Letter No. 63: Investigators

• Here is a summary of our investigators:

  
  

  Jiang Dx: Passed his baptismal interview. 

  
  

  Lin Dx: Passed his interview

  
  

  Zhang Dx: Drank tea this week so needs a bit of time to deal with the word of wisdom. In addition his parents have been to busy for us to go and talk to them about baptism. 

  
  

  Mei Jm: Well, this girl has been in recent regression. The last time that we met with her she brought her aunt again. Her Aunt is CRAZY. Her aunt has lost the ability to be quite and says everything that comes to her mind as soon as she thinks it. When you combine this with an attention span of about 7 seconds (not even exaggerating) it becomes extremely hard to teach Mei. We fear that all of this time with her aunt is rubbing off on our investigator. We are trying to find a good way to control this situation. We'll get her though. 

  
  

  Wang Family (6): They absolutely love family home evening! The only problem is that the father has very little interest in conversion to the gospel of Christ. Fortunately the wife and Children do. We hope to see some of them at church this upcoming week. The family in our ward who referred them are doing an awesome job of working with them!

  
  

  Ho Jm: Although this girl loves the church, she does not have the same love for missionaries who have given her too much pressure in the past. So her relationship with us is not good. But we are working through members to help her out. 

  
  

  Hong Dx: Super busy! But still likes learning the gospel of Christ.  

  
  

  Ronald Chen: Still working to quit smoking. He is down to 6 a day. We are super proud of him and he'll get it done this week. In a lesson this week he was telling us that he hurt his leg this week. After talking for a little while he said, "Wait, don't you have Christ's authority? You can bless people right?" Of course we replied in the affirmative. We gave him a blessing and immediately his leg felt a lot better. He's excited to learn about temples next. 

  
  

  Xue Family (2): He went to Mainland China this week.  Should be back on Wednesday.

  
  

  Yuan Jm: This week started out great for her, but then went bad, and then was good. Basically satan did his best to make this girl lose her faith. She called us Saturday in tears. Some Catholic friends told her that if she joins our church she will go to Hell. Fortunately we were able to teach her that what we say and what her friends say doesn't matter. She should ask God and follow her heart. I am confident that God will lead her to our church. 

  
  

  We need your prayers there at home. Satan is working hard to make this effort fall apart. We are on the edge of breaking expectations. Love you all so much!

Letter No. 62: Navy Seal Training Life

• Things in this branch are a little...different than I've every experienced on a mission. First obvious note is the lack of organization at events. I've realized that branch dinner activities are very similar to the experience you might have if training to be a Navy seal. Once the food is put out it is a mad dash of pushing and shoving until you get a little sliver of undercooked super fatty meat. It is so hard to hvae good manners here. If you have good manners you almost can't eat. And this will go for about 50 minutes. Then they realize that they bought way too much food. Then they try to force it onto the missionaries. It's good, but sometimes I just don't want it.
• Today I plan to go and purchase a sword that is handmade by one of the aboriginal people here. It will require going high into the mountains. We aren't really sure what we are doing.

Letter No 61: Paradise

So, I am now on the East Coast of the island. Some call it Heaven. Some Paradise. It really is a beautiful area. I'm here with an Elder Wright from Australia. He's on his third transfer and has been here since the beginning of a mission. This place has some fabulous investigators and there is currently a goal to have a stake here on the east coast in the next three years. It will definitely take about that long, but were are trying here to make it come faster. An interesting thing to note is that Sister Winters is now in my zone. I saw here at a meeting yesterday and will see here at least 3 times this transfer. It's pretty cool to have the chance to serve here.

So in the process of packing I realized that I have accumulated a boat load of stuff. I don't even want most of it, but I didn't really have time to sort out what I need and what is trash. It's hard to throw away things that are perfectly usable, but sometimes you just have to think, am I ever going to use it? I've been on a mission for almost a year and a half and how many times have I used it?

Anyway, we went to a meeting in Taipei on Friday and while there we learned where we would soon be going.They had a giant profector and then they put of a powerpoint presentation that had all of the Non-moving elders as organized by areas. And then they click a button and your picture pops up next to them. I was so excited to find that I was coming here! It really is beatiful and I have some great friends in this zone. I'm so happy to be here.

That's about all fo rnow. I'll talk to you guys again next week.

At a BBQ for the moon festival 

I got my first Asian boy hair cut and grew wings 

The area is beautiful 

Eating roasted snail 

Letter No. 60: Rainy Day

• President has changed the method by which we are notified about moving.  Last Saturday I foudn out that I would be moving, but was not told where or who my new companion will be. This Friday we will go to a meeting in Taipei where we will find out where we are moving. I have a couple of guesses for myself. There is a pretty good chance (though not definite) that I will be a Zone Leader next transfer. That gives me 4 potential spots to move to. My hopes are between ShiLin (right next to my first area) and HuaLian.  I'll get back to you next week.
• This week there was a baptismal service for Brother Xu. He is such an amazing guy. He feels almost like he was one of my investigators. I'm so happy that he is now baptized. During the service Me, Elder Vandenburgh and Sister Burton sung while Elder Sheng played piano. We have a three part harmony and I think that it is the only chance I will ever have to be applauded during a baptismal service. Yup, the members started clapping after we were done. That being said, I have a feeling that most people here are tone deaf. I've been to ward choir.
• This week I rode about 40 minutes in pouring rain. It was probably the wettest that I have ever been in my life.
• In church when it was announced that I would be leaving there was a slight gasp that went throughout the chapel. It came as a surpise to most everyone.
• Last week Fergus was supposed to do his baptismal interview, but unfortunately was unable to come to church yesterday to do it. We haope that he will have the chance as soon as possible. Unfortunately I won't be around to see things go through.
• I think that's all
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Letter No. 59: Approval

Well, this week was quite enventful.  Pretty fun.

