Elder Baird's Something About Socks: WEEK 61 TAIPEI: It's beginning to look a lot like... sunscreen season? Feat. 'they change my mission language'

Wow.

I don't even know what to say about this week. Other than, wow.

So first, sunscreen.

Apparently in Taiwan there are trees that smell like sunscreen. And Boi they be bloomin. Like as were biking it just suddenly smells like sunscreen. Overwhelmingly so. And sometimes it gets into the office and it just feels like every one is wearing sunscreen.

Speaking of the office.

The office.

I've never felt more incompetent in my life than this past week. So gotta love that feeling. I've got no clue what's going on cause two things.

First. Everything in the office is new too me. Obviously. And since I'm in a trio rn I kind of just sit back and watch and I feel kind of useless. But I'm learning a lot. Like all our code broke down on Sunday and we had to fix it and so that was kind of fun. It's cool to be at the center of everything and back on a PC my ol' friend. But still. There's sooooo much to learn.

Second. They changed my mission language. As most of you know I was called to teach in the Chinese language 我學習蛋糕。ㄋㄧㄏㄠ but the office elders are in charge of the English ward. So I'm now an English missionary. So I have to contact foreigners and Americans and that's it. And it's kind of terrifying cause they be meeeeean. But I'm working on getting over it. I haven't felt scared to talk to someone since back when I was in training so this is an adventure.

But that's not all. Cause turns out that when they say the office elders are in charge of the English ward they meant, the elders are in charge of the Tagalog ward.

Guys, half of the ward members are Philipeno. And over half the people we teach are Philipeno. So my companion (who is Philipeno) basically just teaches all of our lessons in Tagalog and I have no clue what's going on. Like nothing. It's very hard.

So now I'm like... Do I need to learn Tagalog? If I'm here for 6 months then is this something that I'm going to need? And I'm just not sure and it's like stressful. Cause it's like back in training where I never knew what was going on.

Which takes us to one of our lessons. First off the lesson was in Xizhi. So that was awesome cause we got to drive the car there (office Elder privileges) and it was great cause I haven't been there in 7 months!!! 7 months! So loooong and it felt so nice to go back.

But anyways this lesson was something else. We show up at the house and start talking to the member that lives there (she lives with non members and invites us over to teach them) and so we're sitting outside of her house talking to her and then we walk in, and then her boss walks by the house and chews her out because apparently it's a company house and they aren't allowed to have males.

So we get kicked out.

Then the boss leaves and the member is like, cool come back in.

So we do and we proceed to teach 5 Philipeno woman. And by we I mean Elder Costales. So Elder Zhang and I just sat there as Elder Costales talked to these 5 women.

It was pretty fun even though I had no clue what was going on. At one point in the conversation they all start touching their noses and laughing. I ask Elder Costales what's going on and he's like "they're telling about your nose and how pointy it is"

So that was odd.

Anyways life has just been way odd.

But we had a baptism on Saturday for a Philipeno sister which was awesome!

Anyways that's about it for the week. Don't have a ton of time. So lit bits my dips.

Have a good week!!

Love you all!

Elder Baird

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