Ward Party in Soul

   12/18/16

 This last week was awesome!! Our area (and our district) has really turned around in the last four weeks. This last week our whole district saw a ton of success and it was so stinking exciting. In our area, we hinged most of our week on one activity: the ward Christmas party. We invited everyone and their dog, and even worked with members to visit their neighbors, give them candy, and invite them to the activity. Honestly, the night before I was a little scared because in Taiwan 300 people might tell you they are coming to an activity 30 times each and you still might not get a single person there. The activity came round though, and to our excitement the majority came. We had a family of three come that we had ran into on the street several times, three investigators, the Zeng Family (also already investigators), and another family who was the neighbors of a member who had gone with us to give candy to their friends. Super cool!

    Earlier in the week after district meeting, we got to go on exchanges with the Assistants in downtown Taipei by the temple. Lately they have just been going on exchanges with a few of the district leaders, and because we are nearby we got to go with them. Probably the best part was getting to drive from our area to the mission office. Usually we just ride the MRT (subway), so that was actually my first time driving in Taipei in a car and it was super exciting! It was also a really fun exchange because I got to go with Elder Reintjes, the only other Elder that had a visa delay in my MTC group. When we came to Taiwan, it was just us two missionaries on the plane, so we are pretty good friends. The funniest part of the exchange though, was when Sister Bao (a member from our ward who volunteers to help out in the mission office) pulled up the last photo of her son on his mission (he came home last Thursday) and Elder Reintjes points to someone in the picture and yells, "That's my old girlfriend! I kissed her!" Needless to say, Sister Bao printed off a giant copy for him, and teased him for the rest of the day.

     As I was studying some talks this last week, I ran into a scripture that answered a question I've been asked a lot but never really been sure how to answer. The question goes something like this: "why do we have to drink water and eat bread when we partake of the sacrament? I know faith without works is dead, but is eating bread and drinking water really 'works'?" The answer I found is in Doctrine and Covenants 88:15, "And the spirit and the body are the soul of man." As I read this scripture, I guess it sort of sunk in that if we just sat in our seats and just thought about it, it's only half the picture. If we want to "bow down before him, and worship him with all [our] might, mind, and strength, and [our] whole soul" like it tells us to do in 2 Nephi 25:29, we have to use both our spirit and our body. Just something interesting to think about. Well, I love all you guys and hope you have a wonderful Christmas!!

ok, I'm sending some emails marked "OPEN ON CHRISTMAS DAY ONLY". As you might guess, DO NOT open them until Christmas!!! They will contain my letter and a picture of your presents.

turtle! 

They forgot to finish this overpass...lots of graves on the way to the mountaintop.

biked for like 6 hours to get to the top of a mountain. Super exhausting. The view at the top was blocked by trees, but we climbed one to get an ok view. We biked all the way there and jogged the last half hour. After we got back to the bikes we realized Elder Heaton left his helmet back up at the top. So we turned around laughing and crying (from pain and laughter) and jogged all the way back up to get it

Jumping fish! 

Assignment for Dad: what on earth is this caterpillar??

Yes, we zip-tied santa hats to our helmets

I found Mr. Bean with make-up on!!!!

 I have been eating Honey Bunches of Oats in an American milk paradise for two weeks!!

Knocking Neighbors Doors

12/11/18

     I don't know if any of you follow the news closely or not, but if you do you probably know more about the gay marriage laws in Taiwan than I do. All I know is that this last week the MRT was packed full of people with rainbow paint on their face, rainbow flags sticking out of their backpacks, and rainbow posters that say "the right to hug" in Chinese. There is a really big push in Taiwan to legalize gay marriage, because if it goes through then Taiwan would become the first country in Asia to legalize gay marriage. A lot of Christian churches in Taiwan, however, have taken a fairly aggressive standpoint on the matter, so an incredible amount of people on the street will only talk to us because they want to know what our church's perspective is. I guess I have just been practicing my political skills lately, because an equally astonishing amount of people ask us what we think of Trump. Due to my current missionary status, addressing these topics in a non-confrontational and objective way without causing misunderstanding has been an interesting learning experience. In fact, we aren't supposed to even be talking about political or economic issues, so sharing about doctrines instead of opinions and navigating the line between not answering their questions at all and starting up a political discussion has been even more interesting.

     In other areas of the work, the Liang Family is getting close to baptism! The Mom and the Dad are both willing to work towards Christmas Eve as their baptismal date, so we have planned everything they need to do before that day. If we run into any sort of problems they will likely have to move it back, but I'm confident that if the Lord wants them baptized on that day then they can. We have another cool investigator named Peter, but his date isn't until next month. Super cool things are happening and it is so much fun to see how the Spirit works with people's hearts!

