| Back in NC |
[Aug. 18th, 2008|05:34 pm] |
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It's great to be home. I was actually getting a little home-sick after 2 months or so. I'm starting up school in 2 days. I just signed for my new apartment and move in next week. I spend a good portion of the day today with my family and took my brothers and sister to the park. I'll be taking 3 programming classes, a physics class, and water aerobics this semester. |
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| KTV in Taiwan |
[May. 28th, 2008|10:37 am] |
Wow, if there's anything that Taiwan has that America is really missing out on, it's KTV. It's karaoke, except instead of singing to a huge crowd of people, you go with your friends and get your own private room. It's so popular here, one of the most common things people go out to do to for fun.
My friends took me to a place called 錢櫃 Cash Box. It was so fancy, almost like a 5 star hotel! The service was so professional. They took us up to the second floor and then through a winding hall to the back of the building where the attendant showed us our room. It was a small room, nicely decorated, with a large table in the center. Black sofas lined the walls, probably with enough room for about 10 people to sit. There was a large widescreen TV at the front of the room and a computer for queueing songs in front of the sofa on the left.
I love singing, and this was no exception. Thanks to Rock Band, I've gotten enough practice with karaoke to be somewhat decent at it. We queued up songs in both English and Chinese and took turns signing. They knew some of the English songs and sang with me, and some of the Chinese songs were slow enough that I could read the subtitles fast enough to sing along. It was so much fun! We sang for four and a half hours before we finally went home.
The friends that took me were probably the best company that I could have possibly had. I went with Grace馬偉恩 and her friend 高鈴雅. I knew Grace from my mission and had met her friend 鈴雅 the day before when we played games together after church. She also went on a mission like I did. Somehow 鈴雅 and I really clicked, and we had a lot of fun together. I like her a lot, but unfortunately she lives in JiaYi. That's two hours away from my house in Kaohsiung, so I won't be able to see her much.
The last song 鈴雅 and I sang together, and it was so much fun! We got so into it. I totally love that song's lyrics and have since memorized them. 曹格 - Superman The video is pretty weird, so most of you non-chinese speakers probably won't understand how I could possibly like it so much. haha :P Anyway, that was a blast - the KTV places will definitely be seeing a lot of me. |
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| Everything fried rice |
[May. 26th, 2008|01:03 pm] |
I'm in Taiwan for the summer. :-) I'm thinking about working here after I graduate, so I wanted to come and check things out first to make sure that's what I really want to do.
I'm in a pretty rural area today, 興化部, just outside of JiaYi. Just got back from lunch. I walked a long way down the road looking for food, and found this place that makes a bunch of traditional Taiwanese food. I looked at the menu and ordered an "everything" fried rice, and some interesting looking greens that the cook said were some gourd's stems and leaves. They tasted great! I love getting the everything rice, because it's different most everywhere I go. This time it had shrimp, shreds of beef and pork, other stuff I didn't recognize, and chicken hearts. :) yum. I think that sometimes they just throw in whatever they have extra of that day - an adventure every time!
I've also been dreaming a lot since I've gotten here! So I've started a dream blog: http://nilbus-dreams.blogspot.com Feel free to check it out. :) |
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| Stuck in an elevator |
[Mar. 24th, 2008|11:34 am] |
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This morning I got stuck in an elevator. The door closed and it just wouldn't move or open again. Of course, no cell phone signal. So I hit the call button in the elevator, which called the elevator company, but I could barely hear her. She couldn't hear me and hung up. It wouldn't call again. So I sat down and rang the bell on and off hoping someone would come. I sat for around 5 minutes, and an old lady finally came with her groceries and pushed the button, opening the door. She wanted to go up, so I told her I would stay outide to open the door for her if she got stuck, but she didn't understand and was afraid to go up alone. So she stepped out of the elevator. I took her place in the elevator and told her to press the button to open the door if I got stuck again and rang the bell. Then she promptly walked into the elevator. :-( I tried helping her understand what I wanted to do again, but she didn't get it. Finally another guy came in the building. He understood what I was trying to say, so I went in the elevator and tried to go up again. It didn't even respond this time. So I went and reported it, and we walked the old lady up the stairs. |
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| Saving the Temple |
[Feb. 4th, 2008|08:56 am] |
Josh Peterson and I saved the temple the other night. There was a dance on friday night, and I had sat down on the side to rest after dancing for a while. It felt great to rest for a few minutes. Then a slow song came on and I sad a crazy strong feeling come to me all the sudden that said, "I want to dance with Alicia right now." So I did. I stood up and walked straight across the dance floor to where I knew she was sitting. I took her by the hand and said, "let's dance."
