Elder Chase Millett: Food, Zone Conference, more food, biking, and more food!!!!!

Well Fam,

I have survived another week here in Taiwan! I'm in the Jia Yi (Chia ee) zone. Our area is pretty spread out compared to say Taichung.

We are pretty rural. Things are going pretty well at the moment. We had some fun experiences this week, as well as some interesting ones.

For starters, I received my luggage and my bicycle this week. (Yeah, It's pretty awesome. I love it.)

So it was nice to be able to get the rest of my clothes and stuff here. I have all my ties now and not just the same 4 I had.

So, as for things that happened this week...

We have been doing a LOT of biking this week. Our investigator pool is diminishing because, well, they are getting baptized and everything. So we have been trying to find, find, and find some more. We have some potential people that we can call, and we are working with some of the people that come to English class. (Every week, in this mission, all of the missionaries teach a free English class at the local chapel. So that is pretty fun. I teach the advanced class.) Our English class is very small. We have about 7-10 people that show up max between the two classes. And we have manuals that we use. We teach about having basic conversations, about different recreational activities and things like that.

Now for my culinary feats for this week, I have eaten a LOT of delicious food this week. We had 2 "Qing Ke's" (Ching Kuh), which is a member dinner. Here in Taiwan it is a very different culture. These people prepare enough food to feed like 12 people, and then four of us have to eat it. It is rude here to not eat all of the food that was prepared, so we were trying to eat all of this food, and I swear I was gonna die. I was so full. We suffered riding our bikes back home after that. -- I also tried some street food this week as well, like night market stuff. So I got this thing, I can't remember what it is called. But essentially it is an entire octopus tentacle, deep-fried, and then they cut it up and put it in a bag like french fries. It was actually pretty good, chewy though. Speaking of chewy, I had another fun experience with food this week. Apparently there was some holiday this last week, (Even Elder Watson had never heard of it.) But on this particular holiday, the people make a special "soup" called Tang Yuan. It is a really sweet, dessert soup. It has these little handmade sugar ball things in a very sweet sugary broth. It was so sweet!!! I could only put down one bowl because of how sweet it was, but it was fun.

But my worst experience with food happened yesterday. It all started Saturday evening...

We had gone to the 7-11 across from our apartment to plan and make some calls and stuff. After we did that, Elder Watson said that we needed to buy food for lunch and dinner on Sunday. So we had to buy food at the 7-11. They have these little meal things that you make yourself at home. You put it in the microwave and eat it. Anyways, I got this one that had rice, some tofu, and some really tasty red sauce on it. It was so good while I was eating it.

But then I waited...

On our way biking to our next appointment in Xing Pi, about a 30 minute or so bike ride from our appointment, my stomach started turning. It felt really heavy in my stomach and up into my chest. It was terrible, but I pressed forward. So we are sitting in this member's home, and we are having a lesson and it just keeps getting worse and worse. Finally, I ask the member if I could use their restroom. He took me there and I sat in the restroom, ready to puke my guts out for like 5 minutes or so, but nothing happens, I figure it will go away soon. As soon as I come back downstairs, to my horror, the member has brought out this HUGE papaya for all of us to split. We each take a quarter of the papaya. So, as to not be rude, I manage to squeeze this papaya into my system. But then, as we leave the house, my stomach turns again. We get about half of the way home and I feel like I'm going to pass out. I drop my bike on the sidewalk and stand by this gutter thing. I puke a little bit and feel a little bit better. I make it just around the corner from our apartment without any issues. But then I got off of my bicycle and my stomach finally gave up. In what Elder Watson described as " a dragon breathing fire" I hurl in the gutter in front of our apartment. (Luckily nobody was around to see it other than Elder Watson). It was terrible, it was horrifying, but there is a great lesson to be learned from this experience. Let me quote some apostolic witnesses of my story.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said:

"Look, this is food, we are talking about here, not sunday school. We pay good money for the food that we eat. We can buy our food from a 7-11 in Taiwan if we want too! This young man was persistent. We can buy our food from a Taiwanese 7-11 if we want too? Rule number 1 about being an effective disciple of Christ, YOU NEVER BUY YOUR FOOD FROM A 7-11 IN TAIWAN!!"

Elder Bruce R. McConkie said:

"Heresy seven: There are those who believe we can buy good food from a 7-11 in Taiwan. This is not really a great heresy, only a doctrinal misunderstanding that I mention here in order to help round out our discussion and to turn our attention from negative to positive things. If we keep two principles in mind we will thereby know that good and faithful members' stomachs will be saved, even though they are continuing to make this mistake. These two principles are (1) that not all food from a Taiwanese 7-11 is inherently evil, but that there is some that should be avoided (2) that people must exercise spiritual caution when purchasing food from such a location.

(Those quotes were quotes from actual talks that they gave; I just altered what they actually said to fit my message. I had a good time doing it. )

So, there you have it, don't buy meals from a 7-11 in Taiwan. The apostles have said so.

Zone Conference was amazing, super powerful!!! And we ate Costco pizza! Apparently, according to what Elder Watson has told me, Costco here is exactly like Costco back home, same food, same smell, EVERYTHING! We are actually going to the Costco in Jia Yi after we are done emailing today,

Anyways, other than that little incident I'm doing great. I hope to hear from you soon. I love you all and know how much I miss you.

With lots of love, Your son, friend, and brother,

Elder Chase Joseph Millett

Last week I received this letter from a member in Elder Millett’s ward in Washington. So sweet to hear from members about your missionary! J

“Your son is so good and kind. We loved having him in our home! My son left on December 17th for his mission, Pennsylvania Philly Spanish Speaking, so I know what it's like to hope someone is taking care of your boy!! We got his email and are so glad he got to Tawaiin safely. He's going to do some amazing things there! Our favorite thing was to have him bare his testimony in Cantonese. The Spirit was always so strong!”