26 February 2018 - Diligent Teaching and Service

"We thank thee o God for little Taiwan,,
Where I have served for over 500 days,
spreading gospel and loving all the people!
And the food is so great every day."
(Copyright Elder Meanea 2018)

Monday, 19 February 2018
We had a pretty good P-Day today! After sending some letters and buying groceries, I showed Elder Fanning my gem of a second-hand store. We had some pretty awesome buys, which is obviously why we went to the roof to do a fashion show. That night we got fed by the Zhou family for Chinese New Year. They got us Pizza Hut pizza! It was really fun to get to know their family, especially since the dad works with computer manufacturing and he was just saying a lot of Chinese that we didn't understand. xD But it was still pretty fun.

Tuesday, 20 February 2018
We met with a new Brother Huang this morning that we ran into on the street yesterday. I knew him because he sometimes comes to English class. We actually met with him when Elder Yang was here. At the time he didn't have much interest, so we let him drop, but we just ran into him on the street yesterday out of nowhere, and something has happened in those three months that he is much more prepared to hear this message. He had a lot of questions and agreed to keep meeting with us to learn more about the Gospel. It's amazing to see how God prepares people so much to meet with us, even in the space of a few months.

Wednesday, 21 February 2018
Another incredibly prepared person is Sister Song. We ran into her on the street as well a few weeks ago. She has had a lot of big changes happen lately in her life that makes her feel like she needs to find a higher power to rely on. She really thinks deeply about a lot of things. Sometimes in a lesson she will go off talking about the sentence we just said and express a lot of feelings that are right in line with other Gospel teachings. Like she believes that God would send prophets to guide us and that it's a really needed thing. It is so fun to teach her!

Thursday, 22 February 2018
I got my bike fixed today! A few days ago I pedaled a little bit too hard and the bearings kind of... disintegrated. So I've been riding an impaired bike for a few days. The people who repaired it were really nice and also knew the sisters because they go there quite often. Because of how small our zone is, we gathered everyone in the zone together for our training meeting today. Before that we all ate lunch at a really good Curry place. It was awesome to have the whole zone together for a training. Everyone has such good ideas and so much to share with everyone else. God really did send all of us here specifically at this time because we have something to contribute and people to bless.

Friday, 23 February 2018
Amanda (Sister Chen) is still around and we had the chance to go over to a members house and have a lesson with her. She is really starting to open up and share her questions about the message. Before she's really just been stuck on the Word of Wisdom, but we've been able to move more into her relationship with Heavenly Father, and the member that was there helped a lot with her testimony. It's crazy to think that God is trying even harder than us to help her accept this message. Because we are trying really hard!

Saturday, 24 February 2018
We held a small service activity with our ward. There is an island in our area that has a beach that gets really dirty, so we headed out there this morning with a few members and other missionaries to clean it up. It turned out great! We got rid of a lot of trash and then ate some seafood afterwards. That was pretty much it today.

Sunday, 25 February 2018
Last night on the road we just met a lady named Mrs. Wang who just happened to be looking for a new church to go to closer to her house. And she lives right next to our church, so she came a bit early today for a tour and really liked the meeting a lot. After our Gospel Principles class about the Holy Ghost she said that she believed that the Holy Ghost existed and felt it in class. So we are really excited for her! That was pretty much the end of our week. Every day really does have a miracle if I'm willing to look for it. I know that God reaches out to every one of His Children every day, no one gets skipped ever, He never takes a day off and never forgets about any one of us. I'm grateful to know who my Father in Heaven is and help others know as well. I love you all family and friends, have a great week of miracles!

-Elder Meanea

19 February 2018 - An Italian in a Canadian Restaurant Visiting Taiwan for Chinese New Year

"Come thou fount of endless eating,
Fill me up with precious food.
And let nothing stop the feasting
That fills me with endless good!"
(Copyright Elder Meanea 2017)

Monday, 12 February 2018
Today was a pretty cool P-Day. A member that Elder Fanning knows came down to our area and took us and the Xiaogang Elders to play laser tag in a nearby mall. Not to boast, since missionaries are very humble, but I did get second place out of the whole game. ;-) Then we went and looked at some notebooks at the mall, which I may have bought and is about the coolest notebook I have ever seen. After that, we went to our Bishop's house to have Family Home Evening with Sister Xie. She has a baptismal date for early next month and is taking all the lessons really well! We are really excited for her. 

