December 7, 2015

Hello everyone!

Like always this has been a pretty great week in Taiwan. The weather has cooled off to the point that I no longer instantly start sweating the instant I walk out the door. In a few weeks it might bee cool enough that I can wear a jacket. I love it!

November 29, 2015

Hello again!

It started out on a Tuesday with a baptismal service. I have decided that one of the best feeling is to make a good friend and watch as the gospel changes their life and see them become happier more positive people. I met Ollie about three months ago and in that time I have seen him make lots of big changes and he has been a good example to me of acting in faith and trusting in the lord.

Mark's Thanksgiving Dinner at DeWitt's

Last week Jared asked me what Mark would do for Thanksgiving, then a bit more subdued he said "Oh yeah, they don't celebrate that in Taiwan." For a little boy that loves holidays this was a bit hard for him. Later that afternoon I received a Facebook message from a member in Mark's ward.

November 23, 2015

During General Conference we had a new apostle called.  His name is Gary E Stevenson, who also happens to have a son in Taiwan on a mission.  Mark's first companion was Elder Stevenson.  Later in this letter he mentions that the new apostle is coming to visit this week.  I asked if this happened to be the father of his first companion, here is his response:

Yes, It is the same Elder Stevenson I was companions with. Often we will refer to our first companion as our dad and because my first companions father was called as an apostle I have had a few people make the joke that my grandpa was called as an apostle.

Hello!

 This has been a pretty great week for lot of reasons. First off I think I must have gained at least 100 pounds. I don't think I have ever eaten so much food in my life. It started last Monday when some members offered to take us to Costco for our weekly grocery shopping. Then on Wednesday I had an English student cook a turkey for me to celebrate thanksgiving. On Friday there were some members that invited about twenty missionaries and twenty other people over for a thanksgiving dinner. On Saturday our ward had a thanksgiving activity which also involved lots of food. So 100 pounds might have been a bit of an exaggeration but I think I will need to do a little extra running this week to work it all off.

November 15, 2015

Hello everyone! I hope that you all had a great week. This was another pretty awesome week of missionary work over here in Taiwan. We have a small mountain in our area but i have never been there before, I have always heard that there aren't a ton of people there, just a few small towns. this week we decided that we wanted to go there and find some new people to teach. after biking up a few huge hills we came to the conclusion that there were even less people than we originally thought.

​There was absolutely nobody out there, so we decided to go back to the city. On the way back we could here lost of things moving around in the bushes on either side of the road. and then we started hearing lots of grunting noises too. We stopped so we could figure pout what it was and then discovered that the trees were full of monkeys. 

November 8, 2015

There have been multiple times that i have started writing my letter on Monday and then either got distracted, ran out of time or just forgot to push the send button when i was done. I'm sorry but it happened again last week.

At times a mission can be a bit of an emotional roller coaster full of ups and downs but looking back on the week it is always so much easier to remember all of the good parts. And this was a pretty good week.

Last Monday our district decided to go to an all you can eat buffet that had all kinds of sea food and other things that i have never tried before. I decided that I wanted to try all of the things i have never had before. As I was eating my district kept on giving me funny looks but i wasn't really sure why. when i got to the squid i asked the missionaries in my district if there was a certain part of it you were suppose to eat and they all responded with "I don't know, I've always been to scared to try any of that". but they were all very impressed with my bravery for trying all of this new food.

October 25, 2015

Hello Everyone!

This was another pretty great week in Taiwan full of lots of excitement and miracles. One of the highlights of this week was exchanges with Elder Tseng.

October 18, 2015

Hello everyone!

Last week I talked a little about our English party. Every Wednesday we have English class. We have a beginner class, middle class and an advanced class. The classes are all taught by the missionaries in our district, usually each member of the district is assigned to teach an English class. The missionaries that don't speak English usually just watch or help the new people know where to go. Last week there were transfers and our district changed a little. We have three elders from Taipei, a Sister from Taipei, a sister from Korea and me. I am the only one that speaks English. So we still aren't exactly how this is all going to work out but I'm guessing in the upcoming weeks I'll have a few more great stories to tell about English class.

