Mold and Church

4/18/16

This last week was a little rough getting people to meet with us, so we ended up doing quite a bit of finding. There was also a ton of rain. But it was super fun!!! And we still have our investigator Joe working towards baptism on the 29th of this month, so we have nothing to complain about. Transfers are this Thursday, so I will probably be welcoming a new Elder to XinFeng!

     Yesterday was this air raid drill from 1:30 to 2, where everyone had to be inside. Those who were outside got herded up by the police and stuck in a place for the remaining time. We missionaries were inside having district meeting, but right outside the window of our chapel was one of the places where the police were gathering people. I have to admit, it was pretty entertaining watching all the people get caught and then play on their phones for half an hour. It reminded me of playing fugitive back home, except city-style.

    I haven't ever talked about mold have I? It is crazy here. I have seen so many kinds of mold I can't even count them. We leave a cake out for two days, and there is mold on it. Leave a pair of pants on a hangar for two weeks without touching it and there is mold on it. Don't open the window and place a fan in the bathroom, and there is mold everywhere. Mold is literally just a daily part of life here. I mean, granted, we fight it as best we can and usually do a pretty good job, but lots of missionaries have to get moved out of their apartments due to mold.

    You know, a few days ago I was thinking about just how big of an influence the church has in our lives. From the world's perspective, one-tenth of my income disappears, two years of my life are put on hold, every seventh day you can't go out and do anything, every day is spent reading the same book over and over again, and I spend lots of time just closing my eyes and talking to God. I find it interesting that we add all that stuff, and still have time to do everything else everyone else does. Not only that, I have found my life so much more fulfilling and I am so much more happy. The Gospel plays a huge influence in our lives, and I am so grateful. Today I get to go to the temple in Taipei, and every time I go I can find a sort of strength that I can't find anywhere else. I love you all, and I hope you can find time to go the temple this week and think a bit about the influence the Gospel has had in your life!

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This week is transfers, and I most likely will not move. A little bit like Matt Bake you could say, although a little more functional. Emma is doing pretty good, we retaught the first lesson, and she was super awesome. She is pretty well integrated into the ward, and the members love her. Joe is about to get baptized, and he is super excited. Compare with my other area? Actually pretty similar. Some big hills, hard to street contact, but the people are super awesome. The ward here is a lot better though, they are super amazing. I will have to email about those questions a little later today. Because we have to catch a train into Taipei for the temple, we woke up at 3:30 this morning to do emails before, but we only got to do half our emails so we will finish later today when you are all totally asleep. I also have something I'm going to try, I want to email family members specifically more because I feel like I get emails and then you all don't really ever hear anything back, so I want you to know that I absolutely love them and am so excited to read them every week. The other thing I think I'm going to start is switching off weeks, one week email friends like I normally do, and then one week only emailing family. They don't need to hear from me every week, so I think I will start by emailing you all next week. 

Graves and Conference

4/10/16

 I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before or not, but Taiwanese graves are different than in the States. I'm not 100% sure how to describe them, so you may just have to google it. It's almost like a fancy hobbit door with lots of incense. So graveyards look like a hillside covered in hobbit holes. I really hope that is not disrespectful, but honestly I have no other way to describe it. 

     We were returning home one night, and it was super dark. We started going up this huge hill to get home, and my companion had to get off and walk his bike, so we ended up walking through this super creepy graveyard at around 9 at night. As we were walking, I saw this small glimmer of light flying through the air--a firefly. It made the whole creepy situation beautiful. It was amazing. It was also a very good metaphor for the Gospel: there are countless times in life where we are surrounded in darkness and a little scared, but that one glimmer of hope can completely change our perspective. Our situation might not change, and the glimmer of hope may quickly fade back into the darkness as a firefly might, but we are left feeling vastly different that we would if we didn't have that small flash of hope.

