29 January 2018 - This is Not my Goodbye

"God be with him till we meet again! Now enroute to Taichung, Fuller.
Flying planes the ocean over!
God be with him down in Idaho!"

Monday, 22 January 2018
A miracle pday just for Elder Fuller. We asked for permission to go to Qishan, but President asked us to find a different activity. We said okay, but woke up to a text from president that said he changed his mind and we could go hiking! Woo-hoo! It was an amazing and really fun hike with my old MTC friend Elder Hansen. It was fun to see him and have a great last pday for Elder Fuller.

Tuesday, 23 January 2018
We made a last stop by Brother Ke's house tonight. He also promised to come to church since Elder Fuller is leaving. The visit to him took most of the night, so that was fun.

Wednesday, 24 January 2018
We had lunch with Brother Wei today, our recent convert. He took us out for some more refined Taiwanese food, the kind I don't usually feel like paying the money to get. That was fun, and then we started exchanges with the Cuihua Elders. That night we met with our blind member who loves to tell stories, Brother Chen, and tonight he told us the story of how his father killed 20 gangsters in a fight with a staff during World War 2. Needless to say, we were pretty impressed.

Thursday, 25 January 2018
Elder Fuller's last District meeting. Then the Yang family had us over for dinner. They cook such good American food. They even made Hawaiian haystacks! Then it was Elder Fuller's last time to see Brother Zhong, the one we baptized together. He told us he was going to find the church when he went on vacation this weekend as well.

Friday, 26 January 2018
We just had a lot of last visits for Elder Fuller this week. Tonight we visited Brother Huang, our investigator and he gave him a gift from China, a little lamp thing. Then he promised to come to church, which he hasn't done yet, so we are milking this for all we can.

Saturday, 27 January 2018
We had a little bit of service today going over to a care center for old people and telling Bible stories with the puppets we used for Christmas. The sisters have an investigator there and the nurses said we can come and tell stories, which went pretty well! It was a fun experience anyways. The coolest part about today was that we got permission to go up to Elder Fuller's old area where a few of his old investigators were getting baptized. It was so cool to see how many people in the ward remembered him and were excited he was there.

Sunday, 28 January 2018
The last Sabbath. Brother Huang came to church! He even stayed for Gospel principles class. After saying goodbye to a few members, Brother Ke invited us over to his house for an impromptu dinner, which was delicious. And we finished Elder Fuller's career by teaching the Restoration to a new investigator named Pat. He wants to see if God can help him in his life, and he was accepting of the message of the Restoration. I could really feel the Spirit there, it was quite a special lesson.

And now he's gone! My new companion is an Elder Kane Fanning. He will be here in about an hour. Until then I'm hanging out with my old friend Elder Barney. It's been a great week with many miracles, and I'm so blessed to be here. I love you all, and Happy February!

Elder Meanea

22 January 2018 - Monkey Mountain

"I'm all made of hinges so I can bike fast,
From the apartment in Gaoxiong to the mission home!" 

Monday, 15 January 2018
We spent another P-Day on Monkey mountain having some good hikes! It was really fun, we had a group of about 12 missionaries with us this time, and they all enjoyed it a lot. It was Elder Fuller's second to last P-Day, so he is getting pretty freaked out about going home. 

Tuesday, 16 January 2018
We went on exchanges today with the Xiaogang Elders and it was really good! Elder Tan who I went with is in my generation, and we got a chance to visit a less active that we had lost contact with for a few weeks. Just as we got there somebody buzzed the door open at the bottom of the stairs but never came out, so we could walk up into the apartments and find our LA. The buzzer itself was actually broken, so we wouldn't have been able to get up there otherwise. It was a cool little miracle! 

Wednesday, 17 January 2018
We got to have a recent Convert lesson with Brother Wei who is doing awesome. We had a lesson about family history, and hopefully we can get him to the temple for the February stake temple day! He's also really hoping that his wife and daughter will be interested in learning more about the gospel with him, so pray for them! 

