Hello Everyone!
Greetings from MaGong, PengHu. If you will notice, that place is different from my previous area which was YongKang. Yes, I moved, ohhhh did I move. So here's the scoop. Every 6 weeks, the whole mission has the possibility of switching around because that's when most new missionaries come on/old missionaries leave the island. Sometimes, however, in the middle of that time period they have to switch people around. This time, it was because they had to train a new Elder to be operations manager(works at the office preparing presentations and handling all problems with apartments, etc...So in this jumble to get everything to work out, I guess President had a feeling he should move me to the island of Penghu which is off the coast of Taiwan. There is a small, but growing branch there of about 30 people and there are only 2 missionaries. We don't go to most of the normal meetings that everyone else goes to because it's super inconvenient to have to fly back and forth all the time. So, we don't have a lot of contact with everyone else while we're here. It's really scary! I feel like I did when I first got to Taiwan. I feel like I'm training all over again. But, if President and the Lord trust me here, I hope I won't let them down.
Yesterday was pretty wild. I totally wasn't expecting to move and no one else saw it coming either so saying good bye to everyone was both easier and harder if that makes sense...I think Elder Gish was more scared though because he really wasn't expecting it haha. I'm not sure if he's really confident with the area yet. Hopefully he rises to the challenge:)
This morning I got up really early, took a train to Taichung, then took a plane to Penghu. That was quite an experience to say the least. I got here safely, though, and my new companion seems super solid. His name is Elder Ward and he's from Tennessee. He wrestles and I'm his first junior companion. It sounds like this area is on fire so I'm really excited to start meeting everyone! We're going to dinner with the branch president tonight, then meeting with some Jehovah's Witness missionaries afterward so tonight should be interesting:)
So how about the week before this all happened in Yongkang? Eason dropped his baptismal date because his grandma is super Buddhist/Taoist and has some misconceptions about what he can and can't do in order to respect his family's beliefs. He's going to talk to her face to face in a couple weeks, after which he should be able to be baptized. Yaay! There should be lots of great people being baptized there next month:) It's super exciting! I'm pretty bummed I won't have any way of seeing them in person, but I'll be able to hear from Elder Gish occasionally, I hope.
Yeah, I really don't know what to write. I'm frazzled...Hopefully next week, I'll have it more together.
-Elder Smith
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