Week #89

This Monday for Pday we went to a superhero temple. Its like a

Buddhist temple but for some reason they also have a bunch of life

sized super hero statues. It doesn't make sense, and it is in the

middle of nowhere but its pretty cool.

  

We started out the week with a super good zone conference. We

talked a lot about fulfilling our purpose as missionaries. Included in

that were trainings on effective planning and mission standards.

President Teh is coming out with new mission standards, and a Vision,

Goals, and Plans for the mission. I feel like the greatest meetings

are the ones where you feel good about the things that you are doing,

and you feel strengthened, but you also know exactly what you need to

improve on and how you need to do it. I am super excited for the rest

of this transfer with Elder Bethers. We still werent really able to

find too many people this week, but I feel like our planning has

improved, and we definitely are working really hard and heading in the

right direction.

  

We were able to meet with Luke twice this week, and then he came to

church for the first time and attended the baptismal service for an 8

year old kid in the ward. It was really good that he came to church

because a lot of people in his church are still telling him bad things

about our church. Right now we are really trying to help him

understand the restoration and priesthood authority.

 

 Alex also came to church and attended the baptismal service. We met

with him this week and he is still keeping commitments and progressing

so we are excited for that. We are a little worried that he is just

doing the things that we ask him to do and not really putting much

thought into it, cause he is like 17, so hopefully we can help him

there.

  

We got a couple of member referrals this week, and a couple of

potential referrals this week so that should be awesome! I love it

here! Even though I have been biking a ton and we had to run in a

stake 5k so my legs are killing me... but that just makes it more fun.

Love you all!

-- 

博長老 Elder Bosco

Taiwan Taichung Mission 16-18

Week #88

  Let me start out by telling you a little bit about the area of AnDing (安定). 
For those of you that don't know, a secondary area just means another city in your area that isn't the main city or the city that you live in. Well the crazy thing about this area is that the whole area is a secondary. there is no main area. I will include a picture from Google maps. but basically we  live about a 20 minute bike ride away from our area, and close to 30 minutes away from places with people. I don't think I have ever done so much biking in my life. all of the little areas that we cover are pretty spread apart, and in between them is just nothing but fields basically. also the church is another 15 minutes from our house in the opposite direction of our area. pretty crazy! 

   

The ward here is really great. there is only about 30 active members, but they are all super awesome! There is a family in this ward named the Ong family. The wife is from Taiwan and the husband is an ABC who served his mission here. It was a little strange walking into a house in Taiwan and seeing a BYU rugby ball, a bunch of Doterra stuff, and then getting fed burritos. But I'm not complaining. and they are super great member missionaries. they used to live in Saratoga Springs and have been in Taiwan for close to 2 years. I am super excited to get to know more of the members throughout the next transfer!

   

The main investigators that we are working with right now are Victor, Alex, and Luke. Victor has been taught everything but has failed his baptismal interview twice, so we are working with him on developing his faith and helping him to prepare for baptism and enduring to the end. Alex is a 16ish year old kid. He is really cool and open to learning, but we are focusing on helping him develop faith in Jesus Christ and faith unto repentance. Luke is a member of another Christian church and so we have been focusing a lot on the restoration and the Book of Mormon. He has been reading the Book of Mormon, but last time we met with him he said that a member of his church forced him to delete the APP in front of her. A couple of people have told him bad things about the Book of Mormon. But he told us that he knows it is a good book because of the feeling that he gets when he reads it. so we are specifically trying to get him to pray to know if the Book is true, and also to come to our church because it is pretty far from his house.

  

 I recently started the Book of Mormon over again and I am just amazed by the faith of Nephi. He says it perfectly in the first verse of the Book of Mormon "and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days". Nephi suffered many things in the wilderness including hunger, fatigue, and much sorrow because of his brothers. But through all of this he never murmured, and he maintained firm faith in the Lord. It was because of this that he was blessed, and he chose to see past all the affliction and focus on the blessings the Lord had given him. 

I know that whenever I have followed a similar path, my life is always so much happier! Love you all!

Week #87

Today I am being transferred to a place called An Ding. It is in

Tainan. Apparently it is a really rural place, but I have heard that

the members there are super great! My new companion is Elder Bethers.