 

• Yesterday at church we did a youth missionary day. Various youth came with me and my companion and then we did missionary work with them for a while. It was a wonderful experience for those youth to go out with us. After scaring them about the intesnsity of missionary work we ate lunch together. It was homemade pizza and spaggetti. It was pretty good except for the fact that the sauce was ketchup. eww. 
• We will be having a baptism on the 22 September for Fergus. He is such a prepared person. When we asked him if he would be at church he said,"of course it is part of my weekly schedule."  I think that he is really going to enjoy getting the priesthood. He goes to a police university where they often award you based on merit. The priesthood will really make him feel special and honored. 
• My convert Woody is one of the best missionaries in the country of Taiwan. He has invited so many people to church and they have accepted!
• I was given a brown leather jacket the other day and a cool mask. 
• On Friday I rode my bike for about an hour up hill. It was so much fun. I loved the exercise and coming back down the hill was a blast. We went up to visit an investigator at the police university (not fergus) and do visit someone in the hospital there. 
• At church some members from another city came to our meeting. I met one of them a few months back and she was pretty fun. He friend that came this time was one of the most firey sharp tounged girls I had ever met. But, there is no one sharper or quicker than me. After getting back into the swing of things we were having a conversation. I'm not sure what the point was other than to make the other person not be able to have a good comeback. Afer about five minutes I said something and she just looked down at her feet and said, "I lose. You are welcome to KeeLong whenever you have time." Gained her approval I did. 
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  A 12oz piece of fried chicken 

  
  

  

  Cleaning up the trash

  
  

  

  Clean up the wold day 

  
  

  

  Elder Ghost Rider  

Letter No. 58: Father of Lies

Last P Day was probably the most college like Pday so far. Our entire zone got together for a ultimate frisbee/football game. It was a lot of fun! It made me miss college a little bit. Also I've been able to gain a lot of happiness through the lives of my vonverts. They have been some of the best member missionaries I have ever seen!  When they bear their testimonies it really makes me feel great. Part of the reason for the increase in the Youth's faith is the recent youth conference. I definitely want to be and EFY counselor if at all possible

This week was admittedly a more difficult week. I'm still trying to discern what went wrong. In talking to all the members of the district they all reported similar sentiments. There was a darker feeling this week and it seemed to hit our area the hardest. Elder Vandenburgh came on exchanges to our area and said that the area had a spiritual deadness in the people he contacted. I couldn't express my feelings more clearly than that. Almost everyone was abnormally cold in the rejection of the Gospel of Christ. That being said, I still have a sense of peace as I proceed into the next week. In addition I have realized a number of things that I can change.

First, my approach to finding through our own efforts can be changed dramatically. I realized this week that I have not seriously studied finding through my own efforts in quite some time and have kept the same basic contacting routine. There has been little improvement lately and a lack of progression is regression. In addition to studying how to use time wisely as part of the mission invite I will work in role plays to increase the ability of my companion and I to contact. We are in a battle with the Father of Lies. He knows how to improve his game. I feel that he's figured out how I play the game, so now I've got to improve it.

In addition to this, I recognize that I cannot do anything that God does not wish me to do. So I need to increase my dependence on him. I feel that lately I've been focused too much on what can I personally do and not so much on what God wants me to do. As a part of my own spiritual progression I want to inquire of God what he wants for me before taking action.

The bad aside, this week was incredible as one of our investigators returned to TaoYuan. He's attended church 4 times so far 3 of them were unexpected because he said that he's be too busy to attend. Yesterday he attended the morning ward for Sunday School and Priesthood and then our afternoon sacrament meeting. He attends a police college so he much return to his campus by 4:00pm on Sunday. Yet his desire to learn is so great that he is willing to come to the morning ward to increase his spiritual growth. In talking with him about baptism he told us that he wants to be baptized with in the month. Then he set his own date!

Flamboyance 

Sometimes you get tired 

Letter No. 57: Basketball in Taiwan

This week went pretty well. It was super busy though.

 

• We've started waking up every morning to play basketball or Ultimate frisbee at a park near by. It's really fun. This week one of the sisters from a different district came here on exchanges. She was pretty athletic so it make for a pretty exciting game even though we only had six people. Our zone is starting to get closer as a whole. We are all pretty good friends and today we are are all going to go to a park to hang out.
• Along those lines, our entire zone was able to go to the Michael McLean concert. The rule was that we needed an investigator with us, but some people couldn't get anyone to commit to coming, fortunately some of the areas loaned investigators to other companionships. I think that's pretty cool. We watch out for each other. In two weeks were are going to hold another zone activity with things from Costco to eat. I got the card and next week I will go up up with my district. I will send Kathryn's card as soon as she turns 18. Would you be able to email me her drivers license?
• The Michael McLean concert was really good. He did the music for "The Best Two Years" and a few other movies. This concert was all about loving others and keeping hope through hard times. I enjoyed the first half, but the second seemed to drag on. I was just ready to go back out and work.
• Recently we have two really good investigators and a few that are all right. The good ones are Fergus and Brother Woo. Brother Woo is fairly new and is dating a single mom in our ward. He asks great questions and really hopes to be baptized. Fergus is fantastic and will go to church even when he is out of town. He comes back today, so we hope to meet with him soon.
• I bought a pair of basketball shoes. My running shoes were far too flat on the bottom and I was tired of slipping on the court. The new shoes were originally $2,000, but I got them for $990 from a reputable Nike outlet store. We play a lot of basketball here.