Tuesday, 13 February 2018
Today we went looking for a less active in the morning, and on the way there we contacted a lady on the street. She didn't set up but gave us her number. We went looking for the less active member again, but he wasn't home. At that moment the phone rang. It was the lady we just contacted! She invited us to get some sushi with her, a lot of it, and it was extremely delicious. She even paid for us to be fed, which was a pretty cool miracle. Then that night we met with Benjamin, a friend of Nathan Wiggins from Italy who was visiting Taiwan from the Chinese New Year. He was super cool! We basically talked with him about his life while eating at a Canadian restaurant, so that was pretty fun. 

Wednesday, 14 February 2018
Today was a different kind of Zone conference. We all got together and had a big council about two questions that President Teh had posed to us. The first was "What would it take for the Doctrine of Christ to become our catalyst for doing missionary work?" And the second was "What would it take for us to be more accountable to the Lord and each other?" We had a big group discussion and got to set up our own goals for accomplishing these things. It is really cool to see how a bunch of different missionaries can work together when we are all trying to improve in our missionary work. 

Thursday, 15 February 2018
The members here take pride in making sure we are very full during Chinese New Year. The meals started today with a lunch that was actually like a 4-course meal. After the meal we helped paint some red paper that they hang up on their doors to keep monsters away the rest of the year. Today we had another opportunity to meet with John Huang. He is a nice old man we met in the park who listened as we taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel. He said that he believes it's true because we work so hard to tell people about it. We told him that is a great start, but we want him to know for himself, and really impressed on him the importance of reading the Book of Mormon to get an answer. I love teaching those who already have such sincere hearts. 

Friday, 16 February 2018
Today was weekly planning and some more meals. I enjoy getting to interact with the members so much. The people and the members are all just so nice. They are some of the most polite people ever. Getting to eat with them is definitely the most fun part of the New Year. That also keeps us pretty busy running around and contacting from place to place, so that was it for today. 

Saturday, 17 February 2018
Today was mostly contacting. We got to run into some cool people on the streets that set up to meet with us, so that's pretty exciting. We weren't as busy as last week, but it was still pretty good. Tonight we ate with the Lin family, who are all converts at different times. They made some amazing food, and we helped them move a piano upstairs. After that, we were calling some members in the park while watching some Filipinos shoot off fireworks. Only two or three hit parked cars. So that was a good night as well! 

Sunday, 18 February 2018
Their Chinese New Year is sort of like our Christmas. All the families get together and exchange red envelopes with money in them. We have been giving the members red envelopes with our pictures in them, so that's just as good right? And just like our Christmas, they only had an hour of Church today, then everyone went home to be with their families. Tonight we were dropping off some more cards to members houses for new years and ran into more cool people that set up to meet with us. It has been a very blessed week! 

Happy Chinese New Year my friends and family! It's the year of the dog, whatever that means, so it's probably good. I hope it brings you much happiness and joy! I know the Gospel is true and I'm so grateful to be sharing it here. I hope it all brings you joy as well as we all draw closer to the Savior this week.

-Elder Meanea

12 February 2018 - Finding Prepared People

"Count your many blessings, number really fast.
Count your many blessings while the blessings last!
Count your blessings, even to a million-and-two
Count your many blessings till the day is through."

Monday, 5 February 2018
We spent our first P-Day together going around eating ice cream and looking at some super cool notebooks in a nearby mall. After P-Day ended we went to go see Brother Cheng, a man we just ran into on the street. He is a really awesome man who believes in a lot of gods, but he is willing to understand how to get to know his Heavenly Father. I think that's one of the most amazing things I see, is just watching people start their process of remembering how close they can be to God.

Tuesday, 6 February 2018
Today we were guided to meet a less active member named Sister Yang. She just got back from France, she was working there and she hasn't been to church in a long time. She has a lot of interesting questions and concerns, but we were able to just simply testify about the reality of God and how we need to trust Him. Life had a lot of doubts and questions, but we truly just need to trust Him and exercise our faith.

Wednesday, 7 February 2018
We were on exchanges and had a lot of cool lessons today. One was with a Mrs. Song (not River) who just got back from China. She has a lot of interesting thoughts, a very logical person, but in the end of the lesson she admitted that she wanted to find something she could rely on, like a God or a religion, which is exactly the kind of prepared person we always pray to be put in our way.

Thursday, 8 February 2018
During exchanges Elder Fanning and Elder Tan ran into a new investigator, Sister Xie, who met with them today before district meeting and she set her own baptismal date in the first meet! Right now we are aiming for a March 10th baptismal date. We are so excited! It has been a really amazing week of just running into those people who have honest hearts and are willing to work to remember their Father.