     One firefly this last week for me at least was conference. This might be old hat for all of you because you saw it a week before me, but conference was so amazing! There were so many incredible talks, and I am so excited to keep studying them in the few upcoming months. One talk that particularly touched me was the last one by Elder Holland. There are a lot of feelings of inadequacy on the mission, especially when those new investigators just aren't coming. He said we should never think that we cannot improve, and that our Father in Heaven is willing to reward us if we even have the desire to change and become better. It really gave me comfort and I felt the Spirit very strong. Overall, conference was amazing and I hope you all had similar experiences last weekend! I love you all!!

--

Elder Hawkes

It was raining so stinking hard!

 I wish you could take better pictures of rain, but this will have to do!

We always get a good laugh from this billboard! Yay bilingual life! 

Iain Letter 5 (3/28/16)

 Hello Elder Hawkes,

So happy to hear the word about Emma's baptism and to receive photos. The work continues! I hope she finds great peace and understanding as she progresses in the Gospel. I hope the local leadership know (to quote Pres Hinckley) "Each new member needs a friend and a church calling" She will be making new friends and associates as she adapts to her new life.

I was told once that "baptism is never a mistake". Nevertheless, we need Priesthood all over the world in our wards and branches. Otherwise the Church will shrivel and die. We need Priesthood authority to administer the ordinances of the Gospel. I think I mentioned my experiences in a Hong Kong Ward full of Sisters and only a handful of Priesthood. Personally I have always felt that the Sisters were far more spiritual than the men and as a result more receptive and sensitive  to the promptings of the spirit and the Gospel message. I have also heard it said (jokingly)  "If the Sisters were in charge, the Millennium would have come years ago" Ha. 

I was in COSTCO on Saturday and  saw  your parents. ! We had a good catch up. They are exceptional people and you are blessed to have them as your eternal parents. Between you and me I think they are also blessed to have you as an eternal son.! I know you will never let them down- or your Father in Heaven. 

We have just celebrated Easter. I have been pondering non stop what the Savior did for each one of us...His mission to this earth, His Gospel, His unbelievable suffering in Gethsemane and on the cross. The miracle of the ressurection which is a gift for everyone regardless . It is simply beyond comprehension. I also think it very significant that he first appeared to Mary and not a man. Her comment, once she realised who it was "Raboni"- Master.  says it all. 

You are in our prayers and we all send love and blessings your way.

Superstars

4/3/16

  I have a new companion! He is a 短傳, which means 'temporary missionary'.... I think. I'm pretty sure there is no real good translation, but basically it just means he is only serving as my companion for 3 weeks until I get a new one. His name is Elder Zhu, and he is native Taiwanese, and has Aspergers. He actually lived in Utah for a while though, so his English is really good. For example, today I explained what the word 'poignant' means.

    

  This last week, before Elder Karlinsey went home, we were able to go to a Junior High school and teach about Easter. It was super fun! They had absolutely no idea what Easter was (most only knew the name and didn't even know about bunnies and eggs let alone the Atonement), so it was cool being able to share the real meaning behind it. Anyways, we taught three different classes, and after each one ended we got absolutely mauled. Every single student in each of the classes wanted a separate photo with each of us missionaries. If you want to feel like a superstar for a day, go to a Taiwanese school. They took so many stinking pictures, and then someone got the amazing idea that we should all sign the prints of the pictures that came from their cameras. The poor students who didn't have cameras just got us to sign blank pieces of paper. It was crazy. There was one point where around 60 students were around us 8 missionaries, all taking pictures and yelling and getting our signatures. One girl started crying when a Sister missionary in my district had to leave. My smiling muscles were killing.

   

   I am so excited for Conference! I am really jealous of you that have already seen it! This week, we taught Ivan (the investigator who cancelled his baptism) an awesome lesson about how the Atonement of Jesus Christ has an influence in our daily lives, and he said he was willing to keep working towards baptism. It is going to be a long journey, but I am so excited! I love you all and I hope you enjoyed conference!

Xin Feng Missionaries! 

a girl that started crying when we had to leave. We got absolutely mauled at that Junior High

these our near our house, XinFeng is full of these flooded fields. 

Pretty cool, especially with the fog.

