Elder Baird's Something About Socks: WEEK 70 TAIPEI: Sometimes you just have to sloooooowwwww dooowwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Hey! Hey! Wouldn't it be great! Great. If we could just laaaaay doowwn. And wake up in slooowww town.

Today!

Is a good day. And here's why, because today you get an email from me, and we are going to be taking this one verrryy slowww. That's what I've learned this week. Sometimes we just need to slow down. And that is what we're gonna talk about!

So Monday was super good. We went hiking with a member and it was just a solid time. We then spent the night redoing all the transfer calls because we had them all done on Sunday like good little office bois and then President changed them all so that was a great time and inspiration is real, so that is pretty cool!

On Tuesday I was in a poopy mood, but I can't remember why. I'm looking at my journal as I write this and it is a super short entry and I do remember that something was up but I don't know what. Oh well. That is okay.

But some Filipinos took us out to a super nice dinner! So that was awesome!

Then on Wednesday I found my pen that I lost a week ago at a different church, so that was a miracle!!! Yay! Also I found some spinach thanks to the senior missionaries. Apparently it is hard to come by in this country. But now my shakes are off the charts!

Then my companion and I drove two different cars at the same time. But we stayed in each other's mirrors so it was okay. And we rolled the windows down so we could hear each other. What a great experience I have being in the office. Who would have known.

Then Elder Costales tried to order subway on the phone and it was soooo funny. Cause he was struggling to understand and say the right words. So eventually he just gave up and was like "Whatever, you guys just choose what to put on the sandwiches" and hung up. But we were ordering like 14 for a lunch tomorrow... And so I called them back and we got it all squared away, but it was really funny. It doesn't sound super funny now that I'm typing this, but I promise it was. So just laugh.

Haha

Then Thursday. The day of slowing down. Or being forcibly reminded to slow down.

Biking Adventures X Hubris

So....... There's no easy way to say this... But let's just say your Elder is not used to driving in Taiwan where they like to trick you.

Yep.

I got a speeding ticket.

1800$

That was a rip. You don't get pulled over in Taiwan. You get a picture flashed and then you go to a 7-11 to pay your fine. Basically I was going 15 over. Which I never go. Especially in Taiwan. So both me an my companion (and he can attest that I don't speed cause he does and gets mad at me lol (he's gotten a ticket before))

But turns out that in Taiwan you can change the speed limit from 70 to 40 on the same road very very quickly. So yep. I got buzzed.

That was a great reminder to slow down.

Then there was the rest of the day.

We had a new missionary come and so we did all the new missionary training stuff with them which is always a fun time! But as President was talking he mentioned how when he came back he got to see some people that he had taught that got baptized after he left and how happy that made him. And right then it hit me that I only had 30 weeks left.

30 weeks and I was done as a missionary.

And I just immediately started to get down. Because I didn't feel that I had been able to make a difference in anyone's life like President had. I didn't feel like I'd had a ton of success and now it was almost over.

Now I know that I have done great things as a missionary and that 30 weeks is not 'almost over' but Satan really worked on me to get down on myself.

And so I was just a lottle sad. Then we had a lesson where we read 1 Nephi 11 verse 6 where the Holy Ghost shouts "Hosannah" and for some reason I was immediately filled with the desire to shout Hosannah as well! I didn't cause we were in a lesson, but I wrote it down to remember it.

Then I read in the Bible, John 4, where Jesus talks about how some are soers and some are reapers and that just made me feel off for some reason.

But thankfully my companion and I were able to take a drive to deliver some bikes and we just talked about it and how we never truly know our influence for good. But if we follow the Holy Ghost and are humble in following, we will be blessed beyond anything that we could imagine. It was a great talk and I love my companion muchly!

Afterwards we had a lesson with a man named Clint Clack. What a great name! But I had the opportunity to just testify about God and Jesus and I just realize that all I'm supposed to do here is to testify boldly of Christ. And so fulfilling that made me soooo happy! Even though he's not super interested it was a miracle lesson for me.

And the day is not over yet!

So what do a Hippy meditating Taiwanese person, a college dropout trying to find truth by thinking himself out of religion but who likes to read books and party at clubs till 3:30 in the morning, and a philosophy major from America that is now in Taiwan and skipping all his Chinese classes and thinks incredibly deeply about everything, have in common?

