Week #24

Merry Christmas everybody!

 First Christmas in Taiwan was pretty tough being away from family, but there is no better way to celebrate the Birth of the Savior than to be his representative every single day. Everything that I have been given in my life is because of him. I am so blessed to be able to literally take upon his name everyday. 

  

 I have been thinking a lot about the things I did before the mission. I hope that I was always acting like somebody who represented Jesus Christ. I would invite you all to always be acting in a way that the Savior would. You never know how your example can affect people. Especially those of you who are members of the church. We should always be living in a way that people can recognize us a disciples of Christ. 

  

 Love you all!

博長老 Elder Bosco

Week #23

This week was a good one. I was super nervous being so young in the mission field and having to introduce another missionary to the area and to our investigators. But it has been really fun being with Elder Warner, and this area has so much potential. And to top things off, I got a haircut... from Elder Graves :) The Bosco Buzz is back into action.

 We have an awesome investigator named Jake who has a baptismal date for the 7th of January, and I just realized that I don't think I have mentioned him in a single letter. Me and Elder Heath contacted him on his bike for about 20 seconds a couple of months ago. He has just been progressing more and more each day, and he has made a regular habit of coming to church. He is going on vacation next week, so hopefully nothing crazy happens, but the ward loves him, and I am super excited to be able to watch him get baptized,

 We had a super awesome contact this week, and the best part was that it was all in English. So we are walking around in the park and we see this wai guo ren (foreigner), so we decide to go talk to her (contacting foreigners in English is much more intimidating than contacting Taiwanese people in Chinese). So we start talking to her and she invites us to sit down with her and talk about religion. So we start talking about our church and the Book of Mormon, then she starts talking about how she thinks that the earth is flat (at this point she was a little drunk). Then her 3 friends came and started to talk to us (they were normal and not once). The crazy one was from Canada, and the others were from England, Chicago, and Texas. We ended up talking to them for a pretty long time. I kind of left my companion to deal with the crazy one, and I started talking to the one from Texas and England. By the end I had pretty much taught them the first 3 lessons and we got there numbers so that we can meet with them next week. It was so cool. ;

 I can't believe it is already Christmas! It is starting to get a little bit cold here so I actually had to buy a coat and some sweaters. But I love being a missionary! The work is moving forward and I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are at the head of it. I can't wait to Skype my family next week!!!!
Love you all! Elder Bosco

-- 

博長老 Elder Bosco

Taiwan Taichung Mission 16-18

Taiwan Taichung Mission

No. 498-11 Wuquan Rd., North District

Taichung City, 40446, Taiwan, ROC

Week #22

  It is crazy to think that I have already been in Taiwan for 12 weeks! I am staying in Cui Hua and my new companion is Elder Warner from Cache Valley, Utah. I am super nervous cause I still don't really know my way around, but we will see what happens.

   

We met with the miracle guy who came to the church last week. During the lesson he just told us that he already knows that the Book of Mormon is true, and that the church is true. He said that when he met with missionaries before, he had some doubts and other things that were stopping him from getting baptized, but now none of those things are concerns. He is one of our 3 investigators that we have set up to be baptized in January, so hopefully everything works out. 

   

Also this week we celebrated Elder Heath's one year mark by drinking ovaltine and eating chocolate. 

   

We had a baptism this week of an 11 year old girl. When she was 8 both of her parents were less-active, and so she was not baptized at that time. Now her mom is in the primary presidency, and they come  to church every week. We have been teaching her for a while but she is scared of missionaries, so she was never really excited to meet with us. But we had a great baptism, and us missionaries sang the baptism song. 

   

This Sunday we were supposed to have about 8 investigators at church, but we only ended up with 2. So that was very disappointing. On the bright side one of them that was there is really working towards his baptism date at the end of the month, and he has been coming to church every week for the past couple of weeks. 

  

 Sorry my emails don't have a ton of detail, but I love you all and am so grateful to be a missionary!

