Week #94

   Well for those of you that haven't heard already, this week was a little bit of a crazy one because I spent the first two and a half days of it in the hospital. On Monday we were waiting for my new companion and we had just eaten lunch and were waiting to buy a drink. I stepped over to the side and had this really awful feeling and I thought I was going to throw up, but instead I just passed out (don't worry Elder Sano caught me). After a little bit we tried walking over to a 7-11 and I hardly made it there, and then after resting for a little and drinking juice we were going to try to make it to the church but when I tried to get up I just knew it wasn't gonna happen. So we took a taxi to the hospital and they checked me into the ER. 


There they put an IV in me (I actually threw up during that part) then gave me an x ray and ran a bunch of other tests. For most of Monday I just sat in the ER with a bunch of old people who all looked like they were about to die. Then they said I would have to stay in the hospital for 3-5 days cause I had a stomach infection. And then I ended up getting released early Wednesday Afternoon. Honestly it wasn't anything serious at all. And being in the hospital for that long was really boring. all I could eat was this nasty rice porridge stuff called 粥. But yeah nothing too exciting. But it was a great start to a new transfer with a new companion!
  
 Elder Peterson is great. He is from Wyoming, but his dad works for the US embassy so he has lived all over the world including China for the past 6 years. He is a hard worker and a really great teacher. I'm excited to work with him!
   
This week we set a baptismal date with Mushroom (吳姐妹)! we met with her twice this week and both lesson went really well. Her goal is for the 12th of May. I know that's pretty soon but when I was inviting her to be baptized o was trying to decide on the 12th or 19th but I felt like she could hit the 12th. She has a strong desire to keep the commandments but there are still some that are a little harder for her. I truly have faith that she will definitely be able to hit this goal.
  
Linda came to church again this week and loved it! We are finally going to be meeting with her on Tuesday! Even though she is only a teenager, she is very mature and seems super prepared to hear the gospel so we are really excited to meet with her.
  
This week in church I had to give a 20 minute talk on a talk from two conferences ago called The Truthfulness of All Things by David F. Evans. As I was preparing for this talk I came across a scripture that I really like in 2 Nephi 29: 9 
9 And I do this that I may prove unto many that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and that I speak forth my words according to mine own pleasure. And because that I have spoken one word ye need not suppose that I cannot speak another; for my work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man, neither from that time henceforth and forever.
 
 I know that God truly loves us so much and that this is his true gospel. And if we have faith in him he will manifest the truthfulness of his gospel unto us! Love you all!

Week #93

well it's transfers again! This one seriously went by so fast and I can't believe that I only have 2 more left... But anyways I will be staying in 安定 and my new companion is Elder Peterson. He has been in Taiwan for about 7 months. Should be a fun transfer!

   

This week started out a little rough because a lot of our investigators are choosing not to progress like we hoped they would, so hopefully that can change this next week. But I do want to talk about 3 new investigators that we were able to get this week. 

   

The first one is Brother Cai. He is a referral from a member of our stake in a different ward. Apparently he read some verse in the Bible about sinning or something like that and the Spirit really touched him. So he went and found this one church and attended it and really liked it. The the member (who he works with) talked to him about meeting with us, and we were able to meet with him on Wednesday. He had absolutely no background of God or Jesus or anything so we just taught a super simple lesson about God and prayer. It's super awesome cause you can just see how much he wants to learn about these things.  He has lots of potential. 

   

The next one is mushroom! Yes her English name is mushroom. She had been meeting with some other elders in our zone for a while and they found out she lives in our area! She has basically been taught everything and at one point had a baptismal goal for April 7th. We are meeting with her for the first time this week. so hopefully that all goes well. 

  

 The last one is Linda. She is the older sister of a kid that got baptized a little over a year ago. But her brother has been basically inactive since he got baptized but lately we have been trying to help him come back through activities like English class, and every week we have like a mutual with the youth. And he started to bring his sister with him to these activities. She came to church this week and loved it! And we should be meeting with her this week.

