"6 hours on a train? But Elder Baird Elder Baird! What on earth are you doing?"
Quite the annoying side voice in my mind that I have given an actual voice to by putting him in my email for the comedic purpose of posing a question that may be asked by someone reading my emails but seeing as the fact that I'm basically writing to myself I end up talking to myself and then sending out an email about me talking to myself and just to prove a point that I'm not crazy.
That was as long sentence.
So non existent voice self. That is a great question! And the answer is! I'm touring the world!
So yah, I'm currently on my way to Taipei. But that's not even the half of it.
This week started out with Pday, for that we drove about an hour and a half down the coast and went to the beach. It was amazing! Pictures will follow, but it was amazing to just got outside! It was so pretty and it was a really cold winter day at about 75 degrees. So what could be better than that!
Then we drove and did a fun little hike where we were able to see the ocean! And it was a great view!
Yah that was a pretty necessary Pday.
That night we were biking to an appointment and I looked over and there was an internet cafe. And what happened to be on the screen of the young teenager sitting there?
A level one jungle leash. The man looked like he was playing adc, the game was just starting, and the leash was beginning.
Yah I know that means nothing to any of you except a few, but needless to say he was playing my favorite video game.
2 years.
Then we went and a member fed us some McDonald's! That's like really high end here in Taiwan, what I wasn't expecting though was to take a sip of my drink, and taste.... Corn...
Yep, corn is huge here. Like when you got to any restaurant and you order like the meet you're gonna put in your dumplings, one of the options is always corn. It's way popular.
But yah, you can buy corn juice at McDonald's. Who knew!
The next day we took a train ride down to a city called Yuli.
Yuli is a tiny little city kinda out in the middle of nowhere, and that's where our district leader lives.
So we went down there for exchanges and it was way good! It's way pretty and we got an awesome sunset and I got to see the stars!
A crazy guy also gave me an 1000 dollar piece of Jade...
Yah there are a lot of crazys here. And it is funny. Like they just come up to you and you and your comp look at each other and just think, "yep, this guys crazy." And I was always like, maybe were just judging them to quick, but no, when the native Taiwanese are like yah this guys not right up stairs then you really know.
So yah, this crazy guy was basically our chauffeur Tuesday night. He's a member in the ward there and so he drove me and Elder Yang, the district leader and person I was going on exchanges with, to another crazy persons house.
Crazy person behind the wheel=crazy driving. Let's just say he spent more time on the left side of the road than he did on the right.
Then we visited this crazy lady members house and she had completely forgotten who Elder Yang was. He'd been there for 3 transfers and talked to her like evert week, but absolutely no memory... It was weird.
We them went back to Hualian on Wednesday. Did our night there, then on Thursday morning we took a 2 hour train ride down to Taidong which is where the Zone leaders live. Because we were doing exchanges down there.
Exchanges were great down there, my companion for the day is a marine so we talked military a lot. He is way cool.
Then Friday we took a train back up to Hualian. We had a lesson with our friend who is on baptismal date and we did Chastity and Word of Wisdom. As we were waiting for him we were both like, okay, let's hope he accepts this. We hadn't ever seen any super obvious signs of a problem but you never know.
He then proceeded to walk in with a drink. He then quickly excused himself to use the restroom. I turn to our Peike, that's the word for the member who goes to the lesson with us to help, and ask what kind of drink that was.
It was coffee.
But as we taught the word of wisdom he reached up to where he had put it on the table and put it on the floor.
It was so simple but it really showed his desire to follow Gods commandments. And so January 10th could very possibly be my first baptism!
This all brings us to Sunday night. We are waiting for a friend to show up when my companion gets a call for the mission president.
He then finds out that he is going to be transfered to Yuli, that really tiny town, yep. And... Yah.
So... I'm kinda terrified. I've been on island for 5 weeks barely and now I am getting a new trainer. This trainer doesn't know this area or anything about this place. I'm going to be the only one who knows anything about the area and that's scary.
So yah, I get a new companion on Wednesday. Who knew!
Anyways, now I'm on a train to Taipei. Maybe I'll talk about Taipei in this email if I have time, but who knows! I guess you'll find out if you scroll down a little bit More, but I currently don't know. Email time lines are weird.
But yah, that's my week!
So basically in Taiwan I just sang a lot. It was choir practice! So that was awesome!
This time on the lighter side!
Skittles here are way better than American Skittles. All except the grape ones. The grape ones taste super weird. And so I looked on the back of the thing and typed the characters into my little "Chinese characters make no sense translator" app and found out why.
They're not grape.
They are black currant.
Asian candy man. Can't an elder just get a normal grape skittle? Or mtn dew? Not just a weird tasting one? Who knows.
As well, my name in Chinese is 百思本。This translates to like 100 fast thoughts our something. But my given name 思本，is pronounced si ben. And the characters have a good meaning, but when the words si ben are said with the right tones you get something different. 私奔 Is pronounced the exact same way. Sadly, it means to elope.
So yah.
I might need to change my name.
Whoops.
Yah that's about it for this week. Traveling is way fun. I get to see lots of cool stuff that's not just my little area. So that is good!
Well, hope that y'all had a good week too!
Love you all!
Elder Baird
百長老
這是我的中文的名字
我非常愛你們！
我知道你看不懂這些字，但是我不管。
哈哈哈開玩笑
一些事情關於襪子
So recently I've been reading 1 Nephi. And there is a lot that one can learn in the first 22 chapters in the Book of Mormon. I've read through this section quite a few times, but this time my mind was drawn to something different. As I read I started to do some counting. This is what I ended up with.
In 1 Nephi, the word "murmur" is used 20 times.
In the rest of the Book of Mormon, it is used 13 times.
I can't but help think that that is significant.
What is it that God is trying to tell us through this?
This is my take on it.
Laman and Lemuel were asked to do the same hard things that Nephi and Sam were asked to do.
Both sets of brothers did what was asked of them. Both left Jerusalem. Both went back for the plates. Both went back for the daughters. Both built a ship. Both went to the promised land.
Both of them did what was asked of them to do.
What was the one difference? Laman and Lemuel murmured.
There are 0 doubts in my mind that Nephi had thoughts that were along the line of, what on earth is going. Why am I leaving my house. How am I supposed to build a boat?
He had these thoughts, but he never vocalized them.
That's where the difference is. Vocalizing versus thinking and then trusting.
So I invite all of you to think about the things that you murmur about. The simple act of holding your tongue can change so much. The thoughts will come, but you choose to say them or not.
So yah, thought that was interesting!
Now for pictures!
Also this video is killer. I didn't know when I put my papers in I was signing up to be an actor...
Also I don't know what picture ended up getting sent. So here's some pics I guess. Have fun looking at them or something.
Beach Day:
Beach Day:
Other Pics:
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