   

                                                                                                          Elder Bosco 

 

Elder Heaths 1 year mark! Ovaltine and Chocolate

Week #21

Elders Heath and Bosco

A nice 74th floor view of GaoXiong...

... with a nice picture of Ikea for you mom :)

 My email time has been cut a little bit short this week, but that is because of a super cool miracle story!

   But first let me tell you about Tuesday. On Tuesday I went on a split with Elder Hansen. Now remember. Elder Hansen is the other trainee in my apartment. We both have only been here for 2 ish months. And we are speaking Chinese. We didn't have any lessons, so the whole day was just going around talking to people. Nothing really special happened that day except that my testimony of the Gift of Tongues was strengthened. I was able to understand most of what was being said, and I know that it was not because of any thing I did.

   Now for the miracle story... We are doing are emails like any other average Pday, and then Elder Heath gets a call from the office next to our church. (Our chapel is on the 5th floor of a bank, and next door is like some church operations office) They tell him that an investigator is at the church. So we go over to check it out and there is guy that has been looking for us. He then invites to go eat with him so that we can talk. come to find out we had been looking for him the day before, because he was a former, but he was not home. He tells us that he has been looking for truth, and he even went up to the temple in Taipei and bought himself a Book of Mormon. We talked to him and invited him to be baptized in January. He was super willing and really excited. It was such an awesome experience that I will never forget, and I am very sorry if that short description does not sum up how great it was. I know that the Lord is definitely watching over all of his children. 

 

 Love you all and am so grateful for you and for the Gospel.

 

                                                                                                         Elder Bosco

Week #20

This week being Thanksgiving and all has really given me the opportunity to reflect on the things that I have blessed with in my life. I am especially grateful for a loving Savior, Jesus Christ, who was willing to give his life for me so that I can be happy and have hope. I am also grateful for the opportunity I have to be here in Taiwan telling others about Jesus Christ.

 We had a couple of baptismal goals set for the beginning of December but sadly I don't think any of them are going to make it. It is really hard to get people to come to church here. Most of the people here work everyday and for very long hours, or it is the only day that they have off of work, and they would much rather be out playing with their friends.

 Don't worry, although I am in Taiwan, Thanksgiving did not go uncelebrated. On Thursday the four of us elders went and had hamburgers for dinner. And on Sunday, this family from America who is in our stake invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner. So we were able to enjoy turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls, and all of the other good stuff. This week  Elder Heath and I were able to have a super cool miracle happen. We were going to go contacting in a park for about 20 minutes, but it was dark and a little cold so there was nobody really in the park. We decided to go anyway, and we approached this girl on a bench. We started talking to her a little bit about our message, and she told us that her sister is a member of our church. Later on in the conversation she told us about how her and her boyfriend have been having some issues and so she just decided to come to this park and she texted her boyfriend to meet her there. She said that she didn't really know how to deal with her current situation so she had been praying, and then right about when she got done praying is when we went up to talk to her. We testified of the Book of Mormon and prayers. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she said she was willing to read it. We haven't made contact again with her yet, but that was just another reminder about how God is watching out for all of his children.

 I am so grateful for all of you and the love and support that you have for me. The mission is easily the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but there is no other place that I would rather be.
Love,  Elder Bosco

Thanksgiving in Taiwan

hamburgers for Thanksgiving

Elder Heath getting his teeth cleaned

And a nice note from Bob and Gloria DeWitt:
 Greetings from Kaohsiung! Gloria and I had a second Thanksgiving dinner with your missionaries tonight. Our first was on Wednesday night last week when we had 48 people to dinner, ten of whom were missionaries. Tonight’s menu was the same as Wednesday's: roast turkey with homemade cranberry sauce, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams with marshmallow topping, green bean casserole, homemade dinner rolls, green salad, and tropical fruit. For dessert, I made pumpkin pie, which we served with whipped cream. After dinner, Elder Bosco and Elder Heath shared a message about gratitude. Gloria and I are so grateful that your sons and daughters have chosen to be missionaries, and we’re grateful for their service. Thank you for raising such fine young men and women and allowing them to come so far away and for so long to serve the Lord. We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends. We love your missionaries! 
 Sincerely yours, 
 Bob DeWitt 

Elders Bosco, Hansen, Graves, Grisent, Potts, and Heath

with Sisters Lundquist and Scharff

with Bob and Gloria DeWitt

Week #19

   This week we said goodbye to one of our best friends in the ward, because he is moving to China to start a new job. He was always such a great help to us missionaries. He will definitely be missed, and new missionaries in this area will have no idea how much of a help he was in the area.