Little did I know, her ex-fiancee Josh Peterson also wanted to dance with her for that song. Josh told the rest of the story a few days later in his testimony meeting in Cary, which I heard through friends who were there. He went on about how "Ed stole my girl!" and narrated how he felt bummed out and went outside in the parking lot to cool off or something. The dance was at the chapel right adjacent to the temple, which had been getting egged recently by some pranksters. The kids who had been doing it were right there with their eggs, and Josh caught them red handed.
I saw the cops pulling in that night as I left the dance that night and wondered, "why are the police here?" Little did I know that it was because of me. |
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| Cosplay in Taiwan |
[Dec. 23rd, 2007|06:56 pm] |
A few pictures of me dressed up in Taiwan.
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| getting back on my feet |
[Nov. 26th, 2007|09:04 pm] |
| [ | Mood |
| |  accomplished | ] |
Hello everyone, I'm back!
I'm glad to be back again. My mission was a most wonderful experience. I plan on making a website describing it and catching up with everyone again soon, but for now I have some higher priorities, such as getting admitted to school again and purchasing a car. I anticipate being pretty busy for a while. |
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| Drawing to a close |
[Nov. 15th, 2007|10:43 pm] |
| [ | Mood |
| | expectant | ] |
Nilbus returns from his two year mission in Taiwan the 23rd of November. He has a long series of flights, but then he'll be home. Why not send him a message so it's waiting for him when he arrives? Even better, drop him a line after he's back and settled in.
This will be my last post in his stead. I'm sorry I haven't been a better messenger.
-Aileen |
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| Move Day! |
[May. 5th, 2007|12:52 pm] |
| [ | Mood |
| | optimistic | ] |
Well, I'm going to be out of the country for a month, so I'll update Nilbus' journal for him one more time before I leave.
On 27 April, he moved across Kaohsiung City to an area called Zuoying. His companion's name is Elder Post, from Vancouver, Washington. Apparently when Elder Post first introduced himself when first arriving in Taiwan, Nilbus didn't hear the "Washington" part. Only now that they're companions has Nilbus realized that he's not a Canadian. :P It's cool, though, because Elder Post is "an awesome Linux geek" who enjoys scripting and programming, so there will be no browser or OS wars in the apartment (no word yet on his text editor of choice).
Nilbus is Laboring to Bring Up Souls (to Heaven) = NILBUS(H) |
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| Huge photo dump! |
[May. 2nd, 2007|09:03 pm] |
| [ | Mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
So I have not lived up to my word, guys. I promised Nilbus I'd post updates for him in LJ. I promised I'd upload the photos he sent me on CD to his website. I'm sorry; it has been months since I received not one, but two CDs in the mail from Nilbus. They have alternately been sitting on my bureau , waiting on a shelf, and queuing in a "To Do" stack near my bed. I've finally gotten around to them.
So, without further ado: http://nilbus.com/pics/mission/
Included are such wonderful things as Harry Potter and The Matrix cosplay! Enjoy the belated goodness. He is Mr. Anderson, after all. xD
Sorry! >. |
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| Contacting me |
[Apr. 11th, 2007|10:10 pm] |
Nilbus sends word that he can no longer read emails from non-family members. He still loves getting snail mail, though! Here's that address again:
Ed Anderson
Taiwan Kaohsiung Mission
260 Zhong Shan 2nd Rd.
24th Floor #A6
Kaohsiung 806
Taiwan, ROC |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 19th, 2007|11:12 pm] |
Dad,
I want to thank you for a couple of the things you taught me before my mission. The first is something that you reiterated many times; enough that I remembered it and how important it was to you. You said, "Obey the mission rules." I hold this council dear to my heart, as it has provided many blessings and protected me. Thank you for your constant reminders.
The second is similar to it. You may or may not remember this, but one day you came up to me while I was on the computer and talked to me about something. The last thing you said was, "Ed, you can't just obey when it's convenient." I replied by saying that's not the way it was, or something. I don't remember what the context was or what you were talking about, but I will always remember those words, because of how they hit me. After you left, I stopped and thought about whether or not what you said was true. It often was, so I decided to change. The Lord wants us to be obedient all the time, because there's no way he can bless us if we don't. In fact, it's probably the times when it's /not/ convenient that it matters most.