Buddhist temples are everywhere

we got to see this awesome antique lighthouse after we visited the elementary school

This is just a super awesome signpost by a park that we walked through the other day on

 exchanges with the zone leaders.While on exchanges, my companion totally slammed into one of those parking gate things and destroyed it, so today we had to go and pay 5000 塊. It was a bummer. 

My companion is a duan chuan, so I am basically training for the next three weeks, after which he will just go home again. duan chuan is literally translated "short (time) spread (gospel)", or temporary missionary. He is only a missionary for three weeks because they had to find a companion for me. So it is a little bit like going on splits for three weeks. I can't say too much for fear of him reading off my screen, but he has azbergers. We can just say it has been an interesting week and a half and the next week and a half will be interesting too. Definitely a test in patience, but he is also super awesome. We are having a pretty good time together, and my Chinese is really improving because we mostly speak Chinese together.

 it's kind of an interesting situation, especially when we paces around the apartment every night during planning in his whitey-titeys ;) it's definitely a good experience though, because I do most of the talking in street contacting and lessons are almost all me as well. It's been a struggle to get him involved as much as I can.

This is a picture of us emailing right now because I realized we hadn't taken a picture yet! Anyways, I better go, my computer time runs out less than a minute and then my computer will shut off at this internet cafe. I love you guys!!!!! 

Emma's Baptism

3/27/16

 Emma had her baptism and confirmation this last week!!! It was so awesome! I am so lucky that I got to be a part of her conversion. I think there was another reason why Emma was so prepared to receive baptism at this time, and that is that my companion is going home this week. His release date got moved up a little, so he is headed back to Costa Rica sometime this week! Elder Karlinsey is totally awesome, it will be really sad to see him go. He is very excited to see Star Wars and Superman vs. Batman though, and it has made me super trunky (ok, not really, but I want to see them so bad).

     
    We had this awesome moment this last week where we stopped to talk to someone on the street, and she said, "You two are Christians! I want my kids to get to know Jesus really bad!" Our hearts got this awesome little fluttering feeling! Then she asked, "Where is your church??" Our hearts were soaring at this point. The minute we said it was in ZhuBei (10 minutes away), however, she said, "Oh that's way too far. Never mind." 10 minutes. There is just this weird perspective here in Taiwan that all religions are exactly the same, so why go to one Christian church 10 minutes away when there is one next door? This perspective leads to a few interesting situations. About 9 out of 10 people we start talking to tell us they are Buddhist and start walking away like it is the end of the conversation. No! That is like the whole reason we are here! Even better is the 1 in 10. They say they already believe Jesus and then start walking away like it is the end of the conversation. No! Some people actually get mad at us and tell us to go find people who don't already have religion. There is this awesome idiom in Chinese, "draw cakes to satisfy hunger." A lot of people here think that that is all religion is.

     

    Easter came and went like the blink of an eye, especially because they don't celebrate it here. Most people here don't even know about the bunnies and eggs and all that jazz, let alone Jesus Christ and His atonement. It was really fun this week sharing what the true meaning of Easter is. I'm so grateful for the Savior and all He did for us. Our Gospel Principles teacher asked me a question on Sunday that really hit me: "If you were there while Christ was being crucified, what would you do?" I stumbled out some incoherent answer in broken Chinese and the lesson moved on, but that question stuck. What would I do? I would certainly be crying. More importantly, I think I would just want to say, "Thank you." How grateful I am that Christ suffered and died to overcome death, pay the price for our sins, and strengthen us according to our needs. I know that Christ is not distant, but right here in the garden working with me. I know He is with you too. I love you all, and I hope everyone has had an awesome Easter!