Thursday, 18 January 2018
Today was mostly taken up by meetings and other stuff. We went to the other district for district meeting after eating perhaps one of the best burgers I've ever had in my life. It was a Bleu cheese burger from an American style restaurant, and the only thing that rivals it is the silver diner in New Jersey. So good! Then that night we had a baptismal interview for the Shizhong Elders, the last one Elder Fuller will ever do. 

Friday, 19 January 2018
Weekly planning was followed by a visit to Brother Huang tonight. He's the investigator who drives trucks and we miracle traced into a few weeks ago. He's actually been reading the Book of Mormon, which is great! He's going to miss Elder Fuller though, but he promised to come to church when he left to see him. 

Saturday, 20 January 2018
We met with Sister Luo again today, it's been quite a while since the last time, but she is still interested in learning about the Gospel. We got to teach her about the Plan of Salvation today, and since it's my favorite thing to teach I was pretty happy. She has also been reading the Book of Mormon, which is such an important thing for everyone to do! I mean, our last Prophet only used his last address to us to plead with us to start reading the Book of Mormon, so it might be important.

 
Sunday, 21 January 2018
We had a slightly crazy man who was our investigator show up today for meetings. He didn't want to tell anyone his name, but he came to see if he would like it or not. That was interesting. But it was a good end to a good week. We also got to eat dinner with a member family whose son served in Taipei before. He has really good English.

And that was my week family! I hope yours was great and brought you closer to the Savior. Have another great one!

-Elder Meanea

15 January 2018 - Simplify Our Lives in Christ

"OH the weather outside frightful, but the gospel is so delightful, and there's only one place to go, get them home get them home get them home!"
(Copyright Elder Meanea 2018)

Monday, 8 January 2018

Today was an insane P-Day! We ate at a Tex-Mex restaurant which was really expensive but really good, and then headed over to monkey mountain to go hiking. About halfway through the day we stopped using the regular trail and just followed the paths that seemed more frequented by mountain goats than humans. We even found some cool caves filled with spiders. So we were all pretty happy with our P-Day. 

Tuesday, 9 January 2018
We had an exchange today and also a great lesson with Amanda. She has been investigating for a while (Sister Chen) and she has been coming to church off and on for the past few months. We wanted to help her be more comfortable in the ward, so we invited our relief society president to help with the lesson with her husband. The times got all messed up, but it actually worked out in the end where we had a really good lesson! She is really growing in faith as she continues to experience the goodness of the gospel in her life.

Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Zone conference today was filled with helping us try to simply our lives in Christ. President Teh asked us to come up and write on the board everything that we've been asked to emphasize in the past 6 months and we got a board filled with about 30 things from using the Book of Mormon to remembering to clean the apartment. Then he taught us about being centered in Christ and how it would help us simplify our lives by just trying to follow Him. I feel like that's an important lesson for all of us.

Thursday, 11 January 2018
We took a train up to Taizhong today to go on exchanges with the assistants. We spent the night out with them cleaning some parks and contacting people along the way. The best part of the night was when we went to go teach a recent convert a lesson, and it turned out to be a lady that we taught for the first time when I was on exchanges there two transfers ago! Miracles!

Friday, 12 January 2018
Coming home today was hard to stay awake, but we made it back to Qianzhen just in time to make it to our lesson with a less active Brother Chen. He is blind from a car accident, and has never actually "seen" missionaries since he has been blind since before his baptism, but he is an amazing guy story teller and really badly wanted to have someone help him get to church. It was fun to see him get to come on Sunday!

Saturday, 13 January 2018
Baptism! Today Brother Zhong was baptized. Elder Fuller baptized him, and he was so happy. There were no hiccups, he went under the first time, the font filled perfectly and we had enough baptismal clothes. It was all amazing! He is such an incredible convert. Totally self-taught by the Spirit. We told him the commandments and he just kept them because he knew God loved him. And now he's on the path. He is willing to follow Christ, and his journey has just begun. I am so happy for him and change its brought to his life!