October 11, 2015

Hello again!

This was another pretty great, action packed week over here in Taiwan. A few of the highlights would be our English party and general conference.  I think I'll start with the English party.

October 4, 2015

Hello Everyone!

Sorry its been so long since I have sent any pictures but I Think I finally figured it out this week!

September 27, 2015

Short and Sweet

Hey Mom :) 

First off i am supper jealous that you got to go to the temple, I feel like I haven't been there for such a long time and i don't think i will be going for a while. 

I feel like Ethan just left and now hes getting back already... Does that mean that Nick will also be getting back soon? I feel like everyone is either getting home from their mission, on their mission or leaving on a mission. its crazy. 

I'm sorry I still haven't been able to figure out the pictures, I don't have much time to use the computers and everything is written in Chinese so it might be a while before i figure it out, I'm sorry. As soon as i figure it our I promise I will send some to you!

Thank you for the pictures and the email, I miss you all a ton!

Love,

Elder Wills

September 20, 2015

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry, I have been really bad at emailing lately. These last few weeks have been absolutely crazy. just a few weeks ago I moved to my new area with a new companion and now my companion is already being transferred again. I haven't met my new companion yet but he is from Taiwan and i have heard he is pretty funny. 

September 13, 2015

I spoke in Sacrament Meeting a couple weeks ago.  It was an update on how Mark was doing.  I sent him a letter asking a few questions.  This was his response.

September 6, 2015

Hello!

This was another pretty great/crazy week. I got to my new area and it is very different from my last one. When I got to my first area I was amazed at how many people there were. they seemed to be all over the place. There was a different house every 15 feet down the road always people out on the street. But as I was there longer I started to realize that this place was not as populated as the rest of Taiwan.

Letter From a Ward Member

August 27, 2015 -- Mark's First Transfer

Hello everyone!

I'm guessing most of you weren't expecting to get an email from me today, This week is a little different so we are having p-day on Friday instead of next Monday. I think I forgot to tell you all in my last email, sorry... This week the mission is getting 35 new missionaries and today they are all being assigned to there areas so p-day/move day was just moved to today instead. 

August 16, 2015

I love finding photos of Mark in Taiwan.  He is always smiling.  His letter follows the photos.

Celebrating September, October, November birthdays in Tainan.

August 10, 2015

I found a huge snail a few days ago. I thought Jared would think it is cool.

Hello Everyone!

Well this week I survived my first typhoon. It was pretty exciting. There was lots of wind and lots of rain.

August 2, 2015

Its been another pretty great week of missionary work in Taiwan. There was lots of biking around, talking to random people on the streets and and a few really great lessons. Last week we met a 19 year old guy on the side of the road that said we could come back.

July 12, 2015

Hello Everyone!

This has been another pretty great week full of missionary work. Last week we were biking past a building when my companion decided we should stop and talk to the people inside. We found out it was some kind of retirement home and them my companion told them that next week we wanted to come by and play music for them. My companion has a violin he was going to play but I don't have a guitar or anything so I figured I would just watch most of the time and maybe we would sing a few hymns together. Before going we were able to recruit a family to

Typhoon Soudelor

For anyone who may be watching world events here is an email we received from Mark's mission president today.  Mark is in Tainan which is further south than Taichung.  He is almost as far west as he can get.  I checked the weather, there is 100% chance of rain for the next 2 days but it looks like he should be ok.

July 6, 2015

Hello Everyone!

Its a little crazy to think about but I have been in Taiwan for ten weeks now. 

Its always super hot and humid and I'm always working and sweating but serving a mission is incredibly satisfying.

June 29, 2015 - Letter to Mom

I thought I would include the letter Mark wrote to me this week. 

Hi Mom :)

The language is still really hard, I don't really see any progress from day to day but I am slowly getting better at it. The ward is pretty great. There are about sixty active members and our ward currently has 4 full time missionaries all serving in California and Utah and there is one other expecting to get her mission call any day now. We don't have a huge ward but we still have a lot  of great members. 