   

This week our recent convert had a couple of days off from the Navy so he was able to come back. And after training he is moving to the part of the Navy base that is in our area! We had a really good lesson about the priesthood. He is really preparing to receive it, and he talked about how he understands the importance of being worthy to have the priesthood. He was also able to help us in a lesson, and he shared a great testimony about coming to church and about how he was able to overcome his Word of Wisdom problems. And at church he was just really comfortable sharing his testimony in all of the classes. He has been doing really great and I am excited to continue to see his progression.

  

 One night at dinner a couple came up to us and talked to us and gave us his number. When he came and talked to us he was speaking some English so we were afraid that he would just want to talk to us because we are foreigners and we speak English (there are a lot of those). But we were able to meet with him yesterday and it was an awesome lesson. Him and his wife were really interested in how our message could help their family. And he might even let us help him paint his house (which could be a very rare service opportunity) so I am really excited to see what happens!

  

 This week we were invited to the Relief Society Thanksgiving celebration to do the spiritual share. When we got there, there was about 6 people there, and they had us do the spiritual share which we thought we were going to do at the end. So after we did that, then about 30 more people showed up and we are all just crammed into this tiny room (sorry I don't have any pictures). So everyone probably thinks that us missionaries just showed up to eat their food. 

   

In the spirit of Thanksgiving I am so grateful for the opportunity I have right now to serve the Lord. The mission has by far been the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but it has also helped me appreciate all that the Lord has blessed me with. I have been so blessed to grow up with the Gospel in my life. I have been blessed with the best family that I could ever ask for, and I am so grateful for them and the blessing they have been in my life!

                                                                                       Elder Bosco

Week #18

Funny story of the week: We were meeting with this one guy for the first time, and so we were introducing ourselves. When I showed him my family picture he asked me if my dad had 4 wives. Because the night before he had looked at a very incorrect website about Mormons.

 This past couple of weeks has been really hard in terms of finding new investigators, but we have a lot of really great current investigators. Elder Heath and I have really been trying to stress to our investigators about reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know if it is true, and how if they know if the Book of Mormon is true, then they will know that everything else is true. I don't know if it is because of our language ability of what, but it has kind of hard for them to do that for some reason.

 Something else that has been really hard is getting our investigators to come to church. Our church starts at 8:30 so it is "too early" for most people, and it is hard for members to pick people up because everyone drives scooters. We usually have about 2-3 investigators at church a week, and this past week we found out that one of our investigators that comes every week probably live one road outside of our area.

 Lately I have really been starting to see my language improve. I still can't understand everything, and speaking is still incredibly hard, but I can understand a lot of what is going on now. I have had a couple of members tell me how much my language has improved. I owe a lot of it to my companion cause he always takes time out of his language study to help me with mine, and he has helped me a ton in the language department (and all other departments)

 Our recent convert told us that when he comes to church this week that he wants to give a talk and bear his testimony. He went to the army right after getting baptized so he doesn't always have Sunday off, but when he does, he is excited to come to church. And he was really excited to tell us that he put "Mormon" on his military application. He also has introduced four of his friends to us (one of which is one of our most progressing investigators)

 I am really starting to love it here in Taiwan. The people are really great (especially the old people that I can speak Taiwanese to). Sorry that this letter is a little bit shorter, but I love you all and am so grateful for all of your support! Elder Bosco

Here are some cool pics that apparently don't need explanations because he didn't send any...