Sunday, 14 January 2018
Good Sabbath today. Brother Zhong was confirmed, and Amanda showed up to church! We also had some guy just show up at church for no reason who wanted to check out the church. His name is Sam, so hopefully that goes well! I love to see the miracles abound.

With Brother Zhong's baptism, this was an amazing week. He was so happy to be baptized and confirmed. He had a long road of changes to make, but to see the hope that Christ brings to his life is priceless. I hope we can all feel that hope every day. Let Him change our lives every day. I love you all!

-Elder Meanea

8 January 2018 - Service with Barbecue Tongs

"Once there was a snowman snowman snowman,
Once there was a snowman, but not in Taiwan!"
(Copyright Elder Meanea 2017)

Monday, 1 January 2018
We took a little P-Day field trip to Elder Fuller's old area called Nanzi. It is in the northern part of Gaoxiong, but we were able to take the subway all the way there, which was pretty convenient. We met up with some of his older members and went to climb a mountain together. It was the one with an old Japanese cave at the top which was super cool! We of course were very safe. ;-) After that we all went to get ice cream together and went home to proselyte for the evening.

Tuesday, 2 January 2018
I went on an exchange with my old friend Elder Barney. He was the one who I took contacting his first night on island. This is my second exchange with him here in Qianzhen. We spent the night on errands for the stake President and bishop. We were checking names and trying to find people who had gotten lost off of the ward records. It was pretty fun, and really cool to see since we've been trying to develop our relationship with the Bishop a lot more.

Wednesday, 3 January 2018
Elder Barney had a great idea yesterday. We've been looking for service through the village leaders here, but not a lot of them have jobs they want us to do or don't Quite trust us yet after 60 years of preaching the Gospel in their Taoist communities, which is understandable. But Elder Barney and I were biking along at night on a bike path we use all the time to get across the city and he commented how much litter there was along the side of the path. So we went and bought garbage bags and barbecue tongs and spent some time today serving the community! It was really cool! I'm glad we finally got to do something to serve the people around us.

Thursday, 4 January 2018
Today's proselyting was good. We got the chapel for a lesson tonight which ended up not showing up, but our friend Joey, who is on his boat right now, was able to start messaging us and he had a ton of questions about all the things he was reading in the Book of Mormon. He read up to Mosiah 18! It's only been a week and a half! We talked about fasting and baptism and he is reading every day and praying for an answer while he is away. It was really cool to spend that time with him and to get to see that progress he was making all because of the little act of faith of reading the Book of Mormon.

Friday, 5 January 2018
Tonight we went and visited a member who had a birthday. We bought 7 guava and a pineapple to give him, and he seemed really happy to have us over. It's fun getting to know the ward better and actually develop a relationship with them. They are such an important part of the work. And the members here are so great and really accept all the missionaries for however long they are here.

Saturday, 6 January 2018
We went out this morning to go to a lesson that Elder Barney tracted into on Tuesday. I, very faithless, thought that she wouldn't be there or would just tell us she didn't want us there, because she didn't seem too focused or interested when we set up with her earlier, but she opened the door and told us that she never really had gone to church before, and we replied that was okay and that everyone was welcome at church because it could strengthen our families. She had to leave for a doctor's appointment, but gave us her contact info and told us we could come back and visit next week!

Sunday, 7 January 2018
Church was good today. Brother Zhong was sick, but they announced his baptismal service in sacrament which is scheduled for THIS SATURDAY! I am so excited for him! Sister Chen was also able to come, and so was a part member family we had been working with earlier. It was a great day. We also had two really cool lessons tonight. The first was a referral from the elders in Shizhong just north of us. He is a guy who has 10 brothers and sisters but his family situation is bad and he really doesn't understand life or God. It was incredible to see his eyes light up as we began explaining pieces of the Plan of Salvation, where before he had been mildly interested in what we had to say. I can't wait to teach him again!