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    You gotta send me a picture of the sweet trailer Christian mentions in all of his letters! Also, is Batman vs. Superman good? It looks so epic. I heard there was more story to it than Man of Steel, and a little less beating each other to a pulp. I also heard that Batman wins. Oh ya!!! Batman rules! Wait... I spent all that time looking for my basket yesterday and the Easter bunny didn't come?? No wonder I couldn't find it!! I've got a pretty interesting week ahead, so next week will probably be an interesting one. Mom and Dad, were you really poor in New York? I was just reading through some of Grandma's old letters and she mentioned the air conditioner being $20 and not working at all or something like that. I dunno, I guess it was never something I had thought about before. Also, Dad, have you found a new job yet? Sarah, I keep running into tons of really talented artists and l always just miss your art. I never realized how much I enjoy looking at art until I came here and then I just obsess over it when I see it. Mary, how is that soccer coming? Better than your computer skills? ;) Is your teacher still Mrs. Hansen? It isn't right... do I know your teacher? Christian, punk! I meet a lot of 6-year-olds running around and they are punks just like you! You would get along so well with this kid named Duo Duo. He runs around the church screaming swear words and the like, but he is super cute otherwise. I love you guys! Have a great week!

There is this awesome little pian pi part of our area. How do you say that in English... Distant? Solitary? Isolated? Away from the city? Suburbian? Excluded...?

This is what I call an Elders apartment. No, that is not a bunch of cheap ties tied together to make a clothesline to dry our laundry on because our dryer has gone the way of the dinosaurs and the company we get them from is 'out'. And no that is not garbage that has been sorted into different bags but left there for too long. We have plenty of time to take out the garbage and wash dishes.... 

OK, these are just weird pictures. The first is kind of a "oh man I'm doing exactly what mom and dad said not to do and riding my bike with an umbrella" (all four of us started doing it and it was really funny)

me trying to express just how much my mouth is on fire but also trying to smile for the camera so ending up at a horrible clash of the two. We four Elders ate at this Korean restaurant, and Elder Xiao and I were sweating like camels. The other Elders were laughing at us really hard, but Elder Xiao was way more sweaty than I was. It was hilarious.

Rain and Cynics

3/20/16

 Pretty awesome week! We have two investigators right now that are just the bomb. Emma Ye and Joe Zhu Jia Wei. The former might get baptized this week and has asked me to baptize her! The only thing she has that might prevent her from getting baptized this week is that she has work. I am so much more than excited, because this will be the first real baptism on my mission where I have seen the investigator through the whole process! She is absolutely incredible. She already has a coworker she is trying to introduce to the gospel. Amazing! The other has actually called us a few times asking if he can meet with us. He called us!! He also has a horrible work situation, so it will be hard to get him to church enough times to be baptized, but he totally has the faith to do it.

     I think it has rained at least a little bit every day for the last two weeks. Some days just pour rain. I don't know where all that stinking water comes from. Everything in our apartment is soaked in water if we leave the windows open on accident. Not kidding. I cannot believe how wet it is. Forget about gum, it melts into the wrapper from humidity. Things go moldy in a matter of days (my toothbrush...). The bathroom is never not wet. Clothes do not dry, even after putting them in the washer like three times. I cannot express how much I regret taking a pack of chapstick on my mission.

     I was reading through some old stuff, and I came across an awesome quote by President Hinckley: "Cynics do not contribute; skeptics do not create. Doubters do not acheive." I love that. Especially true in the mission field. At least, the last line does. I'm sure there is some connection you can draw from the first two to missionary work, but ya gotta love the third one, "doubters do not acheive". Spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ leaves no room for doubters. This last week in my studies, I have been focusing on faith over and over again. Often times in the day to day life of a missionary, you sweat the small things--my laundry isn't folded, we got hardly any new investigators this week, my legs are killing me. I'm always brought back to faith. Faith just makes everything clearer. Faith gives us the power to do all those little things and to remember why we are doing them. Increasing your faith is like charging a battery that you can use to repent, to become better. I hope everything is going well with all you awesome people! 加油!

