Greetings from the mountains

Greetings from the mountains! Haha. Kind of. My new area is right on the border of Taizhong and goes into the mountains about 17 km to the south and 15-20 km to the east. The ward has around 40-60 active members with a total membership of about 300 people. There are two small universities nestled in the mountains here, Asia University and Chaoyang University of Technology.  We actually live in the outskirts of Taizhong, in a district called Dali. Our chapel is about a 25 min bike ride to the west and it takes about 20 min to ride into our area from home. Most of the members lives further out in Wu Feng, so it takes about 40-55 min to really get anywhere to meet with investigators or find members' homes. Yay for exercise! It's beautiful here and the area is very clean which my lungs appreciate. The ward seems to be supportive of the missionaries in some ways, but in other ways it may take some time... the missionaries who were here before were all about contacting, and finding new investigators, so they never took time to get to know the ward. The members seem to think the missionaries are too busy to do anything to help the ward. We are going to change that!! This week we met with the ward mission leader, the Relief Society president, most of the Recent Converts and a few LAs. There were also a lot of non progressing investigators that missionaries had just been holding onto for a long time. We have already dropped quite a few... and may have to drop a few more. Unfortunately sometimes you have to reset and have a fresh start to get things moving again. We have a plan to visit the ward members and to find some part member families to start working with. The members have to trust us for this work to happen effectively! The area reminds me a lot of Zhanghua where I was trained. Tainan was more city, so it the pace is faster there. Here it's more relaxed and feel a bit more like myself here. There's a spectacular view of the mountains from my new apartment. Sister Martin is super great and we are already good friends. We both have the same perspective about missionary work. It's all rooted in love. We have to take the time to build relationships. We are here to represent Jesus Christ and His love for everyone. I am excited for good things ahead in this area!!