And another week has gone. I love it here, I love you all, and I love the Savior! Thank you all so much for what you do to help and support me. Have a wonderful week my friends and family.

- Elder Meanea

1 January 2018 - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

"The Year is dying, in the night!
Ring out wild bells and let him die!"
(Copyright 1985 LDS Hymnbook. I don't know why)

Monday, 25 December 2017
This P-Day we went shopping for one of Elder Fuller's recent Converts that lives in Gaoxiong. We got him some cool socks from the mall, and then once we had our Christmas shopping done we headed out to the Pizza Hut Buffet to finish off Christmas! The Pizza was really good and it was only about $10 American to eat all the pizza and chicken wings you wanted! Needless to say it was a good Christmas. That night we went and had a thought to check on a kid we had tracted into a few weeks ago. He was still doing good, even though we hadn't been able to meet, and was reading the Book of Mormon every night!

Tuesday, 26 Decembere 2017
We had a lesson with Joey, the man who randomly walked into the chapel last week asking for a tour, and he read by himself to 1 Nephi 16. So that was cool. He works on a boat and is leaving for two weeks, but he found a triple combination on his boat and he's been reading it! That was a fun lesson.

Wednesday, 27 December 2017
Today was just proselytize until the English class Christmas party tonight. The Fergusons are the Elderly Couple who serve around Gaoxiong, and they threw a party for all the English students and invited us. It was fun to get to talk to all of these people who were in the chapel but didn't know much about the church. We met a cool family who hadn't really interacted with missionaries before and they might be willing to meet with the Xiaogang Elders!

Thursday, 28 December 2017
We had our second ward correlation meeting tonight with our new ward mission leader Brother Liang. He is pretty new to the whole missionary thing, so it's really cool to see how the Lord always puts us where we need to learn and grown. It's been fun to help him understand a little bit about how being a missionary works and how he can help us to baptize in this ward.

Friday, 29 December 2017
We were going to have a brunch at a member's house with sister Xu, but she had to go to a doctor's appointment and wasn't able to show up. But we ate waffles with them anyways. It's a really nice family named The Yangs. They both went to school and worked in Utah for a while, so they have a lot of American traditions, including actually decorating for Christmas! After that we had a good lesson with Brother Zhong tonight who has set a goal for January 13! Just 12 days away over here! He says he is really excited, and we helped him to get his family history started.

Saturday, 30 December 2017
We went over to the Yang's house to help them start moving some furniture. They will move up to Taizhong in a couple years to take care of sister Yang's mom. As we were moving stuff, we carried down a human sized paper with calligraphy on it. When we got it to the street from four floors up, brother Yang told us that it was worth more than 10,000 American dollars!!! He said it was a very famous calligrapher, who is also his dad. So that was cool. We also got a surprise phone call today from Joey! He was in Port in Singapore for a few minutes so he called us over Line (the messaging app here) and we had a short lesson about his questions in the Book of Mormon. He'll be on an American naval ship for oceanographic research for the next week and a half. So that's also pretty cool.

Sunday, 31 December 2017
New Years Eve! We went to church and had some good lessons, since it was the last week we stuffed all the information in the last three chapters of the Gospel principles book into one lesson, which probably hurt Brother Zhong's brain since it was about Exaltation, the Millennium and final judgment, but it was still good! We were out contacting in masses of people going to celebrations until it was time to go home. Believe it or not, we accidentally slept through the new year. XD Ah well, there's always the next one.

But I'm grateful to be here in 2018! I'm so glad that I get to spend another 6.5 months serving the Lord and His Children here in Taiwan. I'm grateful that because of my Savior every day and every prayer makes it a new start. I love you all, happy New Year!

- Elder Meanea