First Few Days in Taiwan

Hello everybody!

This has probably been one of the craziest weeks of my life. I left the MTC at about 3:00 in the morning and got to Taiwan about 24 hours later. It was probably about 2:00 am by the time we all got to the mission home and we were able to get to bed. The next day we got to know the mission president and his wife a little and learned a little about Taiwan and its culture. We all went out for dinner and I got my first real Taiwanese dinner. There was lots of fish and noodles and there were also a few duck brains and some fried shrimp covered in frosting and sprinkles for desert. It was a little interesting but not to bad. After dinner about mission president took us all out to a night market, there were TONS of people there. Then someone took out a little wooden stool and then told us that we had to stand up on the stool in the middle of the road and start preaching about the book of Mormon to all of the people that pass by. It was just a little scary. But we all managed to live through it and I'm glad that we were able to do it.

The next day I got to meet my Companion, Elder Stevenson. Our Chinese names are pronounces almost the same way, just with a different tone. A lot of people find that pretty funny when we are introducing ourselfs. He has been out here for about 1 1/2 years. He is a great teacher and a great companion  I feel pretty lucky that I go him as a companion. Right now we are both serving in the Gueiren area, It is in the southern part o the country. It is very different here and there are usually a ton of people. I took a picture of an average round we travel down but usually they are full of people on scooters, cars, people on bikes and other people just walking along the side of the road. 

Since i have been here I've had the chance to meet lots of incredible people. The last few months the missionaries in this area have been meeting with a 14 year old boy who will be baptized next week. He Is relay funny and always willing to help others. His family is all supper supportive of him getting baptized which isn't super common in Taiwan. Yesterday we were able to meet with a man from Vietnam. He came to Taiwan for work and he works about 16 hours a day. He speaks very little Chinese  probably even less than I do. But with the help of the Google translate app on his phone and a few pamphlets and videos in his language we were able to teach him about Joseph smith. We will be able to meet with him again soon but with his work scheduled we don't know exactly when that will be yet. 

We do lots of street contacting in Taiwan. As we ride our bikes from place to place we talk to the other people on bikes and scooters at all of the stop lights or as we walk we stop a lot to talk to the people we pass by. Most of the people are not relay interested in what we have to say but thy are all very polite. 

I'm sorry i didn't take more pictures, I've been so busy this week that I forgot to ever take my camera out, I promise i will do better this week. 

I love you all and I hope you are all doing well.

Love, 

Elder Wills

Mark and his companion Elder Stevenson