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

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