Week #81

 Transfers are were today, but I will be staying in YuanLin with Elder Loe! And my old companion Elder Huang is coming down here to be my zone leader, so it's going to be a super fun transfer.

   

The highlight of the week is that Nick got baptized! Also the Brother Chen that Elder Brenchley and I found got baptized on the same day so that was super cool! But it didn't come without its complications. When the baptismal font was about half way filled up, the church just completely ran out of water. And so we took two jugs of drinking water and dumped them in (don't worry there was still enough for everyone at church the next day.) then there was still one sink that had water from another source, so we filled some buckets up with that and got the water just high enough so that everything worked out!

   

Some of our time this week was spent deep cleaning the other elders apartment. It has just been super nasty for the longest time. And a senior couple finally sponsored a service project to clean their apartment after it received a -1 out of 3 on the grading scale. But now it is super nice looking so it's all good. 

   

We were meeting with an LA this week, and then she just brought her nonmember friend to the meeting and we taught her the Restoration, and the Less Active member bore really great testimony. The friend does not live in our area but it was still a cool experience. 

   

Lately it has been pretty hard to find, but we met with a new girl this week and had a pretty good first lesson with her. And later we found out that she is good friends with one of our ward members so hopefully everything works out there. 

   

We taught brother Zhang the Word of Wisdom. And the only problem he has is that because of his work, a lot of the time he goes to things where people will offer him a little tea or alcohol. And because of the culture here it is hard to reject those kind of things so we are working on that with him. 

   

Everyone read the Book of Mormon daily! It will bless you in so many ways. 

Love you all! 

Some random English student just likes to take missionaries out to eat so he bought us the huge hamburger (yes there is a cat on the counter)
and the pizza in the other picture that looks like it's from a restaurant.
The other pizza is what we made as a district (one of the flavors has Chick-fil-A sauce and fried chicken) 

   

   

Week #80

 Going to the sheep farm last week was super fun! It was easily one of the most fun Pdays that I have ever had. I got some good pics for you all! 

This week we just got completely wrecked contacting. It seemed like nobody wanted to talk to us any longer than 5 seconds (I am sure most missionaries have experienced this kind of week multiple times). We have been trying to do different things and work better with the ward, but nothing seems to be working crazy good yet. But we have been able to do quite a bit of service this week so that has been good.    

   

One thing that President Teh invited me to do during interviews was so not just keep the flame of faith burning, but to continually strengthen it, and strengthen my relationship with the Savior. An important part of missionary work that is often underrated is attitude. As our relationship with the Savior grows, do will our desire to share his gospel. And we will always have a positive attitude no matter what the situation.

   

On the bright side Nick should be getting baptized this week so we are super excited for that! Also the bishops friend that we are teaching is on track to hit his date in February. He is a little bit older and sometimes it seems like he has short term memory loss when we teach him, but he has a lot of faith. It sometimes feels like teaching a little child, I feel like he doesn't understand completely, but he is willing to do what we ask.

  

 If there is one thing that being a missionary has taught me, it is that everything good in my life has come from living the restored gospel. Nothing can replace the happiness that the gospel brings. 

I know that Russell M. Nelson is God's chosen prophet on the earth today. And finally a great quote by President Eyring "Hard as things seem today, they will be better in the next day if you choose to serve the Lord this day with your whole heart. Your circumstances may not be improved in all the ways which you desire. But you will have been given new strength to carry your burdens and new confidence that when your burdens become too heavy, the Lord, whom you have served, will carry what you cannot. He knows how. He prepared long ago. He suffered your infirmities and your sorrows when He was in the flesh so that He would know how to succor you. 

Love you all! 

ZhongXing Zone Conference

Week #79

 Today we are going to a sheep farm for pday so this is going to be a short email. It is literally a giant place on a hill with a bunch of sheep that just roam and you can pet them and what not... Should be fun!

   

 Nick passed his baptismal interview! But because stake conference is this week, he will be getting baptized next week. 

