Week 43 on Mission: They are playing Christmas music in the mall where the cyber cafe is

Dear Family,

Well I hope all is well in the greatest country on earth, and the land of the chinos.
Teresa that is pretty crazy that you guys baptised 5 people! woohoo. When that happens here the people are shocked lol. I'm still praying that I get a chance to baptise a family in my mission. I'm getting close to my half way mark and still no signs of it... It sounds like Taiwan is a pretty cool place to work! I wish the people here were strait forward with me. The usual door approach goes like this:

Elder: Hello good morning, How are you?
Person: Good, and you?
Elder: Good, we are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints. We are here sharing a message about Jesus Christ and the restoration of the church in these latter days. We would like to share this message with you and your family.
Person: I allready congragate in the biblical baptist tabernacle: Friends of Israel, Gracias.
Elder: Well sister we share this message from people of all faiths, and we know this message will help you in your life.
Person: I allready accepted Christ as my savior, Gracias (they start to close the door)
Elder: Is there another day we can come by?
Person: I wouldnt be able to tell you, sometimes I leave ( or more of about 1000 other excuses other than saying "No")
Elder: Thanks a lot....we will try passing by another day....

That is honestly about 80% of the doors we knock. and the other 19% usually just say I'm busy through the door and walk away.
Maybe for every 200 doors we knock/people we talk to we get a baptism lol.

I have to admit, I'm not too happy right now. This area is the absolute pit of dispair. This is the house where the president sends missionaries right before they get sent home from the mission. Its also the area that we have baptised the first melchezedic priesthood convert in over a year. I really want out of here. Its like if you had to work only in castro street in San Francisco, and the branch only has like 5 priesthood holders, and they all live in oakland, walnut creek and concord. All the members are depressed, and the majority are offended lol.

It doesn't help that my companion hates working with north americans, hates me, loves to argue, and thinks I'm just the proudest missionary there is. He's probably got a point that I'm a little pridefull, and that I am north american, but it is really boring working with him, and sometimes its just hard. The wierdest thing is that he doesn't really have any latino firends in the mission either. He told me that before the mission he never had any firends, He just worked, came home from work, watched TV and went to sleep. He didn't even talk with his family.
I know that I have a lot of faults too, but I have gotten along well with all my companions up to him, and he hasn't gotten along with any of his.

That being said, I know I just have to keep working, and try to be humble. Its hard though, the baptisms we have here were basically mercy baptisms. (When I told him that he got mad at me too. He thinks that we baptised because we worked really hard...) The people were 100% prepared. Its just a frustrating area, and it doesn't help that my companion hates working with me.

This week just kinda dissapeared. I don't really know how, but its allready Pday again and I don't feel like we accomplished anything this week.

Btw why does Jared have a beard. Thats just wierd...maybe sam should grow one too....oh wait...

Well as for the Christmas Traditions here, The richer people put up plastic Christmas Trees, and a lot of people put up lights on their houses. Its definitely not that exciting so far. The Christmas devotional was cool though. The big thing that they do here on Christmas is that they just blow up firecrackers all night. You can buy them way cheap, and they have some really huge ones. Also the traditions here are not very creative, for almost any special occasion (birthdays, new years, independence day, christmas) they allways eat the same food, chicken sandwiches. But they aren't what you would expect, because they have more cabbage in them than chicken. If you guys remember in the El Salvadorean resaurants, they have like some vinegarry cabbage stuff that they eat with pupusas called curtido or repollo. Basically they put that in everything here (Pupusas, Hot dogs, Sandwiches, Tortas, dumplings, anything fried....)

Anyways I still have to write my letter to president, so take is easy, don't worry about me. I'm okay, I feel fine, I'm just very bored and tired.

Much love,
Elder DeVictoria.