He is from North Carolina, thus becoming my first completely american

companion not from Utah. He has been on his mission for the same

amount of time as my last 3 companions, so I have officially named

myself the father of that generation of missionaries. I will let you

know more once I actually get to my area and meet my companion.

  

The highlight of this week was definitely being visited by Apostle

Gary E. Stevenson. He was also accompanied by the legendary squad of

President Teh (of course),  Bishop Gérald Caussé, Elder Craig C.

Christensen, and Elder Peter F. Meurs. The talks (and the accents)

were so good. They talked a lot about extending commitment invitations

and how key that is in fulfilling our purpose of teaching repentance

and baptizing converts. The Spirit in the meeting was so strong,

especially every time Elder Stevenson would bear his testimony. There

is no doubt in my mind that he is an ordained apostle of the Lord

Jesus Christ. I left that meeting feeling so inspired to do better,

but also with a great sense of peace knowing that the Lord is with me

and he is watching over me. I am so grateful to be a part of the

greatest work on earth. 

One of my favorite quotes from the conference

was from Bishop Causse: "Coming unto Christ is the most important

invitation that we can give to anyone, and the most important one that

anyone can accept." This is so true, because I know that throughout

the course of my mission, as I have gotten closer to Christ, I have

had so much more happiness in my life. 

So I guess that's the

invitation, do whatever it takes to get closer to Christ, because it

is the greatest most important thing that you can do in this life!

Love you all!

-- 

博長老 Elder Bosco

Taiwan Taichung Mission 16-18

A visit from his companion Elder Warner who returned home last year

I'm sure there is a good explanation of what this is?

District time

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Week #86

Well this was a pretty solid week. As far as finding new investigators, it didn't go great. Lately we have been able to find an OK amount of potentials, but we have had a really hard time getting in touch with them and setting up a time to meet. Allen was also not able to meet with us this week, but he did come to sacrament meeting so hopefully we can find a time to meet with him this week!
   

Here are some highlights of the week: This week we tried doing a Book of Mormon stand. What we did is we wrote 5 questions of the soul on a poster and each one was a different color. Then we had a Book of Mormon that had about 4-5 scriptures that could answer each question that were marked in that color. So people could come over and look at the scriptures that were related to the question that they thought applied to them. The questions were: Does God exist? How will a belief in Jesus Christ help me? Does Life still exist after death? What is the purpose of life? How can I find peace and happiness? Most people were interested in the last two questions. It's interesting but most people just don't care about life after death. We did it for two days, one hour each day and the other elders got some new investigators and we got some potentials. But it was super fun and a good way to get people reading the Book of Mormon!
   

One day we were picking up trash in the park and we came across this guy who was just super happy to see us. I guess just cause we are white and we were picking up trash. But apparently he is the choir teacher at the local college, but anyway he starts taking pictures with us then takes us over to this huge activity that is going on in the park. He introduces us to some guy who is running for mayor of Yuanlin. Then we start rolling 湯圓 (rice flour balls served in soup) with everyone. We got some good pictures and it was pretty fun. Hopefully now all the old people will let all of their grandchildren get baptized.
   

On Sunday we had just gotten done tracing and were biking down this main road that we don't usually go on, and we discovered a Filipino basketball league. I wanted to play with them so bad, but they only play on Sundays (don't worry I didn't give into temptation). But they had super cool Jerseys and apparently they play against other Filipinos from other parts of Taiwan. So lit!
   

We two super cool experiences this week. Both of them had to do with going to secondary areas. The first experience we were planning on biking to one of our secondary areas, but then we felt instead that we should take the train. When we got to the area to contact there weren't to many people there and nothing really happened. But on the train ride back the person across from us just says in English "do you believe in God". We didn't have too much time to talk to him before we had to get off, but we got his contact info and hopefully we can meet with him this week.
  

 The second experience we also had a feeling to go contact in one of our secondary areas. But the same thing happened where we just got there and got absolutely wrecked contacting. But at the train station on the way back a Filipino guy came up to us and told us that he is a member of the church. He has been in Taiwan for a year and a half but never was able to find the church. So hopefully he can start coming back to church. This week I have been really trying to better discern and act upon the promptings of the Holy Ghost. These two experiences really strengthened my testimony.
   

It's good being a missionary cause even the hard days are happy ones! Love you all!

--

博長老 Elder Bosco

Taiwan Taichung Mission 16-18