June 29, 2015

Hello Everyone!

These last few days have been a little crazy. today we just started the third week of the transfer, so we are half way through it. two nights ago we were sitting down for our daily planning when we got a phone call from the mission president. He was making a few changes and My companion needed to go to the opposite side of the mission to be a zone leader so I would be getting a new companion. It was completely unexpected. Moving in the middle of the transfer is pretty uncommon.

June 14, 2015

Hello!

So far think one of my favorite parts of Taiwan is all of the fruit. There is a ton of it and it all tastes amazing. Most of the people here are really nice so often when we are going from door to door the people will tell us they aren't interested and then give us something to eat. Earlier this week we contacted one street and by the time we were done we had a pineapple, a watermelon, a few guavas, three mangoes, some plums and a pumpkin. I'm not really sure what to do with the pumpkin, but the rest of it was really good.

June 7, 2015

Hello everyone!

This has been another pretty great week. Today was the start of my second transfer here in Taiwan, Its crazy to think that I have been out here that long. the language is still pretty hard but I am slowly improving. 

June 1, 2015

As a mother, I'm excited he finally sent a picture with him in it.  Mark has been fighting illness since he got here.  The mission president's wife gave him some antibiotics last week and he is finally feeling better.  




Hello!

This has been another awesome/absolutely crazy week in Taiwan. One Tuesday we had a ton of lessons set up but every single one of them either got canceled or the person just never showed up. One Wednesdaywe weren't able to set up any lessons either   so we decided that we would go to a few towns in our area that we have never been to, and try to find people there.It was a pretty long bike ride with some mountains

May 25, 2015

Hello everyone!

This has been another pretty great week in Taiwan. I got to meet more people, learn new things and try some more interesting food. I also went on my first overnight exchange with another missionary. It was really cool to work with someone else for a day and learn about how other people do things. 

May 17, 2015

Hello Everyone!

This has been another exciting week in Taiwan! Them members here don't really ever feed the missionaries so we eat all of our meals at home or at different places but this week we had a few meals with members and I had a few pretty interesting things. There was lots of whole fish, fresh grass soup and lots of sea food. I think the most interesting was my lunch yesterday. We had some soup that was basically a few squids with some shrimp and noodles. It actually didn't taste to bad but the squid was really rubbery and I  accidently ate a squid beak, that was a little gross. 

May 10, 2015

Hello!

This week has had a lot of ups and downs but overall I think it was pretty great. I was a little sick for a few days and wasn't able to do much but for the rest of the week i was able to work pretty  hard. Earlier this week we were teaching on of our investigators the plan of salvation  He is about 60 years old and is a professor at a school nearby. He was supper interested in everything we had to say and he was very smart.

Mark's First Baptism

Hello Everyone!

This has been another crazy week over here in Taiwan. It has been a lot of hard work but it has also been a lot of fun. I'm still working pretty hard to learn the language but it is slowly getting better. Most of the time I can at least understand what people are talking about. But I have lots of chances to practice using my Chinese every day, so it is improving pretty quickly. We ride our bikes everywhere so at every stop light we talk with the people on there scooters that are next to us and we try to talk with everyone we pass by. 

First Few Days in Taiwan

Hello everybody!

This has probably been one of the craziest weeks of my life. I left the MTC at about 3:00 in the morning and got to Taiwan about 24 hours later. It was probably about 2:00 am by the time we all got to the mission home and we were able to get to bed. The next day we got to know the mission president and his wife a little and learned a little about Taiwan and its culture. We all went out for dinner and I got my first real Taiwanese dinner. There was lots of fish and noodles and there were also a few duck brains and some fried shrimp covered in frosting and sprinkles for desert. It was a little interesting but not to bad. After dinner about mission president took us all out to a night market, there were TONS of people there. Then someone took out a little wooden stool and then told us that we had to stand up on the stool in the middle of the road and start preaching about the book of Mormon to all of the people that pass by. It was just a little scary. But we all managed to live through it and I'm glad that we were able to do it.

