CALLED TO SERVE

2/5/17

What a fun week! This week was the end of the Chinese New Year, so we didn't meet with any investigators the first part of the week and then were able to meet with a lot of investigators at the end. The end of the week was great for finding because everyone was pretty much done with celebrating but still hadn't gone back to work yet, so we went ham and found some super cool people to start meeting with!

So, the story begins like this: during a week-long scout camp many, many moons ago, a counselor for the kayaking class decided I looked like Bella from the Twilight series. For the rest of the week, I got called Bella. I told this to some members in my first area, and they thought it was so funny. When they pulled up a picture for comparison, however, they all stopped laughing. "Wow, he really does look like Bella..." Last week, I made the mistake of telling the members here both of the stories, and now everyone thinks I look like Bella. Maybe Asians just think white people all look the same, but there are actually quite a few other actors people here in Taiwan have said I look like. The best so far is probably that someone said that I look like the one and only (you guessed it) Reese Witherspoon. Well, at least it's not as bad as my companion getting called Mr. Bean by everyone we talk to....

This last week I was reading about prayer in True to the Faith, and came across the section "When you make a request through prayer, do all you can to assist in its being granted." Missionaries say millions of prayers, so sometimes I struggle to make every single one a meaningful and unique yearning of the heart. While reading this section, an interesting thought came across my mind--when you ask for any blessing, commit to some form of action. That seems simple enough, and it goes something like this: "Please bless this food" becomes "As I strive to better strengthen and protect my body by eating healthier foods and exercising better, please bless this food to give me energy to go about my work." Not long after that prayer, I had a prompting to drink more water. My prayers have been a lot better trying to apply this principle, and I don't find myself just robotically ordering blessings on Amazon.com.

Also interesting how I can now apply this to my investigators: "Sixde 黃子晏, will you ask Heavenly Father if this is true?" becomes "Sixde 黃子晏, as you diligently seek and ponder the scriptures and the things we share, will you ask Heavenly Father if this is true?" I think applying this principle will really help some of our investigators right now, and I'm excited to see them continue to progress towards baptism!! Love you guys!

another paper thing I did for the Liang Family

rag after I used it to clean the walls in our apartment. Our mission had a deep cleaning day on the start of GuoNian because proselyting outside wasn't really effective.

night view of the grand hotel and Taipei 101

went biking at the dirt track park again, my companion fell over right at the beginning, but I think in the end he thought it was fun

check out the sand being blown in the wind. The picture doesn't show it the best....

went to a freezing beach on the tip of danshui, I loved it but my companion didn't

really old forts in danshui

sunset pictures on a bikeride home from Danshui, beautiful!!

sara house or I think they just put the space in the wrong place and it is actually "sarah ouse". I'm pretty sure it's some French place, but I don't know what ouse is...

yes I saw a mclaren

yes there are leaves changing color and falling to the ground (what??????)

we have this awesome fountain by our house

1/30/16

So there's this jellyfish, and he is walking next to a sea cucumber (well there not really walking because there in the ocean.... it's a joke), and he turns to the sea cucumber and says, "With friends like these on the dinner table in front of Elder Hawkes, who needs anemones?" Haha. Ya. But I actually did eat a nice big dinner of squid stuffed with fish eggs, pig feet, pig-foot tendon, fish wrapped in sea cucumber, jellyfish salad, deep-fried shrimp (I wasn't brave enough to suck out the head), and boiled chicken. Out of all those, hands-down worst food was the boiled chicken. Who would have thought. The jellyfish was amazing. Let's just say there was quite a few of "hey this is the first time I've eaten this food!".

Last week we watched a worldwide missionary broadcast and whoa did they announce some big changes! Daily planning is changed from the nighttime to the morning, companion study and language study can be anytime during the day that works for your schedule, and they key indicators have been reduced to just four!! When I first got to Taiwan, there were 34. Most missions have 11. Over time, President Jergensen reduced it to 8, and now it is down to 4!! How crazy! I am absolutely loving the morning planning too, because now when we come home it is just nice and relaxing instead of stressful. At the mission conference, I got to see all the missionaries including the other four Viewmont graduates (missing Elder Bryan Anderson in the picture included)! I also took a picture with my mission dad (my trainer Elder Boyce) and mission son (my trainee Elder Dickson). Anyways, not much news in the way of investigators, because they are all off celebrating GuoNian (Chinese New Year). Oh well, more next week on them.

Interesting discovery lately. I used to think that reading the Book of Mormon wasn't for the stories. Scripture isn't like a normal novel where you just enjoy the scenery right? I thought you just kinda read it for its teachings and for personal revelation and that the stories weren't necessarily important in and of themselves. Over the past few months, however, I've sort of realized that you learn the teachings and receive personal revelation because you read and understand the stories. It has really changed the whole way I look at the Book of Mormon. Instead of just reading what the prophets say, I've been reading why they say what they say, to who they say what they say, and how what they say is like the things I encounter on a day-to-day basis. The Book of Mormon has become an even greater source of light than before, and reading it is incredibly interesting! Well, I hope you all have a wonderful Chinese New Year week!

Here is an example in Omni of all places: Chapter 1:27-30. Reading the way I used to before, I don't learn much. The previous two verses are the testimony of Amaleki written on some of the last portion of the plates, but 27 through 30 are a little out of context. It seems that Amaleki is a little bit of a perfectionist, so he wants to fill the remaining few lines of the plates he is writing on with a quick news report on a group of people that left Zarahemla. Well, he includes it and leaves me confused for another eight chapters until we get to Mosiah 7. It turns out, that group of people that left are the people of Limhi that Ammon finds in the land of Lehi-Nephi! Their story is recorded in the record of Zeniff in chapters 9 through 22. So, a portion of scripture in Omni suddenly shows how Amaleki is in tune with the Spirit enough to know he should include a short blip about a group of people that would become really important later on. How cool is that?

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH. WHOAH.

us up on a members roof at nighttime. The kids names are 'Peace' and 'Receive Mercy'.

Check out this tiny orange! So stinking sour!!!

"technical kouipment," "oluring trans portation" "keeps looks hinges joints mooing freely." "Do not pierce or bum, even after use."

the crazy dinner

our investigator board

Went to Gu Gong (National Palace Museum). Incredible. Funny too. Funny and incredible! Try to guess which pictures are funny and which pictures are incredible.

"Emporer Qianlong accused jade artisans of Suzhou and Yangzhou of showing off skills to appeal to the market and cater for the masses, yet without consideration for the actual use of the piece, e.g. he questioned how an incense burner entirely carved with multi-level openwork was supposed to hold ashes?"

Guess who I saw at the museum??? Rosy!!!! She is a member from when I served in XinFeng almost a year ago. We would go and visit her and her grandma, because her grandma is semi-active and is from Indonesia! They are super cool and it was super exciting to run into Rosy!!