6 March 2007 |
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| Christmas spirit |
[Dec. 19th, 2006|02:51 pm] |
December 13th:
"Mission conference was amazing. It was really wonderful to be able to be with everyone again. We had several inspiring talks, watched the 1st Presidency Christmas devotional, and then President Hsu let loose his surprise - dinner at the Splendor! This is a 5 star restaurant inside the 88 floor skyscraper in Kaohsiung. It was incredible. I also ate several foods I've never eaten before, including sea snail and some other rare seafoods. At the end, I got to lie down and stare at the clouds and blue sky for about 15 minutes. It was probably the most relaxing thing I've done in ages and felt splendid.
Today is our "evaluation night" for english class, and we're doing a christmas party. I volunteered to do eggnog from scratch. Wow, what a task that turned out to be. We spent lots of time (and money!) on it today, but it turned out pretty well. It ended up making about 3 pitchers worth. The first batch was overcooked and turned out dark, and the 2nd was great. We mixed the two together in one pitcher, and we ended up with 3 grades - Unleaded, Super, and Premium!" |
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| Happy Thanksgiving |
[Dec. 10th, 2006|08:24 pm] |
Well, I haven't been posting regularly on behalf of Nilbus, but he does email me weekly. Here's the latest news:
Nov. 28th:
The weather has been cooler here. We wore sweaters out yesterday, which was very comfortable. We played ultimate frisbee out in the cold rain [drizzle] this morning. It's never really bad after we warm up from biking or excersizing like we were this morning. I really love ultimate. It's a ton of fun, though I really could work on my throw. a lot. The only place that gets snow in Taiwan is high in the mountains, where I'll never be. Fine by me though, as I much prefer the warmer weather.
I hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving! I certainly did. The meal that the sister missionaries and the members put together was wonderful. We had all the classics like turkey, mashed potatos and gravy, yams topped with brown sugar and marshmallow, pumpkin and apple pie, and much more. Unavoidably, we had rice as well. :) It's hard to imagine a meal without rice anymore.
My companion has been feeling a little down lately. I've been trying to think of things that I can do to cheer him up. I love him a lot. He's a really good guy.
I've been working on developing my faith recently. I pondered on it and prayed for it for several days. During my pondering, I never came to any conclusion about what I could do to help my faith increase. Then later, just like the scriptures and prophets talk about, it just came, like faith was just given to me from God. Suddenly I was able to stop overanalyzing things and just believe. I was filled with the Holy Ghost, and any doubts that like to nag me were taken away. It's wonderful. I've been feeling the Lord's love a lot in my life recently, in very real ways. I wish I could figure out what I changed so that I can always make sure to keep doing it. ;)
Dec. 5th
Another wonderful week has gone by in JiaYi. My companion's mood is much better now, and we've seen a lot of success. Our finding has been particularly unsuccessful recently, and yesterday we only had 1 lesson scheduled (who ended up rescheduling). A whole day of finding, how tiring. But we decided to make the best of it. The night before, we were setting goals. I was thinking we could probably find at least 3 new investigators, but before I said it, my companion said "5!" He's good. It wasn't going to be easy, but we knew how to do it. We talked about what we were going to do to hit the goal. Preparation in the morning, sincere prayer, love for the people we contact, enthusiasm, having the right motives, teaching and testifying with the spirit of God, and most importantly, faith. We prayed mightily for our goal and the people we'd find. It was, perhaps, one of the most tiring days of my mission so far, but the blessings were amazing. By the end of the day, we had set up 10 new investigators, 4 of whom live in our area.
Tomorrow is our Christmas mission conference in Kaohsiung. I'm excited! It'll be wonderful to see all the people again who I've served with before, that is the ones who haven't gone home already. |
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| Photos! |
[Aug. 30th, 2006|12:16 pm] |
I must apologize for taking so long to post these, but Nilbus sent me a whole CD full of photos from Taiwan and we want to share them with you! The URL: http://nilbus.com/pics/mission/ There are three sections, one for each of the locations Nilbus has visited.
Also, here is some (old) news from Nilbus that I failed to post earlier:
August 8th: "It's somewhat ironic where I'm moving to - Fengshan! The area where I was born. Except this time I'm serving in a different part of Fengshan and in a different ward. The next ironic bit is that my new companion is one of the same companions I had in the MTC, Elder Davis. He's been in Taiwan just as long as I have, so it will be quite interesting. I feel quite confident about it now though. My language ability is improving at an amazing rate. I pray for help with the language all the time, and I can see that the Lord is blessing me a lot. I think it will be quite the fun adventure.