Friday, 9 February 2018
We had a very, very hectic day today. Half of our lessons changed times, and we were luckily on exchanges so we could take all of them. I went and visited Sporty, our investigator who lives in Jinmen but is back in Gaoxiong for Chinese New Year. It was good to see him again! This week has just basically been full of good teaching and finding prepared people, which is all blessings that God has chosen to give us that we are so grateful for.

Saturday, 10 February 2018
We had some fun opportunities to serve today! One of our members invited us to come over and help clean front doors for Chinese New Year, since everyone cleans for the new year. It was pretty fun! And she fed us chicken and blueberry muffins, so I was pretty satisfied with the results of today.

Sunday, 11 February 2018
This morning was so great. A month ago Elder Fuller and I contacted a man in a park reading a newspaper, and he set up but didn't show. I didn't think much of it, but then we called him this week and he was willing to meet. We got there and he was sitting waiting for us. It was an amazingly spiritual lesson which we taught him about his relationship with God and how to pray. He teared up when we told him about how God will answer him. He said he has been looking for a "door of light" in his life and he thinks this was it. We also got to attend a scripture study fireside organized by the Sisters in Lingya which went great!

It was an amazing week for which I need to express much more gratitude than is possible for me to do. Being a missionary has given me some of my greatest blessings and learning experiences. I know that the Savior lives and watches over us. Thank you all and have a great week!

-Elder Meanea

5 February 2018 - First Week with Elder Fanning

"I heard the bells on Chinese New Year,
their unfamiliar tones are played.
They sound is strong and rocks right on
With peace on earth 傳教 to men!"

Monday, 29 January 2018
Elder Fanning and my first P-Day in the area together! We took our bikes out to the island just off the mainland and ate with an RC and the sisters. Some really good seafood! After that was just some contacting in our area getting Elder Fanning familiar with the place. It's such a good area, and I'm so happy I can stay another transfer here. 

Tuesday, 30 January 2018
We met with our Bishop today, Bishop Fu and his wife are both converts and area great example of member missionary work. We discussed a few things that we could do to start strengthing the members and went to find some service opportunities. It was cool because we actually found a few community leaders that were willing to talk to us and give us chances for service! We'll be helping clean a park this Saturday. Elder Fanning is a great missionary. He's really got a strong point in making sure we talk to everyone, which I really appreciate. It's already started to bring around new miracles as we really try to reach out to everyone in our proselyting. 

Wednesday, 31 January 2018
We also have had some good luck as we go looking for some members who haven't been active in a while. We found Sister Huang at her house when we went to deliver a birthday card for her nephew who is also a member. Turns out she is an RM and served her mission in France, which is really cool. She agreed to let us come over and meet her next week so we can start helping her come back into the gospel, and we continue to find people outside as we talk to everyone on the way to where we are going. The work is going well!

Thursday, 1 February 2018
We headed right up to Taichung today to have exchanges with the Assistants to the President. One of them is Elder Councill, who was in my district in the MTC, and I got to exchange with him! That was really fun, in that we got a lot of good work done and it was amazing to see how much we both have grown. It has also been absolutely freezing cold here for us. I don't know exactly how cold, but I have worn the Jacket I bought last winter every day this week. 

Friday, 2 February 2018
We headed with the assistants over to Mission Leadership Council today. It's so good to be there and get to discuss with all the other mission leaders the things we can do to help our individual zones and missionaries. I feel like the discussions we have really provide us with some solid revelation on the things that we can do to continue heading upward. We also got tickets for the ride home this time, so we didn't have to stand all two and a half hours!

Saturday, 3 February 2018
We met with our RC Brother Zhong today. He is so good. He told us that he even invited his dad to come meet with us that morning, but he was a little busy. It's cool to see how much the gospel lights up his life and how he is starting to share it with everyone even without us pushing him. He even invited his best friend to his baptism a few weeks ago! We also met with our long-time investigator Sister Chen. She is having a really hard time accepting that she has to give up her coffee to join the church, and it's been quite hard trying to explain to her the reasons why, but as we strengthen her testimony of Heavenly Father, she'll know that all the things we don't understand right now are really for our good. 

Sunday, 4 February 2018
Elder Fanning is also really good at getting to know the members really fast. He just has a way of getting a conversation going and really making the people feel like he's listening. After church, we went to the far end of our area to meet with our investigator Pat from last Sunday. He is so prepared, but we also had to hand him off to the sisters in the neighboring area, so it was a little sad. But he gets to learn the Gospel either way, which is great!

And just like that, it was a miracle-filled week with a lot of amazing children of God placed in our path. I hope that all of us will pray with renewed fervor this week that we can recognize the opportunities God gives us every day to serve those around us. I know they are always there and that we can really be tools in His hands if we have Faith enough.
Have a great week!

- Elder Meanea