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