I saw move day coming up, and I was really hoping that I wouldn't have to move. I love fangliao so much. You've heard me talk about it a ton already, so I don't need to go into why. This place is my home. I got my move call, and it hit me weird at first. After thinking about it more though, I think it's the best thing. Fangliao is a really easy-going place, and it's started to make me a little lazy. My companion is definitely the right person to have here. He's extremely organized, which helps tremendously in a huge area like this. He has a vision for the work here in Fangliao and fire to get it done. He's awesome, and I can't wait to see what he does for this place.
There are three investigators that I'm going to miss especially. Perl, Sister Chen, and Brother Ye are really great. They're all wonderful people, and are progressing well in their testimonies. I see so much potential in them and have great faith in them. I have so much desire for them to do what they need to in order to make it back to their Father in Heaven. I am going to continue to keep them in my prayers."
Aug 15: "This past week has been great. I'm getting along with my companion Elder Davis a lot better than we used to in the MTC. We've been blessed a lot by the Lord already. He has prepared many people to meet with us already. This past week, we found 17 new investigators. I've never seen anything like that before. I'm very grateful for the Lord's mercy, despite our weaknesses. I know that it's because of faith that these things are happening.
It's somewhat ironic how I got my move call. In Fangliao, it happened twice that I felt prompted to talk to someone when I was at the train station. Both times I had to turn around and go back to see them. After talking to them, both were interested in hearing more about the gospel. One lived in Fengshan and one in Daliao. I wasn't sure where Daliao was, so I called the mission office to figure out who to refer these people to. They answered the phone, and upon finding out who I was, told me that I had a move call. I was moving to the Fengshan Daliao area, with Elder Davis, my MTC companion. :-P How ironic is that? I don't know if the Lord wants me here because of them or what, but it's pretty neat.
I just finished the Book of Mormon again. That book is truly of God, and I am so grateful for it. I've learned so much from the teachings of the prophets, and learn so much more every time I read it.
Chinese is getting to the point where it's very natural, to the point where I don't think about which language I'm speaking enough sometimes. I usually just respond in the language I'm soken to in. We had finished up a lesson with an investigator, and were getting up to leave. The member who was sitting in with us said something in english, which switched me back to english mode. I said goodbye to our investigator, wished him good luck accomplishing his goal, and said we'd pray for him. He gave me a blank look and said "huh"? My companion translated to Chinese. I had completely not realized that had switched over and was using english. That was very interesting. I wonder if I'll do the same thing in the US when I come home, but with Chinese instead."
Aug 22nd: "We're always asking people if we can help or serve them in any way, and we finally got a request! A couple in their 50s had moved into our ward several weeks earlier, and they'd been moving into their house ever since. Since land is scarce in Taiwan, everything is built tall. Their house is two rooms long and 5 stories tall. They had already moved things onto the 2nd and 3rd floors, and asked for our help to move everything to the 4th and 5th floors. Books! Bags and bags of books. We went at it for about an hour before we finished, and were completely drenched and exhausted at the end. I couldn't stand without shaking. :-) What a workout! I'm so glad we were able to help them. They'd been doing a little every night after work, but really didn't have the time or energy to finish it all. Afterwards (for several days) our calves were dead and more sore than they'd ever been before. I'm glad they didn't have to go through that."
That's all, folks!
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| Weather, singing, and a new mailing address! |
[Jul. 25th, 2006|10:14 pm] |
Nilbus writes:
"The mission office has moved, and I have a new mission address! The old address will still work, as anything from the US will be forwarded to the new place, but do use the new address from now on.
Ed Anderson
Taiwan Kaohsiung Mission
260 Zhong Shan 2nd Rd.
24th Floor #A6
Kaohsiung 806
Taiwan, ROC
We just had another typhoon come through Taiwan. This one was a little stronger, and they had us stay inside for most of the day. It was a good opportunity to get things done that we haven't had a lot of time for, like a deep clean of the house.
Today is my last singing practice for the performance this Saturday. It's an event for the Taiwan mission's 50th Anniversary in Kaohsiung. There should be a lot of people there, and it'll be a great opportunity to share the gospel with people. I'll tell you more about it next week after it happens." |
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| Typhoon! |
[Jul. 12th, 2006|09:41 am] |
Nilbus is expecting some lively weather!
"Hey everyone,
There's a typhoon coming through here this weekend! I'm so pumped. :D I totally love storms and nasty rainy weather. It's nature at its best. Hurricanes and typhoons can cause a lot of destruction, but they're very beautiful at the same time. We'll be outside despite the rain and wind, until it gets dangerous. I'm excited, and will let you all know how it goes.