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Family:

I made contact with that person Jeff Thomas told me about!! It was so cool, she took us to eat at a 5-star hotel's buffet. It was crazy cool. And then the member we brought with us (Zhuo Wen Hua, he is so funny and awesome) turns to us and says, "I'm fasting!" AHH!!! We had asked him to help us peike (be at a lesson) and asked him to share about his testimony about fasting. He didn't really have one, and it was awkward. So he decided to fast for his work situation because he hasn't had work in two months or so, and he got one meal in when that happened. How ironic! We literally forced him to eat. Because it was a buffet, he had to pay to just to get in, so he couldn't just come and not eat, and he couldn't not come because we couldn't be alone with a single lady without a peike. How crazy! It's ok, because we fasted with him afterwards.

it felt kind of manly ripping this chicken apart with my bare hands, good for companionship unity.

I hope you can see how much rain there is

this is a little of what I was trying to describe in my big letter. Hey, sorry this week there aren't awesome pictures, if there is anything specific you want a picture of, let me know and I will shoot a photo

 Take photos of the people and places that you want to remember. Sometimes the little details--photos of markets, small shops, or whatever--prove memorable. You don't think of them now because they are part of your world, but think about how you tell the story of Taiwan and the story of your mission. Look for photos that help tell that story.---Dad

Those are the keys you lost a year ago, dork-boy. Joe Moore found them in the couch downstairs, though now they are of no use to anyone. Love you. --Dad, Mom, Sarah

I tore that stupid couch apart looking for those keys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! About to miss the train! Love you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have a good afternoon ;)

Hospitality and Names

3/13/16

You know those charities where you donate like $20 dollars and you can 'adopt' a puffin? You know, they don't actually send it to your house, but you get to name it and they send a picture of a nondescript puffin? I think I'm going to do something similar to that. 20 minutes of scripture reading and you get to give a Taiwanese high school student an English name. I'm mostly kidding, but seriously, if you have this awesome name but are just too scared to actually name your kid it, you can email me and I'm sure someone here would want it. I bring this up because we met this awesome guy on the street, and he didn't have an English name so we gave him the name Charlie. Charlie was actually pretty awesome, and we set a baptismal date with him on the street. The investigators last week named Emma and Joe are super awesome as well, and Emma is scheduled to be baptized on the 26th of this month!!

    Transfers were this week, and I got a new companion! Elder Humphries and my new companion, Elder Karlinsey, actually just traded areas from HuaLian to XinFeng. Elder Karlinsey is super awesome! He only has two transfers left, so I'm going to 'kill' him (be his last companion before he goes home). He is super obedient, and I swear he already knows the area better than I do. It is going to be an awesome two transfers and then I might train after, so I am pretty excited.

    Last night rained like crazy. We didn't know it was going to rain, so we were far from the house and we couldn't buy anything because it was Sunday. We got soaked. It was freezing. We decided to knock doors because we were the only ones crazy enough to be outside in the bitter wind and rain, and we forgot about the hospitality here in Taiwan. The first person that answered made us come in and sit down on his couch (tracking in puddles of water) and then left us there in his front living room while he made us coffee, brought apples, brought cookies, and then made us just plain hot water after we told him we couldn't drink the coffee. He wasn't interested in our message at all, but he literally almost made me shower at his house so I didn't catch a cold. We finally escaped the pit of hospitality, and the very next person did the exact same thing. Who thought the work could be so hard because someone uninterested in our message would keep us at their house for that long. The Taiwanese are so amazing and kind to everyone, and I really hope that when I'm 40 and two rain-soaked foreigners knock on my door that I will be willing to let them ruin my couch. I love you all!

Elder Karlinsey after his first time conquering XinFeng hill

Me, being weird with a coat I found in the missionary closet.

I met this guy named Ko-Chittit or something like that. He is from Laos and lives in the States, so I told him about Boone and he was insistent we take a picture and show Boone! He was awesome!

This is our awesome district, which has just barely changed but that is ok.

the other is a stinking tractor doing something stinky I don't like to our backyard!!! I really hope they are not building a road there or more buildings,

 that is the only good part of our apartment!!!

theme park in ZhuDong, despite being US$30, it was pretty fun. If I had had the choice, I probably wouldn't have gone, but Elder Humphries had his heart set on it so I indulged him.