My companion kindly arose early enough for me to get to the church and Skype my family. It was so amazing to talk to them. It was also a tender mercy that I got to. I remembered my dad telling me last time that his Skype name was something, so I tried calling that a couple of times, and then I felt like I should check my email, and I saw a message from last week telling me the Skype name was something else. So I would've sat there forever and not known that it was the wrong name and never gotten an answer! After that, we went to a park with about eight other Elders and played Frisbee and soccer. It was hilariously fun. I haven't gotten to do something like that in about four months! We all had a great time together, then went and got Japanese noodles, and right after got a call that one of our members was asking us to a Hot Pot... so... dinner part 2. The heartiest hobbits would have been proud of us. We put that down real good! After that, it was about time to go home.
Tuesday, 27 Dec 2016
I finally ate with one of our recent converts that Elder Burge has been telling me about. He was baptized in June, and is super strong in the church. He was originally in the Taiwanese Air Force, and once had to eject from the Mirage fighter jet he was flying, so that was a cool story to hear. Today was also interviews with President Teh. I love these opportunities to get to interact with him one on one. It's amazing to see how much he cares about all the missionaries out here even though it's only been about six months. And it helps that Sister Teh always has good snacks. After the interviews we had to walk around a bit since Elder Burge's bike was having major issues. But it's just another way Heavenly Father makes miracles happen, because we ran into a guy that had interest and set up to meet with us tomorrow! So we'll see how that goes. I love the every-day miracles that I see, well, every day! I feel like there were so many things I missed thanking Heavenly Father for before I came on my mission.
Wednesday, 28 Dec 2016
This day started out with some great studies in Ether. I really love the example of the Brother of Jared. The word of the Lord came to him and said, "Gather your family and friends and cows and carts and pretty much everything, and come down to this valley, and THERE I will meet you." I personally would have said something to the effect of, "Um, how about you lead me for sure from the start, so I know I'm not doing all this stuff for no reason." It really reminded me that sometimes God is waiting to guide us just up ahead, but He asks us to walk toward Him first. I also love how everything the Brother of Jared went through was preparing him for that glorious moment on the mountain when his faith had been tested enough that he could finally have that experience. If he hadn't had to do all those difficult things before, he wouldn't have learned how much he needed to rely on God. It also rained a lot today, and was genuinely cold! We rode around for a bit, then we had a lesson with our friend Den. It was... interesting. We started and he went to buy us coffee, but we managed to stop him. And then we came to sat down, and he bought a big bottle of... something. As soon as we sat down he started swigging it until it was half gone. About four minutes into our lesson we could tell he was much too drunk to continue, so we set up another time. A little bit later we rode past and he was just about passed out at the same table over a bottle of whiskey. xD Word of Wisdom fun, folks! Then we have this investigator named Johnny. He is really quiet and doesn't talk much, but we had a really good lesson with him today and challenged him to pray, really pray to know if God exists, because currently he believes in science. I know that if he, or any of us asks sincerely, with an intent to obey His words, He will answer us. I really love Mormon 9:25, how God will prove His word to those who believe.
Thursday, 29 Dec 2016
We had a meeting with the Bishop today. He gave us some less active members to go and visit to help strengthen. Then we had a great DTM from Elder Burge. But... Elder Burge's replacement bike fell apart halfway to church, so we walked there, and walked back from District Training. It took about 45 minutes. xD Then it was a bit of walking around since Elder Burge doesn't exactly have a good bike right now. But we were able to set up three people to come to the baptism tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes!
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| Somethings not right... |
Friday, 30 Dec 2016
Weekly planning led to going to the Church to do a pass off for one of the trainees in my zone. How I love that it's not my place anymore. :-D We also had a really good lesson with our Recent Convert, Matthew. He has been struggling a little bit, but we shared some stories from the scriptures about Christ, and it was really cool to see how he knew he could apply the things that Christ taught. I love teaching people about the Savior who have never heard of such a thing before. It brings such light and hope to their lives. And then that night the sisters had a baptism. Chen Dixiong is the last of three people in his family to be baptized, and an old Elder came down to baptize him. He was the one who found that family about a year ago. And funny story, his dad is the guy from the "Leave the Party" Mormon message, so I watched the epilogue last night! And thankfully, Johnny, Jeff, a girl named Jenny, a friend of ours named Jianhong, and a new guy we contacted named John were all able to attend. It was so amazing to feel the Spirit there, and see the change that this Gospel has brought in the lives of so many people.
Weekly planning led to going to the Church to do a pass off for one of the trainees in my zone. How I love that it's not my place anymore. :-D We also had a really good lesson with our Recent Convert, Matthew. He has been struggling a little bit, but we shared some stories from the scriptures about Christ, and it was really cool to see how he knew he could apply the things that Christ taught. I love teaching people about the Savior who have never heard of such a thing before. It brings such light and hope to their lives. And then that night the sisters had a baptism. Chen Dixiong is the last of three people in his family to be baptized, and an old Elder came down to baptize him. He was the one who found that family about a year ago. And funny story, his dad is the guy from the "Leave the Party" Mormon message, so I watched the epilogue last night! And thankfully, Johnny, Jeff, a girl named Jenny, a friend of ours named Jianhong, and a new guy we contacted named John were all able to attend. It was so amazing to feel the Spirit there, and see the change that this Gospel has brought in the lives of so many people.
Saturday, 31 Dec 2016
When you have no lessons planned the night before, and you're filling out your planner with your companion and you just look at each other. "Contacting?" I ask. "Contacting," he replies. Today we just walked and rode the streets of Beitun. Elder Burge's bike is having major problems, so we were on foot a lot. It's tough going all day, but I know that I'm here in his city, right now, for a reason. And every day, I just look forward to finding those reasons.
Sunday, 1 Jan 2017
First day of 2017! I'm really excited to start the only full calendar year of my life that I'll be serving the Lord as a missionary in Taiwan. Never has a new start seemed so important to me. I want to take all the things I've learned in the last 6 months as a missionary, and go back just to start over! I know you're meant to learn as you go, but for a long time I just felt like I was hanging on to the back of my companion's bike for dear life, pretending to understand what's going on. But that just makes me more excited for the coming days of my mission. Today was fun, the Teh's invited us over this evening with a few other missionaries in Taichung for a New Years dinner. We had fried turkey, corn, potato salad, and a bunch of really American food. It tasted so good! After that it was just contacting all night, but it was still a really good day. I also look forward to continuing learning how to love all the people in every new area I serve in. I finished the Book of Mormon today studying about missionaries, and Moroni was chock-full of doctrinal gold about being great missionaries.
And that was my week! Mid-transfer, things are going well, Chinese is still coming, and I'm happy here in Beitun. I hope you all have an amazing week. I know that we're all disciples of Christ, and I'm proud to wear this badge.
-Elder Meanea
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