     Lately our zone has been doing this thing with members where we go with them to visit their neighbors and give them a small bag of candy and wish them a Merry Christmas! It is surprising at just how many members don't know who their neighbors are, and we have seen a ton of miracles from this simple little activity. Then Elder Heaton and I realized something kind of funny, "Wait, who are our neighbors??" All this time we had been doing it with members, and hadn't even thought to do it with ours!! So we picked a day, and knocked all our neighbors doors in our apartment building (10 doors total). Not surprisingly, every single one of them knew who we were, what floor we lived on, and what we were doing, but all of them seemed pretty shocked that we had knocked their door to give them candy! It didn't lead immediately to any missionary opportunities, but I'm convinced that now we know our neighbors it will be easier to develop friendships that can eventually lead to them learning about the things that bless our lives! How simple is that? Some of the best service opportunities are also the closest and most convenient! I love you all, and hope you have a spectacular Christmas season!

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Monday: met a guy from Bhutan. How crazy is that? We were like... Where? Bhutan. Where......? Bhutan. Also found a shattered phone in the middle of the street and was able to call his mom and get in contact with him to give it back. Poor Guy. That phone got run over several times and he wasn't that ecstatic about it.

Tuesday: bought a thermometer for the zone meeting gift exchange and ended up getting exchanged back the gift that Elder Heaton bought: a 3 ft long towel hanger. Other than that, zone meeting was honestly kinda boring and I didn't learn much. There was a ton of roleplays and it just kinda felt like a waste of time. Bad attitude I know, but how effective is a zone meeting full of roleplays if I'm not enjoying it? Knocked our neighbors doors after dinner, and met with a chemistry teacher potential investigator. Debated the existence of God with him for a long time, and in the end he wasn't willing to keep meeting with us. People are stubborn...

Wednesday: ate lunch with our investigator named Peter (the one from California who has a baptismal date). Really fun lesson and was super relaxing while sharing lots about the gospel. Super effective! Then we did a Christmas poster activity where we had a bunch of Christmas symbols on a poster and asked people what they meant. Got a few people to participate, and was really fun. Then had English Class.

Thursday: lesson with Sixde, another investigator. Struggled through another debate about the existence of God, won, and he was still super hai hao about meeting with us again. I felt like we shared the doctrine really well though, so we did our part. The religious culture of Taiwan is incredibly interesting, and very hard to fight. Then went on exchanges with Elder Robbins: pretty interesting Elder. Struggling with confidence, but a really great missionary. Came to the island the same time as my companion.

Friday: weekly planning, visited a member in the evening, wrote notes to everyone in our district for "visiting the lonely" day

Saturday: made a goal to call through our whole ward list before our Christmas party next Saturday, so did a ton of calls. Went to a funeral in the morning where Brother Bao went off about WWII for almost an hour and then finally tied it into 'nameless heros' and finally the man that had passed away. Really poor funeral talk.... Went to a nativity in Taipei with our investigator Sister Zeng, her daughter, and her mother. Got Vietnamese noodles for dinner with them too, very similar to Asia Palace. Jesus helped people walk day was pretty difficult to think of something, but we ended up contacting someone that only had one leg!! How crazy is that??

Sunday: another 5 hours of church because the Liang Family could only attend the morning church. I fell asleep during both sacrament meetings, which means I will be bringing candy and snacks to church next week in an effort to stay awake. Met with two awesome member families in the evening.

wenttoTaipei101lastweekforPreparationDay.Superboringpreparationday,butthatisok.AtleastIgottoeatthisawesomestuff.

recognizethisplace?okthereissomethingwrongwiththespacebarinthischapel.Everyonceinawhileitjuststopsworking!!

Santa and the devil. Don't know what they have in common, but in Taiwan apparently 

they go together. 

Buddhist miao

Jesus read the scriptures day and the new scripture system I started using

the clothes hanger I got traded

a crawler I found in my food. Wahoo! 

shi lin market

we went to the biking place again for exercises

fire cracker bananas!

 visited the primary and gave them stickers!(the kid to my right is wearing his with pride 
on his forehead) 

Jesus helped people walk day I bought some foot cream for a fungus that I've ignored 

for a bit now

cool place we rode our bikes through in the morning

Cool place we rode our bikes through in the night

 A member here in TianMu. His sister stays at home to take care of him and their mother. They come to church when they can, but he can't go all the time because he can't always find someone to drive him. He says every time he sees missionaries he sees a little light around our heads. He is the coolest guy ever, and it was so much fun to go visit them

P.S...Thanks for your emails lately! I have absolutely loved them! Every week I'm grateful for the news and insights you share. I really do look forward so much to your emails every week, and I can assure you that they certainly aren't boring or repetitive at all. I know they might sound boring or repetitive to you (like my letters do to me) but however excited you are to get my letters I am probably more excited ;) I really hope you are having a great Christmas season and enjoying all those Christmas lights! Love you Mom! 

