God Save the Sweaty me,
drowned in humidity,
This island I love!
(Copyright Elder Meanea 2017)
Another uneventful P-Day. Puli is beautiful, but activity-wise, there just isn't a lot to go out and DO on a P-day. But we were still able to get a lot of stuff done and play a card game called Skip-Bo with the sisters. So it was fun! Then the night was dedicated to finding those prepared souls. We also set up with Wang, our crazy pharmacist with a baptismal goal, and he actually read the chapter we gave him, which is great! So we're already off to a great start on a busy week!
We went to Carol's funeral warehouse and helped her clean up some stuff. Her and her husband ran a funeral service here in Puli, but her husband died right before her baptism and right before I got here, but she's doing really well. He wasn't a member, but their daughter is, and she actually trained a member from my MTC district in California. Small LDS world! So that was pretty fun. And then the only other notable thing was that we got preached at by a Buddhist missionary while we were tracting, and a couple from our ward helped us with a lesson with Wang. He's our baptismal goal friend, and it turned out to be a really great lesson. We talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and just answered a lot of questions. He's super into getting baptized next month.
Wednesday, 21 June 2017
I did nothing today! Mostly because right out the door we had to go to Yuanlin for interviews. It's that bus/train/walk journey I was talking about last week. It was great to see president and Sister Teh. The interviews were really fun, and we got to talk to a lot of cool missionaries. We went to go catch our train home, but realized that Elder Densley's train/bus pass got left behind at a convenience store. So we walked back to get it, then got on the train, and stopped off in Taichung to get dinner, and then finally got our bus back to Puli. We got back around 8:00. We helped close up English class and came home! I was excited to find an envelope in the mail for me! Unfortunately is was also from me. I may or may not have mixed up where to put the recipient and sender on an envelope and sent a letter to myself... so if you haven't laughed yet today, you're welcome.
We had time to eat at Carol's house, and then we had our district meeting with the Zone Leaders, Elder Cole and Elder Neuhaus! It's so cool to be in Elder Cole's zone again. He took my on my first exchange on the island, and he came with me today on his last. He goes home next week, and we had a great day biking up into the mountains to give some blessings to a member's parents, then ate a really good hot pot, after which we went and found our drunk friend Mr. Xiano, who was probably only partially drunk today when we found him! We talked about scriptures and prayer, and told him we'd talk about the Plan of Salvation when we came next, and he said we could again. And that was about it!
Friday, 23 June 2017
In the morning we just had time to do studies before it was time to exchange back. Elder Cole is so awesome. He's one of the most dedicated missionaries I ever met, and I learned a lot from him. And then it was back to the Densley/Meanea version of Puli. We ate with some members tonight who made us Italian bread and soup, after which we met with a less active lady and our Branch President. She was super cool and has a lot of Faith. She really wants her daughter to come back to church with her, and said that every time in the past few years she's gotten really sad or had a hard trial missionaries have always gotten in contact with her out of the blue. I love being a missionary.
Saturday, 24 June 2017
There are just some days where you don't have enough time as a missionary. This morning we spent working in Huang Laoshi's garden again, helping her with her trees, then she fed us. And you might have noticed that I didn't say "Weekly planning" yesterday! Well, that's because we literally ran out of time for it... so we did it today! And then we had a member invite us over for food, affectionately known as Monkey Joe. He fed us some noodles, and then we had a yoga activity for investigators, less-active members and such, but because of the rain, no one besides a cool guy named Brownie came. He's been coming to English class for a few weeks, and tonight we had a spiritual share after the activity and found out he has been having some problems in life, and he agreed to come to church tomorrow and check it out, so that was really cool!
Sunday, 25 June 2017
Oh boy, today was so great. We went to Sacrament and I just felt so happy during the meeting. It's amazing to think that God allows us so often to repent and re-commit ourselves in keeping our covenants. It might seem sometimes that since we break the covenant, sin, and have to renew it so often, that it's one of lesser importance, but to me it's come to mean that this is one of the most important covenants you make, your first. Obviously I don't know if there is an "importance scale" for commitments, but it seems like Heavenly Father wants us so badly to remember this covenant that He lets us renew it every week, reminds us, pleads with us to remember His Son and receive the blessing of the Holy Ghost. So that was great, and then we ate with Huang Laoshi. We helped her to make wontons, which were very ugly but delicious nonetheless. At the end of the night we were making calls in a family mart when, what do I see at a family mart? A family! I really wanted to talk to them, but I didn't know what to say, so as we were finishing calls and walking by I just said "hi" to the dad and started talking to him, and he was a lot nicer than he looked. I was super happy that I actually talked to them.
And that was the end of the week of Elder Meanea's Mission Season 3: Puli! Tune in next week to read the exciting continuation of his adventure on the tropical paradise of Formosa, where miracles abound, sweat is un-ending, and the work of the Lord will roll forth! Or will it??? Find out next week!
(Spoiler: It does)
-Elder Meanea
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