The week before Christmas ...

Yep this week was our mission Christmas Activity! Yay!! We went up to a place called Sun Moon Lake. It is soooooo pretty and it kind of has a Park City kind of feel to it. We went and took a picture at this Buddhist temple thing on top of a mountain and let me tell you, that might have been the scariest hike I have ever done. The way up wasn't too bad, but the way down I seemed to notice a lot more things. If you were to look up while walking, you would see the webs upon webs full of banana spiders. I literally saw 50 in like 5 minutes. They are really poisonous spiders and if you get bit by one, then you have to leave Taiwan and you can't come back because the antidote only works once.. Good thing I didn't get bit!! Oh and if one lands on you, you can't brush it off because you might crush it and then the poison will be on your skin so you have to blow them off. These fellas are not little spiders either. Most are about the size of my hand and some are bigger. Straight up demons. But other than the spiders it was really awesome. We got to go into a small town on of of the sides of the lake and buy stuff and that was really fun. Then we all went to a buffet for lunch/dinner. Here in Taiwan, if you want to go to a nice restaurant you go to a buffet. These aren't your typical Hometown Buffet or Chuck a Rama garbage, these are really really nice buffets. It was soooo good and we all felt really fat afterwards haha. Then after that we all went down to Yuan Lin for our Christmas devotional. That was also very scary because I was selected to play the piano... we sang about 7 hymns and I had to play in front of the whole mission. I didn't even know how to play one of them so on Tuesday after DTM I was able to practice for an hour... it was rough. But it was a really nice devotional and it was great to learn from President. He talked a lot about Christ, obviously, but it was so simple that it just made my appreciation and love for our Savior increase exponentially. It was awesome.

We had an interesting experience on Saturday for dinner. One of the Sister's investigators invited us all over for dinner because it was her daughter's birthday. She is from 'Nam and so her and her family fed us a bunch of Vietnamese food which was good but interesting because we had no idea what we were eating... but one of her relatives was just so creepy and tried to flirt with Elder Fleming and it was just awkward for everyone. Good thing we had a lesson so we couldn't stay long! 

So recently, finding has still been really rough and we haven't found a new investigator in a long time. So on Saturday, me and Elder Fleming came up with a plan for this week to find some. We said a prayer that through our plan, God will help us. The next day at church, they were talking about the ward Christmas party and they said that there will be 76 potential investigators are the activity! and since our ward is so awesome, they made a thing on Facebook for it and for people to RSVP they had to give them their name, number, and address :) So sneaky I love it! But I really feel like that was an answer to our plan and our faith in God. We don't know if anyone will even want to meet with us but it was just comforting to me to know that God is looking out for us.

Yesterday we were able to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional! It was really awesome and I loved seeing all the lights and stuff. The two things that I loved the most from it was when the first speaker said to figure out what our inner Scrooge is and get rid of it. Be more charitable and serve others. And then I think it was President Uchtdorf that said that we should let all of the wonderful lights about Christmas remind us of our Light and Savior Jesus Christ. 

Christmas time is such a special time and I love it. Make sure that you all get rid of that inner Scrooge, be charitable, and always remember Christ. I hope this week will be a very happy one leading up to Christmas. I hope all you procrastinators can find last second gifts! 

I love you all so much! It has been said time and time again, but remember the true meaning of Christmas!!

Love, 

Elder Anderson