Monday was an adventurous day!! We didn't have any plans, and then one of our investigators offered to take us sightseeing and so we went with him and went on quite the adventure. We drove all over the northern part of the island and had a great lunch and even went to 淡水 for a little bit so Elder Settles could see what it was like. It was such a cool time. Riding in a car and seeing sights made for a very nice preparation day. We also got ready for our apartment inspection tomorrow. Hopefully it's up to snuff but I guess we will see.
Tuesday was another day in the land. We had a fun morning getting our apartment inspected from a senior missionary couple and afterwards we went out with them to lunch and they were so nice and bought our food for us! We got to talk with them about their previous missions to Hong Kong and Vietnam and hear some cool stories! It was a cool time and they said we had a very nice looking apartment 
. Afterwards we went to the mission office to pick up Elder Settles' bike and now we should be clicking on full cylinders and can get back to some normalcy. Elder Settles is a great guy and we are having a "lit" time together! One of our favorite sayings is "life is lit", and it really is!
Wednesday was a fun day. We didn't have anything going on so Elder Settles took a look at the map of our area and picked an area that we wanted to check out. It was in a cool place by the mountains and there was a road conveniently located in that area that led to 土城 and we could go that way since we had to teach English class. We definitely weren't prepared for the next 2 and a half hours on the bike complete with an hour and a half of climbing a mountain. It was so crazy but going down after was worth it all. There was such an amazing view of Taipei city and it was so pretty. I also clocked myself going 33 miles per hour down the mountain (all the while pumping my brakes for safety ). Then we had English class and it was the hardest one yet. We had one girl show up and she got really mad when we wouldn't let her play with toys until we finished learning the words and so she didn't talk for the whole class so we ended super early because we weren't getting anything done. Teaching children is hard.
Thursday felt like an Arizona day! The temperature peaked at 103.2 degrees. The work still goes on and we had a fun day that started with playing basketball with another one of our friends! It was loads of fun and we had a good time. After we finished playing we got showered and then headed over to the chapel for our Zone Council. It was a normal meeting with some good trainings and some good laughs. After Zone Council, we did our studies and had dinner at our Ward Mission Leaders house. It was loads of fun eating and talking about missions (our Ward Mission Leader served in New York City). They also gave us Koolaid mix, oh yeah!
Friday was a fun day. We went to the hospital again to get Elder Settles checked up again. The doctors weren't the best but we are getting it all taken care of. Hopefully answers will come soon! Other than that, we did studies and our weekly planning session as well. Afterwards, we went and visited an investigator and it turned out to be a drop lesson (a lesson where we stop teaching them). Teaching him has always been a little interesting but he told us he didn't want to be baptized and has been less than willing to do invitations we extend. It's always unfortunate dropping people, but it's a necessary part of the process. We were able to end the night having dinner with two members and we had a good hot pot! The first one I have liked in a long time.
Nothing special happened Saturday. The day was a little more mellow after I got some bad news from a friend. Things are well for me though, just lots of pondering. We also taught a lesson and it went well. Our friend set to get baptized this month is still progressing very well!
Sunday was a normal Fast Sunday. After church we had a lesson and had our Coordination Meeting. When we got home we just did our studies and ate some food before going to the recent convert fireside at the Stake Center. While the day wasn't super unique I did have an interesting impression come to me during the fireside. It was just the phrase, "we are all on our own trip". I sometimes spend too much time worrying about others and what others think of me. I just gotta stay in my lane and focus on how I am doing and making sure I am doing good and doing the right things.
Elder Heber Chase Ciminski
謝希伯長老