    

The parks here I Taiwan are just packed with trash so lately we have been picking up trash. And one day we were doing it and some guy tried to give us 1000元 （$30）but I kept denying it, the. He just shoved it in my pocket and left. So we went and got Subway for dinner. So shout-out to that guy.

  

 Yeah that's about it... Love you all! 

the district 

cleaning someone's house

"everyone" (yep! these are the captions he sends me....)

Week #78

Happy Birthday Dad!

This Week was pretty good! A lot of our investigators have been progressing this week and so that has been really good. 

   

On Monday we were able to set a baptismal goal with Yusi for the 27th. He has a very good testimony. and he is great at praying and reading. But he says that he made a deal with God that if he finds an American wife than he will get baptized. But he said he is willing to accept God's will. So we invited him to read the scriptures and pray about the 27th. 

   

The one guy (Brother Zhan) that the bishop brought to church last week is doing good. We met with him at his house and taught him about God and prayer. It takes him a while to understand what we are teaching but he is really accepting of everything. And He has been praying. Then he came to church on Sunday for all 3 hours, which is good because he lives pretty far away. Then awhile after church had ended we were studying in our apartment and he called us saying he wants to meet. So we met him and read the Book of Mormon with him. 

   

The Sister Zhang that I talked about last week wasn't able to come to church this week. But she has been praying and has really felt God's love. Her work has not been going great lately, and she has been fighting with her daughter and so she is having a hard time right now. But she knows that God loves her and so hopefully she will continue to progress. We set a baptismal goal with her for the 3rd of February. 

   

Well thats about it for this week... I don't know what else to write. Love you!

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博長老 Elder Bosco

Taiwan Taichung Mission 16-18

Cookies with the missionary's names

Elder Bosco and his name cookie

Thanks Sis. Wagstaff (her mom sent the sugar cookie making ingredients)

Elder Bosco and Elder Loe

doing service at a sanitation center

Both Yaun Lin wards

Week #77

 Happy New Year! Last week to celebrate Christmas we went to Mr. Steak. it is a steak place that has all you can eat french fries. And then we played board games. Also it was super good to see my family! Talking to them just strengthened my testimony of the gospel and how it can bless families.

   

Sadly this week we had to drop brother Wang (the one that I talked about last week). He just wasn't keeping his commitments and he just didn't have any desire to keep them. It is really sad when you grow to love these people and you know what there potential is. 

   

There is another guy we are working with named Yusi. He was meeting with the sisters a while ago, but when he was meeting with them, he felt that God had answered his prayers by leading him to this sister so that he could marry her. He has a really solid testimony, but after the sister told him no, he stopped meeting with them. But then we ran into him on the street a while ago and he started meeting with us again. He still has a strong testimony, and he knows through study and prayer that the Book of Mormon is true. He is super awesome and we are meeting with him tonight. 

   

We were able to meet with the Zhou family again this week. We shared the first part of the Plan of Salvation. The members that were there bore great testimony about how the gospel can bless families. They were not able to come to church, but they are excited to continue to learn about the gospel.

   

We had a super awesome miracle on Saturday. We had a free afternoon full of nothing so we decided to take the 15 minute train ride to one of our secondary areas and see what was down there. There werent under the age of 90 so we were just kind of exploring talking to whoever and then we just started looking for any houses that we could tract. And we stopped and talked to this lady and she let us sit down and teach her. I dont really know her whole story but she lives by herself and she has a son that goes to college up in Taipei. She was super open to the gospel. Then the next day she took the train up to YuanLin and a member brought her from the trainstation to the chapel. She stayed for all of church and there was a big potluck after so she got to meet a lot of the members. And Bishop brought his friend and his friends wife to church yesterday and we are meeting with them this week. 

  

 Everything is going great in YuanLin! Love you all!

   

 

--

博長老 Elder Bosco

Taiwan Taichung Mission 16-18

Skyping with Collin

Mr. Steak

Happy New Year  at Mr. Steak

A Temple

A Temple