We're setting up an English class in Lili to help the people here get to know us used to the idea of having foreigners around. I'm sure you could imagine that two white people coming into a secluded community of aboriginies could be a little threatening. Add on top of that the fact that my companion is taller than I am by a few inches, and it's even worse. We love the people in Lili. There are several people there that know us well and are good friends, but still a lot more that we really haven't gotten to know.
I went up to Kaohsiung again today for singing practice for a performance we're doing for our 50th anniversary in Taiwan. It went really well. I have Called to Serve memorized in Chinese now. :D
Speaking of Chinese, I've been amazed at how much easier it has been lately to understand people and communicate. It's so weird to me that I often completely understand people when they're speaking Chinese, just as if it were English. It's so weird, because I remember my first impressions of what Chinese sounded like back when I got my mission call and knew I was going to Taiwan. It was totally incomprehensible. And now I can't imagine myself not understanding the things that I can understand now." |
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| Lili |
[Jun. 29th, 2006|11:17 am] |
Nilbus describes his new area in greater detail:
"Lili and the other areas up in the mountains with the indians are really awesome. They have a lot of cultural works of art around the different towns, including big walls with carvings and paintings, statues, sculptures, etc. It's really beautiful up there in the mountains! And quite the bike ride too. :P They have lots of cultural songs that they've passed down since forever, and that they continue to pass down now, using karaoke! Karaoke is really big here in Taiwan. People are serious about their karaoke. I think it's a pretty neat idea to use that to continue to pass down their songs. I hear people singing them with karaoke all the time.
It's getting hotter here in Taiwan! Being in the south, it's even warmer. I've completely stopped using hot water in my showers. Cool water feels so much better! But even the "cold" water isn't really cold. It comes out quite warm, especially at night after it's been heating up in the pipes all day. :) I'm getting quite used to it though, so it's no problem for me." |
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| Fangliao |
[May. 30th, 2006|10:49 am] |
Nilbus writes (from Fangliao):
"Hello again,
Things are going pretty well here. I'm really enjoying this new area. It's a bunch of small towns, and pretty much everyone here likes to take it easy. :D The scenery is amazing. The people are as nice as my companion told me they were. Everyone likes to give us food. :P So much that there's no way that we can possibly eat it all. All the food in our house, except for a few small things, was given to us.
We have several investigators that are progressing very well toward their baptismal goals in 2 or 3 weeks. It's really awesome to see them grow so much. There's this one lady, Sister Chen, who is a retired teacher. She is a very peculiar person in the way she looks, acts, and everything, but she's so awesome. :D She's always finding stuff in the Book of Mormon that she really likes and agrees with, and gets really excited about. In some ways she reminds me of mom, though I can't quite put a finger on why.
The bed in our house that I sleep on is considerably harder than what I'm used to. Ever since I started sleeping on it though, I've been remembering a lot more of my dreams. Maybe it's because I wake up more during the night? ;) I really like it though. I started writing down my dreams, and found some really cool stuff. Most of my dreams are still in English, but with Chinese mixed in. When I talk with my companions, it's like that - we'll use mostly english, with chinese mixed in when it's convenient. In the majority of my dreams, I'm still with Heather, my family, or friends from back at home, though sometimes I'm a missionary too. Or both. It makes for some really interesting situations. Last night, I was in outer space on the outside of some ship with a blaster gun from Star Wars. I was with my companion, looking for the other missionaries. I could jump really high and fly, which was fun, until my super power ran out for some reason, where I was left looking stupid running and jumping, trying to get in the air with no success. :D Later we went to some church activity on the beach where there were 100+ foot waves that were fun to body-surf in, but totally crushed me when I went under. Except I could still breathe. Eventually, I made it back to shore, where I found an old, rickedy organ that I played with for a while. Dreams are so much fun.
Today is the chinese Dragonboat Festival. I don't know much about it, except that everyone makes these rice pyramid-looking things, wrapped and cooked in a huge leaf, with different things inside. They stick incense in them, worship their ancestors, and then eat them. They're not bad, but not my favorite food either really. ;) We've been given tons of them recently. You can look up more about Dragonboat Festival on the internet, if you want.
I've fallen in love with strawberry smoothies recently. :D So good! And so cheap! Taiwan has so many good drinks, and there are drink stands everywhere. I love it. Their food is really good too, of course. yum
Today, we're going back up to the mountains again like we did last p-day. It was really fun! There are some kids around 10 yr old in a village called Lili that are really good friends with us. We went down to the river and skipped rocks, played some games with them, and just had a good time. It was really nice to just go out and enjoy nature out in the mountains."
More later :) |
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