He is in Taiwan!

Yes I am one of those moms.  I didn't think I would be, but I am excited.  Earlier this week we got an email from Mark's mission president.  He assured us that he was personally picking up all 30 of the new missionaries at the airport today and that he or his wife would update the mission blog as soon as they could.  I checked many times this morning until I saw the update.

Check out the mission blog:

 http://taiwantaichungmission.blogspot.com/

Off To Taiwan

We didn't get much in the way of letters this week.  Mark was scheduled to leave Tuesday morning, as long as the doctor said it was ok.  We got a little update from him yesterday afternoon....

April 13, 2015 Letter

I received a phone call last week from the infirmary in the MTC.  Mark had injured his foot last October, it had started bothering him so he went in to get it checked out.  (I found out from Elaine that he did have it checked out at the BYU campus clinic and was told he was fine.)  They wanted to let me know that they had scheduled an appointment with a specialist to have things checked out before he left for Taiwan.  We just got the most recent update from Mark.  (I might add, it is such a wonderful feeling to know your son has been walking around on a fractured foot for months.)

April 6, 2015 Letter

Hello Everybody!

I hope you all had a Great Easter! I really enjoyed this week, especially the last few days with general conference. We got to relax for and just listen to lots of amazing talks for a few hours. And it was pretty nice to hear someone speak in all english, that doesn't happen very often here. And then after all of the amazing talks BYU Vocal Point came to perform a devotional for us last night, so overall this has been a pretty awesome weekend. 

Other than that this week was just a lot more of sitting in a classroom and learning how to be good missionaries. I just have a little over two weeks left at the MTC and then hopefully I will be off to Taiwan. It's pretty crazy to think about, In two weeks I will be in a completely different country teaching the gospel. In a way I feel like I am nowhere near ready to go teach in a new language but at the same time I'm getting super excited to get out into the mission field and use all of this new stuff I have been learning.

I hope all of you are doing well and that you are having a great time with school, work, or whatever else you are doing. You are all awesome!

Elder Wills 

March 30, 2015

Hello Everyone!

This last week just flew by. Its crazy to think that in just a few more weeks I'll be in Taiwan actually teaching people. While we are here at the MTC we have lots of different teaching opportunities. we teach our teachers and we teach each other. on Saturdays we get to teach volunteers that come into the MTC for a few hours. Last time my companion and I taught a Lady from Taiwan and the time before that we got to teach a man from China that didn't know much English. It was pretty cool but understanding their accents can be pretty difficult  sometimes, but I guess I will have to get use to that pretty quickly. Later today we will be skpying someone and teaching them a lesson. We don't know who we will be skying yet but they will probably live in Taiwan.

Not much else has been happening this week. Mostly just learning more Chinese and how to teach.

Sorry this E-mail is so short, hopefully I  will have more to talk about next week. Anyway, I love you all and i hope you are all having a great day!

Love, 

Elder Wills  

Another Funny Story

Looks like Grant receives the funny stories.  Mark sent this to Grant on Monday.



So I just had another funny story I thought you would enjoy. 

A few days ago I was at the gym with the rest of the elders in my district and we were all lifting weights. As we were getting to the end of our work out we were all pretty exhausted and it was still pretty intense. One of the Elders in my district was next to me lifting his weights and in between reps he started talking in Chinese. I think He meant to say "I am so strong" but he actually yelled "WE.. ARE... SO... Pretty!" I almost dropped my weights on myself and then I almost died of laughter. It was just pretty funny to see a guy working really hard in the gum and then start yelling about how pretty he is. 

Anyway, I hope you found that at least a little funny and feel free to share it with Jared and Joseph. I hope you are having a great time in Minnesota and I'll talk to you again next week  :)

Elder Wills

March 23, 2015 Letter

Hello Everyone!