Well, not their beliefs I can tell you that.

But we somehow taught them all at the same time and let me tell you Ladies and Gents that was a trip! But it was one of the coolest lessons I have ever had before.

When we started out with them we took some time looking at the beautiful art in the chapel which they all loved, so we took them to the second floor where the art is set up to teach about Joseph Smith and the first lesson.

And as we started to teach the first lesson all three of them were sucked in and we entered this noise vacuum. Like it was weird. We would talk and teach as they looked at the pictures and they would just be completely silent and absorbed. When we stopped talking there was no noise. Like none. No background noise. And as we started teaching about the First vision and the reality of God as our Father the spirit was so strong bearing testimony to them that it was true and bearing testimony to me that I'm here to testify. And that I do need to slow down and be patient. Something that has always been hard for me in my mission. I've always just wanted super visible success. And Fast. But the spirit was teaching me the same principle that I had just learned from the flaky traffic laws of Taiwan. Slow down.

After we finished the lesson we asked how they were feeling because they hadn't spoken. And they were all like "We have no clue how to take in what you just told us, this is unlike anything we've heard before."

They all wanted a book of Mormon and to learn more! And they said that they would come to church! (spoiler, only one of them did, but that is okay!)

It was just so great and it made me so happy to testify of Christ again!

Thursday was a long day.

Friday happened

Saturday we took some missionaries to the train station where we waved them goodbye. I never thought that as a missionary I would send other missionaries home. But I am now. It is an odd experience. Especially considering how one of them was my old companion. May Elder Zhao rest in peace. Brother Zhao is here now!

Then a bunch of lessons in Tagalog. I'm learning how to pray, and I can read the scriptures pretty okayly so basically I'm illiterate. That's okay!

Then I messed up on one of my new year's resolutions.

So that sucked.

But it gave me an opportunity to really just remember the importance of the Atonement in everything that we do. And that every day we need to get better and improve. If we only expect perfection then we will never be happy.

Good lessons all around today.

Sunday we had a goooood time! Great church. Great lessons. Great.... Weather?

Oh yah on the weather, it's like freezing here. Like Super super cold. It was 9 degrees with 90% humidity the other day. Which is COLD!

The man that we taught on Thursday is from Canada and he thinks it is cold. So it is cold.

Hummmmm.....Don't really have anything else to say right now. Hopefully that is okay! And I've got stuff to do.

So I love you all!

Have a good week and give a high five to the next person you see after reading this line!

Elder Baird

Something about socks:

So I've been recently trying to fix some broken code for one of the programs that we use at the office. And honestly it's felt like I'm beating my head against a brick wall. Which for any of you who have done that before, it is no fun.

Just trying to remember everything that I've learned from the past and see how they have this set up which is in different language then what I've used before has been hard.

However as I was looking at this I realized one thing. It was super complicated!

No duh. That's why you couldn't figure it out Elder Baird. Egg head.

No not that! As I looked at it I realized that whoever had written this had put two nested if statements that did the same thing and outputted a " " if the answer was true which was completely useless. And they'd done this for the whole thing!

So I went through and deleted about half the code and it still worked! Whoever had done this had spent sooo much time typing a bunch of useless stuff and it had made it super hard to understand.

But after I deleted all the excess stuff I was finally able to see where the real problem was.

And it made me realize how important simplicity is in our lives. Not in just mortal life. But also our Gospel life.

Recently I have really enjoyed learning more about the Bible and all of the different translations and looking back at the original Greek or Hebrew versions and seeing differences between them and our modern scriptures.

I've enjoyed it! But in the end... It doesn't change the gospel.

Small and simple things bring to pass great things.

When we remove the clutter and get down to the basics, a lot of once important things fall away. And I just want everyone to kind of think about that :) what are you complicating? Find something in your life that you can simplify. And do it!

BREAKING News (from a long time ago that I am just copy and pasting) :

There's a new way to hear all about Elder Baird time in Taiwan! No longer do you have to scroll back through all my emails during your daily "Have to read something that Elder Baird wrote" fix!

Thanks to the hard work and countless hours of a mother who is too nice there is now a new way!

https://elderspencerbaird.blogspot.com/

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