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.
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!
---------------------------------------------------
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.
Buddhist miao
visited the primary and gave them stickers!(the kid to my right is wearing his with pride
on his forehead)
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.
wenttoTaipei101lastweekforPrep
recognizethisplace?
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!
No comments:
Post a Comment