Its crazy to think that I've been here for over a month now but that means I have less than a month left before I'm done with the MTC. Its great here but I can't wait to get to Taiwan. Everyday I learn so much more, Its amazing how much we can accomplish with the lord on our side. I'm definitely not fluent yet, not even close, but I am understanding so much more now. Earlier this week we were teaching a lesson when our "investigator" asked about Lehi's vision of the tree of life and the iron rod. So I spent the next ten minutes trying my best to explain what the vision meant. I think my companion was just trying his best not to laugh at me  as I did my best to tell about the vision in Chinese. I doubt anyone understood most of what I was trying to say but in the end the "investigator" said that they understood.  

March 16, 2015 Letter

Hello Everybody!

Its crazy to think that I have been here for almost a month now. Time seems to pass really slowly while I'm here but then I look back and realize how fast it is actually going by. Learning Chinese is pretty difficult but it is amazing how fast we are all learning it. I'm still nowhere near fluent but most of the time i can understand what my teachers are talking about. I have been learning so much here and it has been pretty great but I cant wait to get to Taiwan, sitting in the same tiny classroom for ten hours a day gets old pretty fast. But I'm almost half way done here a the MTC and I'm sure this last month will fly by. 

Week 3 At the MTC

Hello Everybody!

Everything has been pretty great over here. I feel so lucky to have been put into the district that I am a part of right now. Everyday I learn more about the people in my district and I feel more and more blessed to be with them. There is one Elder that is training to be a Navy Seal, another one that went all over the country to ride bulls in rodeos, another one has a you tube channel and makes thousands of dollars off of it every month, One of the sisters had a black belt in multiple forms of martial arts. I could just go on and on about all of them.

Learning Chinese is still just as difficult as ever but I've been improving a lot.

A Funny Story

Mark sent Grant a funny story this week.

I forgot, there was a funny story I wanted to tell you. On Tuesday we had a devotional with everyone in the MTC, so there were hundreds of people there. I was sitting next to one of my friends from my district and he fell asleep. During the prayer he started talking in hi sleep a little bit so i was about to wake him up when ll of a sudden he started yelling then he fell out of his chair. Because it was in the middle of the prayer i'm pretty sure everyone heard him so he woke up on the floor with hundreds of people staring at him and he was supper confused. It was pretty funny and it reminded me of you because sometimes you talk in your sleep too. Hopefully you never fall asleep in a devotional and start yelling like that ;)

Week #2

UPDATE TO LAST LETTER:  The "investigator" was an old friend from our days in Salem.  He called the night Mark entered the MTC to tell us to check our facebook.  Mark thought he recognized him but he gave a different name and talked with an "accent", so Mark just figured it wasn't who he thought.


Hello Everyone!

So far my second week has been just as good as the first. They have been keeping me pretty busy lately, most of the day I'm doing my best to learn Chinese with just a little bit of  time for lunch and dinner worked in there somewhere. It feels like I have been here for much longer than just two weeks, it feels more like its been a few months. I wish I could just leave for Taiwan already but I know I will need all of the help I can get here at the MTC before I leave. 

Mark's First Letter (Finally)

Feb. 24, 2015

Hello Everybody!

I only got to the MTC a few days ago but it honestly feels like I've been here for at least a few weeks. I've been so busy here, every second of every day is planned out so i don't really have any free time and I'm always working on something. I think I got pretty lucky, My companion is pretty awesome and so is the rest of my district, we all became pretty good  friends almost instantly. Most of them have taken Chinese classes for between 2 and 6 years, a few of them have even lived in China or Taiwan before. So I fell like I'm pretty far behind them all on the language but its still going pretty well. I've already taught two lessons in Chinese but most of the time I still have no idea what anyone is talking about. 

Mark Reports Feb. 18, 2015

 "I Hope They Call Me On A Mission".  

I hope they call me on a mission

When I have grown a foot or two.

I hope by then I will be ready

To teach and preach and work

as missionaries do.

I hope that I can share the gospel

With those who want to know the truth.

I want to be a missionary

And serve and help the Lord while 

I am in my youth.