   

That's about all for this week... Love you all!

Amy

Bro. Lin and Sis. Sun

Bro. Huang

Part of the ward

Sis. Sun and Sis. Dai

Wu Family

Week #92

 好久不見! Just kidding but seriously time is just flying by so fast. It seems like I am writing these emails every other day. 

Last Pday we went to the beach and just played some games so it was pretty chill. 

Also Elder Bethers and I walked into this super nice watch store because he was wearing a fake Audemars watch. There was a lady who was born in Canada and her dad owned the place so she was showing us around, and we were just walking around acting like we belonged. They totally loved us and thought we were super rich. As we were about to leave she told us that in a month or two they would be having a release party at a 5 star hotel and she might be able to get us invited. haha it was pretty funny.
  

So last week we decided to go to this pretty far area called 山上 (which means "on top of the mountain"). There are not many people there but there was a less active member and neither of us had ever been so we decided to check it out. We didn't end up finding the less active member but we did find to people who said we could come back the next week. so fast forward to Tuesday we meet with both of these families. The first family (Lee family) are pretty cool. The husband was baptized into some random church when he was a kid, but doesn't really have a specific religion. and the wife is Buddhist. We had a good first lesson about God and prayer and they seemed to accept it pretty well. They set up again for this next Wednesday. Then the next family (Lin family) was super cool. They were in their 30s and had two super cute little kids. They both had traditional beliefs but no special feelings towards it. The husband said he prayed once and because his prayer wasn't answered he just felt God didn't exist. We had a great lesson in which we just did some How To Begin Teaching and talked about God and prayer. They both seemed to accept it well and committed to pray to know if God exists. Then they set up again for two days later. They seemed like they had a ton of potential, but then the next day the wife texted us saying that she felt that our message didn't suit her and her needs at that point... so that was super dissapointing.
  

We were able to meet with Jesse and Sally again this week. On Tuesday we read the Book of Mormon with them after English class, and then on Wednesday had a very powerful lesson about the Restoration. The Spirit was really strong in the lesson and we committed them to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. But since meeting with them it has been hard to follow up with them. So keep praying that they will be able to keep their commitments!

This week we went to go visit Brother Liang, the less active member we are working with. But a couple of minutes after sitting down his dad came into the house and kicked us out. He has to live with his dad because of his current lack of physical capabilities. But the good news is that he still came to church this Sunday and we are going meet with him again this week, just at a different place.
   

Super cool miracle happened this Saturday. We biked for a little ways in the middle of nowhere to find this LA. And first of all thank goodness for Google maps. Second of all he was actually there, which is a miracle because it was his parents address and he had just stopped there on his way back from GaoXiong. So we actually got to serve them and help move some stuff, then he took us out to lunch so we were able to talk to him then and hopefully we can set up with him this week.
   

A scripture that I studies this week that really stood out to me is Mosiah 4:19. I love when he says "For behold, are we not all beggars". The mission has taught me in so many ways about humility. I have come to realize just how dependant we are on the Lord. As we truly humble ourselves and give thanks to the Lord for all of the blessings we receive our hearts will always be filled with joy! Have a great week!

Elders Strong, Bethers, Perkins, Bode, Richards, Thorup, Bosco, Menea
with Sisters Holiday and Robertson

helping an old lady change her flat tire (I'm sending pics so you believe it)

The beginning of a pineapple

Week #91

This week was great cause we got to watch general conference! I loved the Solemn Assembly because I thought it was so cool how all church members are different and from different parts of the world, but we are all so united on the fact that there is a living prophet on the earth today! 

I also loved the talk by Lynn G. Robbins when he said "success is growing from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm". I think that is a great way to define success, especially as a missionary.
   
Last Pday we went to an escape room. We had a member there that could speak English but it was still pretty difficult in Chinese. And then after that we were walking through the mall and a member from Utah who was in Taiwan on vacation visiting her family bought us ColdStone.
   
