Week #102

This past week was good. We had our final zone conference so that was probably the last time I will see President and Sister Teh here in taiwan. Also we had to give our final reflections. I will send you what I wrote as my last email in a couple of weeks. 

Mushroom is going to get baptized on Friday so we are excited for that. She has been ready for a while now. 

Our other main investigators were out of town this past week so we didn't get to meet with them. 

Some news we have is a girl named Asa, we tracted into her last Sunday and then she said she would take her sister to church this Sunday, well she ended up coming to church with her sister and staying all 3 hours!

Last week we also tracted into this 17 year old kid named Eason. this week we were able to give him a church tour and then he came to the first hour of church. Also turns out one of his classmates is in our stake!

We taught Bonnie and her kids cookie and Leo, the Ong family had them go to their house for dinner and they fed us Mexican food, after we were able to share the plan of salvation with them! Cookie who is 8 was really focused. 

Another is Aaron. We have taught him the 1st lesson. He is a very smart man, he studied at the best college here in taiwan. He has a huge desire to learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ. He came to church with us on Sunday and stayed for all 3 hours, the bad news he dropped on us is that he is moving to Taipei next week so we will pass him over to the missionaries up there. After sacrament meeting he leaned over to Elder Griffin and asked in English "What were you thinking about during the sacrament?" he told him he was recommiting myself to serve the Lord, then he asked him what he was thinking about and he said "I was thinking about Jesus and about how he gave the sacrament to his apostles." He is great!

Dinner With Edison. He works at a restaurant that we like to go to and he always gives us free stuff 

Giant Apple

It rained a tooooooooooon this week!

lunch with one of Elder Griffins old investigators

We now make Mexican food for Sunday dinner

Zone Conference

Week #101

 This week was a pretty good one! One of the highlights was I got a Taiwanese bible. There are some Christian churches in Taiwan that have church in Taiwanese instead of Mandarin. And so there bible is in a romanized form of Taiwanese (cause there is no real written form). I asked a member where I could buy one, and then she just went and bought me one. I can't read it (neither can most Taiwanese people), but it is still super cool. 

   

We met with Mushroom twice this week and it went well. She is looking good for her baptism on the 29th. When we met with her we talked about how the devil will try to tempt her a lot before her baptism. And it went well, but then she didn't come to church on Sunday like she said she would. And we won't be able to meet with her for a while because she is going to Japan for a week, so we are a tiny bit worried but everything should work out. 

   

We met with Ruby twice this week also. The first time we finished teaching gospel of Jesus Christ and she was asking a lot about baptism. She was basically just asking to be invited to be baptized, but then one of the members that was with us wouldn't stop talking and we had another lesson to get to so we didn't get to the invite.  Then we set up later that week to have a lesson over video call, but then she could only talk on the phone instead.  But we were still able to set a baptismal goal with her for July 7th! Her faith in Jesus Christ has increased so much since I first met her. She went from not even knowing who he is to wanting to be baptized in just a couple of weeks. The gospel is so amazing! 

   

We also met with Clarkson twice and he came to church on Sunday. He has been smoking less and his desire to be baptized just continued to grow all the time. 

  

Linda also came to church this week and we have almost finished teaching her all of the lessons! She is doing great!

   

We found a new investigator Named Aaron. He is a college student and super awesome! He had already been reading the Book of Mormon quite a bit. And really wants to come to church, so we are excited to keep meeting with him.

   Love you all!

2 years later

all you can eat BBQ- again!

basketball for pday

Mango Ice

Taiwanese Bible

Teaching English

Tracting in the rain

Week #100 !!!

I'm sorry but from now on my weekly emails will probably be really short. Because 1. I have no desire to write long ones 2. Elder Griffin and I need to maximize our Pdays 3. I'll be seeing you in 5 weeks!

   

But this week was great! Elder Griffin are just having a great time. Our investigators are doing good and we found an awesome family!

  

 Mushroom has a new baptismal goal for the 29th. She is sooooo close to to having enough courage to talk to her parents. She is planning on doing it today so we will see. But she came to church yesterday and is doing great! 

  

 Linda also came to church.  She is doing great! Her aunt basically said that she needs to finish all of the lessons and then decide whether or not she wants to be baptized. But we started the commandments this week and she is doing good. She probably won't have an official baptismal goal, but she will probably get baptized. 

   

Ruby also came to church. Because of her busy work schedule it is hard to Read the Book of Mormon every day. But her desire to read has improved so much. And she really loves the principal of repentance and forgiveness. We are hoping to give her a baptismal goal this week. 

   

We were able to meet with Clarkson twice this week. He is doing really great! He is really looking forward to his baptism and committed to live the world of Wisdom!

   

Also this week we contacted a mom and her daughter and then the next day met with them and her other son. Her name is Bonnie and she is Christian. She was interested in the differences between our churches.  She is really interested in the Book of Mormon. They are coming to English and we will meet with them next week!

   

This week at church a recent convert gave a talk for the first time. And she gave it on recycling and plastic. "If you can't reuse it, refuse it". She at least read from D&C 89.

   

That's about it for the week! Love you all! 

A member gave us a bunch of mangoes

All you can eat place

Getting our bikes fixed

Exchanges with Elder Councill

The youth in our ward

Week #99

 Can you believe that it's already the beginning of my last transfer! Where has all the time gone?!? 

I will be staying here in AnDing, and you will never believe who my new companion is... It's Elder Griffin! (For those of you that don't know, Elder Griffin started his mission the same time as me and we have been super great friends Since the MTC). 
Since we were going into our last transfer we figured we had nothing to lose so we asked President Teh if we could be companions for the last transfer. He told us that he would bring it up with the Lord. We had hope but we didn't really expect it to happen. We were super surprised when we got the call, but it must mean that the Lord truly does have a work here for us to do together. We are going to make this the best transfer yet. It's going to be so much fun!

  

 This mission said goodbye to lots of great missionaries this transfer. Two of my college roommates Elder Huang and Elder Daines. And also one of my best friends Elder Hansen (the one I was trained with) They will be missed. It is honestly just blowing my mind that's it's already been 2 years. 

  

 There isn't too much to update about investigators this week. Right now a lot of them are having a hard time consistently keeping commitments. For the second Sunday in a row we had at least 4 investigators say they were going to come to church and then nobody showed up. 

  

 When we met with Mushroom this week she said she wanted to talk to her parents first before she decides what to do with her boyfriend. Because of she just moves out with her boyfriend then her parents will be curious and so she just wants to talk to them first. But then at the same time she won't go and do it. 

   

We met with Clarkson and again and he is still doing well. Sometimes it is hard to meet with him because Filipinos work schedules are also super hard. But literally every time he prays with us he just instantly feels the Spirit. It's pretty amazing.  

  

Hopefully we can help everyone keep their commitments. Love you all!

Curry

lunch with the Ong family and some people they served missions with

Our new investigator Kevin

Sis. Zhou, Bro and Sis. Lin, Bro. Zhou

This is what happens when I tract after working out...