!", DON'T TRUST THEM!!! Especially if they weren't a missionary. Rainy weather takes on a totally different meaning when it's not just something you see out the window--you have to go on a half-hour bike ride through it right now. And even though you have this tarp-like rain suit you put on, your shoes and tights, the bottom of your skirt, and the bangs of your hair sticking out of your helmet will be soaked and damp all day. I come home and change into mercifully dry clothes at the end of the day and stick my poor white feet in front of my space heater. They look like they do after going swimming. haha.

 

But seriously, it's amazing how much I don't care, while we are actually out there in the rain. And in fact, sometimes it's the happiest times. There is a point of surrender at the first stop light when you realize all your attempts to stay dry, warm, and clean-looking have been cancelled out for the rest of the day, but that you love Taiwan anyway. And all the puddles you glide through and the constant downpour of more water than can possibly exist in the world are just cause to laugh. I'm serious. Maybe my energy and adoration for things will wear off after a while, but for right now all the rain's discomforts just add charm and uniqueness to my experience in Taiwan. I think just in general, there is an innocent sweetness that graces all the challenges and discomforts we have every day. A heart that wants to be cheerful and loving can find a lot of surprising things to be cheerful and loving towards.

 

Another of our investigators, Chen Wei Ting got baptized on Friday! Six times, actually, because her hair kept floating up. I felt so bad for her. Several times during lessons with her, she brought up how she really didn't want the water to be cold for her baptism, so we made extra care to check the water heater that day. The Elders told us they had turned it on. But they did it wrong somehow, and it was ice water that filled up the font. She figured it out before the baptism, and we apologized and consoled her by saying, "Don't worry, you will only be there for about a minute, max--it goes really fast." But she was in there for probably over five minutes by the time she was properly baptized. It was cool, though, to see that despite the realization of our empty promise to her she still had this determined look on her face that stayed until it was over.

 

One of the best parts of this week was going on exchanges with Sister Sutton! For those of you who don't know, going on exchanges means you switch companions with missionaries in a neigboring area for 24 hours. They are very educational for interrupting the routines you sometimes get in, and show you how other missionaries work and teach. Sister Nicole Sutton is the person I started talking about approximately two seconds after I read where I was going. I still remember shrieking, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to Nicole's mission!!" We basically have the cutest friendship ever. I got to know her over a year ago when I was the TA for a sociology class she was taking. One night after a review session, we were walking home together (and I later learned that the way we walked was only convenient for me, it was out of the way for her--but she walked with me anyway. She was then and still is, a very thoughtful friend.) And we confessed to each other that we both were thinking of going on missions. We shared with each other why we wanted to go, what our worries about it were, etc. and built each other up. Then a couple of months later she emailed me saying she was going to the Taiwan Taipei mission. My first thought was, "Woah, how exotic! And poor girl, she has to learn to speak Mandarin." And then a few months later I opened my call and read that I was going to the same Taiwan Taipei mission.

 

It was seriously really cool, to be companions with her, and think about how different life is for us now than it was a year ago. Our heads have a lot less sociology and a lot more gospel and Chinese in them than they used to, and our legs are a lot more muscled. Our reality together used to be discussing Marx and Weber in front of white-boards and speculating our futures in front of the Clyde building on BYU campus; but now our reality together involves biking over freeway bridges with dozens of people on scooters, striking up conversations with strangers in a language we barely speak, struggling to decipher the characters on restaurant menus so we can figure out what to eat for lunch. It's really cool to see how life can be so, so different than it was--but you can keep going. You find that you can live without some things (or even some people) you thought you could never live without. And you find joy in things you never thought to have joy in before. It's sobering, because when you love something or someone or some place you want to believe there is no other way to be than close to it/them. But it is inspiring, too, to see how adjustable we are, in the end.

 

Life is really, really good. It is just as hard and nuanced with those tough, crucial moments of having to accept and love people and responsibilities you don't want to accept and love, but the closer I feel to my savior, the more motivation there is to do it. I wish I could say all the reasons why in my heart, but there aren't enough words. Still. Just know I really believe in God.

 

Diana