Both Alex and Victor are doing alright. They are still kind of in this non-progressing state right now so keep praying for them that they can be able to better progress.
   
We recently started meeting with a less active member named brother Liang. He just recently got out of the hospital (I am not sure why he was in there). But his body is not in the best condition. He came to church last week, conference this week, and we have been visiting him frequently and reviewing lessons/ reading scriptures. It is really great to see his desire to come back.
   
We were able to meet with that family this week. The lesson that we had with them went pretty well. The husband seemed to grasp things a little bit better than the wife. We only met with them once because there son got a fever, but please pray for them that they will have the strength to keep commitments.
  
 We got to have interviews with President Teh this week which is always such an amazing experience. I asked him if he had any advice for me during this last part of my mission and he said "believe in yourself". I'm not gonna lie that is not what I was expecting him to say at all but it made a huge impact on me. 
  
 Also I lost my voice on Thursday and it is really hard to speak Chinese without a voice... Love you all!

beef noodles

random bench press in the park

Cold Stone

Escape Room

exchanges with Elder Chino

Week #90

Tainan Zone Conference

with Elder Bethers

with Elder Smith on exchanges

 Thanks everyone for all of the birthday wishes! Also Happy Birthday to my mom! I'm glad you got to celebrate at least two birthdays without worrying about my birthday festivities. This week was a great birthday week for me. one of the special things about this week is that on my birthday I was thinking about how usualy on your birthday all you can think about is what presents you're going to get, or parties you are going to have, and a bunch of other things all centered around you. But one thing that I love about being a full time representative of Jesus Christ is that everything is always centered around him and helping others come unto him. It is pretty interesting to see the change in my life and feeling like none of the things I used to care about on my birthday really matter right now and all I can think about is how I am going to help those around me come unto Jesus Christ. It is such an amazing thing to be a full time missionary!
  

This week all of new investigators came from member referrals... it was so awesome! There is a family of four that learn English from the Ong family in our ward, they have two cute little boys and on Wednesday we are eating with them at the Ong families house and then meeting with them. We were able to meet them last Wednesday for a little bit. The mom asked Sister Ong about how she knows what to teach her kids and of course the gospel got brought up. I am excited to meet with them.
The other two are from the Philippines. There names are Laya and Loujean. Laya is the caretaker of the parents of a member in our ward, and this same member knows Loujean because of work. Loujean actually came to. church last Sunday, but I didnt mention her in the letter cause it didnt really seem like she wanted to meet with us. On Wednesday we ate dinner with them and had a first lesson. We also found pit that Loujeans dad is a member of our church in the Philippines. In the lesson we basically just set expectations and introduced the Book of Mormon. Then two days later we visited Laya to follow up and she had read a couple of pages. She likes reading it though so that is good. The amazing part is what happened when we followed up with Loujean. When we asked if she read and what she thought she said "I am curious about how Joseph Smith founded the church so I've read that part... Slowly I will read it, thank you." and then about two hours later she says "The book of Mormon is truly another testament of Jesus Christ" and then we said something back and she responds by saying "I know the Book of Mormon is true, I love reading it" and then she tells us that she believes Jospeh Smith is a prophet and was inspired by God. And this was all just after one meeting... it was incredible and I am really excited to meet with her this week. It's hard because this month she works from 8 AM to 8 PM everyday except for Wednesday. So that makes things a little difficult, but I'm still really excited! Also she texted us this morning about the new apostles, so she is definitely doing some good research.
   

Our other investigators are doing alright. A main problem is that none of them like to ask questions in their prayers. So they are doing the things that we ask them to, and they are learning, but we feel like they arent really gaining a testimony of these things. So we are trying to get them to ask to know if the Book of Mormon is true. Please pray for them!
  

 I heard conference was awesome and I am really excited to watch it next week. I am so grateful to be a part of a church that is continuously receiving revelation. I know that President Nelson is God's prophet on the earth today and that Elders Gong and Soares are both called of God to be his new apostles. Have a great week. Love you all!