Listening to the Breeze and Holy Shark Week

12/4/16

 DECEMBER!! Getting colder here, although definitely not the freezing cold of last year. My fingers are still defrosting from last year and thankfully there hasn't been a chance for them to refreeze this year. Who thought that what everyone thought was a tropical island wasn't what everyone thought but rather a place of strangely unfrozen icicles? I didn't!

     This last week was "Holy Shark Week." Origin of the name is unknown. In a nutshell, we cut personal study and companion study to only a half hour each, skipped language study, and came back at 10 pm instead of 9:30. Absolutely crazy, very exhausting, but led to some cool new investigators and other miracles. On Saturday, us and the other TianMu Elders went and did a puppet show for some adults with mental disabilities as part of a big performance put on by the ward. It was a blast, and everyone loved it!

     On Tuesday we went on exchanges with the zone leaders, and I got to go with Elder Dong! When I was in training a year ago in Beitou he was in our district and also in training, so it was super cool to go on exchanges with him again! We had two lessons in the nighttime, and they both went incredibly well. Some of the best lessons I have had on my mission. Neither investigator was really interested in joining our church, but we taught the doctrine so well, invited the Spirit so strong, explained so crystal clear, and discussed in such a constructive way that I felt like we gave them every possible opportunity. Ultimately, that is our purpose and I felt like we totally accomplished it.

     I think there was an important part to it though: during the middle of the lesson I was feeling a bit too good about how well I was teaching, and I felt a small little prompting say, "Careful Elder Hawkes, you don't want to be proud." I listened, and it hit me that I was in fact being pretty proud. I took a step back from the lesson for a second, humbled myself, and recognized that it was only a good lesson because we weren't in the way of the Spirit (which I was about to change). I made a commitment to be more humble, and the remainder of the lesson was even better than the first part. The Spirit was so strong.

     I was reading in 1 Nephi 18 about Lehi's family almost being lost in the storm because Laman and Lemuel had tied up their brother Nephi when I came across a few interesting verses. Verses 17 through 20. It took the power of God in the form of a huge tempest threatening them with death and destruction for them to soften their hearts. How often I am just like them: ears deaf to the wind and a heart stubborn against doing something I don't want to do just because I think I'm right and others are wrong. How much better a disciple I could be if every time the Spirit blew like a breeze I softened my heart and listened--rather than wait for it to become a tempest. I wish I could say that in every lesson when I heart the Spirit tell me to be humble or to teach a certain doctrine I listened, but I can't and that's ok. I'm just grateful to be here in the mission field, learning and sharing. You are all so awesome! Hope if you get the chance this next week you can check out those verses and keep #Lighting the World! Love you guys!

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Sorry I don't have time for a full week report but I will add some other highlights:

-went to a very, very, very rich mans home for dinner. He has his fingers in the honey pot of a billion dollar company in China. His son lives in the States and they hope people there are taking care of his son so he and his wife wanted to take care of us. We got there and he was eating dinner with three of his former students when he taught at Taipei University (best college in Taiwan). His wife wasn't home yet, but it was a weird situation. You could totally feel the power in the room. When he talked the other three had to stop talking. He was clearly in charge, and they were just drinking his very expensive wine (and a lot of it too). His home was gigantic and the food was amazing. The other three just sat silently because he wanted to drill us on gay marriage and the word of wisdom. He went in hard, but being 20 year old missionaries we weren't scared and I think we answered pretty well. In the end we had to leave abruptly because of another lesson, but it was an interesting experience. 

-this last Sunday during sacrament meeting, we sung "I Stand All Amazed" before the sacrament and I felt the Spirit just completely overcome me as the words of the hymn sunk in like only words of a song can.

-a member chewed me out for 20 minutes about how the missionary closet at our chapel was a disaster but he taught me some amazing principles that I felt like was Heavenly Father answering a prayer of how I could be a better missionary.

-went to the temple with a recent convert and saw a ton of missionaries I knew

-accompanied Elder Boyce on the piano at a missionary fireside in Taipei, he sang super well

-went last Preparation Day back to Beitou, trip down memory lane!!!!!!!!

biking all the way up to Yang Ming Shan national park like I did last year

conquering the mountain

lighting was amazing and got some really cool pictures. This guy was a guy I met last year at the exact same spot. He is the one that sold a CD to Elder Dixon of his traveling adventures and pictures he had taken. If I had snapped the photo a second later his hand would have been up in a farewell wave

incredible sunset, incredibly asian, photos don't do it justice

Me back in beitou eating xiao long bao, deep-fried egg, ham, cucumber sandwiches, xian cao nai dong, etc

puppet show!

cleaning up a chapel closet for #lighttheworld